 Everyone, thank you for joining us today and welcome to the Social Equity Subcommittee meeting for this week. So, before we get started, I'd like to call the meeting to order officially and also take attendance. So, I'm going to start with the subcommittee members and Julio, I can see you, so I'll start with you. Yeah. Julio Thompson, Civil Rights Unit AG's office here. Very good. Thank you so much. And then, Nader. Present. Thank you so much. Susanna. I'm here and I'm going to sign out and back in again. Oh, you can't see it. Oh, no, I'm so sorry. Okay. Oh, good. And then, Lindsay. I am here. Hi, everyone. Fantastic. Yeah. From NACB, we have myself. We have Gina Cranwinkle. Present. Jeffrey Gallegos. Present. And John. Present. Wonderful. And then, from the CCB, we have, I think I saw Julie, and then would you like to introduce yourself? Yes. Wonderful. Fantastic. Welcome, Kimberly, and welcome to the members of the public. So, attendance has been taken. As I do each week, I will go back and just remind everyone that these are our milestones with our next one coming on Friday. So, exciting stuff. I know Gina is very enthusiastic to get these reports in. So, let me move over now to, we're going to go through a few different things today, including the Cannabis Business Development Fund, then also a couple of other things that will be presented today, including the Cannabis Social Equity Board, Social Equity Application Approval, and then, of course, we have time for public comments in person. There were no public comments this week that we received electronically. So, I would like to remind anyone watching this recording or anyone that's with us today, if you would like to make public comments that you may do so at ccb.comots.gov, and there is a public input form very easy to find, and we welcome all comments, and I would like also for everyone to rest assured that comments are reviewed by each of the subcommittee members. They are disseminated among them so that they are able to hear what the citizens of Vermont has to say. So, with that being said, let's move to the last order of housekeeping business, and I would like to see if we could get a motion to approve the meeting minutes for Thursday, October 7th. I'll make that motion. Fantastic. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you. All right. Let's get started, and Gina, I'm going to turn this over to you. You should be able to drive if you'd like to. If not, I will keep going for you. Oh, I'm good. So, we are going to get into what the cannabis development is fun. How are we going to get funding for this? Right now, we have $500,000 that will be allocated. Impossible funds may be included as $50,000 from each integrated licensee. Right now, we cannot say if there's going to be any of these licenses. I know they believe that there may be, so that that is extremely limited. So, one of the recommendations is that 5% of cannabis tax revenue goes to funding the program, and this is every single year, because obviously our first year is going to be the most expensive year, and we do not have a way that is set up yet to keep this program funded and moving into future years. And then a creation of a social equity cannabis trust is being developed to allow anybody who would like to publicly donate to the fund to keep it funded. Some of the expenditures for the program, but not limited to these things, are educational courses, so we were speaking about certificates so that people can be educated in psych cultivation, extraction, retail, workshops, which were in regards to, you know, how to help with assistance with applications, you know, learning about accounting. We need to also do some marketing and outreach of the program, the funding for a social equity co-op program, and if funds are made, or if we can get a bank to supplement this, low interest loans and grants to social equity licensees. Right now, with the funds being as limited as they are, we really have to look at alternative ways to really supplement loans and grants to social equity licenses, so we will be seeing what is out there on what things would be willing to partner with this program. So one of the things that I'd like to talk about is sort of this recommendation, you know, how do we continue to support the social equity program moving forward. Julio, how do you feel about 5% of the Academy's tax from going back to fund this program? I just think it sounds reasonable to me. I'm not sure what legislation permits us to, you know, set a tax rate, or I guess we would be recommending a tax rate, so taxing is usually considered a legislative function, but it doesn't strike me as out of place, no. Yeah, these are all recommendations. Everything that we're going to be suggesting in this program is just all recommendations moving forward. Nada, how do you feel about 5% of Academy's tax revenues to go forward to fund the program? I mean, personally, I don't really know enough about what, you know, the potential revenue will be. So, I mean, I can't say that 5% is a good or a bad number. So, I mean, I think we do, obviously, we need to fund the program. I'm not sure exactly what a good percentage would be, but if 5% is generally what's considered reasonable, I can defer to that. Thank you. Is that your thoughts, feelings? I have a lot of questions. One, yeah, I would say I would want to know the breakdown of how the other 95% would be used. And are we talking 5% of the previous year's tax revenue from this market or projected for the current year? Or how does 5% of what, I guess, because I imagine that's going to vary from year to year. And then I guess how it's, I know this is a different, maybe I'm a little too far ahead, but how it's spent. So, in other words, if that 5% goes to fund the fund and then it dries up, then what? Will we have doled it out to ask, will we have used it? If there are