 Subcommittee to order. Let's take a roll call and get that for the record. I think we have Julie Overd from the board. Nellie Marble from the board. Can't see any others. Okay. From the subcommittee itself, we have Mark Levine. Yes. Tim Wessel here. Anybody else from the from the subcommittee? No, we have an expert here today from the Department of Health, David Englender. Invited guests. Yes, David Englender. David Schur. From the Vermont campus control board. Yep. We have from ACB, of course, Gina, myself, Mark Gorman. Have we missed anybody who's in attendance? Do we have any public members, Julie? There are no members of the public here yet. Well, it sounds like that's, and that's what we have. Okay, we first order business. We really should take a look at the public comments and sort of summarize them for the record. And first one on which is on the screen. So hopefully everybody's on the call is able to take a look at that points out that from Kate, Kate Nugent points out that Canada released their cannabis warning labels, which she believes will be effective and ethical based on the obligation to protect the public health, especially without minors. The, as I understand it, this is what she writes next is what the cannabis rules say, what the cannabis warning is. This is a cannabis product and has not been analyzed. Now that's ours for the Food and Drug Administration. And this is what she would like it to read. Okay, well, I mean, she's, she was reading, she was noting our own cannabis release. Sorry. Right. She would, she would like the language to say this is a cannabis product and has not been analyzed or approved by the Food and Drug Administration for sale to individuals 21 years of age or older only or to registered qualifying patients only. In both keep this product away from children and out use if pregnant or breastfeeding the cannabis, the effects of cannabis may be delayed by two hours or more. And I think we had modified that ourselves. So our last meeting to say the effects of edible cannabis may be delayed by two or more hours. Cannabis can impair motivation. It's an additional word concentration coordination and judgment for additional language and can cause cause mental health diseases, including anxiety, schizophrenia and suicidal, suicidal. Never seen the word written that way. Anyway, suicide in people with no previous history of these diseases and would like us to include something about it being habit forming. State law forbids driving operating machinery under the influence of this product if accidental ingestion or over serving occurs called the National Poison Center. Okay, let's broadens out the language that we had, but is not far off in my view. Received from which one are we doing next? Was that Kate? All right. From Laura, Sarah Baum, she believed is appealing to the Vermont Department of Health to develop sooner rather than later an evidence based public health message campaign on cannabis intoxication and driving the effect of prevalence of high potency cannabis and educating families on youth mental health trauma and cannabis use. That covers a lot of different issues there. She wants us to ensure local municipalities have adequate resources for public safety and law enforcement training. More narrowly, she wants us to more narrowly define the scope of substance misuse prevention programming and create a clear financial mechanism through which it receives funding such as competitive grant programs through local prevention organizations. She proposes number four, limiting the density of cannabis retail establishments allowed within a municipality. She proposes requiring a buffer zone for cannabis retail establishments to keep it away from places where youth learn and play. Closely monitor advertising and packaging for cannabis retail establishments to assure they're not appealing to children and youth. Also prohibiting advertising in any locality where youth could be exposed and create a research and evaluation division for cannabis regulation that conducts public-facing data collection and reporting to monitor and respond to the impacts of retail cannabis including impacts on historically marginalized groups. That's the substance of her proposal. Christina Plasik sends a comment which reads limiting the density of cannabis retail establishments allowed within a municipality requiring a buffer zone. We've been hearing that closely monitoring advertising and packaging of cannabis to ensure they are not appealing to children. Creating a research and evaluation division for the cannabis regulation that conducts public-facing data collection reporting to monitor and respond to the impacts of cannabis retail and ensuring product labeling is informative and based on current science. For example, warning that cannabis may cause impaired driving, addiction, psychosis, suicide attempt or injurious behavior, uncontrollable vomiting, harm to fetus or nurse and baby, this can occur in individuals with no previous history of psychosis or mental illness. Is there one more at least? Okay. This was received by a person named Darae Channings. Limit the density of cannabis retail establishments allowed within a municipality require buffer zones to keep cannabis away from where youth learn and play such as youth centers, child care centers, playgrounds. Closely monitor and advertising and packaging for cannabis retail establishments. Creating research and evaluation for cannabis regulation that conducts public-facing data collection and so forth. And the same warning, cannabis with THC may cause impaired driving and several other previously noted effects. I believe we someone admitted a public comment today. Yeah, I received a public comment this morning from Jesse Burrard and Jill Sadovgerin of the Vermont Medical Society, Stephanie Winters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Vermont Chapter and the Vermont Psychiatric Association. Rather than going through this this particular comment because it is a letter to the board, but I will and it's lengthy and it does reiterate some of the things that we've already heard in public comment. I will though, it will go up on our website, so I'll send it to Nali and