 So for the record, Laura Souven and I am the Director of the Vermont Coalition to Regulate Marijuana and I also served on the Tax and Regulate Subcommittee of the Governor's Marijuana Advisory Commission. So I've been at this direct in the coalition for many years now and we eagerly support this bill and the efforts of the Senate has made over the years to move Vermont towards a responsible system of tax and regulated sales. We think this bill is fundamentally what it should be. Consumer protection legislation that will not only keep cannabis consumers safer but will also improve the public health and public safety of the state as a whole. We also think that this bill provides a framework that will enable the emerging cannabis industry to be shaped in ways that reflect Vermont values. These include supporting for a small Vermont farms and businesses, a commitment to product quality and environmental protection. I think that this framework is also creates an opportunity to continue to address what is to me personally the most important priority and that is the racial, social and economic injustices that have occurred during the Prohibition Era. Ongoing criminal justice reforms are just free and automatic expungement of marijuana possession convictions are critical and I know that this committee is working on expungement on another bill and I look forward to those ongoing conversations. I think it's a really important piece of moving Vermont to where it needs to be. We can also promote these social justice priorities by increasing access to the legal cannabis industry by those that have been most harmed by prohibition and we're seeing more and more initiatives in legal states around the country that are trying to do that. I'd be happy to offer anyone on the committee more information about those initiatives and how their work in California is leading in this way. Massachusetts is doing some really interesting work in this regard. I've heard from two people so far, probably, now you're the third one about this issue so I'd like to understand more about what it is you're asking. One of them is Mark Hughes, who I think is scheduled tomorrow and David Sumamoon. And now you, and I'm not sure what it is that you're asking us to do in this bill. I don't disagree with the goal that you're talking about, but I'm not sure it belongs in our tax and regulated bill other than to give you. I think throughout the bill there are sections that address that concern that would allow people to work and so forth, but I'm not sure. Just like I don't think we should be addressing the driver's safety issues in this bill, I'm not sure it should be addressing those. So I guess I need to be, I need to be convinced that it would be wise to put that in there. By the way, I did check with the Department of Corrections. There is nobody incarcerated in the state of Vermont for possession of marijuana only. There may be people who have that charge. Other charges that are eight people on probation in the state of Vermont were solely for marijuana and conviction. Of that eight, five or above two ounces, three or below two ounces, you don't know because we never, we had two ounces, you know, with criminals. And when we legalize one ounce for them, I don't know what factor contributed to somebody being on probation for possession of less than two ounces. We're going to assume that they're five that are on probation had more than two ounces. You know that. And the three had between one ounce and two ounces. So I'm not sure currently what the reasons are for those three people. We can dig down but it's such a small group that we identify people through. And so I'm not sure what to do. Yeah. But again, I just just put a record so that you're aware of the number of the small numbers. I hear that a lot of people stop locking people up for possession of marijuana. Right. Evidently we're not. I think the much larger number are people with prior marijuana conviction convictions, which is why I flag the expungement issue. And I know you're dealing with that separately. And we can look forward to speaking to that in that context. But I think that's where. You know, I know that there is a mixed opinions in the advocacy community around that issue. I am fairly agnostic as long as it gets done. I hope and I think it needs to get done. If not at the same time. First, it's I think that is one of the key pieces that should have gone really with last year's legislation. Because as you make this as you recognize that this behavior shouldn't be criminal. Then I think you should stop people from suffering the collateral collateral consequences of those old convictions. So I think it's absolutely crucial how it gets done. I think that's a strategy. Right. So but I think I think I think it's crucial and I think it's crucial that the expungement be automatic and cost free. So to answer the first set of your questions, where are these equity. Do they belong in this bill? And I hope that you know I can flag as I go along. So I think they absolutely do because I think that if they're not at the forefront of the thinking around how this emerging industry should unfold, they're going to be neglected and it's going to be it's going to be catch up. And we're seeing that already in the states that have legalized without social equity provisions intentionally at the forefront. They're they're adding them after the fact and it's making it much more difficult to be successful. So the first place where where you could do that is in the create it is in the composition of the board that the bill would create. And you could do what message I urge you to do what Massachusetts did did and have one of those appointees require that one of those appointees have a background in social and economic justice. Who should make that appointee is a complicated question. I wouldn't mind it was the committee on committees, but I think that that's another issue that would need more analysis. But to put that requirement in the composition of the board at the outset would mean that somebody was keeping that priority. So I'll keep that issue in mind as I go through the bill. Great. So just now moving through the bill a little bit. So looking at section 863 the regulation by local local government. We strongly support the language that the bill in the bill that preserves local control by in by municipalities by allowing opt out of cannabis establishments rather than having them opt in. I know that that was an issue on the commission. And I think that this bill is taking the right approach out gives greater greater predictability for businesses. It's consistent with Vermont's approach to alcohol. It's consistent with the approach of other states that legalize adult use opt in on the other hand could that requirement could have negative impacts on geographic distribution. It could consolidate marijuana establishments in certain communities causing others to miss out on the economic opportunities associated with the industry. And so we think that that's a really important approach. The commission as a whole didn't reach a recommendation on this issue, but the tax and regulate subcommittee did and they also recommended opt out. The committee could also consider adding language that would go even a little bit further to ensure that that a town or city's electric officials don't enact restrictions that effectively be on cannabis establishments even when voters have not chosen to do that. Looks like you're having something to say. In other words, you're zoning like when you can't allow it within a thousand feet of the school and there's no place for a place where kids play around school, child care center. You'd end up with no place. Exactly. You make it impossible for them. I always think I'm a whiskey about that. Easy to buy to compact community. And when we're talking about second fender was the spirit. She would effectively not allow any sex offender to have a little. Right, right. So this would be the same time thing. We do have sample language around that. That would be helpful. Sure. So are you jacking through a town doing zoning to not ban them but to put them in a place where there could be a lot of traffic. No, not at all. I'm not objecting to that at all. It's just that there still needs to be some viable way for for business to open in a community that hasn't popped in. Well, we're going to hear a little while from a select board member in Great Barrington. Which is a community that has. And I think you probably tell you that the biggest problem they've had is parking. Great Barrington, Rhode Island. Oh, Massachusetts, Rhode Island. Moving on to section eight sixty four advertising. We recommend removing the bail on advertising that represents the use of cannabis that represents the use of cannabis has curative effects and instead only prohibiting advertising if it's not accurate. So we know that far more dangerous prescription drugs and can advertise. And that we want patients to have access to accurate information to make informed decisions. We also think that we as as the legal cannabis move forward around the country and internationally will learn more about curative effects of cannabis. And so that ban that ban. Does it make sense and. You want to be eliminated. Is that what you're saying? No, we would like it to say that the bail on average instead of it's just prohibitive advertising. That's not accurate accurate. Instead of instead of specifically saying that cannabis doesn't have that you can't have advertising. He says cannabis has curative effects. I think that's covered by one. So I think you're asking to strike three. Yeah, I'm sorry. I don't have the bill from here. My question about it is it would criminalize a statement that claims curative effect. But we do have a medical marijuana program that is built on the idea of therapeutic. Right, but I think there's a there's such a vanishing line between those two things. That it would be it would be difficult to draw the line between some of the advertising. Well, I'm not whining these as a decision for the committee to make. But I would point out that one of the challenges we've had with the other body has been getting them to allow doctors to provide a card for anything. You know, any ailment that the person would like to have the symptoms dealt with and they want specific ailments. And so one of the things we always get into on that we've got a bill that would give them a 16 opportunity to pass something more realistic. But it's always been the symptoms and we've been careful because there is still a federal law. I don't know what the committee would decide. I think and I think that if you, you know, they want to reword it to the medical definition that we have. I think so previous versions of what's passed in the Senate on TNR had this language but it also said that you can't serve that it has either curative or therapeutic. So therapeutic is out in this version and so it's whittled down to what previous versions are and curative it's straight up a policy decision for you whether or not you want to regulate that. Again, like that is an issue. But after you've finished the people from Canada seems to be a medical speaker so maybe they have some questions. Okay, great. So moving on to section 881 the rules concerning cultivators. We welcome the language that says that the board shall consider the different needs and risks of small cultivators and accepting them from certain rules where appropriate and we think that this is going to be critical in allowing small local farms to be competitive. Access is the key here. We need to create adequate access for small farmers and small businesses that will incentivize them to move from the illicit market into the regulated market. And so we applaud provisions like this that will allow that to happen. Section 883 criminal background tracks. While we appreciate the language that nonviolent drug offenses shall not automatically disqualify a candidate which appears in a few places. It's our feeling that the language does not go far enough. Other jurisdictions around the country are going much further in fact prioritizing application for people who do have prior cannabis convictions. On the theory that the people that have been most harmed should have preferential access to the legal marijuana industry. And we also think that there are many other nonviolent convictions that should not necessarily exclude someone from participation in a legal marijuana industry. And that's quite to the contrary. The economic opportunities of the industry should be viewed as employment opportunities that can help break cycles of criminality and poverty. So we think that the committee could specify the type of criminal history that could disqualify someone. We had a lot of discussion about this on commission. So bank fraud crimes or some kind of criminal history that actually would be relevant to a person's ability to fairly and properly participate in a cannabis industry. But that these types of low level marijuana misdemeanor convictions should not prohibit anyone from taking place in the legal industry. Adam. Excuse me if they're expensive well then they wouldn't have that conviction. They honestly say that. If this would take effect the day the bill passes and please take a look at the timeline. So if the expungement works as you don't think that's taken care of because the record would have been exploited unless there was some unbelievable reason not to do that. Then I would suggest that the language in the bill isn't helpful if it says it wouldn't automatically at a minimum you could take out the word automatically. And so just say that the prior conviction wouldn't disqualify. And that might be an easier way to get out of. I mean I agree with you ideally there are no more conditions but I would imagine that what will be expunged might not be the whole array of crimes that might still not make someone ineligible to be a successor. Ineligible to be a successful employee in a cannabis industry which include non cannabis crime. So if you have a minor misdemeanor in some other crime that shouldn't disqualify you. I think that the language isn't helpful. It's more exclusionary than helpful. Moving on to section 901 licenses. Section 901d2 the board shall develop tiers for cultivators licenses based on the plant canopy size of the cultivation operation and may develop tiers for other licenses. So again we think mandating tiered licenses for cultivators is excellent. We applaud that and we think it's really is essential to allow small farmers access. And we think that this language about other types of licenses is also important because then we can mature access not only for small farmers but other types of small businesses. I urge you to consider maybe going even further and considering some of the language from the commission where not only did they do the tier cultivation system but they also only recommended only allowing the smallest tier initially and waiting for year two or at