 All right. I'll get started then. My name is James Pfeffer. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is June 6, 2022, and I call this meeting to order. So our main order of business today is to approve more licenses. And once again, these will be primarily to social equity applicants and women in my norio businesses. I know that it can be frustrating to hear this if you do not fall into one of these groups. But I do encourage everyone listening to keep in mind the journey it took to get us to this point and the highly destructive war on drugs, which preceded it, and still reverberates in our communities today. You know, popular refrain from the 80s and 90s was that cannabis is a gateway drug. When in actuality, what we saw is that convictions for cannabis-related offenses are gateway convictions into involvement with the criminal justice system. And once you're in, it's very difficult to get out. There's a negative feedback loop that happens when you have a criminal conviction on your record. You're disqualified from voting in federal elections. You're ineligible for any number of professional licenses. Employers and landlords look down on you. And, you know, good luck getting into college or getting any sort of financial assistance or bank loan. So all of a sudden, the only opportunities available are illegal enterprises. And this sort of negative spiral has replayed itself tens of thousands of times in Vermont alone. And it's also had intergenerational impacts on families and communities across the country. So here we are opening a new market. It's taken decades of advocacy to bring it into existence. And we feel that it's important to take a little bit of time at the outset to try and triage some of the harm and prioritize people and communities that were most severely harmed by this plan, which we've all now collectively realized we should have never criminalized in the first place. And it's not just the board that feels that this is important. The legislature wrote this priority system directly into our law. They asked us to prioritize and expedite applications from people from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition and from people who've been directly impacted. We would literally be in violation of the law if we ignored this directive. And it's not just the legislature that feels this is important. Governor Scott issued a statement when he let this law go into effect, stating that the bill, even with this priority system, did not do enough for the communities that were most negatively affected by cannabis enforcement. He urged the legislature to do more, including reducing fees and providing business and technical support. So just please, as you're awaiting your license approval, please keep in mind the broader context of this moment, the bipartisan directive to the board to embed equity into the foundation of our market and to know that we will work as quickly as we can to approve as many outdoor cultivator licenses this year so that you can participate in this growing season. And just a quick reminder, other than integrated licenses, we do not have a cap on the number of licenses we can issue, like there are in other states. And we've heard some confusion about this point from applicants. There are certain people that we cannot issue licenses to. These are people who have ties to criminal enterprises, people with violent felonies, people with recent fraud, deceit, and embezzlement convictions. But really, we designed our pre-qualification process to hopefully identify these people early before they made any sort of significant capital expenditures. But if you're not disqualified because of one of these events, and you can meet the minimum standards that our rules require, the board will give you a license. However, one of these minimum standards relates to your current behavior. There's a difference between someone who has been historically impacted by the war on drugs and someone who's currently flagrantly violating the law and our rules with respect to growing, selling, and advertising. Sorry, I lost my spot here. That's a good point to last second. One of our priorities is to shift the legacy market into the regulated market, but we cannot look the other way on these types of issues. We're jeopardizing the entire industry in Vermont. If we ignore the FinCEN guidance and grant licenses to people who are openly violating state and federal law, we're issuing licenses at a good rate. We're about to add more staff. There is a backlog right now, but that backlog is not going to last forever. However, if you intentionally violate the law while you're waiting for your application to be reviewed, that could impact, and that could have a long-term implication on your ability to get licensed. One of our other minimum licensing standards is getting all of your necessary permits from Fire Safety. I know a lot of the same people tune in every week and I'm a broken record on this point, but we keep getting questions about whether we can waive those requirements and we can't. If your place of business is operating in a public building, you need a certificate of occupancy before we can grant you a license. If you're not operating in a public building, we need a letter from Fire Safety certifying that your location is not a public building. Complying with the building codes is a barrier