 This is the S54 Committee of Conference. I want to welcome my Senate colleagues, my fellow House conferees and members of the public who are listening. We're here today to discuss differences between the bodies, but I think it's important to appreciate how fundamentally close we are in many ways with respect to the bill. For example, both bodies agree that there should be an independent regulatory body. Cannabis should only be sold to people age 21 and over and that consumer protection is a major driver for passing this legislation. Horms associated with cannabis are best addressed in a regulated market and all cannabis products should be tested. There's an emphasis on supporting small growers and eliminating the illicit market and the tax rate should be low enough to be competitive with other states and the illicit market. So, and we have limitations on advertising in market. So I think there are many areas where the Senate and the House agree. I think that when you look at where we disagree, those agreements are largely focused on details within areas of agreement. Dick, would you like to say anything? Well, I just would like to open and thank you very much for being willing to meet. This is the, to my knowledge, the first conference committee on Zoom. So I hope the public who may be watching in and the press will understand we're flying in uncharted territory. All of us have been on conference committees in the past, but usually they're held in Montpelier where we can meet face-to-face, to break, talk individually amongst the members of the conference committee on each side and try to work through differences that way. This is extremely unusual. And to my knowledge, the first time in Vermont, we've had any conference committee held remotely. So I look forward to meeting with you. For the Senate side, I wanna, and I don't mean this to be a disparaging, but it's been nearly 18 months since we passed our bill. And so there's a lot that we need to get back and be reminded of in our sections of the bill as well as what the House has done to change. So I think the most helpful thing would be for Michelle to go through a side-by-side with us to help us understand better what changes the House made. I've briefly gone through it. And in many cases, it's wording differences, it's wordsmithing, it's not substantive differences. So hopefully we can focus on the substance of distance. I think there's about six or seven of them. But I also wanted to mention, and a lot has been made in emails that all of us have received regarding racial disparities and this bill. One of the things that was passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee, it's now over in the House Judiciary Committee, is a bill on expungements. And that bill would expunge the records of anybody who possessed under two ounces of marijuana in the past. It also has a provision that would decriminalize the possession of under two ounces, excuse me, two ounces to one ounce. Obviously one ounce is already legal. So I just wanted to make that clear if hopefully House Judiciary will take that bill up and be able to pass that. And I think it has a lot to do with some of the comments we've received. Thank you, Dick. And if I missed spoke about that, please correct me, Michelle. You got it. Thank you. So, Michelle, would you like to start? I don't remember the bill number, do you, Michelle? I don't, but I can get that for you. I guess like S-84 or something like that. So the plan is for I'll walk through, but each time we go through, then you guys want to talk about your position. Is that what the agreed upon plan is? Yep. Okay. All right. And then also, I just want to let you know, Anthea is also kind of on the meeting in case we need her expertise on taxes and fees and the money pieces. And also, as you know, this was a complete office-wide effort in terms of the attorneys in my office. Michael O'Grady was working on the agriculture piece and the environmental provisions. We had Tucker helping us on the municipal provisions. So I, if you have some real detailed questions that I can't answer here or need to consult with somebody, I'll do that as quickly as possible and get back with you. Which side by side are you going to be using? The one that's on our committee webpage or the one that came via email? I'm really hoping they're the same one. Well, the format's certainly different. I can't say I went back and looked at the whole context. Okay. Bungs of verbiage is the same. It's fine. I'm confused now about whether there are two different side-by-sides. I printed out one and went through it and it's a 19 page side-by-side. Differences between Senate and House versions of S54. Is that what we're looking at? Janet? Could somebody resend it to me? Sure. Andrea, can you do that? I think she has a copy of it. That's the document I'm looking at, Janet. Yeah, it's the one, I think Andrea sent it out yesterday or the day before. The one that's on our committee webpage is, it looks like it's a 20 page bill and it's got blocks around the verbiage. Yep. It should be the same document that was in the email. Yeah, it's like, Janet, okay. All right, so we're talking the same thing. You like me? That was it. Coming. Okay. No, is somebody sending it? Andrea, are you sending it to Janet? Yes, I will go into the email and resend it. Okay, thank you very much. I'm sure you already did it, but I can't locate it, so thank you. So I'm gonna go ahead and start. Is that all right? Is that all right, Janet? You're with you? Yeah, I haven't got, don't have it yet, but it'll come up. And I can read it up here. Okay. So I think, so I'll just, I'll just start it because I think I don't have a lot on this, on the chart for this one topic on this first one is the regulatory authority. So both proposals have the program being administered by a new cannabis control board. The primary difference is in the selection of those members to the board, both the Senate bill and the House proposal of amendment have three members on the board with two staffers, the executive director and administrative support. The difference is in how you select. So the Senate version had the chair being appointed by the governor with one member being appointed by the Senate committee on committees and another member being appointed by the speaker. The House chose to do something that's modeled after the way that the members of the PUC are selected. So what it is is essentially there is a nominating committee and there are seven folks on the nominating committee and they're varying appoint appointing authorities to the committee. And then that committee then would vet candidates for the board positions and then send the names of qualified candidates to the governor and then the governor would select from that list the people to serve on the board. So that's one major difference. Are they approved, Michelle? Are they approved by the Senate? Confirmed by the Senate? Are they confirmed by the Senate? I would have to double check, I don't recall. Okay. I'll look that up when we take it right. The PUC members are confirmed by the Senate. Right. Well, then I guess I probably did the same thing, but I don't recall off the top of my head, but I'll check. Thank you. And then the other major difference with regard to kind of how the board is structured is that the House created a 12th member advisory committee that works under the authority of the board. And if you were looking at your, I don't know if you guys have up, like I have up on my screens, I have the table with the chart and I also have the Senate version and the House version up if you look at and you wanna go is that the language on the advisory committee is on page nine of the House proposal. And it goes through and it lists the 12 members have to have a certain expertise in certain things. And so, I remember the Senate had