the discretion of a board to allow the larger licenses for middle and large scale operations. I think that would go even further to ensure access and to have people come out of the illicit market. And to keep away with one of the other goals that we've heard, we've talked a lot about over the years is doing this for the Vermont way and not having both big marijuana come and take over Vermont for businesses. Would there be a, I think the concern when drafting the bill and putting it in, how do you ensure an adequate supply? And I think that, I mean that's the million dollar question and I know I understand that struggle. I read the story last night from seven days about the supply of Burlington to the store that's operating right now, very interesting that he runs out of supply in two hours, whether that's true or not. Well, Canada, same thing, Montreal, they ran out almost immediately, the demand was so strong. Of course the difference is in Burlington. Right. And he's already running out of supply when it's not legal. Right. Well, you have a timeline that allows for the cultivators to get going. We know that there are large numbers of illegal cultivation operations and also legal hemp cultivators that could pretty readily switch over to illegal marijuana cultivation. And so if you give them a shot and let the small farmers go first, and I think supply and demand is going to be an ongoing question. I don't think there is a clear way around it except to, I think it is wise that you've created a board that could respond quickly to supply and demand issues. I still think it makes sense to give the small farmers a shot first and see how they can meet supply and demand. Also, in regard to licenses, I think the committee should consider allowing additional types of licenses or allowing the board to, at its discretion, create additional types of licenses. For example, the tax and regulated subcommittee talked about a separate sales representative license, which would be similar to the sales representative license for alcohol beverages. And this license would be available only to the smallest tier and they would allow small cultivators to sell their products directly to consumers at retail for a free fee that's lower than a full retail operation. So that's just one example, but the tax and regulated subcommittee. They would be able to sell. They would be able to. So they would be able to retail without going through. At a lower fee than having a full retail license and all the other restrictions on selling directly would apply. They wouldn't be able to open a farm stand on Williston Road. Right. No, all the others would apply. The idea was that it would give them a way to, you know, market their products directly to consumers, but still within the regulated system. Whether or not that type of license appears to you, appeals to you, you may want to create room for the board to create additional types of licenses. Another one that I think is very important and that you might want sooner than rather than later to reconsider is licenses for special events. Because we know that that's also that's happening in the illicit world already. And that someone could get a license to for special events, weddings, what have you, any kind of events. And then it would also could possibly create opportunities for cannabis entrepreneurs to market to have another market. So you could have the X-craft cannabis at your wedding at your party or whatever, be they have set up there. So you could have those types of special event licenses. We also have samples. How do you deal with a public place? That's what I'm saying. This would be a license that would be allowed in these particular types of public events. And we have sample language around that issue too if you'd be interested in seeing any of that. So to clarify, you're saying that the special license would include the ability to sell at the event but also for people to consume at the event? My preference would be both, but at a minimum to consume. So that it's something that could be, and I know that there is some difference among legal scholars about what exactly constitutes a public event. And this could clean up some of that so that if you had a special event license, then you're okay in the eyes of the law. And you don't have to get into the officers on the scene determining whether a particular event is a public event. And we know that these are issues that are happening in the real world right now. Events are happening and there is this calculus by local police departments about whether they constitute public events or private events. Honestly, right now there shouldn't be any questions from anybody. If they read the damn bill of the law, excuse me, they didn't know what the law says. And I'm tired of hearing that there's questions about what the law says. Either on gifting or on the sale. I mean a public consumption at a public place. Clearly in the statute that the governor signed whatever it says in public place. I don't know how you can read it if you're a law enforcement officer and think it says something else. Now whether we change a public place or whether we change that, that'd be one thing. But I've just done founded by some law enforcement group say it's not clear. I don't understand it. Well we do know that that has happened. No I know because some people say it's not clear. Well I think this would be one way to make it even more clear. And I also think that this would be a way for people that want to make 100% sure they're complying with the letter of the law that my event is okay. I'm doing the right thing. Everything that I'm doing is legal. I could go and get a special event license and that would be another way to make it. No I understand what you're saying. You would have to change that part of the law. I thought it was really clear. Carry on. No, no that's okay. And I think Senator Baruch raised some issues about the public place is law is restrictive. So we do have this problem of people not having tourists not having access to a public place to consume. We also to flag another economic justice issue. I think there is a real one here as far as banning all public places. And this gets into whether you want to reconsider lounges or in short order allow a board to. Because if I own my own home I can consume and cultivate legally in my home. Absent consent of the landlord or never if I'm in federally subsidized housing can I consume cannabis legally. So there are real economic justice issues there when you don't give any, if you can't consume privately at home and you have no public place to consume. It's not fair. So I'm moving on to section 903 which is the priorities and licensing. And we support all the licensing priorities that the bill would establish. But we think that this is another place where these articulated priorities could go much further towards promoting social justice goals. So in addition to prioritizing minority and women owned businesses and those that would create opportunities for minorities and women. Priorities should be given to applicants that can demonstrate that they were harmed by prohibition. Or that they are a resident of a community or would establish a cannabis business in a community disproportionately impacted by prohibition. And they could demonstrate this in their application based on public records, arrest records and demographic information. And I think that would be really helpful in supporting underserved communities common via part of this legal market. That's section 903 priorities. I do understand the logic. So if we essentially flip society's viewpoint of cannabis from an illegal one in which these people were nefarious actors to they were unfairly targeted by the system, perhaps jailed or other things. And I can understand how that like in a kind of final piece of the logic taking to the point where they should be preferred. But when I pull back from a little bit, it's a little odd. So we're saying that people with clean criminal records who never ran afoul of the law or would be second in line behind people who may have been. You know, unfairly targeted by the system. But they may not have. They have committed offenses that were, I don't know. For which I would think that they should at least be even with the person you never committed. So I find myself having a hard time thinking of giving a preference to people because by that logic you would give more preference to somebody with a longer criminal record. Right? And the most preference would be for the person with the longest criminal record. And that I just find a tough lead to make. Well, I think that if it was a long criminal record only for minor possession crimes that the logical it's true that it was wrong to criminalize that behavior in the first place and this person has been suffering under this regime. That was wrong and we're trying to rectify some of those wrongs. I also think that when you think about people that have been harmed by prohibition it's not just the person that got a marijuana conviction. It's the person that was too poor to pay the $200 fine associated with a marijuana conviction and so ended up having other problems with the criminal justice system. Or it's the child of someone who was impacted by marijuana prohibition. But we wouldn't be sure if that sort of person knew it only had a conviction. It could be someone who came from an extremely privileged background who just for reasons of character decided to run a follow-up law for reasons unrelated necessarily to economic justice. So this recommendation is not around prior marijuana convictions. It's around showing harm. And so I think in an application process you could easily the person can look at an application and say this minor conviction has you have not demonstrated that this showed caused you the kind of tangible harm that entitles you to this priority. I think also to look at the communities that have been hardest hit by marijuana prohibition and maybe broader moron drug provisions. If you look at those communities and I say I want to start my business. I am from this community. I want to start my business in this community. I want to employ members of this community so I should deserve a priority in licensing. And I think that's another way to show to benefit people that have been harmed by marijuana convictions and doesn't create the problem that you're concerned about. I think then we put this five member commission in a really almost untenable place because they would basically become a reparations commission in considering licenses. They'd be weighing these extremely complex factors of was this person more harmed or that person more harmed. And I don't think they're going to have the time to do that. But also it's not a task that I think is doable on a mass basis in a fair way unless you have a body that's only looking at those things. They're also thinking about the whole business of cannabis. So I guess I'm comfortable with the way the bill reads that they're not disqualified. I'd be happy to look at language that said they're on an equal footing. I just have a hard time with the idea that convictions are the preference of the people with intervention. Well you've created an incongruity point out. I think one of the incongruities that we need to jump to my mind is people that have had their records expunged no longer have a record. So they would go behind the people that didn't get expunged. You can carry this thing. We need to be careful when you write the law that there aren't unintended consequences. Unintended consequences. I'm fearful if we go too far down that road and run into that unintended consequence. I don't disagree that minorities and people who have been harmed by prior prohibition shouldn't get a preference. On the other hand, I share Senator Peruz's concern, but I think one way to deal with that is in the year that it would take to set up a little licensing scheme and everything else is to make sure that those people who we might argue about who they are, but those that have a record are expunged. There may be some of those eight that I described that are on probation. They might have been the 8 pound, 20 pound, 50 pound. They may have been convicted of trafficking, but yet are on probation. So something else is going on there. The other three could be juveniles where, you know, this was what they charged them with. I don't know. I can find out more if we need to. But I think we need to understand. We need better information from the Senate from Justice Research. I don't know. Crime Research Group. Crime Research Group. They could give us statistics on the number of drug crimes charged and convicted in the last 10 years. Some of that kind of information and using all the drugs. I'm not sure I want to hear when you would necessarily have a preference over somebody who's never convicted. Or with that different expunge. At some point you have to ask why wasn't that record expunged. Right. Well, I think that if the committee is not comfortable. And this idea of prioritizing people with prior cannabis convictions is not original to me. It's happening in jurisdictions in California. I know it's not original. But if you think about the incontrovertibility of my record expunge. So I know I'm coming behind the person that couldn't get it. So I think that you could expand the social justice language in Section 903. Even if you're not comfortable going that far to make it more inclusive of a variety of underserved populations that could benefit from prioritized access to a regulated cannabis market. Section 909 fees. I would urge the committee to set a maximum fee in statute. I understand that the proposals allows for tier fees. It's consistent with a tiered cultivation. I mean tiered licenses for different size businesses. But if the maximum fee is not embedded in the statute. I worry that if it's too high again people will not move from the illicit market to the regulated market. And so that I think that cap should be in statute. And that's also where the commission came out. Well the intent here of anything with fees is in the finance committee. But the intent was to allow fees to get the cannabis commission to set the fees. Recommend fees and then for the legislature and the governor obviously to decide what those fees would be. So it's not necessarily cannabis commission setting to be the legislature on the recommendation. I don't know what I mean. The finance committee stated this up really shortly. I don't know. Deferred to them on fees and tax fees. So from my perspective the key would be to have a cap on the fees for the smallest businesses. Otherwise you're going to defeat your goals of undermining the illicit market because people won't switch over. You could have and you could also have language that said something like fees should not be allowed to exceed the amount that is reasonably necessary to cover the costs of regulation. So that's the idea of the fee. The fee can only be what it costs to operate. The fee is