to entering this market. We know that, but the codes are not arbitrary. They're there to protect you, your neighbors, your employees, first responders, our inspectors, and anyone else that might be entering your space. Landon Wheeler is your point of contact at the Division of Fire Safety. Once again, his email is landon.wheeler at vermont.gov. His cell phone number is 802-639-0949. He attended our meeting last week and walked us through the basic process for getting your certification. That video is up on our YouTube page at Vermont CCB and encourage everyone to just rewatch that video. But here's some of the high-level points he made. He can conduct that threshold inquiry about whether your building is a public building or not relatively quickly. And I think from what I understand without a site visit, if you are a public building, you need to apply for a permit, which you can do on the Division of Fire Safety's website, which is firesafety.vermont.gov. Fire Safety has a very good clearance rate. He said that he gets through roughly 95% of their applications within 30 days of them being filed. But he did caution that fire safety did not get any additional staff in the cannabis bill. There's a huge number of new projects this year related to cannabis and otherwise, so you should engage early. And just to be clear, the CCB will not grant you a license until we see one of three documents. Certification that your operation is not in a public building, a certificate of occupancy, or a certificate of conditional occupancy. In other news, S188 did get signed by the governor. It's now Act 158. It's a miscellaneous bill, meaning that it makes 30 or so changes to the cannabis laws. Most of them are technical and non-substantive. And instead of having Bryn walk us through the bill here, I think we're just going to post a summary to our website. And then last thing, just a reminder that starting next week, our regular board meetings will be shifting to Wednesdays at 1 p.m., so there's no meeting this coming Monday. And other than that, we just have to approve the minutes from our last meeting on May 31st. Is there a motion to move? Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay. I think Bryn, this is the part where I turn things over to you. Great. So I'm going to start out, as I always do, with our pre-qualification applications. Here are the numbers as of last Friday. You can see we have 365 that are submitted, but incomplete. Since our pre-qual window closed on May 31st, that number should not grow for the foreseeable future. So today we have 20 before the board that our staff are recommending for pre-qualification. Six of them are cultivators, five are manufacturers, two are wholesalers, and five are retail. I think those numbers might be a little bit off, but let's go through them and find out. So each of the applicants have demonstrated compliance with board rule 1.4.1 and 1.4.2 and have demonstrated themselves to be suitable for pre-qualification. So we have submission 463 seeking a retail license, submission 524 seeking a retail license, submission 27 also retail, submission 398B seeking a tier 2 manufacturing license, submission 23 seeking an outdoor tier 1 cultivation license, submission number 50 seeking a mixed use cultivation tier 1 license, submission 52 seeking a retail license, submission 80B for a wholesaler license, submission 157 for a tier 2 manufacturing license, submission 310B seeking a wholesaler license, submission 310C seeking a manufacturing tier 1 license, submission 405 seeking a retail license, submission 464 also retail, submission 586 tier 2 manufacturing, submission 346 tier 1 outdoor cultivation, submission 338B tier 2 manufacturing, submission 189 tier 1 indoor cultivation, submission 555 tier 5 indoor cultivation, submission 583 tier 1 indoor cultivation, and submission 134 for a retail license. So we will correct those numbers at the top of the page at the end of the meeting before we post this to our website. I can move on now to talk about our full license applications unless we want to talk about any concerns about these pre-qual applicants now. I think there was a business name that I had a concern about that was in the pre-qual and I think there's also one in the licensing both pre-qual. So there were two names that I was that I mean they gave me pause you know that I think maybe we should have a discussion about them. Fantasia Farms and Sugar Shack was a two that as I was scrolling through the list of pre-qual names that just came in a little bit pause. Yeah and so is the concern that they might be appealing to youth? Yes, yes, but I and I say this and that they gave me pause as I was scrolling through but I'm sort of on the fence about both of them whether or not that's really I mean the word Fantasia existed before Disney made a movie right it has a whole other meaning and then you know I don't know about sugar it's not quite like candy it's not quite as blatant but they both gave me pause and I want to know what you both thought about that. I feel like in a jurisdiction that wasn't Vermont or in this part of the country Sugar Shack would raise more eyebrows than the way that we typically think of it you know with respect to sugar season and everything going on in on the early part of the year. Yeah I mean it does have kind of significance in Vermont that it might