a little bit of a discussion about whether or not to require certain expertise of the actual board members and then you backed away from that. And the way that the House dealt with that is to say we're gonna have advisory board that has members with certain expertise. So I didn't, if you want me to pause there while y'all discuss why you chose the different approaches or. Jeanette, good question. I just was going to say that Joe has joined us now. Hi Joe. And that he didn't have the advantage of hearing how Michelle is going, how you're going to organize this. I think it might be helpful for him to hear the way we're going through this. So that's a very good point, Jeanette. Thank you very much. So Joe, what we're doing is, Michelle is doing a walkthrough of the side by side. And we can discuss significant differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill as we walk through the side by side. So that's what we are currently doing. We actually have just started and are just dealing with the structure of the benefits control board. So you haven't missed very much. Okay, I have the side by side in front of me. Is there a page you are on right now? We are on page one. Okay, good. Aux two. Sorry I'm late, but I got here as soon as I could. Well, thank you for joining. So Senator Sears, I don't see in here and on a quick look, I don't see a requirement that the members of the board are confirmed by the Senate. Oops. See ya. So should I just keep going on the chart or did you want to discuss? I mean, I guess the thing is if the Senate has some question about what we did, just raise your hand and I'd be happy to explain or Janet, we're off. So let's focus on what are the major sticking points if there are any, which I'm sure there are. All right, so I'll move down to the next one. So both proposals have a requirement for the auditor to report back basically on whether the structure that you set up in the enabling legislation continues to be the best structure in terms of how the board operates. And you'll notice that throughout this, obviously some of the dates are gonna differ between the two bodies because the House passed this legislation last year and the Senate this year. So basically they'll have to be a truing up of all the dates anyway. So actually just the opposite. Oh, I'm sorry, apologies. So, so the auditor's report is due in 23 in the Senate version and 24 in the House version. And then the House proposed that the board sunsets July 1st, I'm sorry, they received the report in November of 2023 and then the board would sunset in July of 24. So I believe that that was added by House appropriations. They wanted to be sure that there was, the legislature was coming back for another look at whether or not the structure still made sense. And the Senate proposal doesn't have a sunset. So moving on to the next one. So as you know, the Senate version has the board regulating adult use and the medical program and the regulation of dispensaries. So the idea in the Senate proposal was that right now the medical program which is under the Department of Public Safety would move over to be regulated by the board and the board would be adopting regulations for both adult use and the medical program and run them all. In the House proposal of amendment, the board would only regulate adult use and then medical would still continue to be regulated by the Department of Public Safety under those statutes and those rules. Would John or somebody from the House want to explain that? Sure. So as you may know, virtually every House committee with a couple of exceptions looked at this bill or various sections of the bill. And so the idea of not regulating medical cannabis under the Cannabis Control Board came out of human services. And I believe that their thinking was that the regulatory structure that currently exists for medical cannabis is fine and does not need to be changed. Okay, I'm moving on to page two on appropriation. When I say okay, I don't mean okay. I mean, thank you for the explanation. So the difference here is primarily one of just it rolling over into another year and JFO did the calculations and then so there's a slight difference in the numbers. So it's $810,000 in the Senate version and $860,000 in the House proposal of amendment. It's the same with regard to what it covers and the same with regard to it would be borrowing and anticipation of receipts. Next one is on appeals. The Senate version didn't address the issue. The House put in an appeals process for people who are agreed by a decision of the board. So just kind of regular kind of housekeeping looking at following existing models there for appealing an agency decision. The next one on licenses. So the Senate had five licenses. The House has the same five plus they added an additional six license and that would be limited to those existing medical dispensaries. They're not required to get one but if they would choose to enter into the adult use market they could but they don't have to. They could choose, let's say if there's an existing dispensary and they just wanna have a retail shop somewhere. They could apply for a retail license but if they wanted to do everything the way that they do now under the medical they could apply for an integrated license which allows them to do everything from cultivation to point of sale under one license. And those integrated licenses are only for the dispensary and they could only have one. So that means they would only have one cultivation operation for adult use or one retail store. So it would be the same because in both versions both the House and Senate version licensees are limited to one of each type of license. So you can't have like five retail stores. You could have a cultivation license and a retail license or a wholesale or a retail whatever you want but again it's still limited to just one light one type of license, one license of each type. Jeanette, you had a question or comment? I do. So if a dispensary should choose to apply for the six license will they be under two now different jurisdictions so that for their medical they'll be under the jurisdiction of DPS and for the, and there and those two systems are entirely different. So they'll be operating under two entirely different models with different grow limits and everything, right? That's correct. Okay. I mean, not. No, I understand. And just to understand the thinking behind that is because medical dispensaries are already have basically an integrated operation this allows them to continue in the adult market with the same model. I get that. My question was with under two different authorities. So moving next under licenses the Senate requires the board to develop tiers for cultivators so that there's, you know you have the very small cultivators you have larger ones and people can come in at different price points and different sizes and the house has the same but they also are asking the board to do tiers for retailers. So next is the Senate had a priority, a priority, a prioritization for Vermont residents for applicants. The house proposal removed that priority but they did address the issue of Vermont applicants by having the agency of commerce and community development working with AG to provide business and technical assistance to Vermont applicants with priority of services based on criteria adopted by the board. Nope. Okay. Next one. Just Michelle, can I just ask a question? Does that mean that that service will not be available to out of state applicants? That's how I would read it. Okay. That's correct. So next one top of page three board has to adopt rules regarding qualifications for licensure including submission of an operating plan and requirement for criminal history record checks. The house, it's essentially the same they just really kind of fleshed it out more. So you'll see the