not designed to bring in government revenue. The fee is designed to, you know, all throughout government where there would be elevated fees or whatever the fee is. It's supposed to be what it costs to operate the state. So that's and I know that this is a priority concern and all the sort of cannabis industry hopeful events that I go to one of the greatest concerns for that people articulate over and over again is are these fees and lights going to be too high for me to be able to enter. I'm just a small amount of money. In the case of Northampton Massachusetts where a company wanted to set up business and we asked, we'll let you in even though the town would get certain revenue, but yeah, we'll let you in. You need to make it to a thousand dollar donation to this organization or that organization and Massachusetts commission is now struggling with that type of activity. So that was the end of what I had specific to the bill itself. I did have a couple of areas that I just felt like I wanted to touch on based on to break testimony that I've heard in this committee recently. And so one of those issues is edibles and I'm very glad that the bill contemplates allowing edibles. I think it's absolutely critical. I think that it is. I anyone saw that the article last night is it doesn't pass a straight face test to assert that there's not already a black market in edibles. It's a robust and growing black market and illicit market. I'm sorry. In edibles and it absolutely should come. Edible should. I mean other infused products should come under any responsible tax or regulated system. Not only do we want to undermine this illicit market, but it's in these kinds of products where regulation can be most helpful as far as purity, potency, dosage and everything that we want our consumers to know about what they're getting. So even more than the economic generators. I think this is at this is absolutely absolutely crucial place for my mind. Well, and there are and I think that there has been a change in how cannabis is consumed and some of the reasons why we don't want to push people towards smoking. We want people to be able to choose a rare products that might be safer or more beneficial. Similarly, I know that in testimony the other day, delivery was not something that you wanted to contemplate. But I urge you to reconsider that position for many of the same reasons. There is right now illicit delivery services going on all over the state of Vermont. They're there are prevalent. They're growing. They're going to continue to operate illegally unless we regulate them legally. We also delivery can also achieve other goals like geographic distribution in places that are, you know, can't access get access easy access to a store. It encourages some of the privacy. It does meet other goals, but I think the primary issue that that I think the commission consider delivery sooner rather than later is it's one of those things that will continue to be Vermont putting its head in the sand. We don't recognize that this is happening in an unregulated way right this minute all around the state. So I think it's really important. We also know Massachusetts is going to have delivery probably as soon as April. They're writing the rules on that right now. And so that's why we look at our neighbor and what's happening there. I think they still allow the public to do that. I think this is going to happen anyway. And so it's either going to happen regulated or unregulated. And so I would prefer for it to be regulated to be for it to be safer for delivery. People with licenses to be checking IDs at the door to have standards where we can feel safer about what's happening. And that was it. The final thing I want to say was about public consumption, but I already covered that. So that was our reaction to the bill. So thank you. So what about what are your thoughts on 30 big operations coming in in the 70s and 30 people with a lot of money? Investor groups coming in buying a lot of farms? Things that we need to do everything we can to discourage that. I think that it's very difficult to fully ban large operations and that we do have the supply and demand question. And we're going to have to see how that plays out. I think that this framework has a number of protections against that by prioritizing small local businesses. I think my hope would be that it is somewhat inevitable because I don't think they can be banned completely. If I had my way, they would be. I'd love to see only craft cultivators, but I don't think that's realistic. I also think that there are many cultivators have concerns about what these limits are and whether they'd be arbitrary. So if I had a successful small operation, shouldn't I be allowed to grow my company into a larger and larger operation? And wouldn't that be, some people would argue that's a Vermont success story. And so limiting large-off grows altogether is problematic in that way. So I think that as long as we continue to ensure that there's access for small farmers, small businesses on an ongoing basis, and we protect that and we create a Vermont brand that's about quality as much as we have in the craft beer industry and we promote that through our branding and marketing, we can have a successful industry in Vermont and that it might have to coexist with the equivalent of a Budweiser the same way Vermont's craft brewers are successfully coexisting with large national and international alcohol manufacturers. I mean, I think without some straight, very clear guidelines, you know, prioritized, but it's going to be a human decision, it's not going to be a straight, bright line. Yes, no. And so therefore it's going to be all over the line. So one of the things, one of my earlier recommendations where you start with only allowing the smallest businesses could be a way to address that concern. And if those small businesses are meeting demand and operating successfully and then you wouldn't be compelled to add the larger licenses. So you could just leave it at, you know, you could leave the language at that and I think that would be a really good way to start. Vermont has moved slowly in other ways and that would be a way of moving slowly that would also benefit our small farms and small businesses. You could only have one license. You could only have one license of each type and each license only allows for one location. So in the case of like a big corporation buying a bunch of different farms, I mean, I guess if they're all part of next to each other, something like that, but you couldn't have, you know, a big corporation come and have farms all over the state under one cultivation license. Well, I know that was the concern on the commission that the more you try to outright ban people, entities will find ways to get around certain kinds of algorithms. But I think that the language about limiting how a business can be vertically integrated and how many license, the number of licenses are excellent attempts at controlling what you're concerned about. And I'm always making the comparison to alcohol. We've been pretty successful in terms of being a heavy control state in terms of licenses with making sure that you don't have people accumulating licenses and aggregating licenses. So I don't see why we can't do the same thing here. I think what you're saying makes sense that we start with strong preferences for strong growers, small growers, and we limit one license for operation. Could some person work out a scheme where they have near majority control of a number of licenses, maybe? But you have this board that's going to have its ear to the ground. I think they can see that sort of thing happening. So I'm not saying it won't be problematic ultimately in one way or another, but I think our small size protects us in a certain way from the immediate takeover by these guys. If we have these restrictions to one license per cultivator or seller in the same way that it's worked with alcohol, you have someplace like Pearl Street Beverage in Burlington that's like one of the biggest stores in the state, but they don't own any of the other stores. They don't control any of the other stores. The distributors are the only ones that really reach scale across the state, and that's because the laws were set up to allow them to do that. Sometimes it's an advantage to be in the first witness and sometimes it's a disadvantage. Hey, it's a pleasure. I can do this all day. Thank you very much for being here. We're going to call Ed Abrams, the vice chair of the Great Bearing to the Master's, and Great Bearing to the Justice Department. It's right there. What happened? Nothing wrong. It was your seat. Ed Abrams, the Great Bearing to the Justice Department. Oh, we have a good chair. It's not a chair, it's a local one. Can I just add Abrams? Hello? Hello. Ed, can you hear us? Yes. Okay, this is Dick Shearer, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and we're talking to you from Montpelier. I represent Bennington County, and the mutual acquaintance of ours mentioned you, and I'm so pleased that you're willing to talk with us about Great Bearing to the Master's experiences with cannabis. You've just opened a store there, I understand, and maybe you could tell us a little bit about what the experience has been like. Sure. We had a medical registry open about a year ago, and the way it was rolled out as Massachusetts, medical became legal, and then the way of recreational use was voted to be medical. Part of that process gave the medical establishment the first dibs on the first license. So we left July 1st, technically it's when anyone wanted to do adult use, marijuana sales could go to their local community, so it's called the Community Host Agreement, and anybody at all, the medical and recreational places who wanted to do adult use. So we had four applicants who had come to life, very close to that first date. The medical, they said the medical ones had an edge, so they opened first, and look at the state, after the gay license, they go to the state, come to an awful lot more rooms, and the state gave them their license, and they opened about two or three, two weeks ago, I think. The others, they expect to open from Panama Springs. So how many outlets will you end up with in Great Barrington? So as we agree, Barrington, one of the things our state law did was give an awful lot of discussion to the community about where and how many. They said a minimum number, we can't go below, and they picked up a number of labor stores, which they would actually regulate. And in our case, that would have been one. So we could have stopped it at one. The town opted not to put any limits to the market because of that. So right now, there are four, four, like I said, who came immediately and applied. One more has made their intentions, or actually has started the process of applying, also resale. And I have spoken to somebody who is moving forward to do manufacturing of chocolate, and to do chocolate, which is the first non-detailed marijuana facility. So now there are probably like the five retail shops that will be open, but again, it's up to the market and the start working clearly. Have you, I know, Channel 10 I think did a story on people coming from New York to Great Barrington and vice versa, back again. Have you had, have there been any problems with sales or people that are coming? One of our concerns, and some of you have said, the state didn't require, like locally we require, it was enshrined inside the store reminding people of the business of people where you're going back to, you should know that. And we have not heard of any, and so do we as looking from the license plate in their parking lot, and the parking lot around them, it's an awful lot of New York and Connecticut, to a lesser extent, Vermont license plates. So a lot of this is going out of state. I don't know the Connecticut law but I think New York has relaxed the session laws. It's not legal though. I think, I think, I think, I did not hear about, you know, state police sitting in the border, looking people over. I haven't heard of it being a problem yet, but driving, which is everybody's business here. You know, it's like, like there, it's not legal to consume it publicly. So if you, in terms of the questions that you don't get here, unless you're stating that the hotel with that impact is allowed to function, you're not, you're not consuming it here. So you are taking it across state lines. It's not really an issue for everybody to be telling if they've been open and kind of been a problem. What is the system in Massachusetts for, what is the town share of any revenue or sales tax or whatever is charged for the marijuana, do you have a, do you get a share? The state, the state share of the tax is about 17% and that includes the rate for sale tax. Then there's a local option of up to 3% that we can do. So it was a rate of 20, which, well, we've done that. Whether it was low, I think we get 3%. If the state pay comes in, we get 3%. Then there's community host agreements that they're required to have allowed us up to another 3% community impact fee, it's called. According to the cannabis regulation, we have to justify that fee that it's actually to cover additional expenses relating to marijuana. So that can be things like, you know, more beliefs to, or training our beliefs to stop impaired drivers and just to capitalize it like that. It can include education to keep people's friends and smoking. It's treating why we need to put up to that 3% but according to the terms that's low, we have to be able to justify it. According to the Department of Revenue, the State Department of Revenue, once the money comes in, it goes on to the town like any other money that can't be spent without companies approving it. So if there's some kind of conflict, it's complicated to imagine like these that are lower taxes of the things we're already doing were in conflict. We found that the applicants to the host agreement had no problem either if they're all expected to make lots of money. So nobody, we're going to challenge you on that 3% yet. The total tax in Great Barrington is 26%. Twenty three percent. So the state is 17. We put three. Then we also, when we were looking to get the host agreement, we were looking at other towns. Some of them, not a lot of them, asked, I'd say asked, if you want to do the agreement. They asked. For a contribution to a local non-process. Sometimes working without them sometimes not of 10 or 15,000 dollars. And some of them asked already one time or an annual fee, some of them up to 50,000 just because the Canada Control Commission, our state, they can see and sort of use both of those as a language of the expression. There's nothing in the law that allows that. So we immediately took out those big fees. None of the applicants had a problem with the $10,000 donation to look at my property. They all said it was too bad anyway. But I think there's any justification for it. Other than, they understand they have a, you know, a