things we wanted to do with it that it didn't stretch enough to be able to do, are we committed to supplementing the fund to ensure that all of that work can be done or 5% of the tax revenue is supposed to be the only source that funds it? And, yeah. Yeah, it's great questions. Unfortunately, I don't know what the other 95% will be going to. I believe that there is another program out there that they want to supplement, I think, about like cannabis education. Julie, would you know what the all-cannabis tax revenue they're thinking about doing? So, the 6% sales tax is going to go to after-school programs. That's already outlined in the legislation. And then 30% of the, so on top of the 6% sales tax, there's a 14% excise tax. 30% of the revenue from that is to go to prevention programs. The other is in the general fund. It's not otherwise, you know, claimed in the legislation. Yeah. Thank you. So, that's 30% of the 14% who still leaves behind 70% of the 14% excise tax, right? Yeah, that's correct. I mean, you know, it seems to me that for a state that frequently runs a surplus to now be creating a new tax that is quite high, I feel like 5% is very modest and we could probably afford to do better with that. And then we will be just discussing later on, I think, next week, on Thursday, actually, about additional funding going to those impacted communities. So, for example, you know, opportunities on that we have created and also, you know, maybe communities of high BIPOC areas in order to get to the root cause of the problem to really change that. So, there will be recommendations made in order to really reverse this problem that has happened there. If that's a forthcoming recommendation, then I would be comfortable with that. You would not be comfortable, you said. I think she would. If we did have that added track of being able to get at some of those upstream factors, then I would be very comfortable with that and I wouldn't necessarily push to raise this 5% if we also are going to be finding other ways to address some of those upstream factors. Okay, great. Thank you. Sorry, you were just going in and out a little bit. Thanks. And Lindsay, what are your thoughts? We really agree with what everybody has said thus far. I struggle with whether that 5% is the right number because I, again, don't know what the realm of the possibilities are in terms of the sun revenue or is this 5% of the 14%. So, I think those details are going to really matter. But I know we have to sort of have a starting point too. So, I mean, in terms of kind of starting somewhere and I know that the legislators will hash this out when they're creating policy, then there's that, right? So, I'm indifferent. I'm supportive of something being there because I believe we have to build this fund, but I just am struggling with the right number. Yeah. I think, you know, this is definitely a number that needs to be looked at and thoroughly investigated as the program permits. And then we will also be talking about an advisory social equity board as well today. So, I think, you know, those are the things that the social equity board needs to really address, you know, because we don't know how much it's going to cost. We don't know how many participants are going to be out there. So, this needs to be revisited in six months to a year after the program has started. I'm really to get a true understanding of, you know, exactly how much does it need to be funded and does that come from tax revenue or does that come from the state of Vermont itself or the cannabis control board. And then the second thing was to create a social equity cannabis trust so that if people would like to donate to the program that we can get funding on that way. Who do you know you're doing? I think that, you know, ensuring that there's, you know, the appropriate mechanisms so that it's a blind trust so that you don't have any concerns about influence through contribution. I think that's, I think that's, that could be really useful. When you look at the expenditures or the potential expenditures down here, at least from a perspective, I think that the place that we're in now, it's the last bullet point where I think there would be, you know, that could potentially be a larger number. I think, especially after the first year of the program where you'll have some costs that are in developing the educational courses and doing the rollouts, but low interest loans or any kind of loan subsidies, grants, that could be a substantial amount. And so having a mechanism where it is, you know, a protected, it's a protected fund so that it doesn't drop into the general fund seems intuitive, intuitively appealing. I don't know, and I don't know, either you or Jeffrey or anyone else can offer any examples from any other jurisdictions or views that. So for the social equity cannabis trust, the only one that I know about that is just in legislation process right now is Massachusetts. Jeffrey, do you know of any other states that are thinking about doing a cannabis trust? I do not know off the top right now. I just put it in my notes. I'll take a look and see if I can find any, but as of right now, I don't know. I don't believe, I'm not sure, but I think no Massachusetts have been thinking about it. And it's just sort of a creative way to try to get funding for these programs and support for these programs, but I agree with you. Right now, the fund is not large enough to give anybody a low-interest loan or a grant. That would be worthwhile to any business, unfortunately. And then with all the operating expenses, educational courses, marketing outreach, which is why we sort of made a suggestion of really pooling the funds together and creating a co-op for people because that would be a real significant way to reduce the barrier of entry. Also, you know, I think one of the things to do is to really work with