language in italics where included in the operating plan they have to be identifying the type of business the identity of the controlling owners and principals and their affiliates, the sources amount in nature of its capital assets and financing, the identity of its financiers and controlling owners and principals of its financiers and they are required to file an amendment to the operating plan and the event that they have a significant change in the organization. So if the members change up the next you'll see that just a statement on the house side that the oversight requirements including provisions to ensure that a license establishment complies with state and federal regulatory requirements regarding insurance, securities, workers comp, unemployment and occupational health and safety. Then on the next one, again, Senate has the board adopting requirements for banking and financial transactions. The house just kind of expanded on that saying that those should include provisions to ensure that the board, DFR and financial institutions have access to relevant information concerning license establishments in order to comply with state and federal regulatory compliance. I don't see a problem with agreeing to that. And then the next one, and this wasn't addressed in the Senate version which is that there has to be a disclosure or eligibility requirements for a financier, its owner and principals. And then it lists some things that they, that it has to include. Yep. Michelle. What? Go ahead. I'm gonna ask a question after you, Jeanette. Oh, okay. I just wondered on some of this information here that it'll be in the application that they send in and will any of it be exempt from public records? There might be some personal sensitive information in there. And I think you deal with public records later on. But so... That's a great segue because if you look actually at the next box right below public records, that's the one change they actually made to the Senate version, which is you'll see that italicized language that I have on the chart there is they excluded that particular information from public records. So that when people request information, they wouldn't be getting that particular financial information that's listed there. Oh, okay. Thank you. Mm-hmm. Joe, you have a question. I did have a question. Your qualifications for licensure in fleshing those things out. I'm just imagining what happens if things are said about the rules. And I'm just using this one as an example in this little I, capital Roman numeral two. The sources amount of nature of capital assets. Well, let's say the applicant identifies the nature of their assets as a Mexican drug cartel. Is it the intention of the rule to automatically disqualify them or simply to identify the source of the income? I think the board is required to identify, is to adopt rules with regard to these things. And so they're gonna get into the details about, if there seems to be any funding coming from an illegal source that disqualifies the applicant. But they're the ones that, so they're being, you're kind of setting out saying, board, we really need you to dig in and come up with some very specific rules around qualifications for funding for financiers for applicants. And as part of that, they would be listing what would be disqualifiers, just like they are gonna be doing that with regard to criminal background checks, which is also part of the application process. So is that explained in the language itself that the reason we are requiring these specific items is that the board makes a decision on who is eligible and who is not. I haven't read the house's version of this language but I understand that's the intent. Just questioning whether or not there ought to be some statement that triggers that intent so that whatever is identified, they're making that balancing test of who's eligible and who's not based on the information that's submitted here. I have to go back and look at all the language and the lead-in language, but I think that that's certainly the intent. And if it's not clear, I'll show you the language when we take a break and if you wanna work on kind of finessing that a little bit, we can do that. I don't think that that's, I think that's the intent and I can take a look to make sure that that's clear. Yes, I would agree. Thank you. Okay, so public records, Jeanette already scooped me so that's all I had to say about that. It's the same with the exception of that particular information that's contained in the application around finances. So racial and social equity provisions are generally the same. So when the board, the board is gonna be adopting rules with regard to priorities and the legislature has set out what some of the priorities must be. And those include whether the applicants would foster social justice and equity in the cannabis industry by being a minority or women owned business and whether the applicants proposed just specific plans to recruit higher and implement development ladder for minorities, women or individuals who have been historically disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition. The Senate version requires the board to submit to the General Assembly a proposal to work with labor, commerce and corrections to develop outreach, training and employment programs focused on providing economic opportunities to people who have been disproportionately impacted. And the House proposal, it's the same but they also add in the director of racial equity to be part of that discussion. Sounds like a good idea. The Senate version requires the board to adopt rules for cannabis establishments that include policies and procedures for conducting outreach and promoting participation in the regulated market by diverse group of individuals including those who have been disproportionately harmed. That's the same in the House version. And I also just put this under here is that it requires that the Senate version as well as the House version requires that the board adopt the rules for determining when a criminal history record might disqualify a person as an applicant or as an employee of one of these establishments and it has to be demonstrate whether the applicant presently poses a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of the regulated market and nonviolent drug offenses shall not automatically disqualify an applicant. So that is in there. Could maybe the House could explain why they took that out, Michelle? No, it's the same in both. Well, it says NA here. At the end, that's just for... Medical dispensaries. That's for the medical. Oh, okay. Did I not note that on there? Sorry, I might have, oh no, yeah, that's for medical but in terms of the adult use, it's all the same. And I did wanna mention actually one thing that I forgot to put on there that I will update it with is that the House proposal which has the advisory board, remember there's 12 members on there, one member has to is should have an expertise in women or minority owned business ownership and that person would be appointed by the speaker and then one member with an expertise in criminal justice reform appointed by the attorney general. So I had failed to include that in there and I just wanted to mention that. Thanks. So next, local control. I'll just talk just plain language. The primary difference here is that what the Senate had was a straight opt out system which is that if someone applies for a license from the state and they're qualified that they could operate in whatever town that they're in unless a town affirmatively voted to exclude and ban that type of licensee. And so it would be that the town could vote either just to say we're just gonna ban retail stores in the town, but we're good with cultivators or wholesalers, they could say we don't want any type of cannabis establishment in our town but