lot of years of reputation that will become. So a 10,000 donation to the library and the girls and boys club and we'll give you a license, that sort of thing. Right. I grew up in Massachusetts. I grew up in Massachusetts so that takes me back to the years when you hadn't get a liquor license in Massachusetts. Yeah, but we could kind of do a liquor license. Yeah. Have you had any problems besides parking? No. We, you know, luckily for us, we weren't first. We weren't first. You know, in two towns, that's there right here in Worcester and North Hampton. Yeah. So we all, as soon as that happened, we were kind of ours. But the dispensary, the story touches the police. And they didn't pay for a police detail up front. I believe every moment they've been open there, I think it's still there. This is a wrecked traffic. They're rainbowed and they drove it with a lot of parking and they contract this core parking. So it hasn't even been, at the very beginning, a couple of their favorite stores have been playing collectively and they address this. Visible, the list of their customers. So the police have been helping them back. So they have been, as far as I know, zero problems. There's a line and whatever it is, it opens up a line with minus 70 degrees. One day, there was a line and I think the line is kind of shorter. It's sitting at a stop at some point and there's more competition and when there's some policy. And the new guys start doing it. This is extremely helpful for me and I think to the committee. Anybody have any questions on the committee? Senator Nick? I'm just wondering what about after somebody purchases and they would like to go to their car and smoke theirs? Is that something? It's not legal. It's not legal to smoke in your car? Right. Even in your car. Part of the law is that tax at the state level allows for Canada's cafe if they're on-premises consumption would be legal. And just in trying to get this up and running in the reasonable amount of time, they put that on hold and they're now taking it up again. The big question I have with that and with your question is how do you get home? You know, out of the whole world you have to use driver-high-risk trouble picture. You're going out with a bunch of friends and have somebody not getting high. They get to home but maybe people will jump that way. But that's, you know, there will be a fear if you get in the car. I guess if people go home first, that's the most part of this because it's crazy to drive with us. Okay. Thanks. And apparently it is committing both beliefs and how to protect it. I don't know how to hold that in force. I'm not aware of it. Thank you. Thank you. This is very helpful. My question is about the nonprofits. So, is it completely at the applicant's choice which nonprofit? So, some of the towns we've read about that, they would, day one, some of them created foundations around five you know, some of the town to decide where we want to go and we decided just to leave it up to the individual. There'd be an official applicant, you know, which may decide who they want to give it to. We put the word local nonprofit and we didn't find how local that may be. I think we did help them on this. But that, we have a local community center. They're trying to get some, most of them who do identify by their group. We haven't, we've actually started to address parallel problems many years ago. They do all sorts of programming but they also do communication. An interesting question I had for that new group is, are you comfortable taking this money? Given where it comes from, they ever think they're more or less able to, you know, the only thing I have to say about taking this money is taking enough of it. So, they're, they're, well thank you. I was, I was, it is legal and it's out there and so what they're concerned is that if you've done it the way that you think. See, this is the thing we're all thinking along. Well, I can tell you, this has been extremely helpful to me to hear from somebody who's on the front lines as a select board member and dealing with it in their community and more power to you and I hope for Mon can catch up in the near future. Well, financially, take your time. Yeah, you don't want competition from Bennington. There's a couple of things to think about, that, you know, it's past overwhelmingly in the state of Chicago, overwhelmingly and then also in all of the communities who thought it was a great idea, apparently, to start talking about it. Yeah. And the way the state set it up and looking for that with the CCC, but kind of cannot doubt where you're going to make it not legal because there's different mechanisms pretending it was already able to get sort of power and I know you can do it that way. The other issue is immediately people starting to talk about them and say, we have four applications in those stories we can talk about and just look at it. No. I don't think that discussion is over yet. Interestingly, all every application we've had was a driver of my own life that said formally or informally we shouldn't have missed a number because there's a reason I don't want to. I don't want to make a building merit out of it, but it gives you what's in terms of the goal. It might be scary, but there are people who can't run with the number. It gives us a long-winded way of making the state get enough a lot of leeway locally. We have a fair amount of control with something and we can't know it out of business but we can do it. We've been very good and chose to not restrict and retail a lot. We tend to want it and anywhere retail is allowed. We set 200 people to school. But we could post their other towns around that all over. They also the state limited what they can look like and you can't see products that are the names of them. But I guess what I was going to do is we have a fair amount of local control which is wonderful. We didn't choose to revert to much of everything but a lot of smaller towns around the town. As far as I think we can even control out of operations with this beautiful moment. Thank you so much very helpful. And for those folks who don't know about Great Barrington it's a great little town in the Berks here which is also a tourist area. So you're dealing with travel and tourism as well as we do in the area. So thank you so much. Thank you for having us. My name is Shane Lynn. I'm the executive director of Champlain Valley Dispensary in Southern Vermont Wellness which is in Brownville. Nice to meet you again. And I'm Monique McHenry the research director of Vermont Patients Alliance. And thanks for having us again. It's been a little list of some of the impact that last year's July 1st bill had on the dispensary program. And we just kind of wanted to highlight how things have changed for us over the past year with July 1st and last year. We have been operating up to nearly six years at this point. There's roughly 5300 patients on the registry. This is the first year it's actually gone down. There was a high of about 500 patients on the dispensary. It's down to about 5300 right now. And we're looking at the reasons for that and looking at one of them being costs for IDs. You know you still have to pay a $50 fee. You still have to renew each year and go to visit your doctor and so there's a cost there as well. Additionally the paperwork involved for just going through the process can be cumbersome persons potentially and so on. The other thing that we've seen is our dried flower sales have really decreased dramatically and that's in reflection to the legal market and how much dried flower is available. Our edibles and concentrates are down a little but not nearly as much as dried flower. The reason for this is the significant influence of the unregulated and the legal market. Senator Sears that's something that really has affected us. There's a abundance of product available on the market and back to the hurdles that patients face and trying to sign up for the program going to the doctor. Sometimes it's just much easier for them to talk to their neighbor or have someone deliver it at this point as I mentioned this morning. There are numerous delivery services throughout Vermont that will drive to your house in the future. Our concern with the illegal market is it really I think signifies the urgency that a regulated market is needed at this point in the state. We're concerned about consumer protection basically and back to Vermont brands that want to be in this market in the future. A well-regulated market will protect those businesses as well as well as protect the medical program. They really haven't had the opportunity to potentially read the bill and understand what July 1st meant and so they're confused by it. So we have to educate patients on the medical program and what is possible with the July 1st passage last year. And so that confusion is really again it just when people are ill they sometimes seek the path of least resistance to finding their medicine. Another large influence has been the hemp market that has expanded and really grown and that was a BPR story this morning and I'll how many acres are up to 5,000, 6,000 acres of hemp at this point. A lot of that hemp is cannabis by the federal definition and we are concerned about what the cannabis is by the federal definition and what we're seeing is a lot of people can access this cannabis hemp product that has CBD in it so they can get certain ratios of THC to CBD again on the illegal market and before they come into the dispensary and we'd be able to find dry flour that would have those ratios for them as I've named that stores that are selling CBD oil are actually selling our one cannabis I'd say that Is that what you're saying? I'm saying that there's certain that in growing hemp and that definition of 0.3 THC level to define hemp versus cannabis that people that are growing sometimes go over that that definition of hemp cannabis and I think the act department has tested and that the 50% of the samples that they've tested have been hot meaning that they are over 0.3 and so at that point the deficit they're all what you're going to test by this record but hold that story let's see what happens when you legalize and don't use so that's been a big influence on people signing up to the registry again the amount of product that's that's currently available to people without signing up to the dispensary system is really dramatic and it's the most that's ever been in the state of Vermont and that has infected us negatively and changed our forecast and our projections of hiring people or not hiring people making investments to kind of some of the unknowns here and again you know I think the reason why we do support a program that's well regulated going forward so and lastly just you know recognizing that the hurdles in the medical program are a challenge for people to sign up and we'd love to see a reduction of those hurdles and so that it's just an easier process some of those hurdles are a three month healthcare patient doctor relationship getting a healthcare provider signature you know if people can just access cannabis on the legal market I think it would be nice for them to build access to the dispensary system a little easier than currently in place and those were kind of my comments about July 1st law from last year and then Monique was going to comment on S54 so we do appreciate the recognition of the importance of the medical marijuana program registry in S54 and despite the proposed expansion of adult use in Vermont there's many advantages that the medical marijuana program has I think that's why we're here to speak on it is to make sure it's sustainable if adult use rolls out and so many of our patients want to continue to be served the program as Shane's pointed out there is some confusion among the patients that might not have had the chance to read the the bill or have someone help them understand it and so they are thinking that what the transactions they are making are legal when in fact they're illegal and they are not jumping through those hurdles that Shane mentioned to get on the registry any longer so the registry numbers are down for the first time since it began what we need going forward with these numbers fluctuating you know one of the most important aspects of the medical marijuana program has been that we do have it's a by appointment only therefore every appointment they're consulting with another individual it's acting as a lifeline to some patients they know that they can trust us that people can talk to them about their ailments and their to have a conversation the minimum marijuana program still will have you know different products as addressed in S54 than the adult use and then we just have a few comments on the bill itself all in support of a few different areas that we think if this bill moves forward should continue to be in it the first is the qualifying medical conditions on page 35 once adult use goes into effect anyone over 21 can purchase cannabis there's no reason why a patient's medical provider really shouldn't be able to refer them to a medical marijuana dispensary for medical use if they determine as the healthcare provider that this particular patient would benefit I mean if you're going to allow everyone in the state to purchase it yeah to have a list of qualifying conditions that a patient must have and the physician seems well it just seems like there's a conflict so therefore we do support the qualified medical conditions language that includes other diseases conditions or treatment on page 35 I think we passed that it's been hard to convince the other body that it's valued we just thought we would get started by thank you for noticing and then we allow a limit and it's basically due to the severity of some patients illnesses and I won't get into them we've testified a few times on this we have patients that do need higher dosages and the way that it's calculated in the medical marijuana program is not necessarily a gram to a gram of a concentrate so therefore we do support increasing patients allowable limits to three ounces and the priority of licenses and section 903 A2 where the medical marijuana dispensaries have six years of experience in the cultivation testing and sales of cannabis in Vermont therefore the creation of a system of priority including the applicants have existing medical cannabis dispensary license that's in good standing have a priority it's greatly appreciated by the medical cannabis program and then both regulate medical marijuana and adult use we think that the board should look at the existing medical marijuana program rules and not alter them or diverge completely from them because then it would again drastically affect our businesses and perhaps additional language could be included in the bill that suggests that this board can use that medical marijuana to adult use rules and that's it so thank you for your consideration of these thoughts and letting us speak on the impact of the passage of the bill on July 1st to our