some Vermont credit unions in order to try to see, you know, if they would be able to subsidize this fund, you know, create low-interest loans or, you know, find out if there are some grant programs out there for social equity candidates. So this is just the starting point that we're going to be definitely looking at alternative ways to really kind of maximize our dollars but also maximize what we can use partnerships with other people in order to supplement what we have already. And the same thing will go with any educational courses that we can try to see or mentor chefs or other incubated programs that people will be willing to participate with the Vermont social equity program. Nada, how do you feel about this? One question I had is, do we know if donations to the trust would be tax-deductible? The reason I'm asking is, you know, that if they were tax-deductible, they would certainly attract more donors in the future. So I was just curious. I know we were speaking about this with Ijulio the other day and also Ben Ijulio. I don't know that they could be made federally deductible, whether it's deductible for a state of Vermont and that's just a matter of what you'd have, you would have to have some amendment to the tax code to account for that. So that's sort of, I don't think there's anything that would prohibit it, but you would have to have a change in the code. But as far as the federal code, that seems doubtful. I'm not at that concerning, but just because it's not a recognized trade and if this fund were operated purely to advance that trade and not have any other purpose, that's probably likely. If there were a trust fund that were associated with it, which is just a trust fund, devoted to sowing money back into community redevelopment, but that doesn't actually reach the market participants, conceivably, I might even achieve a federal deduction, but we would have to talk the tax better, equip tax professionals in the state of Vermont about that. But I think contributions to make the market go or a segment of the market go seems unlikely to me from a federal level. I agree, Julio. I don't think there's going to be any tax deduction for a cannabis program on the federal level. Would you like us to make a recommendation to see if a tax deduction can be made for the state of Vermont? It sounds like there would be a lot of moves to jump through to guess that, but I do think it could be worthwhile in order to attract more donors to the funds, because I think it's important that we have multiple funding mechanisms for this and having this trust account would be good, and having a wide range of donors would also be good. But in general, I do support the idea of having a trust. Thank you. Susanna? I agree. I support having a trust. I support it being blind trust and on questions of tax deduction, we can work that out in a way that's compliant with federal and just in state law, but yeah, in general, I'm with it. Lucy, your thoughts? I'm generally with it as well. Thank you. Julio, I want to get into the idea of blind trust. I know you said that if we put someone's name attached to it, they'll feel that they have to have a responsibility of it. What are your ideas if people were able to be named, because that sometimes is a benefit of people saying we're supporting the social equity cannabis trust and they want to be known their business to be known for that. What are your thoughts on that? Just because that sometimes can be a selling point of people making contributions. I think that if you are I mean, when I'm talking about blind trust, I'm talking about not only the source of the donation, but also if you have a set of money that's set aside, you don't just put it in a zero interest bank account. Through the Treasury Department you would have that money if it's not going to be immediately dispersed would be subject to prudent investment and by the Treasurer's Office. We'll need input from the Treasurer's about where that money is expended. The concern is that I don't want to get too far into the weeds, but I am aware that there are in other parts of the country what are called marijuana exchange traded funds where investors invest in the income stream they trade the income stream or projected income stream of marijuana cultivators and distributors and retailers and so I think if you know we need to we need to just have additional input about how the trust would be administered because you could have a situation where someone is donating a large amount of Vermont and there would be concern even the appearance of pride is something that you have to be careful of and so the question would be if there were a big market player that comes from somewhere within Vermont or from outside of Vermont that provides a lot of money and then also you know publicly advocates that the money that's in the pot be invested in some aspect of the marketplace that might be beneficial to them you just have to account for that possibility that because again trust funds or reserve funds typically just don't fit and evolve they're re-invested in the market to the yield traded because marijuana is new commerce I'm wary of situations where players might be using using the size of the notoriety of their donation to raise concerns that they're there on the other end other than just being maybe having the publicity and the good feeling that comes from contributing to part of this economy that they have some benefit in trade later on that's what that's what I'm concerned about it's just making sure that there's no and the professionals who will be aware of those appropriate safeguards and methods or the standards for investment are really folks in the treasurer's office and I'm not really in the quality of library further but that's really what I'm talking about and Leo for declaring buying that for us I would like to vote on this recommendation