not otherwise the Kyle's point so I think I I could be alright with that one but I also do think that how they use it might change if they have a lot of candy around it on their advertising you know that impact it so on both of those I feel like these are both for pre-qualification. I believe so just double check that. I know Sugar Shack. Oh there we go so one is up for full license and that's Fantasia Farm. And did they get pre-qualified you know under Fantasia Farm? I do not believe so but we can double check that. Sugar Shack uh Sugar Shack a cultivator or a manufacturer do we know? I'm sorry I don't mean to go down. I'm sure we know somewhere. I mean I think to your point Pepper it doesn't matter how they're used so maybe the guidance to the applicants is these names are okay but be mindful of these other things. Right I mean we're going to have a sense of how they're going to use them during that kind of packaging process in the advertising process so I do feel like notifying them like we have other applicants that this might implicate your ability to use this business name on your packaging is the probably best way to go. So Fantasia Farms has not been pre-qualified and the Sugar Shack is up for a mixed use cultivation license pre-qual. Can we send a similar directive letter just indicating that they're at the appropriate time when we are reviewing your labeling your packaging etc. The use of this name might come might be implicated. Yep yeah they're cool and clever names I totally get what folks are going for but I think they all just need to be on the same page with respect to how certain folks in the Vermont community could interpret business names like this and what it signals so we just need to be careful and maybe a little once we find some bandwidth we can put out guidance around how you can use your name you know. I think that we've kind of covered that a little bit in the labeling guidance right so yes. Gotta communicate it in many different ways. That's right you are correct you know learn the way that they learn. Good thank you. So I'll move on now to the full license application numbers. So we have eight up for review today for the board. One is a testing lab our first testing lab up for a license and the rest are cultivation licenses five of them are outdoor and two are indoor. It's impressive in and of itself just I think if we approve all of these that brings our number up to 19. That's right. And you know I know I mentioned in the past but Massachusetts was averaging four to six a month early on so. You can keep bringing that. So the following are staff recommendations for cannabis establishment license. So as with every week these are the applicants that have demonstrated compliance with all of the requirements for cannabis establishment license that set out both in our rules and in statute. So we'll go through them now. First is Cloverhill cannabis. Staff is recommending approval for an indoor tier one cultivation license for this business and economic empowerment business. Fantasia Farm outdoor tier one cultivator. Again economic empowerment applicant. Third is DBA off-piste farm seeking outdoor tier one cultivation. Fourth is doing businesses Kodiak's treasure outdoor tier one cultivation license. Fifth is Shindig and G's craft cannabis outdoor tier one cultivation. Sixth is Duke's diesel indoor tier one cultivation. Seventh is Birdlands LLC outdoor tier one cultivator. And lastly is BIA diagnostics. So each of these eight applicants has met the criteria for licensure according to staff and we are recommending them for a license. And before we finish I can we do have one social equity status approval for the board to review. Here are social equity license application numbers a total of 37 as of Friday. So we have one up for approval and it's seeking a testing lab license. Submission number 144 and staff are recommending social equity status be granted for this applicant since they meet the criteria for a socially disadvantaged business applicant as defined in board rule. And we have I believe three recommendations for denial. Submission 735, submission 59 and submission 490 and staff is recommending social equity status denial for these three applicants and say each of them don't meet the criteria for a social equity individual applicant as defined in board rule. Is there a motion to approve the staff recommendation? The board accept each of the recommendations for pre-qualification social equity status and licensing approval included in this meeting presented by staff. I'll second. Any discussion? All right. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Great job. Really impressive work and glad to see the kind of focus on social equity, economic empowerment and outdoor cultivators. People are anxious to get going. So last on our agenda is to open the floor to public comment. We'll handle it the same way we always do which is if you join via the link please just raise your virtual hand and we'll try and call on you in the order that you've raised your hand and then we'll move to people that joined by the phone. First we have Dolan Dolan. Can you hear me? Yeah. Oh great. Thanks so much. My name is Jessie Lynn Dolan. I'm a nurse. I specialize in opioid use disorder as well as cannabis plant medicine. Appreciate you guys taking the time to listen to us. I do have just a couple comments. I have not been very available for a while because of work to chime in and to listen to a lot of these sessions unfortunately but been trying to catch up. That also is partly because of some of the frustration and I guess disappointment regarding the medical program and dispensaries here and I just want to just go quickly back to that. As we know at this point we still have no mandated testing for any contaminants or in-house THC testing is the only thing that is mandated. There's no education in-house and we have not had any updates this legislative session or even the medical bill that even got a drop of attention unfortunately and we have one of the most restrictive cannabis programs in the United States. So I just wanted to quickly circle us back to that because that is so important. And what I want to mention is the fact that we now have a hemp program which has higher standards than our adult use program and a medical program which has lower standards than both of those programs combined. So in my mind that's a little bit backwards from what we would want and I would think the ultimate goal is here. So with that in mind I want to mention a few things that the medical program versus the hemp program versus the adult use program is differing in that we maybe need to look at having a little more uniformity not only for consumer protection and efficacy and financial reasons but a lot of other reasons we could go into. It won't take the time to do that. One of my most concerning ones is how we distinguish and label our products. I haven't heard any conversation amongst the cannabis control bar relating to that. What I would ask is that we're looking at the hemp labeling laws and how they've done a great job distinguishing distillates versus whole plants. Again correct me if I'm wrong I have had zero I've heard zero conversations regarding these labeling laws from the adult use program here. You know what I really want to impress upon you guys and unfortunately legislators who are not willing to listen but they are willing to listen to some of the anti cannabis rhetoric and doctors that we have is that there's a huge difference between distillate and whole plant and with the THC caps that are not in place basically what we are doing is increasing intoxication by flooding our endocannabinoid system receptors and increasing our risk of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome. So if we don't if we have a legislator who doesn't understand the science and are listening to jargon instead of listening to the people that can actually give them the correct information well then I feel the cannabis control board's job is going to be unfortunately to supersede that with actually proper labeling laws to help our consumers. So if we're not labeling a product that is a distillate versus a whole spectrum that is a very different effect that has on somebody when we're talking and thinking about consumer safety and regardless of consumer safety also financial you know concerns and efficacy when purchasing those products. So I really am asking you guys where are we at with the labeling laws are you going to be matching at least the hemp laws distinguishing that distillate versus whole plant and at what point you know we're kind of in an interim period here you guys now own the medical program but we don't even have a committee that we used to have for symptom relief oversight so that patients are having a voice it's kind of all stalled and I completely understand you guys are inundated have a lot of work but I don't feel during that time medical should absolutely get the last conversation and not you know be considered and not unfortunately moving forward I'll reiterate to anyone that's listening at this point our medical dispensary still have no mandated testing for contaminants yet we have that in adult use that is the absolute opposite of what we want to seek for consumer safety. So we need to encourage education through our labeling through education programs and unfortunately we're just not seeing that. I do hope we see that sooner than later. Again this is on legislators more than the cannabis control board but it does come to you guys to be able to you know have the ability to hopefully fix some of these labeling laws fix some of this education really dive in a little bit stronger into you know where are we at with the medical patient financial fund right now. No one's talked about that it's been six months since that has been you know unfortunately I think kind of left in the back burner based on putting prioritizing adult use. In my mind the legislators and some medical dispensaries have a fixed agenda. I don't believe you guys do and I appreciate that but you know if we really want to focus on safety and transparency if we're not labeling appropriately we are straight up lying we're showing that education does not matter. And on that last thing I want to say is speaking of labeling you guys are really working hard and doing a great job trying to have a diverse and inclusive program. When we label breastfeeding that is antiquated and that is not inclusive. Perfect example I'm publishing research right now from the University of Vermont on cannabis and human milk feeding. We published the same study six years ago it was called marijuana and breastfeeding. Those six years UBM has recognized it's