operations and we'd be happy to answer any questions Do you see any conflict if you were to get a license for example to operate a retail outlet for now in one of the communities where you already have medical How would you do that if you were to Well so my focus has always been medical so I think I'll let Shane answer that question because I think you know we I think there are some people in the medical program that would just stay on the medical side of it I think we prioritize medical making sure that medical patients still receive certain products certain processes and coming into the store priority in getting an appointment priority in dry flower selection back to the consultation services making sure that none of the services that we currently provide are kind of eroded by that I think there's a benefit for us going into kind of this adult market in the sense that economies of scales that will be afforded and I think some of that will actually benefit the medical program in looking at services and so I think it's a priority though the medical program does survive in the sense that we talk about different products but it's really the customer service you know college street beverage got mentioned here and you know we don't want folks going into a college street beverage type place to buy their medicine so well the only advantage that you would have would be the non tax well we'd hope to for the patients at least you know yeah obviously you could serve somebody else 21 also yeah and potentially larger amounts to purchase in the sense of hey maybe they do need a dosage of an edible that's above 10 milligrams that they'd be able to purchase that edible a priority and coming in and setting an appointment would be another area not having to wait in line that they would have the opportunity to participate in adult market so I think we want to find a way to make sure that people want to be a part of the medical program because otherwise what we're seeing right now is people won't sign up and that for us means that our six years of operations are going to potentially come to an end I think we expected that in terms of allowing a home grow that people would be able to purchase that I think we expected that a home grow that people would need to deny their things would be more to grow at home and develop at home but home delivery all of that stuff is prominent yeah I wouldn't do that the county or all over the state I think it's all over the state you know I grew up down in Bratibral and so I speak to people down in Bratibral I know that the community down there it's very vibrant and I think that's the article last night really just highlighted what is occurring and for me I was kind of like I started asking around about that and people say oh yeah that's been going on I had no idea you know and I've heard that there are other places in Burlington that do the same and so for us it's that real urgency that there is a regulated program because in fact protecting the consumer I think that's the community here as we move forward obviously you're in support of that so we support it as well and I think Senator Sears that you know I heard you say that there is a bill and it's very clear what the laws are I just think that the general public there is some confusion so they might not be thinking some of the transactions that they are doing are illegal when in fact they aren't permitted by the law that you all passed last year and so there's just a lack of clarity for the general public on what is allowed and what is not allowed I would agree and also evidently based on the article and the conversation with the mayor of the Chief of Police in Burlington it looks like because it's not a priority for them they haven't done anything about it that was what I gathered it sounded like they known about it for quite a while I think some of this is how to make a program that's going to be inclusive for as many people so that making a prohibition and recognizing that there's going to be some awkwardness in this change but I think back to having an inclusive program making sure you can get as many people into a regulated program to operate is really important I'd love to see if they could act for tax if we could do that for tax the first thing that came to my mind I was not paying taxes I was always sales yeah well that's fine are you clear much because I brought up another issue for us is, we have roughly 70 employees at this point they have to have a FBI background check every year and as this industry is growing here in the state we're losing a place to the illegal market and that their businesses starting up we're losing and they don't have to do the FBI background check. There are a whole bunch of things in there that allow them being paid cash, et cetera, et cetera. And so, we're seeing the forces of this on multiple sides and really wanting to make sure the program sustains itself for the long run and appreciate any consideration to adjusting the medical program this year. You heard the comments from regarding the social justice issue. I think it's real, I don't know how you navigate it though. And so, I guess I don't really have a solution or a suggestion on that, but it's definitely concern. I think that's some of the tension right now, even, is the social justice of this. How do you arrest people? One part of this is that you're gonna erase their convictions, potentially, or let them or not be incarcerated. And yet, last night in the Seven Days article where it highlights though that there's still laws. And for us, it's been six years of federally breaking federal law. And then first years, that was really scary. And we didn't know what was gonna happen. And now we feel pretty confident that we follow the state laws and that nothing's gonna happen, but we've been following state laws and we are very well regulated and we find comfort in following those state laws. And so, back to last night's story again, just not even following state law. So I can imagine it's just difficult for law enforcement if conversations are happening that will say, we will take away a record for breaking a law and yet there's a law right now, so why would you abide by it if that's going to be erased? The fact that the entire state has only eight people currently with some status as a result. None of them are incarcerated or are solely marijuana in condition. I don't know if you heard that, Joe. I asked the corrections commissioner, obviously things can change day to day, but at the time that he responded, there were eight people who were solely on probation as a result of marijuana possession. Three of them were over 2%, I do have two of them. Joe, the other five were above two ounces of whatever that crime was, I think. All eight were on probation when incarcerated. Solely for marijuana possession, but again, we don't know the one without the assume that the five were well above, may have been well above the two ounces, and the other three, you know, we would look to perhaps raise some of the civil, maybe other charges would drop, we don't know why they were on probation. So in the entire state, there's only three people on probation, is that what's the reason? Another thing, Vera, just back to highlighting some of the issues that we face, banking is always a concern and back to a regulated program really ensures that our banking with Vermont State Play Credit Union is secure. They've increased their audits, it used to just be once a year, it's now gonna be quarterly, and so obviously they have federal requirements in their audit, and when they come in, review our books and talk to us, and again, back to, we still aren't able to borrow money from them, and so as this hemp thing does expand, I think it's really important that there's a level playing field and that we all understand what the rules are, because our concern is that we'll lose certain services that are being provided to us if these other companies aren't confident in the marketplace in Vermont, and that goes to insurance as well, and I think that's where, again, insurance companies that we deal with, the regulations are kind of the insurance for them to come into the state and offer their products to us, and so those business aspects of this are important. Other questions? Thank you very much. Thank you for coming in and updating us on the use of those updating on some of the conditions in the marijuana, medical marijuana. Thank you very much. The next witnesses, maybe they're outside. Excuse me. I told them about 11 o'clock, so Commissioner Anderson and Commissioner would be on the outback outside. Sit where? Sit where? Thank you. If they're not, we start with a carry. Sit back. If you're attacked, wait. I'm here. You, I'm ready to go. Okay. We'll wait for them. Nobody's outside. I'll start with a tact. Nobody's out of the door. Okay. When we start with a tact and then go to carry a pain, we'll take our bags. It's my fault for telling them that we didn't get them to open up. You never guess. We like to tax department, the tax department. I like the tax department too, so that's great. Yeah, I'm doing a good job. Thank you. I'm Craig Bolio, the deputy commissioner for the not department of taxes. I had come and spoken to the committee last week and talked a little about the subcommittee's recommendations, so I figured I would just open it up to whatever you folks need to know about this. Well, boss, the questions revolve around the subcommittees looking at the 20 percent. Can you just remind us of what the subcommittee had proposed to the tax rate before? Sure. 20 percent, right? 20 percent retail excess tax with the existing 6 percent sales tax on it, which would in turn have the sales tax, local option tax range jurisdictions that have that. And the 6 percent would go to the education fund? Correct. And 20 percent would go to the other functions? That's right. And was there something about gross revenue going to the town? No, there was. We had recommended that a share of the retail excise revenue would be shared with municipalities. We'd be sharing the revenues. I mean, how should we deal with that? It's 1 percent. And can we look to the finance committee? Let's make a recommendation. Huh? Let's make a recommendation to them. I'd like to, Mr. Ray, if you're talking about Massachusetts, what they've done is they've allowed a 3 percent local option tax. And they get a certain amount of revenue. Right. And they have to use that 3 percent for things related to the metal. I think they can do 3 and 3. 3 and 3. 3 percent they can do anything with. And they can additionally do 3 percent if they can show that they're putting it into actual effects. Right. Yeah. So they can get up to 6 percent. Well, plus the $50,000 source. I don't know. If I don't, we can't abandon a different monitor. We should specifically forbid that. And other things like the, unless we do it with open eyes, the $10,000 to a nonprofit, those were things they just came up with on the fly. So Massachusetts, evidently, has a system where if you're from, if you want to open and get a license to operate a retail establishment in X-town, what's happened is they ask for a donation to the local. One town was $10,000 to some local nonprofit. Yeah. I think those are the host community agreements. The whole community agreement. And that's what we're talking about today. Yeah. I mean, I think really for us, part of the question was, what's the right level of funding and then what's the right way to get it there? And we had, in the SUM committee, we did talk about a local option tax. There's some complexity that can come with a local option tax as well. So it seemed, it may be a simpler mechanism to just do revenue sharing. It's certainly easier for the tax department to simply distribute or share the revenue than to administer a local option tax. But we think that's the more effective path. We administer a local option tax now, but that's really where much of the subcommittee's recommendation came from. It seems like the local option tax, I mean, if the shop opens and then it closes, it seems like there's going to be a lot of work. There's a lot of change going on. Not with them collecting it, but if you're doing it, you're certainly leading it to them. The complexity comes more in terms of when the extra towns come on and some towns choose to do it, some don't. I mean, some of the complexity that exists with sales and use tax may not exist with this, right? One of the biggest complexities we see with sales tax is deliveries, right? If you're on a town line, and what zip code are you really in? Do you really owe the local option tax to this town or that town? That's where a lot of the challenges come in with administering that. And it's a challenge both for the department and for folks operating those businesses. Senator, a quick question I guess from Michelle. In terms of an opt-out, what is the interaction and time between when the bill would go into effect and when a community would need to opt-out? Because I could imagine a community lagging a little bit and then suddenly businesses start up before they've had a chance to consider it. Is that part of the timeline? So the section that allows municipalities to do the opt-out would take effect from July 1st to this year alone, but I'll double check. But as Senator Sears has mentioned a few times, there's kind of a long rollout before people actually start seeing any type of retail sales. So they'll have a year or two? Yes, and so they would hold either a bid on the ballot at the marked election or they could hold a special election to opt-out. But I would say, you know, all of the time, but I think that they would have the opportunity to have two marked elections and, you know, before they would actually need retail sales so they'd have the opportunity to opt-out. I'd like to see made clear that there are no host community agreements. I just think that's kind of what I'm seeing. And secondly, honestly, finance communities will look at shared revenues, gross revenues with, I guess it would be the tax revenue, with taxes with the communities rather than local options back. And then finally, the zoning issue. I would like to see if there are any zoning involved. Would that be allowed? Well, it talks about their inherent authority to do the zoning. And I think you're talking about the issue that Laura mentioned, which is essentially we tried to get around the vote by basically just making it so difficult that nobody could operate. And let me look and see how it would work with some language. I think that when Nuske mentioned that came up, people were dealing with different zones where sex offenders could reside, people that were on the sex front of registry. I wish to have a, not living again, a certain distance in school, daycare center, playground. And this would effectively mean that, wouldn't matter, no matter what yard you put down, nobody would ever be able to live in Nuske. It was on the sex front of registry and that made it better. Good for Nuske, but