again, that would be something that would have to be voted on by the folks in town. The House proposal of amendment would be that all licensees are permitted with the exception of retail and if a town wants a retailer, they would have to opt in. So for the other five types of licenses that are contemplated by the House proposal, the cultivators, wholesalers, product manufacturers, testing laboratories and integrated licensees, they all, the town could not ban them. They can require them to get a local license just like the Senate has a provision in there for that and comply with any local requirements, but they could not say you can't come here. So again, for the Senate proposal, everything's allowed unless you opt out and you can opt out of any type of license and for the House proposal, if you want a retail store in your town, you would have to actively bring it before the voters and opt in. So if the city of South Burlington wanted one and Burlington didn't, South Burlington would get it, that how that would work. I'm sorry. So you're asking yourself, I'm sorry. The voters would, before you could establish, I'm trying to understand how it would work in reality. If somebody wanted to open a retail establishment in Chittenden County, and they chose a site in Burlington and a site in South Burlington, but they only wanted to open one in the two towns or cities, would the, if the Burlington voters said no, then they would be choosing South Burlington who said yes. But in order, I mean, does a specific establishment have to apply and then the vote happens or is it just a vote by the people because that town decides to go for lack of a better term, not to allow cannabis retail sales in that town. Is that a vote that everybody has to take? I mean, how would, if I'm thinking about opening a store, would I need to then get the vote or does it automatic that everybody votes yes or no throughout the state? Do you get, maybe I'm jumbling the process here, but I want how I would know whether I could open a store without knowing how the voters felt. Can I, John? Sure, go ahead, Jeannette. I believe the way I've talked to the VLCT about this and I believe the way this is interpreted is that it wouldn't be done by when a particular applicant comes that the town would have to have a vote to say we're going to allow them, we're not gonna allow them. And then people would know whether they could. Well, but my concern is that Jones, the Jones Cannabis Corporation wants to open a retail store in Wilmington. They would then be able to advertise, they would be unable to promote in an election, whether or not, you know, and talk about all the value and everything, or has the vote already taken place and Wilmington has said, no, we don't want any cannabis retail shops. That's what I'm trying to understand, Jeannette, and I don't think you're answering that. Probably either way. I don't know if the house, well, but it does create a problem in my view. It does. And that you have, and as you know in Massachusetts, what's happened is certain companies want to come in and they pay a fee to the town that the town calls an impact fee, which could be, you know, in some cases, hundreds of thousands of dollars that, and it's, you know, for lack of a better term, kind of a bribe payment to the town. You know, we'll give you 200,000 if you let us open our retail shop. And I'm curious as to how this would work in reality, when you have an opt-in and you have a store that wants to open, they would then put all kinds of political pressure on to get a positive vote. And you might have other groups who would put all kinds of pressure on to get a negative vote, I suppose. But unless, you know, unless you have established the process ahead of time, you know, how would I know what Wilmington wants? I'm merely asking a question to the house, Joe. I understand. I realize that I jumped in. I actually disagree with this, with this provision, but I was trying. But I'm asking a question of the house conference. Yes. So our thinking around this was two things. First of all, what we are trying to do is encourage the elimination of the illicit market. So that's why we limited it to retail licensees. As to this, it's up to the municipality, I think, you know, I'm reading the language right now as to when they take the vote to allow a retail cannabis operation to occur. But a retail cannabis establishment cannot do business in a town until a vote is taken. Janet. Clarify one thing, this is not something my committee did much work on, but the town doesn't have to vote. No, it's, if they haven't voted at all, the answer is no. They have, it's an affirmative opt-in. So it wouldn't have the town's voting yes or no. You'd have a affirmative action to vote to allow them. Joe. But it seems to me if no town has taken a vote, and why would any town take a vote unless somebody in the town had the initiative to petition and mourn that article, no potential business would know where to establish with this precedent. And I'm sorry, Michelle, I don't have this answer off the top of my head. Do we do this with alcohol as well? Oh, I'm not gonna remember this. This was, this goes back to where we looked and in the 60s, it used to be that there used to be these votes for the towns whether they were gonna be dry or have alcohol. And then there was like some final vote and that's kind of where your town stuck for, until you, with some exception. So no, you don't do that now, but historically, there was a voting process for allowing alcohol, but that hasn't been around for a year, for decades. So other than the fear of this particular product, knowing that there is going to be no way for a potential entity to establish a business unless they pick a town and then drive the petition to have it happen. What is the rationale behind trying to keep this from happening anywhere? That's the way I'm reading this because anybody trying to apply is gonna have an obstacle directly in front of them that they may not have any idea. Why would they invest money in a project if they don't even have any idea that they can actually establish there? I'm gonna set up a restaurant in downtown Linnonville. Generally, I know it's accepted that I can go in and do that. Or I wanna open up a liquor store. I may have to apply and go through the permitting process but generally I know it's an accepted process. This seems to me to throw an obstacle if you are actually trying to establish a tax and regulated market. I don't know any investor who would wanna leap into this without knowing ahead of time whether they even have a chance. I'm just gonna throw that out there and leave it to Chuan. Rob? That was an area that we spent a fair amount of time on in our committee. And a lot of the motivation and concern behind that was is that by leaving it where you have to opt out that it puts a significant amount of burden on any community to have to go through and have a public vote and address the issue somewhat preemptively where if you have the opt-in provision and you wanna go through, like you had said, there can be members of the community that could petition the local municipal body to address it legislatively. But we felt that it was just putting an undue burden on a lot of communities to have to take a firm of action not to allow it. Just to follow up, Rob. If this law passes, towns know immediately whether they should have a vote or not to opt out if you take the Senate version. If you take the House version, nothing is going to happen at all unless and until an entrepreneur decides they wanna locate in a given town. And then the town has to go through exactly the same voting process and angst and all of that that they would under the Senate's version if they knew ahead of time that this law had passed. So if the law passes and it had an effective date, say, February 30th, February 