more important to now call it cannabis and human milk feeding. So I'm hoping you guys will readdress this before labels start being printed to actually be inclusive. Every Wednesday at 10 a.m. I meet with a parent who is a female biological but please do not call them a female or a mom call them a dad and say they chest fed they do not want to be called a mom or said that they have breastfed. So I'm asking you guys for inclusion you know with our labeling laws not only for education regarding that consumer safety that transparency when we're looking at distillate versus isolate versus whole plant products but also for our parenting out there to really look at having some language that is a little more up to date in 2022 and not having language that is so antiquated as far as breastfeeding. So I think that's everything I wanted to say. My real hope I guess guys is that next year there's going to be a huge push to work on medical because it has been you know a bit a bit frustrating to watch this process and watch all this work and time and effort done to the adult market which we absolutely need but you know patients are definitely being left on the way side whether that's legislatively you know their agenda and what they're bringing forward but just as a patient and a caregiver and a nurse educator want to kind of circle us all back to that and remember how important that is in connection with the adult use and lastly if you guys really are concerned about you know some of the rhetoric some of the doctors are speaking to as far as intoxication and cannabis hyperemesis syndrome the two things I will recommend is we should be moving forward looking at terpene testing is mandated along with cannabinoid testing because we know intoxication is not just from from the cannabinoids that is very clear the science dictates that very well and clear so if that's something we can look at you know that would also be appreciated so again thank you guys for your time I know I've just kind of thrown a lot at you but haven't been available for a while to speak and again just really want to circle us back to where this all started and that was with supporting patients and helping patients and we need to kind of somehow bring that back into prioritization if not now you know ASAP wants legislative session gets running and I hope you hope you guys will help us as patients and caregivers hit the floor of running with that so so thank you very much thanks Jesse Lynn okay organics hi this is Greta with okay organics I just wanted to touch on the I guess is the economic empowerment status of applications I see today that you approved a couple that were could classified as general or standard so I'm just wondering what happened to the rest of the social equity and or economic empowerment I was under the impression that women-owned businesses were in that economic empowerment category which I am and my application from what I can see has not moved from the submitted category which I submitted 46 days ago and it's number 24 so I'm just a little confused I guess at the order now that you've moved on to general and standard and it seems like some that we're supposed to have priority over that haven't even been looked at yet that's all thanks thanks for that red clover analytics yes hello I'm getting plenty yes right clover analytics once again I want to thank the board for all the efforts that they've been doing towards this program and I do want to repeat some of the things that Jesse Lynn just said always great to hear from her like I said a few weeks ago we haven't heard anything from the medical program we haven't heard any any movement from that side of things again we keep hearing from the recreational side of things but again one of my biggest concerns with opening up a testing lab was to you know provide that security for patients but nonetheless the other thing I wanted to touch on is the THC caps and with the THC caps a lot of things a big thing that I've been learning lately is that no concentrate if it's worth this money it's going to come out out of the plant below 60% and the reason I want to touch on that is because I've talked to a lot of perspective customers who are willing to give up their data to quantify those things for you guys so you can take in to the select board but nonetheless it's one of the things that I wanted to touch with you is the ability to be able to offer that data for you guys to present and use because again a lot of this product is going to come up above 60%. Thank you very much for your time. Thanks Yoram. So anyone else that joined via the link please raise your virtual hand if you'd like to make a public comment and then if you joined via the phone you can hit star six to unmute yourself. Well really appreciate everyone who joined all the public comments you know the medical program is always kind of on our minds and we do need to kind of think about the direction that we're going to go there. Certainly Jesse Lynn you've helped kind of clarify some of the issues that need to be addressed. So thank you all for joining. Thanks to the public comments. Thank you to our staff for just plugging away at these applications and just sort of final reminder that our next meeting is next Wednesday at 1 pm not Monday and we will record it in live stream as well. Thanks again and I will adjourn this meeting.