I will also send it to the subcommittee members so that you have this. Okay, that's great. Thanks, Julie. There had been another G that I have noticed when I was scanning through the which was an endorsement of Tim Wessel's concern that committees, I mean that the resources be provided to municipal governments to deal with some of the effects and costs of law enforcement and so forth. So I didn't see that come up on a slide yet and I know you hardly had time to do that. I'm not sure if that was on this one or compliance enforcement. Okay. Any other comments or questions regarding the public comments? Great. One of our leftover. I just see David's hand up before we go on to approval of meeting and if I may ask a question at this point, is that okay? Of course, David. My hand is actually it's been up from the beginning, so I have two quick questions. I apologize if you could orient me very briefly. This is a subcommittee, this is a subcommittee of the advisory committee to the cannabis control board, is that correct? Correct. So I was struck by the fact that this PowerPoint is branded as from the National Association of Cannabis Businesses. So we're the consultants for the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. I'm sorry. We're the consultants for the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. I see. Okay. And we will go through the PowerPoint presentation based on what we've heard from public comments, what we know about the industry to gather what is the best recommendations for the state of Vermont. Sure. So what was the means of public comment? Do I receive this as a document through the commissioner? What was the the means of distribution and notice? To submit public comments, all they have to do is go to the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. This is the link right there. In order to submit any comments that they would like to or they can appear in person at any subcommittee to have their public comments on record. What we do is allow for a summary to be presented to the subcommittees and then they will also receive via email the entirety of the public comment. What was the what was the means of public notice? Can I jump in? Tina? Yeah, they're not. These aren't necessarily public comments that are specific to something that we've released. This is just we have a form on our website that anyone at any time can submit public comment just like they might in a at the end of a meeting or so forth. So there they aren't necessarily specifically warned or specific to a particular document that we've released. It's it's in any any submission of public comment to the board. I that's really helpful. Okay. Okay, thank you. We left off our last meeting without approving the October minutes, meeting minutes and those have been circulated to the subcommittee members and so we had October 4, 14 and and just I think two days ago had circulated the October 18. In other words the minutes of our last full meeting on Monday. It has had the subcommittee members had a chance to take a look at those and and can we have a motion to to approve minutes of October 4? Mark, can I just walk together? Well, you can but I don't so typically folks don't approve minutes if they weren't in the meeting and if I I suspect that we had different combinations of the folks that are here today in those meetings. So I mean that well sometimes people do approve minutes that that for meetings that they haven't been in but if someone's not comfortable doing that we may have to hold on these and approve them maybe before an advisory committee meeting in the future. Okay, each of the each of these meetings had a core but I can't say that all the same people. So it was Ingrid so for October 4th it was Ingrid and Tim so Ingrid's not on this call. And then for the 14th it was Dr. Levine and Ingrid so we will have to wait for Ingrid. And that's the same for the 18th. It was just Ingrid. It was Ingrid and Dr. Levine. Okay, Julie, sorry. The world holds off and maybe Ingrid will be joining us later. Sorry, I think Tim was trying. Minutes? I'm sorry, Tim. Do you want to just pass the October 4th minutes if that makes you comfortable because I think I was there for October 4th. But Ingrid is not on the call and Dr. Levine was not on the October 4th meeting. Okay, maybe we can handle that before this brief meeting is over. We will move on to manufacturing of edibles. This is the last point we actually have to make as a committee. So really excited to do this. So glad that David you're here to review our recommendations. So for the manufacturing of edibles any company producing edibles must be here to the Vermont food safety state requirements and regulations. All employees must have food handling training. Lab testing must occur. The test for that will be determined by the lab subcommittee. They need to have standards for distribution and transport which we will lead to the compliance and enforcement for those standards. Packaging and labeling as we've said they need to have a nutritional label. The warning language and symbol along with the point of sales flyer and the regulatory body will be determined by the Vermont cannabis control board as we're looking into who can best fit and serve on edibles you know with THC. It makes it just a bit harder due to federal schedule one issues around this product. Tim on how do you feel about those recommendations? They seem fine to me. It really only definitely the food handling training and sorry this thing keeps going down on me. It's my version. And as far as this subcommittee the packaging and labeling was sort of our wheelhouse but everything else is sort of different subcommittees. Am I correct? Yeah so we would need compliance and enforcement for distribution and transport and then lab testing as well. So thank you for that. Dr. Levine your thoughts? Yeah the way that packaging and labeling is framed looks fine. My concern about the October 18th minutes is there was a line in there regarding the Department of Health involvement in the regulatory portion which we're here to discuss today for sure but at the same time the way you framed it here is rather vague. So I guess that's fine as long as it