29th, sorry, or 28th, whatever the bleep it is, you would have the ability of a town to get it on to a town meeting and have a vote right then and there. And then the entrepreneurs would know ahead of time whether this town they're targeting has accepted it or has not accepted it. It seems to me if you're gonna work to kill this all together, the best way to kill it would be to throw an obstacle statewide at every entrepreneur and not let them know ahead of time whether there's even a chance that they could actually have an establishment in a given locality without going through the formal voting process. So I'm just throwing that out there to Chuan, that's my particular position. Jeanette. I would just add that it seems to be more of an obstacle to have the opt in just because of the requirements we have around voting. I mean, it can take a long time to get something on a ballot and if it has to be in a general election you might not know for a year, a year and a half whether or not that town is going to opt in because it has to be on a general election and my guess is that most towns aren't going to call a special town meeting for this. So if some entrepreneur wanted to set up a store in Brattleboro and they started taking out, looking at it in January, it's already too late to get on the town meeting for that year. So they'd have to wait a full another year to even find out whether Brattleboro would allow them to do it or not. Can I suggest that the Senate side has significant concerns about this provision and it's something that we need to work through if we're going to be successful in the conference. Thank you. Well, and we're not the only one that has concerns about it, the administration does as well. Well, well, that's good to know but they've been pretty silent at least to our side as to what their concerns are thus far. So on the Senate side, I don't believe we heard from the administration. Well, I think the governor's been pretty consistent, Dick, about things that he was looking for in this particular conversation. Right now, I'm concerned about getting a bill to the governor's office, one that we all can agree on and we'll cross the bridge with the governor as we get there. Shall I move on? Please. Next one, okay. So I am at the top of page seven. So you'll see on the House Proposal Amendment, the board has the authority to charge and collect local fees for cannabis establishments at the time of application or renewal. And so what they have that the Senate proposal didn't have is the Senate allows for the town, just like they do with local liquor licenses and stuff to be able to issue local licenses and such. But the House put in there this way for the board to be collecting not only the state fees, license or fees, but also local fees. And then you'll see after reduction of costs for administration and collection, the board pays the local fees on a quarterly basis to the municipality in which the fees were collected. Can I just ask a question about this? Is this a kind of a substitute? The Senate had a 2% local option tax and is this a way of getting money to the locals without doing the 2% local option? I'm in on that. Yes, this was connected to the tax structure which did not include the 2% local option. And part of our thinking was that the local option attacks only directed money to municipalities that had a retail establishment, but this sort of enhanced fee idea gives opportunity for municipalities with any kind of establishment, whether it's cultivation or processing or can't remember what the other ones are. So it doesn't matter what kind of establishment it is, the municipality would be able to assess fees. And we heard from municipalities about some of the costs that they anticipated. And some of the, it was clear to us that not all the costs were associated with retail establishments. There are also costs associated with the other kinds of establishments. Would Towns, I'm gonna ask another question of Janet. Would Towns Janet that have the local option tax now be able to charge a local option on the marijuana? Yeah, it would, local option would apply just as it currently does. Jeanette? So am I, my understanding is that they, that municipalities already have the ability to do this, to charge some kind of a permit fee. And my understanding is that, am I right here that this is a one-time fee? This wouldn't be like, this is a, what does this actually mean? Do you want me to do that or do you want Michelle to do that? Sure, why don't you do it? It talks about local fees at the time of license application or renewal. So it's not one time, it's ongoing. It is one annually. It could be, if it's an annual renewal. And it also, the state would do the collecting and then get the money back to the municipalities. So to the extent that the compliance with collecting those fees is an issue because the state's also collecting fees for municipal fees and then give it back to the municipality. So this is broader than what and it's intended to actually cover costs, which I think is important. Could I ask one more question? Yes, go ahead. In order to cover costs, did you anticipate at all what kinds of fees this might be? If people have, I mean, is there any thought that these fees would be $1,000 or $3,000 if they need to have additional costs for law enforcement or anything else? Did you give any thought to the amount of what this would be to cover actual costs? We didn't look at actual amounts, but the way it's structured is the board makes a recommendation and the legislature adopts it. So if the recommendation came in prohibitively high, it's gonna be up to the legislature to say, you know, that's gonna basically mean that nobody's gonna be able to operate and we're gonna set a fee lower than that. So the town doesn't set the fee, the legislature sets the fee to the legislature does, okay. Based on a recommendation from the board. Okay, thank you. Yeah, because we heard some concern along those lines as well. Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm gonna move on to advertising. So incentive proposal, they allow advertising provided that the licensee can show that at least 70% of the audience that it will reach is 21 or over. They also had some general prohibitions. You know, you can't be deceptive, false misleading, promote over consumption, et cetera. There has to be certain warnings on the advertisement and then requires the board to adopt rules on advertising, marketing and signage. I think as Senator Sears alluded to a little earlier, there was one version that passed out of house government operations that just kind of built on the Senate version. They changed the 70% to an 80%. They required pre-approval of advertisements by the board prior to going out to the public. And then there was a floor amendment that passed and that floor amendment prohibited all advertising. And so the house proposal does not permit advertising. There are some exceptions you'll see. It doesn't include, advertising doesn't include labels on products, editorials or a sign that's attached to an establishment. But other than that, advertising is banned. You're muted. Yeah, can't hear you, Dick. Thank you. Thank you for letting me know I'm muted myself. Michelle, if you could provide a summary as if it were a side-by-side of the house version versus the Senate version on the advertising, it might be helpful. I just think where our biggest concern in Senate judiciary was that to not allow advertising could be something that would be unconstitutional and that we had a number of comments from people that would create a unconstitutional provision of the bill. I don't think it would throw the whole bill out but it might cloud the situation if we didn't allow some form of advertising, which is why we did that. And those issues go way back to some of our earlier versions