not good for just around the surrounding. Well, we were already there and living in their own home. Yeah. Regulations, which happened to people. In other states. Happened here. Well, in Rockwood. In Rockwood. What about the adult bookstore? Is that the same? I mean, towns can, I thought they were required to be able to, be able to allow them in, but you could put them wherever you want to. So, I'd love to put them in the industry apart. So, I mean, is that the same? It's the same thing, but since I typically don't work on them, you should use all the checklists in our book studio and see. And my guess is that, as you said, mentioned, has come up in other contexts, or basically, you know, they want to make sure that the bill of the general assembly isn't subverted by Trump, you know, by going around and making it so hard in other ways to, to determine if it's going to be appropriate. So, I'll check back. Are there any other questions for the Commissioner or Deputy Commissioner? Do you need more staff? Well, so, we did ask for additional staffing as part of the report. We pulled the numbers up. It was sort of a ramp up, and there's a couple of things that we would need. One, we'd need to code our software, which has a cost to it. We use the same tax software that Massachusetts uses, so we've been in discussions with them and the company. So we believe that that cost would be about $1.5 million to put in the software to be able to process the tax. Without some changes to, or really some guarantees that we'd be able to have banking, that's a big concern for the tax department as well, that our building is not currently equipped to handle cash. So, we looked at, we scaled some estimates back from the state of Washington and think that it would cost about $1 million to outfit our building to be able to take cash. And then there was a couple of staff positions asked for in the lead-up, policy analysts and a business analyst to help with the installation of the software. And then a handful of tax examiners, I think two tax examiners for front-end processing. Those are customer service staff that help with processing returns and answering phone calls. And then some discovery and audit staff as well. So maybe three, I think ultimately we, the ask is, was five or six staff? For that would be... Well, it depends on what time frame you're asking for, right? Because the lead-up, I think, is probably in the neighborhood of between $2.5 million and $3 million. That's for the software, the building construction and the initial staff members. And then after that, probably about $700,000 a year with the staff and any kind of ongoing maintenance and things we need like that for the building. So the idea here is that commission would recommend the fees that would cover that. Let's say there's no tax. And what would you need immediately before the fees are established and so forth? Yeah, I think... It would be like a loan from one budget item to the next. I think prior to retail we estimated about $1.6 million. So that would be half of the software cost as well as doing the construction efforts for the building. And we could pay another part of the software cost after we do the sales again. Absolutely. Yep. And then the fees would eventually cover that. We have a full breakdown that says like prior to retail, 1, 2, and 3, I'll just send you the whole thing and I'm happy to answer any questions that come up from that. Any other questions? Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks. That's right. The commissioner will be... Oh, I know one other question. Can you look into how many people have actually... Something like the story of seven days, is there any... Has anybody gone after the tax evasion? I'm sorry to say again. Seven days last night had a story about a person who's selling marijuana out of the store in Burlington. Does anybody ever go after the taxes? I can tell you that. I mean, do we have the ability to go after the taxes or something that's operating in a legal business? We can. But often that's in conjunction with the Attorney General's office and DPS as well. We don't have our own criminal division. But often in a situation like that, a hypothetical where somebody is operating a business that's paying no taxes, that's often an IRS problem as well and they have a very large criminal division. Okay. Good morning everybody. Good morning. Health Commissioner Mark Levin. I presume you'd like me to make some opening comments. Please then take some questions. I'd like to just draw everyone's attention to two documents. One is the recommendations of the Prevention and Education Subcommittee that I led for the Marijuana Advisory Commission that the Governor appointed. And I will not reiterate everything in the report, but I will call out some highlights. And the second document is the health impact assessment that the health department did several years ago regarding marijuana and updated a year ago. And I call your attention to that because this is an area that lots of ideas and sometimes supposed evidence gets thrown around. But I believe our health impact assessment plus the subsequent document by the National Academy of Medicine really did look in a very critical way to try to separate fact from, not necessarily fiction, but fact from areas where we still don't have a resolution in our knowledge, whether it be with regard to the benefits of THC cannabis, whether it be to harms. So I just invite you during your deliberations to use some of that material. So I'm going to make a number of bullet points so I know your schedule is rather cramped. First is to state that we already have a significant public health problem with regard to marijuana in our youth. And the governor appointed this committee and commissioned with one major goal in mind amongst others, which was to protect the most vulnerable and protect youth. So usage rates in our middle and high school populations that we obtained from the Youth Risk Behavior Survey have actually shown an alarming increase in current use amongst those youth. They also continue to show a problem we have experienced with e-cigarettes and with alcohol, which is a low perception of harm. And these youth are able to discern harm because almost 70% of them agree that smoking cigarettes might be bad for your health. They've learned that message well. But they're way down in the 30% when it comes to these other substances. So when you pair a low perception of harm with a high usage rate, you can anticipate problems. I would invite you again to look at the health impact assessment in regard to that. But one of the major conclusions of our committee has been all along that there's a significant potential for the deleterious effect on youth. Second item is cannabis or THC, depending on what you'd like to use, would actually be called in the lingo of public health a substance. And that substance misuse can't be signaled. Substance misuse is really across a spectrum. And any strategies one uses for prevention and to improve people's health with regard to the use of such substances will generally work across substances. You don't need a specific one for opioids, a specific one for marijuana, et cetera. And for the most part, these prevention strategies have a very robust evidence base. And it's not like we have to invent the wheel. We can actually do some very well-tuned strategies. And it's also quite clear from the evidence that substance misuse prevention works best when it's comprehensive and when it is sustained. As a health commissioner and as a physician, obviously I have in previous forums voiced some of my concerns about the substance that we're talking about today. I just want to call out the fact that if one looks at recent literature, even since the commission back, which just was a couple months, there are growing reports, growing consensus and more abundant literature about deleterious effects on the developing brain. And in this case, we're talking about anyone who is an adolescent up to age 25 for a developing brain. And the specific thing is mental health and to get even more specific, both acute and chronic forms of psychosis. And these are quite profound. They're quite well-documented in literature. The relationship is quite firm now. And the rates are alarming. Another thing I'd like to mention is that states who have an experience already with systems that might tax irregularly and certainly have legalized cannabis, generally, when you talk to them after the fact, they say that they had nothing in advance for prevention that was really set up very well. No funding for anything for prevention in advance. And it took them longer than a year to make this a more robust program of prevention. And that they all regret. I mean, it was a fact of life. They all had to make up for lost time. And they all stated a need for $5 to $10 million minimum to engage in those activities, none of which was available in the early pre-years or years. And when we asked them, what could you advise us as a state that's now potentially going to follow in your footsteps, one of the key lessons learned, if you will, was going to be have something set up in advance and be able to handle protecting youth brains early in the process, not retrospectively. There's very impressive data from Colorado and some other states regarding other things that get underplayed in some of the newspapers and what have you, but certainly come out quite prominently. And that's the rates of young people, even infants, appearing in medical settings, especially emergency rooms with a pediatric overdose emergency. These are not only linked to a specific form of cannabis, but certainly edibles has been the one in the infant part that, or the toddler part, I should probably say, that has been the most concerned. The other data that comes out that I'll defer to my public safety colleagues is in the traffic safety data and in the rates of vehicular accidents and deaths. And these, from a public health nor public safety standpoint, can be ignored. You may be aware, if you've read the commission's overall report, that there were one or two areas where we could not gain consensus. One area I'd like to call out at this testimony is the area of edibles. And well beyond the Education and Prevention Committee, there were numerous committee members, commission members who came out on the side of we should not have edibles that represent two potentially dangerous substances to have, even when all of the precautions which we listed in our subcommittee report are taken in terms of making sure they don't look like candy bars, they don't look like brownies that are packaged in a way that youth would be attracted to them, et cetera. So we still feel that that's a very, very compelling literature behind medical consequences of use of edibles. It was pointed out to us that that might be shooting oneself in the foot if one was designing a tax and regulate system because people might obtain them at the black market or from other states or what have you and that you would be taking a significant portion of your revenue stream out of the stream. In examining this, looking at Colorado data, there was about 10 to 15% of total sales were in the edible form. So it certainly wasn't the majority of what was being purchased. When total sales are quite high, that's still a lot of money on this thing. So we still come out pretty much categorically against the inclusion of edibles in any kind of tax and regulate system. The thing I'd like to spend my last moment on that is of most concern is the fact that legislation, as it's currently written, does not really have any funding included for the area of prevention. Needless to say, that's what Public Health is all about, is prevention. So by comments of all been geared towards and we believe it would be not only unacceptable but unconscionable to have legislation that would create this kind of potential marketplace that would not at least make an effort explicitly to have a revenue stream going towards education and prevention and research and that would not formally, if you will, and explicitly protect public health and public safety. I will, if you ask questions, go through some of the specific prevention strategies but they're all in our report. They're very well founded strategies. Much like any strategy, whether you're talking about tobacco use or alcohol use, they do come with a price tag. Some of them are purely messaging type strategies which are effective, I call them necessary but not sufficient because they will not get you the mileage you need other than putting things on people's radar screens. However, there are plenty of strategies that involve school-based curricula, substance abuse professionals within school systems, community partnerships that are called regional prevention partnerships, the Iceland model which has been called out quite frequently during our proceedings in the Marijuana Commission that combined a community activation piece, a parental buy-in and investment piece and a youth voice piece to creating after school and other activities for youth so that during that most dangerous time in their lives between three and six p.m. they're engaging in healthy activities strengthening activities, character building activities and not potentially getting into trouble with substances or other activities. Thank you. Just to respond briefly to the fact that there's nothing in here. Sure. The decision that was not made lightly by the six main sponsors and then we have a group of other co-sponsors and we talked a lot about how to deal with both traffic safety issues as well as the prevention and health related issues. We decided that those should be separate bills just as the house passed a separate bill last year regarding traffic safety. Certainly there may be a push towards the end to address this bill but we got an introduction to the bill and decided to keep that issue of how do you spend the money through the appropriation process. Part of the thinking was that we already have the problem. It's not like taxing and regulating this makes this problem go away and testimony, I'll just read from the testimony of the folks from the cannabis trade association which is the medical side and they're concerned what happened since we legalized the life first. Significant increase competition from the unregulated and illegal market. The unregulated and illegal market is now the largest competitor throughout the state selling flowers and so forth and developing brands in preparation for tax and regulated markets. Black market delivery services are also prominent. There appears to be confusion among patients and home growers as in the legality of the transactions. Therefore you can find a lot of product on the streets. So, but frankly, and before we did that last January the problem was tonight last July whenever we passed the legislation. I would absolutely support any prevention pieces that you just talked about as a member of the appropriations committee