of five percent of cannabis tax revenue goes to fund the program and then a creation of a social equity cannabis trust to allow for public donation and they obviously the trust to be set up determined by the Vermont Cannabis Control Board Nader how do you vote I sorry if I heard wrong earlier but I thought we were going to be diving more into what what the number should be or should we all agree that five percent is the way that we're moving forward but I think we need to make a recommendation that in six months on this be reexamined to really determine the cost of the program and the revenue that is being made I think Lindsay hands up I'll call on you in a minute Nader what is your question so is this five percent don't know what the cost of the program is going to be so is this five percent is it just a waste holder for now until more and until we understand more six months down the road yeah okay then then I'll vote yeah and we're put a caveat that it needs to be reexamined in six months to determine that five percent cannabis tax revenue is sufficient to fund the program um Lindsay your hand was raised it was really the same thing I wanted to see if we could revise what we're voting on a little bit because it's like I don't want it to be portrayed that I'm you know set on that five percent when I feel like there's a lot of unknown just revise you know what we're agreeing to right now and suggest that it's a starting point or that it will be revisited or something of the such that would make me feel a lot more comfortable um maybe we can say that cannabis tax revenue goes to funding the program and not put any percentage in Nader how do you feel about that Lindsay yeah I could get there for sure um again but I also think there's a place where there could be a recommendation about a set amount that establishes this as well as opposed to a tax so I guess I'm just trying to leave that door open a little bit but I understand why you feel like we definitely need a recommendation to start with thank you I think it's really important because right now nothing there's nothing in the law that says that this will be refunded so I think some sort of recommendation to say that money that this program needs to be replenished because we don't want it just operational for one year Nader do you want it to say that cannabis tax revenue goes to funding the program or I would like I would like cannabis tax revenue to fund the program yes only on your thoughts on that I think I'm comfortable with saying at least 5% and I understand with the caveat that it would be revisited and the reason I say that is because at least I'm anticipating that a component of fund spending will be loans and grants I'm reasonably confident I feel reasonably confident that 5% in the first year won't be too much money set aside because there's enormous capital costs that are associated with the startup of this industry by any kind of growing related industry I think there's a lot of capital costs and even though I don't know the gross amount which is a perfectly valid point that everybody has raised I kind of look at it in terms of proportionality to me it's like does it seem reasonable that 95% of the money goes to things other than something related to social equity to me that seems more than generous to the non-social equity part of it at least proportionally and so it might be that the number we might see the numbers we want to increase it and it could be five years from now it's such a successful program that 5% it's really flush and the market is kind of established and there aren't that many new loan applicants and there isn't that much new capital that the market has sort of reached this equilibrium but I think like in a startup year I just though I'm not worried about 5% being too much of that aside so I can go with without leaving the number in I would be equally comfortable saying a minimum of 5% goes to the fund the program subject to evaluation and it's six months when revenues are more when projections can be tested against actual returns something like that a much shorter version I would just say there we are so we're going to release this recommendation and I can't type and fix it but it will go to at least 5% of the cannabis tax revenue goes to fund the program to be revisited in six months every six months to make sure that program is adequately funded and that a creation of a social equity cannabis trust be established for public donations and types of tests to be determined by the Vermont Cannabis Control Board Nada, how do you feel about that revision yes or no to that yes I'm good for that Anu Julio yes great great we get some funding for this program yay just for the record to yes this to the recommendations with the edits that we have made that at least 5% of cannabis tax revenue goes to fund programs and every six months it should be revisited to ensure that the program is adequately funded and a creation of a social equity cannabis trust to allow for public donations of the program type of trust to be determined by the Vermont Cannabis Control Board now we're going to consider representatives for the Cannabis Social Equity Board so we really want to have 6 to 12 members to represent our social equity candidates and to ensure that the program is moving that there are no issues or if there are that we're addressing them also every six months looking at the program is this really fulfilling what we believe the program should be helping and doing enough do we need to revisit it do we need more education do we need more funding so here are some suggestions of representatives I guess let's start with how many people do you think should be on the board Nada I'm putting here about 6 to 12 members what number are you feeling should it be more towards the 6 or more towards the 12 my first thought is should we try to have it be an odd