doesn't say what the version of the minutes that I reviewed said which was that that would be the Department of Health. Dr. Levine it's a very good point that you're making. At that time we thought that it would be put onto the Department of Health to oversee the manufacturing of edibles and we did discuss that with Ingrid because that we at that time thought it was going to be the regulatory body and that I think is why David is on today as we have found out that there are might be some issues with having the Department of Health overseeing manufacturing of edibles due to federal funding that they receive and also expertise in that area which is why Vermont Cannabis Control Board has their lots of work to look over to really determine what the best regulatory body will be. So those minutes are correct but we are stating for this phone call that that is no longer the case and we have to determine which would be the best regulatory body and with that being said David I would love for your thoughts on this and maybe your thoughts on who might be a really good regulatory body to oversee the manufacturing of edibles. So thank you. Do you want to talk about this briefly and just to outline for other folks that so the Department of Health has a we have food safety folks who work on sanitation which is things like keeping food at the correct temperature having hand washing statement stations and that sort of thing. We don't have any expertise in cannabis and there's great concern among our team logic folks about getting involved and principally one of the issues is that we are funded by FDA to do those inspections and they will not allow us to do inspections for cannabis. In terms of who is the appropriate regulatory body I'm loath to put it on to somebody else as we don't like it when it happens to us. I think Julie and I maybe had a and Julie you'll correct me if I'm wrong. I think we had a very very very preliminary discussion yesterday about maybe it makes sense for the board itself to have trained inspectors and adopt regulations that are specific to edibles that could incorporate the safety regulations. So the Department of Health has many different license categories. There's food manufacturing and there's also food serving and there's depending who you are different different criteria would attach. So the most straightforward way I can think of again I don't want to put this on somebody else would be the board itself to do it and we could help you grab a regulation and also provide you with you know the training that would be provide training. We could say these are the kinds of training our sanitarians use or could not qualify it. So just to jump in David yes I think that's what we talked about and my other thought is I think we need as a board to get further in our rule writing in order to understand exactly what it is we need or want to have regulated. That was the other thing that I was thinking. Thank you David for your comments. I know in other states that sometimes allow this to be oversized by their cannabis control board or the Department of Health. So a combination of both at least giving some criteria and regulations to the Vermont Cannabis Control Board is definitely something that we have seen in other states. So I just would like for the record team to vote on the manufacturing of edibles based on the points that we have just made. Is that a yes or no? Any company must be here to Vermont food safety state regulations and requirements that employees must have food handling training. There needs to be laboratory testing standards for distribution and transport and manufacturing and labeling and that's the Vermont Cannabis Control Board will determine who will be overseeing the manufacturing of edibles. Seems reasonable to me with my limited experience. Is that a yes Tim? Well I didn't hear a vote being taken. Who's voting in this situation? You would be voting and Dr. Levine will be voting on what we have so far for the manufacturing of edibles. Okay I don't think that's like an actual vote of a quorum is it? Yes as there are only three committee members so I would have you vote and Dr. Levine vote for these. I can vote yes on that. Thank you Tim and Dr. Levine? I can vote yes. A daily question I have that we should make sure we answer as we can is is there anything that is left out of this one? I have no problem with what's on this one but is there anything we haven't thought of that should be of interest? I'm scratching my head just to be sure. There's nothing that I know about if there is anything that you would like to add I think right now we can keep it as this and then there will be an advisory board meeting where everyone all the subcommittee groups will come together to discuss what requirements have been created for public health and if there is something that you feel that was left off you can bring it up at that meeting. Yeah that sounds fine and I assume that I can't remember the gentleman's name who spoke to us from UVM. Much of this comes from that presentation as well and you'll notice that at least three of those bullet points are open-ended as to what needs to be determined so you know there's plenty of flexibility in most cases. Well thank you both just for the record we have two yes's for the manufacturing of edibles and obviously a lot more needs to be created on what that actually will look like but I think that this is a real good starting ground to determine that you know labs and needs to be created for this what we're going to do for distribution and transport and this committee has already made statements about packaging and labeling. Are there any public comments anyone in the room? There are no members in the public. Okay thank you. Is there anything else that you would like to discuss anyone on this call about anything that we've spoke about Dr. Levine I see you shaking your head. Yes in addition to the valuable input David Englander has provided thus far I do think there were some we appreciate the Danica and Mark's review of what the health department submitted to the subcommittee but I do think there may still be some unanswered questions that we had posed that might require us to draw portray that