and hopefully they're in the governor's budget. Because the problem is here this year it's not going to change in 18 months if this law becomes effective it's not automatically going to change. I understand and once it's legalized we just talked to a select board member from Great Barrington masses. The main concern was okay, people are driving here to buy the product where do they use it, particularly if they're from New York, Connecticut, Vermont, kind of obviously there. So, that's a concern that happens when you open a retail sale but as we know from last night's story in seven days retail sales have already started. That's why I welcome a conversation without their committee or any other committee or in the house they want to have something to do with the process. I'm not opposed to prevention. I suspect itself. I'm wondering about the figures though. What do you need immediately? The figures, did you say? What do you need right now? For funding to do what you feel assuming that for a moment this bill passes and sales become effective on April 1, 2021. April of 2021, actual retail sales become legal in Vermont. That's about as quick as we think we could do it. What do you need between now and then? Six to eight million dollars. And where would we? We're not selling any product. We don't have. Right. So that becomes the problem all the other states have. Where does the appropriation process line six to eight million dollars in the front of the Department of Health? That's right. Well hopefully there's a lot of surplus points this year. Rather than paying enough to keep it entirely. I think it's important to point out Dr. I appreciate your work. It was a pleasure working with you. The original intent was to roll this out in such a way so that funds were generated prior to the actual retail sales. That didn't happen for reasons on all of our control. But we have the additional problem of the states and the country surrounding us making this all the more critical to get a hold of some kind of regulated scheme as quickly as possible. So I just want to assure you from my perspective and I suspect with all the community members that we are cognizant of the problem we're trying to get our hands on as quickly as possible. But hopefully we can still design something that goes out of money coming that means first prior to getting any further steps down the road. No, and I was on the commission with you and I appreciate that. I do just want to again call out the fact that whether we like it or not our youth are different than the youth in the surrounding states when it comes to their rates of usage when it comes to their perception of harm. So we're sort of earlier in the curve in terms of the problems that we're encountering. When I first got involved in this conversation probably five years ago we were ranking at the top if not at the top very close to the top in consumption per capita. And that has been an ongoing problem and I can see that there are numbers increasing and reports are clearly indicating that but I think it's all the more important that we get hold of this in a regulated scheme somehow as opposed to ignoring it or trying to stick to prohibition. I'm wondering, I understand six to eight million already indicates that it's a range and it's not perfectly specific but when you think about that amount of money where do you think of it plugging it in prior to the rollout of sales? So like, what exact activities? Yeah, so some of it is in messaging campaigns. A big chunk of it is in school-based prevention activities and development of what we call these regional prevention partnership networks which are actually designed to be community and regional specific because not every part of them are designed to be the other part they want and they have a proven track record of actually being able to adapt the kinds of prevention programming and activities to the needs of that specific portion of the state. You say that the Deerfield Valley Yes. The kids from the Deerfield Valley are actually here today supposed to be in the quarter to twelve to eight, not many capitarians so actually they have a great story to tell. Yeah, they've got a good school in my district. What? No, it's today. That's a different group. It's the same school but they want to testify at something else. They're here today. I don't know why they've come up so often. That's right. Probably as far away from the Montpelier as you can see it's still being run. They're going to have actually a waiting hand as the location of the high school. They're far away. They're right on the border from now. And then it's cool to turn the road trip. Yeah, we can take the road trip down there and meet them halfway. Anyway, I digress you. No, but that's an example of one of those things that we want to set up more state-run. Well, it might be helpful either to the Health and Welfare Committee or to the Regional Creations Committee to have your six million to eight billion dollar plan what you would need in this year. Absolutely. That is already in your life. Right. Six to eight billion from someplace else. Is there any federal funds involved? In your six to eight... There are federal funds involved in pre-existing healthcare associated messaging campaigns, et cetera. But in this kind of money we're talking for this specific effort. We're not talking federal funds. That's right. Other questions? Commissioner? Thank you very much. Thank you. What is Commissioner Anderson in the Department of Public Safety? Good morning. Good morning. So I was not quite sure how you wanted to proceed but I've got a statement I can read, answer questions and then we can go from there. Tom Anderson, Commissioner of Public Safety. This is with respect to S54. As this committee considers the wisdom of creating a legal commercial market for the recreational use of marijuana I hope part of your consideration will be for the majority of Ramanas that don't use and have no interest in using marijuana or any other drug as part of their quote recreational pursuits. Their voices seem to have been forgotten in this debate. The governor has made pretty clear that addressing roadway safety and issues related to prevention and education for our kids about the dangers of marijuana are critically important. In the first 2018 Raman became the ninth state to legalize recreational marijuana. It is yet too soon to tell what effects legalization will have on our children or the health and well-being in an overall character of the state. Why would we not want to wait to know those answers before charging ahead with full commercialization? What we do know as Dr. Levine just pointed out is there's a growing body of evidence that marijuana is really bad for our kids and that youth usage is likely to go off after legalization. We also know that drivers impaired by opioids, cocaine, marijuana, and other drugs pose a threat to every Ramaner and visitors that drive our highways. We further know that evidence coming from other states that have legalized recreational marijuana strongly suggests that more Ramaners will die on our highways so Raman continue down the path of commercial legalization. The data from Raman is equally alarming. Marijuana was decriminalized in 2013. In the three-year period pre- and post-decriminalization there was a 28% increase for all motor vehicle crashes where at least one driver tested positive for marijuana. For crashes resulting in a fatality, the increase was over 30%. This month AOT released preliminary statistics for deaths on Vermont roads in 2018. Last year 68 people lost their lives in fatal motor vehicle crashes. There were 70 deaths in 2017 and 64 deaths in 2016. A particularly disturbing trend for the past two years is that the number of drug-impaired drivers involved in fatal motor vehicle crashes for the past two years by a more than 2-1 margin. Fatal crashes involving a driver suspected of driving under the influence of only drugs has eclipsed the number of drivers impaired by alcohol. That's a 2-1 margin. Equally disturbing is that three of the 68 fatalities, over one-third, involved drivers impaired by drugs alone or a combination of drugs and alcohol. Of these 23 drug-impaired or drug-alcohol impaired fatalities 65% of the drivers tested positive for Delta 9 THC the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Perhaps it's only coincidence that this trend in marijuana-related fatalities mirrors Vermont's push to make marijuana legal and more available for legal sales. Or perhaps it's a wake-up call for monitors that with the future holds once marijuana is widely available. More fatal crashes killing more and more of the monitors. That has clearly been the experiences of Colorado and Washington after they legalized the retail sale of marijuana in addition to the increased marijuana use by teenagers. As legislation for the commercialization of marijuana is considered, priority number one for legislators, both pro and anti-legalization, should be to protect our children and public is protected from irresponsible individuals who take drugs and they get behind the wheel of a car. How can this be done? First, by ensuring there are robust prevention and education programs for our youth. Second, by enacting legislation that allows for the collection and testing of oral fluid from those suspected of driving under the influence of drugs. Scientific studies show that saliva testing is reliable and provides important evidence for prosecutors and juries. Fourteen states, Australia and several European countries have approved some form of oral fluid testing to help keep roadways safe. Both the governor's marijuana advisory commission and the opioid coordination council supports this important legislation. As the 2018 motor vehicle fatality statistics made clear, drivers impaired by marijuana and other drugs pose a growing threat to every Vermont or an visitor who drive our highways. The passage of legislation permitting the commercial sale of marijuana, this latest session without addressing roadway and appropriate protection for our kids would be a disservice to all of our monitors. Finally, laws are impacted or enacted for the public good and because they further important public policy goals. Before enacting this legislation, every single legislature should ask themselves what public policy goals are being furthered by this legislation, including one, does the legislation protect the welfare of our children and youth? Two, does the legislation place any Vermont or at risk of injury or death? And three, does this legislation promote the overall health and well-being of our monitors? If the answer to any of these questions is no, then a yes vote on this legislation is difficult to justify. Happy to answer any questions, sir. Thank you. You're right. And Dr. Levine, if you have an opening remarks, you can send them if you'd like to have them on the record. I can send them. I can email them too. If you could, that would be helpful to have them on the record. So we can post them on the committee. I mean, you and I have talked at Narsium about this issue of drill site testing. I'm sure we'll continue that conversation. I'm sure we'll continue the conversation whether the bill passes or doesn't pass or until I go longer here or you're no longer here. But I was interested in a statement from the Governor of Rhode Island who's now reporting this. But she said basically what you just said. But I'm also interested in Massachusetts, which is looking at how do we deal with this oral fluid issue. And my understanding is the Commissioner there is looking to how can we get electronically a surgeon to take an oral fluid test as quickly as possible to the officer at the scene of the stock. And I don't know how quickly it can be done. I haven't talked to a judge about it. I don't know how quickly it could be done in Vermont. But your officer has reason to believe the person driving impaired in which he can't stop anybody unless you have reason to believe they are. Or they don't use the turn signal which, by the way, don't stop the stop sign like representing more than this morning. I've got to speak to her to try to make. But anyway, he was to say, if somebody does something and you stop them and you have reason to believe they're impaired, you can then ask for a certain test. And I'm just curious to say that any thought about that is being kind of a middle ground between where you and I seem to be. And how quickly could the officer receive that search? I took a look just briefly at the Massachusetts legislation. I think there is some sort of warrant requirement that they were looking at that without conceding that a warrant is even needed for oral fluid, which I would argue that it's not. You know, the process of setting up a process in place to get a warrant for oral fluid. I'm not sure. I'd have to give that a little bit of thought and look at what the process would be to get it more quickly. I mean, we can get a warrant for blood now. So the idea that I need to get a warrant for, or I go to oral fluid when I can already do that by getting a warrant for blood. I'm not sure where that would fall at this point. I'll look at that, Senators, what they're proposing as to what the mechanism would be to get a oral warrant and how that, you know, let's get tricky because you have to make a record of it. Presume what you're doing right over your cell phone. Right, it's creating the record so they can be looked at after the fact was a probable cause. It's the creating the record and how you do that. I mean, the devil's always in the details. And you said something about juries looking at the information. More information to the jury. Wouldn't that, I already tainted jury if there was, there's no evidence that the person was impaired from the amount. We don't have an impairment amount for marijuana. We don't have an impairment amount with blood either but we're allowed to take that by statute. Blood doesn't tell you anything, oral fluid's not going to tell you anything that blood doesn't tell you. It simply tells you the presence of the drug in the person and as we've talked about many times in my view it's just another piece of evidence juries ought to be able to look at. Let me just make clear about the difference between blood and oral fluid. You can't really take blood even at the car. You've got to go somewhere to take the blood. I don't think you want to take the blood. The scene of the the scene of the stop. The train of balls for bottom. So I think what you're what I'm talking about with oral fluid is the difference between one could take that at the scene once they have it done. Which obviously the officer could do that but they might not be able to take the blood. No, I guess my point was the blood, the tooth. As we look at this issue I'd like to understand I know what your preference would be but I'm happy to take a look at it. Oral fluid's going to tell you the same thing blood tells you. You can't take the blood at the scene but you can take