of bills regarding cannabis. No, it's not just this S54 but some of the other versions that Senate Judiciary Committee has worked on. So if you could provide us with a copy of the House Government Ops Committee version, it'd be helpful. Janet? Sure. So I just have a question. This is with respect to the Senate language. How would you show that at least 70% of your audience is over the age of 21? Well, how would you demonstrate them? And what happens if you can't? I believe the intent was to, for example, if you're advertising, remember the cigarette advertising years ago that clearly was particularly geared towards kids and now we have it with vaping products and there's national standards that are set. That was my recollection of it. Again, it was so, if Joe or Janet have a recollection. Would that mean that you can't advertise on the internet? For example, I don't know how you would possibly demonstrate that 70% of your audience is over 21 on any kind of social media. So can I jump in here for a second? Yeah, please. I just wanted to mention, so the 70% rule is modeled after California state law and I'd have to double check and see whether or not other states have something similar. I think there might be a couple others. So one of the issues is, so let's say if if you're just gonna do general advertising out there that would be a sandwich board or something like that, you're probably not gonna be able to prove the 70%, right? But if you are a perhaps a trade magazine that just markets to people who are licensees or if you, let's say, sometimes if you're in a nightclub or a bar, they might have some advertisements on the inside of the door for a cab company or something like that, then you have to be 21 years old to go into the establishment. So you could prove that in order to be able to advertise in that particular location, you have to be 21 to go in. So there are other jurisdictions that are using that, but I certainly understand your question. I'm gonna, I think our yard guy is out mowing the lawn. I'm just gonna close out just for a second so I can close my windows. All right, well, we were gonna get to prohibited products, but I think we left with advertising when Michelle gets back. And is there any questions about advertising on the Senate version or the House version? Sorry about that. Since you don't have any in here. Prohibited products? Yes, prohibited products. So the House added a number of things under prohibited products. So they have some of, they didn't take anything away that the Senate had done with regard to prohibited products. They did add bands on, you'll see at the top of page eight, cannabis flower with greater than 30% THC. They prohibit solid concentrate cannabis products with greater than 60%. So things like wax and shatter and those types of products. They prohibit oil cannabis products except for those that are pre-packaged with a vape. They prohibit flavored oil cannabis products sold pre-packaged that are vapes that unless it's naturally occurring. So that would be like if they're putting in additives, you can't do that. But if it's a certain strain of cannabis like lemon haze or something like that. And they say, well, it has a taste of lemons or something like that, but it occurs naturally in the plant. That would be fine. That would not be prohibited. Let's see, in terms of differences in the Senate version, a packaged cannabis product can't contain more than 100 milligrams of THC unless it's a topical or other non-consumable product. So if you're thinking about if you purchase a little jar of like locenges and that particular jar can't contain as a whole more than 100, the House proposal dropped that to 50. So the package could not contain more than 50. Ask a question about that, John. Yeah, go ahead. Does it have any relationship to the size of the package itself? I mean, I can see a little tiny package that contains 50 or 100 or a great big package that contains 50 or 100. What does it have any relationship? I'd rather, I mean, you could have a little package that contains 50 and a big package that contains 100 and this is less than concentrated than this one. But now we've said that that can, does that make any sense at all what I'm asking? Does the next paragraph down address that? Yeah, it does. It does? Yeah, we have five milligrams per serving as compared to the Senate version which has 10 milligrams per serving. Oh, so it just isn't clear right here. Let me address all these. These are all consumer protection things. We're very concerned in the House about highly concentrated THC in various products from flour to shatter and wax which can be up to 90% THC. And so this is actually a very important position for the House. Well, I guess we want to just need to mention, well, the Senate is very concerned also and that's why we did what we did. And thank you for building on that. We appreciate that. I just didn't see that it said per serving. So thank you. So moving below the per serving provisions still on page eight. So generally you have to have the same type of labeling on there. However, something that the House did kind of throughout a number of places is that where there's warnings that are required, the House requires the Department of Health to create those warnings. So rather than the Board. Can I ask a question about that? Sure, go ahead, Jeanette. Is there any thought here to having anybody else have input into the warnings or into the educational piece that is put out because I remember a couple of years ago when the Department of Health was required to put out an educational piece for the medical cannabis or the symptom relief industry. And they put out such a, their initial attempt was so horrible that it was, it said, if you do this, you're going to die. I mean, that's essentially what the message was. So is there any thought to making sure that somebody actually reviews what they put out or that somebody else is involved in what they put out so that we don't see the same kind of thing coming from the Department of Health? Well, I know that the health warnings are developed by the Department of Health and they have to be adopted by the cannabis control board through rulemaking. Okay, I just... Jeanette, I'm just going to throw in, if it's going through rulemaking, elk car is eventually going to have to approve it. And if it's not meeting legislative intent, something that the Department of Health has done, I suspect elk car will reject it and that's your ultimate answer to your concern. All right, if that works, I just want to make sure that, because there's also in here, there's some kind of a brochure that's to be put out by the Department of Health if I remember right. That's correct. And I would hate to see that brochure be similar to the one that was originally put out by them. Okay, I'm going to move on to the top of page nine, small cultivators. So both proposals specifically address kind of the micro cultivators. The Senate defines the small cultivators as 500 square feet or less and the House proposal defines it as a thousand square feet or less. Both require that the board considers the different needs and risk of small cultivators and that when they're adopting rules that they think about what may be required or appropriate for a 10,000 square foot farm is not necessarily needed for something that's 500 square feet. You'll see on the House proposal, it just adds it provided that they can make exceptions but they can't make exceptions that don't accommodate the requirements of a later provision that we'll go over with regard to environmental and land use. So they can't skirt those. Is there a reason between the 500 and 1000 from the House perspective? The testimony we heard was that a thousand square feet would be a more typical square footage for a small cultivator and would be more inclusive. I'm trying