number for the sake of voting so 6 to 12 so we can have 11 we could have 7 we could have 5 we could have 13 yeah I mean I'm not really sure right off the bat with how many members we should assign to this I think we need to get an idea of interest in the board because we don't want to you know propose 11 members but then we only get 4 or 5 people who are actually interested and available to meet I'm not quite sure yet on an exact number at the moment okay and Julio do you have a number in your mind or is that we just had to do some of the people we think that would be beneficial for the board you're on mute I'm closer to the 12 end than to the 6 end I think there are too many different voices that would be really beneficial to it so I would head for 13 members rather than 5 that's where I would go so one of the first ones we were thinking about having a small business representative on the board to help with some business issues that do come up a really important thing is to have a licensed cannabis representative so to have a retailer a processor, a cultivator to have each part sort of the sector covered so that we can understand the different issues that they may be having in those sectors or how those probably run in order to determine what education or what incubated programs or any assessments needs to be added I think it's extremely important to have a representative from a disproportionately impacted community who has experience in community development a representative from the BIPOC community someone from the Opportunity Zone the Department of Racial Equity and Diversity Susanna Davis has been with us through this entire panel I think there's something to be said to continue on the board as you know where we've sort of started from and what the essence and importance of this program is or someone from your office or community of commerce and community development I know Lucy you've been on these calls with us and have external calls as well about it a representative from a co-op if that does get off the ground so we understand what the issues are having there a member of the social equity caucus I think it will be tremendous to get their insight for the entirety in Vermont and then someone from the cannabis control board hi Julie I know you or someone else might be a great candidate to be on the board so you know what's happening with all what's happening with the cannabis industry as a whole I think it's always great to have these different perspectives and if it was going to be an even number of members of the Vermont cannabis control board as a tiebreaker if there was a tie on an issue that's if we have an even number I definitely agree that an odd number just makes everything easier so we don't have to go to a tiebreaker so Julie or you have thoughts about some of the representatives we've added onto the slide I would say that I'm not sure I understand the social equity caucus is that the legislative caucus is that what you're referring to okay I mean I'm interested in I'm just trying to do my my finger counting here I'm interested in more community representatives or people who have been affected by you know the legacy that this is sort of responding to I think that I don't like I don't so I don't when it does representative from opportunity zones is that a resident or is that someone who runs an opportunity zone program I'm not sure I think a resident or maybe someone who runs I think we're kind of keeping it open-ended but I would want someone who you know is from the opportunity zone area along with the BIPOC community we have also someone from a disproportionately impacted community who has experience in community development as we would want to continue to help the communities that we're saying need it the most and then we also have a representative from the co-op which would be one of a social equity member so from that perspective I'm definitely if we go with 12 one-third of the board would definitely have a direct relation to the people we are trying to help okay I think that again I kind of lean towards greater membership with the idea that the professionals who provide kind of the business expertise can always provide or the board can request their you know their expert opinion on things I don't know that they need just a vote on it necessarily so that's kind of where I am and I'm interested in the connections to that in terms of the language that you know when you're talking about community representation we do have language that like I am I'm going to put it in the chat here and I really pulled it out of the statutes that Vermont has enacted in the past as part of an effort to you know have a diverse a diverse input or participation in government related policymaking so this is language that I just pulled from the statute that preached executive director of racial equity that's the statute and I think we have several other statutes that use almost identical language and so I'm just going to put the link to that statute there if people want to look at the entire statute because I think geographical diversity and you know history of working for for for monitors who've had negative impacts from either enforcement or other aspects of state involvement I think is a valuable measure of contribution to thank you I mean we can add if you would like someone who has been incarcerated to do civil war and drugs as well that would be a good member to add yeah I don't know that you would make that like a right person requirement I think of people who are going to apply I'm not I think we're I might be getting a little ahead of the process here by contemplating how they would be selected if you especially if you have more applicants than you do seats so I you know I'm open to that I'm interested in hearing other reactions to that maybe there will be public comment on the subject as well so we have about