the oral fluid but at the end of the day the evidence I'm getting is the same. There's a presence of a drug in the person in the person. So same evidence. So I thought once you took the second not the first swab would be just to determine the presence. It's a screening mechanism. That's right and if nothing is there then they throw that out. But the second one would be the evidence if I understand this right. And so if that could be taken at the scene there's not going to be the determination there. It's going to go to the lab, right? Correct, I mean the lab would then test that and give you qualitative and quantitative analysis of the saliva. So that would be the valuable part. If it came back again there's additional evidence and you would be in just another piece of it along with all the other evidence. So the concern is could you take it up the second one at the scene. That's what you'd like. So for example let's say we had a regime where you could have a preliminary screening test that tested positive. You would then take the evidentiary swab shortly thereafter maybe it's back in the barracks if you go through the plight. My thought what evidently what Massachusetts is looking at this isn't my genius by the way it was reading in Boston Global Boston with Massachusetts. So officers at the scene there's a thought yes he or she had reason to believe that the operator is driving impaired maybe for whatever they write that down the plight for a search warrant goes to a judicial officer and he doesn't prove that they're different. If the judicial officer were cruising they could take the swab right there at the scene. It wouldn't have to wait for hours or whatever. I don't know how quickly we could do it in the plight. I haven't talked with those briefs as I said it may not even work but I'm saying that this is kind of for me a judicial officer has made the determination that this is something that there is problem cause they've found that they've allowed the search and I don't understand people with any search. But potential circumstances under which the judicial officer would deny the search warrant. In other words a police officer says I observe this behavior writing it down understood but in other words does the judge have anything other than the the officer's word that he thinks you know I mean usually a search warrant you have to come up with more than just we think. You have to have under Vermont law it's impaired to the slaves degree not impaired big time. So I believe that because this person was weaving in another traffic because the person hit three cars that person was driving impaired. These are the facts that you would write them down if people didn't determine maybe the stop in Bennington by the Bennington chief who thought he smelled marijuana and asked the guy to stop wanted to get a search warrant to search the vehicle and he had a couple of other officers there and the guy drove off getting the chief of police luckily wasn't injured he stopped them later and found eight cars and there were one so he didn't wait for a product you know he's already done something wrong by trying to flee but warrants are often issued based on the officer who's under oath you know testifying as to what they saw what they did and the judge makes a determination whether it's probable cause to issue the warrant that's no I understand I'm just wondering pro forma and we're set up a system in which every request is agreed with calls into question the need or the efficacy of the system itself well the idea is it's a neutral and detached magistrate that's looking at the evidence and making an independent determination but if the only evidence is the evidence offered by the officer it's hard to get neutrality because that happens all the time every day and the judge would make the determination based on the law whether those facts was an average probable cause you could have a situation where the judge says look I just don't think that's probable cause we do have the cruiser cam that is providing a kind of theoretically neutral representative Morris he went through a stop sign rolling through a stop sign in front of senator Sears he was coming in the other direction and representative Morris if somebody had stopped there and went through that stop sign and then I had reason to believe she was driving impaired they'd have to have some kind of besides the fact that she rolled through the stop sign it'd have to be something to indicate that she was impaired to the slightest degree and those often get highly contested in the middle of you know middle of a criminal case Senator Benning that would argue on behalf of representative Morris that she was in a right to get to a meeting and if she got out of the car and was asked to perform food sobriety tests she would have a problem with him so there's an implication there right off the bat that she's guilty and that's where I'm at a trouble with her trouble with what? Trying to design a system where we have probable cause enough to get a warrant I think an answer to your question in that set of circumstances the judge could ask a question do you smell of marijuana and the answer is no would the judge then give permission to take the saliva test I don't know the answer to that the officer would testify or say to the judge these are the observations of the vehicle asked her to step out perform food sobriety tests she couldn't perform the food sobriety tests now you and I know what her physical limitations are as we see her in this building the other day does that then give the judge enough ammunition on a warrant request to say go ahead and have a saliva test as a defense attorney I would already know but that's not right we can get into a battle with the court just to know whether that should happen you'd probably get in a battle if we allowed it to be done without once the officer brought that evidence in I'm sure that this way you didn't be a battle for that evidence legitimately other questions for Commissioner Anderson well thank you appreciate it our final witness of the day all due respect you know I Facebook every now and then showed you a picture of the way back when and it was three years ago I was on you can quote me today we were filming it with Anson Tubbins who is not here today but just let Anson know that I saw her this morning three years ago I will for the record carriage gear or agency of agriculture and prepare this for this committee but since it came off here's a little one pager with some other details about the HEMP program and okay wait did you read the testimony so 50% of you why don't you start to do your testimony and answer that question we'll cover the HEMP first and so there's a lot of debate about how HEMP is defined in the farm bill and it specifically says 0.3% delta 9 THC and it wanted to go worst case scenario in Vermont just to see what some of these crops were going to produce and the plant itself doesn't produce or produce very little delta 9 THC it's all THCA and the farm bill also specified the crop attest of a dry matter basis and we at our lab do interpret that to be 0% moisture so when you take a HEMP plant and dry it down to 0% moisture convert all the THCA into delta 9 mathematically after the test you get a number and that number on about 50% of the HEMP crop was less than 1% but there were a lot of 0.39 a lot of 0.42 0.6 I think that's the highest so taxonomically they were growing HEMP but to fit the strict federal definition they would not have some states are proposing to just look at 0.3 delta 9 on a growing crop and that will make everything just plant in the state HEMP by definition even the crop the dispensaries are growing tested right off the shelf isn't going to have about 0.3 delta 9 so that's not the definition we want to go with some other states are proposing to go with that definition we're looking to split the hair somewhere in the middle if you're told theoretical it's less than 0.1 is below 0.3 I think we can taxonomically call that crop HEMP that said you also saw the digger article and some of the other news outfits reporting that folks taking just CBD do test positive whether you're in test 4 THC and I believe that even at the 0.3 if it is if it is below 0.3 you still will test positive on your test we don't regulate CBD correct we do so this is Senator Rogers bill last year as of July yes so they're tested by you and now we're at half staff capacity with our lab since I read where we've developed we've got authority to create the canvas quality control program last year through Senator Rogers bill and we have been testing similar all those same components that were A241 so we can have another component pesticide residue and all the residue moldy mildews the store and bank some CBD that is not regulated it is and the agriculture do they have to go through that so we're concentrating more at the product level instead of the retail level so those products we've at this point we've done a 461 we tested about 40 less than 10% the fields can you import CBD from other states? yes so we don't know what's those we don't know what's in those we know what's good in the article that tested positive and lost the job or couldn't get the job we've been bought from some other states that was bought here in Vermont we have a sample in our laboratory we did test that to make sure it was below 0.3 we haven't been working with anybody who's complained that some of their neighbor growing hemp or product they purchased was non-hemp we have right through the lab so we responded to every complaint we got and we did receive the word in this article what is the Department of Agriculture Agency Agency of Agriculture what is the role of the Agency of Agriculture and use it in a regulated so we're largely going to leave that up to you folks here is this is very similar testimony that was presented for us 241 years ago and and to the commission and under the commission's report if you flip to the second page that sort of outlines the infrastructure and I did the only thing I did to this was put your Canvas control board on top so my understanding in the bill is there's a five member Canvas control board and whether or not they're paid or unpaid is yet to be determined who they're appointed by is spelled out in the bill and then the Canvas control board has two staff and executive secretary the vision is that the board members would be paid for the chair of the board would be paid some salary and they would have some full time staff some board but it's not intended to create this huge so it's basically the bulk of the work that needs to get done and that's out one here and this was prepared for 241 all of the pieces of a regulated market this is a sort of licensed growers facilities established site requirements site inspection, growing inspection pesticide use also the processors they can use what solvents they can testing for residual solvent seeds seed certification and then the consumer protection piece and these are all things that the agency and agriculture does so your job is sort of to create the overall umbrella and that's in the Canvas control board as a regulator sort of think of the foundation first so this is ground up and for all three programs whether it's adult use or disability or the HEM program the foundation of that is the laboratory it is in the lab and it's sort of that's where you get your data from about what needs to be regulated and how whether that's certified third party laboratories to do the work like the health department does with the drinking water program or the state itself having the quality control laboratory and the front page of this highlights all the regulatory programs that the agency has and how a regulated Canvas market would fit into that my through have been here as well right next to the medical and adult use because with the CBD market it really has all the same concerns and there will be a lot of combined products as you heard from the Spencer people doing things besides that and HEM so I use this as a product this is all HEM so we don't have the fiber infrastructure really yet but down in Middlebury in the top of why we used to own full sun oil we still have to folks from Kentucky now it's big dirty HEM and they do 60 acres in seed crop but that is so we are there is a lot of talk about that when the folks in the HEM industry we have the food basically cooking oil high protein seed which is going for animal feed right now but we don't have the infrastructure for fiber long or short in the state currently we are hoping to see that develop in the next few years there are other uses just for animals there are a significant number of animal products on the shelf right now with CBD in it and I personally don't know if that end up in having a system exist in animals or somebody who is studying that said the last thing you asked about retail when we first spoke of S241 it would have been the Agriculture Regulating Growers Process and the retail market the commission proposed that the agency of agriculture regulate growers and processors and that the retail markets be regulated under liquor and lottery and I just gave you a quick synopsis of the types of retail establishment that the agency of agriculture does regulate we basically regulate every retail establishment in the state in some form or another whether that is the scanner or the scale or pump meter is registered and regulated by the agency of agriculture it's limited in what products we regularly at the retail level but our most the one I keep coming back to we could have dealt with in three years is pesticide products and restricted use pesticide products as well as feed, seed and fertilizer those products are regulated as that's I'm just as one of the sponsors of the first six names on the list that several times they're all over developing S54 and open to having more of a role for the agency of agriculture right now that's definitely the way yes which is already established and already doing I think we can be happy to look at that but it was just kind of an idea no I can see that I went through S54 like I said it creates a very good umbrella for regulation underneath it like I said I've been being a regulator for years building the foundation and the ground up approach to meeting the dental is what I can offer any questions? just a quick 100 yeah was that accurate? yes is that just because there's only two people in the industry because I can't believe there's only 11 makers in the composition that's your I'm not I'm even the best John Rogers feels yeah I can get you those specific figures but these are accurate and so most people are registered maker or two if you look at Talendonia the acreage though that you've got here listed is directly applied to the number of registrants yes there could be and this year's registration it's all done with GGS points in Google Maps how would you find that? yeah there's a term we locals call it the Willow Farming yeah all right we'll pick up a couple more questions