document again on the screen and take advantage of the fact that David's with us today. Wonderful and so David the next two slides of what we have received from the at three slides on Department of Health. This is the first one about warning language which is what we had at the last meeting. I'll let you take it from here. David you're on mute. I know I was saying I was on mute. So we just we added we added a few elements we are describing I'm describing my notes. We had a few elements which referred to which added and pet a little difficult for folks who aren't looking at this document. So in the in the all cats line for children we added and pets because there have been poisoning of pets. We added a line following the breastfeeding possession or use this part may carry some legal penalties that is something that we added for people's understanding. And then we added the the last sentence of the first paragraph of persons 25 never maybe more likely experienced harm to the developing brain which actually does. I mean I think that captures some of the concerns raised in at least one of the public comments. Yes he definitely did capture the public's concerns. I think that this is really well drafted. And I'm sure in on last meeting do you have any questions or about this lunch. No I think I like the way it goes between bold and bolded caps. It kind of helps to differentiate both seriousness and kind of like helps you move to the important parts and see the different sections. So it's kind of a nice balance between I know we were considering bullet points at one point but that gets really difficult when it comes to smaller packaging. That's good to me. Yes good point. And so David I just want to let you know we did make one edit to this before we voted and that was just about the effects of edible cannabis may be delayed by two hours more. So we included the word edible and we also bolded this line because of the very important statement. Other than that I think you know the subcommittee was very very pleased with this. So thank you so much for your help on revising the warning labels that we had created. Terrific and this is this is nicely crafted too because there's I think it's in Michigan. It that line looks like a how to it looks like it looks like in the second how to invite it as opposed to being part of a warning. So this is nicely nicely prayed. Okay thank you so much. And I'll move to the other side about just you know font sizing and also additional bolding that needs to be on product packaging. David would you like to go through the slides for everyone. I don't know that I have much. I think that the slide speaks to it for itself. I'm not sure that I've been added to know it by itself. And Tim your thoughts. I know you were on last call so you know just making sure that it's bolded and that there's at least a 10 point font in order to ensure that all these products have the same thing. I think it's really important. I know we were saying about you know what is the font that we are going to require so that it is captured by the eye. I think bolding and capitalizing everything as well is really gets that eye drawn and creates quite a big attention grabber for people. Yeah it seems fine. I did notice that so the pets wasn't going to be added to that particular requirement right. I know pets got added to the last. No just these two keep out of reach of children and if it includes multiple servings which I think is so very important because sometimes people will take an entire bar of chocolate not realizing that they're multiple serving so highlighting that as much as possible is the number one most important thing you know because of people really taking too much and having adverse reactions than they would actually want. Sure sure looks good. Then we are on to the warning signs. I know as a committee a lot of people were saying that lights in yellow with the red outside. This one is also as we were stating earlier that we had concerns if a package had a yellow background that this might not be viewed as much or depending on the color of the background and I know the Department of House was saying we can utilize both. So this can be interchangeably with a white background so that it appears and would be more reflective on certain packaging. So I'll hand that off to you David. I think I had some questions about some of the language that was used but I don't think we take up the subcommittee's time with that. I think again I think the sort of I don't think we made substantive comments on the I mean this all looks good. I did have I had some technical questions just from my understanding. What were those questions David? I'd be happy to have an open conversation about that now. I don't take up the committee's time for you know to make you quite ignorant. So I had a question about well so one thing that it did say that I couldn't hear you can everybody make sure to close their mics so much they're speaking. David I'm sorry can you repeat that? That's okay I'm just impressed that somebody seemed to be on a speedway at the same time they were on this call. I think it's important that we not make references to other states to say things like guidelines. I'm not sure how far this was intended to go but there was originally a line that said guidelines are the same as main. That might be informational but I just want to make sure that we're doing things that are not specific that we aren't we are tying ourselves to other states requirements if anything because as the board goes through rulemaking that's something that the legislative committee would say you are not allowed to pin out regulations to somebody else in the federal government because therefore their legislators can change remote law and so that's something that is not viewed as legal. So that was just one comment really about more about the process than anything else. I asked the question it will first do a marketing layer and I asked again in my deep in body ignorance is a marketing layer distinct from an on-product or is that a well-known concept is it different from plastic wrapping versus a box or box versus the product itself? So I was just trying to understand sort of what those