to remember back 18 months ago but I thought our testimony was to try to get the small groups in and there was a lot of complaints from groups of people about us making sure we didn't end up with corporate weed. And I think that was one reason Senate went to 500 but correct me if I'm wrong, Joe or Jeanette but I thought that was why we were pretty concerned about very small cultivators allowing perhaps co-ops and that sort of thing. Yeah, I think you are right but I think that a thousand square feet is approximately 30. It's approximately 30 by 30, right? And I mean, that's 900 square feet. And I think that if you look at a typical, I don't think that I- Are you suggesting we agree with the House? I don't have a problem with a thousand. I'm taking it, Dick. Dick, the only disagreement I had with you is I think that discussion was three years ago not 18 months ago. You know, it all melds into what you can remember. Well, I do remember it was March 1st, 2019 that the House got the bill. Well, it took us some time to come up with this excellent piece of work there, folks. Yeah. Boy. Thank you, Rob. Go ahead. So, and then last bit about the small cultivators, the Senate has them being licensed at the same time as other cultivators, although the Board is directed to give a preference to the smaller cultivation applicants. In the House proposal, the small cultivators are licensed one month before the other cultivators and application for small cultivator license are prioritized over larger cultivations. So next, cultivation. Again, still on page nine. So both have something with regard to adopting rules on pesticides. You'll see that it's a little different, a little more detailed in the House proposal. They make a distinction, one of both do for indoor versus outdoor. You'll see at the bottom of page nine on the House proposal, cannabis establishment shall not be regulated as farming under the RAPs, and cannabis produced from cultivation under this program is not to be considered an agricultural product or an agricultural crop. These were issues that were largely kind of silent on the Senate proposal. I think so. Top of page 10, cultivation, processing, and manufacturing has to comply with all applicable state, federal, and local environmental energy and public health law. Then, there while it is, and then farming while, I mean, I'm sorry, cultivation of cannabis while it's not considered farming still has to comply with certain sections of the RAPs. For required agricultural products. So that basically says it's farming, it's not farming, but it is. It is not farming, but it must comply with some of the farming requirements. That is true. Sort of like having it both ways, I guess. Jeanette? I suspect, I don't know this for a fact, but I know that one of the reasons for not considering farming, I would guess, is because there really are no regulations around permitting and zoning and everything for farming. You... That is a long discussion we had. Yeah. Jeanette? I was gonna say that there are also a couple of tax issues related to farming. There's all the sales tax exemptions and then the current program. And we just thought it was good and not to get into those. Okay. So, okay, to move on to retail. Yep. So retail, it's pretty small changes, language changes, both require that there be a flyer, a point of service where you have employees who are having contact with customers, the house proposal that provides an option if somebody doesn't wanna take the flyer, they can receive it electronically. The flyer in the house proposal has to be developed by the board in consultation with the Department of Health and posted on the board's website. And then you'll see that at a minimum, the flyer has to contain information concerning the methods for administering cannabis and the amount of time it takes for products to take effect, the risks associated with driving under the influence, the potential health risks, the symptoms of problematic usage, how to receive help for cannabis abuse and a warning that cannabis possession is illegal under federal law. So Jeanette, I think this addresses your earlier question. I mean, the cannabis control board will have ultimate authority in deciding how this flyer is designed. Yep. Thank you. Except that it looks like under your, the house version, the Department of Health will have significant influence in what the flyer looks like. That is true. They will have an input. And I think that would be a point of difference that's fairly important to me anyway. Given the Department of Health position, when, I don't know if it's changed in the last 18 months, but given the position of the Department of Health when we passed the bill, I would be concerned. I think it has changed somewhat, but I mean, I think the board ultimately will have to say in how this flyer is developed. Except with respect to the minimum requirements, which are things that you will find, I think, in any state that's legalized cannabis. Yep. Thank you. So next employee training, essentially it's the same, but the house added that the training shall include information about the health effects of the use of cannabis and cannabis products. Yeah, that's fine. All right, it's the same issue. So moving on to the tax provisions. So you have in the Senate bill, you have a 16% tax and all of the monies from that tax go into the general fund for then the legislature to appropriate as it finds appropriate. In the House Proposal of Amendment, it is a 14% tax and that would apply to the retailers and integrated licensees. 30% of that tax is gonna be dedicated to funding Substance Misuse Prevention Programming as recommended by the Substance Misuse Prevention Oversight and Advisory Council. And then any remaining monies then go to the general fund. Okay. So I just should say with respect to the 30% prevention money, that is a very important house position. Well, very important to the Senate that we not dedicate funds to specific groups that the general fund be allowed to be able to use this cannabis money for general fund purposes. As you know, we have tremendous problems coming up in FY 22 and 23 and any help that we can get with the general fund gives actually more incentive to us to do this. And I'm concerned about giving 30% of the revenue to an advisory group to determine how it's spent. That bothers me very much. If you wanted to dedicate a certain amount to Substance Use Prevention and leave it to the appropriations process, that would be less troubling to me. But an unelected group spending 30% of the revenue, general fund revenue from the cannabis is very troubling for me. So I understand you have an important, it's important position for the house, but I must say that having this group decide where it goes reminds me to tackle control process from the settlements. Jeanette, do you have a comment? Yeah, I just was going to say I find this also very bothersome. I do believe that money should go into prevention and education. I think determining a particular percentage doesn't make any sense because we don't have any idea what that might be. We might want to say that a particular amount, in fact, I believe in one of the bills that we passed, we actually had a particular amount that was going to be going to prevention and education upfront, even of the collection of revenues from the marijuana. And I also know that we have had a suggestion that a certain percentage of it should go to higher education because of those needs we have to education in general. I see later on in here, there's a suggestion that they're from this, there be grants for after school and before school programs. So I think that my particular feeling is that revenue should go into the general fund and then it should be distributed the way it is needed at that particular time. And so I do have a real, real issue with this. I'd