one third right now that would come from communities that we would want to help that's including a representative from the co-op if that does happen when the third would come from cannabis from the cannabis industry which is you know representative from retail processors cultivators a member of social equity the Vermont cannabis control board and then a third would be represented from the government that are your thoughts yeah just before time runs out I just want to throw out that I you know after reading this I'm thinking about it for a few or minutes I'm leaning strongly towards having even higher representatives from disproportionately impacted communities I think that if we're creating a cannabis social equity board we want to have a large representation of the people who are directly impacted and you know people who can share lived experience with the board so just wanted to throw out those two some now I think that's great and also one of the things that can possibly happen is to bring those people in you know and have also guests who speak on certain topics that they may be covering as well I think it's always important to get as many voices as possible Susanna your thoughts on this yeah we're definitely going to have to find a good balance of quality and quantity so I like that we're thinking strategically about odd numbers versus even numbers so the decision making can be easier and you know as somebody who's scarred from being put on a 29 member commission recently I am leery of large groups however again this is something that so many people have been shut out for so long that you do need to have that broad representation so I'm comfortable with I'm comfortable with a sort of mid-size to larger size group at least yeah I'm comfortable with it just with the understanding that sometimes decision making can be more difficult the larger groups get and I also do think that having people with lived experience is really important and lived experience means a lot of things in this realm it could mean lived experience in the industry it could mean lived experience being harmed by the system or it could mean lived experience in a different business sector maybe not this one so there's lots of ways that we could get at that I would just also want to be broad and think about what diversity means because a lot of times we just assume it means racial diversity but we're also talking about a business market where people living with disabilities may be able to find opportunity or people who may have other demographic markers that get overlooked so I would just want to be pretty broad in thinking about that and I also appreciate Julio sharing that language that reminds us about geographic diversity as well you know of course the RIC equity office whether it is formally or informally part of the work is excited to participate so you know yes thanks Julio I'm going to go to your comment and I just wanted to let everyone know and you know really start thinking about this so that when we come in to discuss this on Thursday we really have a starting point of who would you like to take off who would you like to add what are some numbers that you would like Julio? Yeah I just when we think I'm just I was going to respond to your one-third one-third one-third proposal I think I'm more comfortable in light of the comments that I've heard so far with a 50% from the community 25 and 25 from the other from the remaining quarters it is true that people will have input but it's also true that this piece of the larger industry is looking at people who have either been affirmatively harmed by enforcement policies or who otherwise might have then or still be kind of shut out of actual decision-making and a vote is a very powerful thing even if it's not a legislative vote so it's not a board vote and I think as experience teaches us what other operational you know what other needs this board has and I think they'll probably I'm guessing the CCB will have other committees or advisory groups that will focus on the more economic aspects or enforcement aspects are important but I think you can always grow or change I think 13 is not so big that if you needed to add a couple of seats to your 15 it's unmanageable 29 is that's that's a big group or anything like that but I view for something like this where you're talking about the size of this market we think that's going to happen I don't think 13 is maybe it's mid-size but I like more at least like the roughly 50% community to the community and then 25-25 because I still think that's enough to have that expertise have input and influence among the board in terms of reaching consensus hopefully and most things thank you Julio Tanika I know it's public comment time Nada before we go are you okay with what Julio just recommended which is the size of 13 and 50-25-25 yeah I think that's a great idea we are going to bring this to public comment time thank you Nada for that answer I will come up with some more categories to get closer to those numbers I'm duly on do we have anyone who would like to make public comment good morning good afternoon everybody actually I thank you for bringing the energy on this Tuesday that feels like a Monday but obviously I'm still catching up thank you again for bringing the energy today this was a really great meeting to be here for I have been following along closely with a group called the working group coalition and they recently released a resource that I will share for the online public comment which is the cannabis social equity policy advocacy handbook and so just doing a quick review with that they just did a presentation on it last week I have a couple of suggestions for you when it comes to the social equity board just to consider particularly from the BIPOC community looking at BIPOC owned businesses so somebody who is already running a business in the