terms meant. Where did you see marketing label? Because what I know that statement wasn't made by me I believe it was made by Danika in context of the white background from a marketing perspective just if it is on something it stands out more so I think that the comment was just marketability of being able to visually see the logo then actual production of a product. Yeah so that's where it's used is under required colors when used on the marketing layer so I just didn't know what that meant. Yes so I think it's just the marketing layer is meaning on top of the packaging. Great okay that's helpful thank you. And when you refer to Maine we did show different morning symbols in order for people to get different viewpoints of what are being done in other states. There are some states that just that you know this contains THC and then has a THC language onto that and we did do a comparison with Maine as well because it's really important to have standard symbols that can be recognized anywhere because we do believe that there will be a large amount of tourists to Vermont especially from neighboring states and so if there would be a similar consistency people would be able to recognize that symbol. I know that there have been strides in the cannabis industry to get one universal symbol for all of the different states so no matter where you go to it would be able to be recognized and then especially when it's federally legal that due to interstate commerce and products being able to be sold in different states it would be very important to have a universal symbol so that everybody knows what it looks like and that's just for the future but I think that that's what that comment was made out of and I believe this is very similar this is what Maine is doing but we did consider this to be the best for the state of Vermont and this conversation went on for a very long time so I think we did our due diligence to ensure that this was the best and also a hearing to colors and sizes as well. Any comments about this from the rest of the subcommittee or anything to add to the questions that David has raised? We even refined the leaf. It looks like a maple leaf from Vermont on a cannabis. Yeah so thank you David and Dr. will be a very good point. This has been very very thought out and I mean I believe the subcommittee did a really fantastic job in ensuring that people would understand that this is a cannabis THC product. Any other comments or questions? I'm David I know that you have made is there anything else that you would like to add from the Department of Health perspective for the subcommittee or the public that will be viewing this recording? This slide or generally speaking? I'm just generally speaking those are the only three slides that we have added for the Department of Health because I know unfortunately we're not able to attain to attend Monday's call. So I did so I was provided a copy with as I mentioned that the memo the notice regarding the promotion of commercial cannabis I did provide a number of questions and comments to Julie and I think my understanding from our conversation Julie was that this should be something that some of the issues I raised will be rightfully dispensed and ignored because that's you know fine and and then other things that the Department have to take up. So I guess my comments on the document are are are memorialized in the document itself and that Julie has in her possession. Yes that's that's accurate. This committee in their last meeting only went over the things that changed the particular slides that you're looking at and the rest of the comments have come to me. Gina I hate to do this but I made the mistake of believing you when you said 1130 adjournment. So I really I have a I think that we're okay right now actually if no one has any other comments or questions. I uh you know we were going to add the last minute with public comments but I always think it's really important to include them and allow everybody's voice to be heard especially for this small subcommittee and just for the record. So I am happy to motion to adjourn. Yeah before we do that I I do believe we should seriously look at the comments that came in reflect on them and the most recent one that Julie sent us this morning from the medical community not that I'm advocating we do everything everybody said but also try to balance pragmatism and feasibility with what's on a label with any of the suggestions that were made just so that we can say we've addressed them but also if there are some that merit being squeezed in if I could use that term that we do do diligence just because we have we I don't know why you you know we don't we don't ever have to listen to public comment but again if it's invited in I think we need to reflect on it. I agree Dr. Levine and um you know all of these public comments in its entirety will be sent to all the subcommittee members and you know I think we should address that and bring that up but there are any concerns after reading that on the entire advisory board meeting okay. I'm only going to make a motion to adjourn. Okay thank you Dr. Levine will anyone second that? I will. Thank you so much um thank you both I just want to say from you know NACBs from Danica and Marks um and myself that we've just had such a wonderful time and meeting with you thank you for all your hard work and determination I know that there were lots of meetings were really you know short deadlines and it's just been incredible to work and I think you've done a fantastic job in representing Vermont and making sure that you know people are safe so thank you so much and thank you Julie I know you're really helpless in all of that so I appreciate that. Thank you Gina and you know I recognize that our work is not necessarily done but this is just a pausing moment so that we can start writing rules and making some decisions and there will be more to discuss. That's been an honor as Gina said to be able to work with you and thanks Julie for your constant presence and guidance and Dr. Levine, Tim, Ingrid you know who's been there almost almost every week twice a week and you David for joining us in this last meeting. Thanks. Thank you. Bye bye.