state representing different parts of the state also a lawyer or accountant somebody providing professional services to the BIPOC community or a member of the BIPOC community providing those services also looking at national nonprofit experience so whether it's someone from an organization such as the NAACP which I know has struggled to really get their feet under them here in Vermont and might be looking for certain avenues to take or any of the cannabis specific nonprofits particularly one that's focused on expungement and getting people who were previously incarcerated for cannabis into the professional cannabis world somebody from who is either a member of the BIPOC community or providing medical services to the BIPOC community since we know there is a lot of disparity there from the opportunity zones potentially an educator we know that there's a lot of impact from the war on drugs on graduation rates so any representation there also having worked with the Department of Health myself I would recommend something WIC who might be familiar with the types of services and the family impacts in the state and then lastly someone from Veteran Affairs again who might potentially have been working with folks in the state maybe not necessarily impacted by the war on drugs but by cannabis prohibition certainly so that's my first comment my second is I did submit a written public comment it hasn't made its way through the gauntlet yet but it is about social consumption and I apologize because all of you have heard me and I hate sounding like a broken record that written comment does have a lot of information that I haven't said it's breathy, it's wordy, it's lengthy but I just want to give you a snapshot of it which is in reference to a very close friend of mine whose father recently went into an assisted living facility for his Parkinson's Care he's someone who has been using cannabis for 50 years of his life to help maintain quality of life and certainly more so in the last 20 years with his Parkinson's care has become too much of a burden for his family it was becoming impossible to care for him at home and we have a shortage of home caregivers in the state so he's gone into a facility or a residence and the idea that Medicaid will eventually take over the cost of that for the family and he is getting better care than he previously has but it is a Medicaid funded facility at least in part and so he is not allowed to consume cannabis there he's not allowed to have cannabis on site with him so now it's on the family to help him with that outside of the residence the only option that we have is to either bring him to one of our private homes which we're lucky with in the family we have those but they are an additional 20 minutes home 20 minutes back that's the only legal way for him to currently consume cannabis it's basically introduced a whole other burden including the mental health crisis that this has caused for him being a 70 year old man and now being told that he can't use cannabis for the first time in his life which he has been very lucky to use cannabis that whole time there's a lot of members of society who haven't had that privilege that's a hard context to ask a 70 year old to understand though so when we talk about social consumption when you eventually do see all the information in this written comment I want you to think of this gentleman that I was just talking about and the fact that we would love to be able to have a third party place for him to go somewhere where he can legally consume cannabis because like I said the only legal option is home consumption that doesn't happen often a lot of the times I see friends and family smoking in cars, smoking in parking lots this type of public consumption that I think the board doesn't want to see with my public health background I don't want to see that that's not ideal none of it is ideal at least social consumption would provide an option the other folks who are mentioned in my public comment include people who are in public housing people with a tough landlord who doesn't allow them to smoke or even have cannabis on site the fact that if you have a neighbor who doesn't like you and wants to call the cops and say I smell weed even when you're not smoking weed and it can result in a police interaction that can be very unpleasant I just want to continue to provide more context for you all to consider especially since I know there's the opportunity to potentially include some vague wording about revisiting social consumption in this report to legislators just maybe planting some seeds and watering them with time because if we can't get it in right now I think it is important for Vermont to see it in the near future so thank you very much again for your time and all your work thank you and that's it for public comment Gina thank you so much I know Lindsay put in the comments that you would like to see someone from the agency of agriculture to the board and you know geographical representation so we will take that all into consideration when we come back so please put this over you know send me an email if there are any more thoughts that you have before our Thursday call and remember we're also going to be talking about social equity applicants and who should be approving that so please do look through the presentation that was sent to you today so we can get started and we will give you an updated one to include a couple more topics that we can hopefully get to on Thursday as well so thank you everyone thank you for the public comments thank you for all your thoughts I will go back to the drawing board add some more to this cannabis social equity board so thank you all for your time and I'll see you on Thursday thank you Gina can I have a motion to adjourn this meeting I'll make that motion can I have a second I think we have two first second thank you so much