be okay putting a particular amount in there to start up and do education and training prevention before this actually goes into effect, which is what we had done in one of our other bills. But I have an issue with this also. Well, unfortunately, we don't have funds for substance abuse right now. And I think the importance here is that, as I think we all know that with tax and regulate, there's likely to be larger usage. And I think it's important that there be dedicated money to ensure that there isn't abusive cannabis or other drugs and that we need to do more in that area. Well, and I guess the general disagreement, we'll see what we can do to work it out. Right. Plus wouldn't we be better off to do a percentage because then if, say for instance, the sales aren't what are anticipated, then you may not need as much. On the flip side, if sales exceed expectations, you may need more resources. I don't think our objection necessarily to the percentage, it's to how the percentage is how the money is meted out that we're giving the appropriations process to an advisory council, which would then determine how that 30% is spent. I think it's, my view would be that you provide the two appropriations committees and obviously the governor's budget proposal to maybe how that 30% would be spent or 20% or whatever we arrived at. If we all agreed that some of the money should go to prevention, but to give that to an unelected group is troubling. Okay, I'm gonna move to page 12, top of page 12, sales tax, that's all right. So we just talked about the excise tax. The Senate version did not have a sales tax. The House proposal of amendment does have a general 6% sales tax to cannabis and cannabis products sold by retailers and integrated licensees. And the revenue from the sales tax is required to be segregated from the other sales tax revenue and earmarked for grants to start and expand after school and summer programs for kids. On November 15th, 2021 and every subsequent November 15th the agency of education is required to propose grants for after school and summer learning opportunities and an amount equal to the annual revenue forecasted to be raised by that sales tax. So, that the Senate had the 2% local option and a 16% excise tax. The House has a 14% excise tax and a 6% general sales, which the difference is really 2%, is 2%, right? The House is taxing at 20% Senate tax at 18. That's right. And you have been more specific about how it'd be used and obviously the sales tax would go into education but you're prescribing how that sales tax would be used. Is that the difference basically? Yes, and the fees. If you look at the whole- And the fees, yeah, you had the fees. We didn't have that section. So, I mean, we've heard from the League of Cities in towns, obviously they want the local option tax available. It's one of the areas of differences but it isn't as big as I thought it was at one point. It is to me. No, I meant, well, big by the percentage, total of 2% on the House version, 18% on the Senate version, how we work that out. That's what I meant by big. Big, but it depends on where it goes. The towns- I understood, Jeannette. I'm not agreeing to the House version yet. All right, okay. I'm just suggesting that when you look at the overall taxing and then you add in the fees portion, it's not as, the 20% isn't as different from the 18. That's all I was- Right, but we've almost got you to say yes a few times here, Dick. I'll deny that. I'll record it. Oh, that's right. I forgot. Okay, so next box on page 12 is the local option which you guys have already discussed. So I'm gonna move down to the bottom of the page on, oh, I'm sorry. I don't know that we, I guess we'll discuss this again more later about the local options tax because I don't think we really have discussed it at all because if you look at the 14% and the 6%, not one single dollar of that goes to the municipalities. The only thing that can go to municipalities is those 16 towns who have a local options sales tax, they are the ones that will be able to charge a 1% sales tax on cannabis. No other town will be able to do it at all. They can't. So they won't get any resources. This is a real sticking point for me and I know we'll discuss it later, but- Janet, you wanna explain the local fee? Yeah. There are two ways that municipalities will benefit from the structure that we've set up here. The first is the sort of enhanced fees which go to every municipality, not just municipalities that host a retail establishment, any municipality that has any licensee. And the other is that although it's not local government, it's not the municipality itself, but local governments definitely benefit from having sales tax revenue in the education fund. That money goes to the education fund and to the extent it depraves local expenses, that's all local benefit. So I think there are a couple of ways that we've addressed that. And then as you point out, if a town has local option, they would continue to get that 1%. That's really three different ways to do that. Did joint fiscal do any estimates on- Yeah, I was gonna mention that it might be helpful for us to hear from, I think it probably would be Graham Campbell who could come in and go through the spreadsheets that he developed for us because it'll flush out some of this, it might be useful. Yeah, I would really like to see that because I think that I know that there's a store in Brattleboro that doesn't sell cannabis clearly, but every weekend, they send probably 100 to 200 people to Greenfield because they can't buy it there. That's a lot of sales and out of 2% sales tax for the town, that's a lot of money for that town. There's no way they could ever generate that money by a fee, a yearly fee. So I just leave it there. It would be helpful if we could have that analysis by joint fiscal. I will wait to see that. If I could, one of our concerns is that we didn't want the benefit just to go to a handful of towns. We wanted every town in the state to be able to benefit in some way from the spill. And if they don't have any kind of establishment, the benefit is gonna come by way of the education fund. I'm trying to weigh back when we first heard from Colorado about all this, Colorado was in the process of moving away because certain towns opted out, but still got the benefits that everyone else was getting, even though those towns opted out of retail sales. And I think they were going by counties rather than towns there. But same on the other hand, rather than towns there, but same idea. And their frustration was these counties want the benefits, but don't wanna have the retail sales or the cultivation and other things in their bailiwick. They're structured, governmentally, they're structured very differently than we are. Right, but I remember that conversation, which was part of what led us to the 2% local option. So we could always, if we're going to be designating certain percentages of funds to go to certain places, we could say 15% of all the sales or all the revenue will go to municipalities and we'll divide it up and give it to the towns that have any kind of establishment based on population. All right, John, just to flesh that out in complete loop, is there rationale on the house's side that a town that either chooses to opt out or stays out depending on which version you opt, why should they benefit from this at all? Janet? John, Ben, if you want me to. You know, we have 246 towns. I don't know about your part of the state, but my part of the state, the retail establishment that's on the very Montpelier Road, say in Berlin, is gonna have as much impact on Montpelier or on Barrie as it does on the town of Berlin. So unlike counties in Colorado, which are big, large areas, we have tiny little towns and the borders for those towns are not necessarily where the retail establishment is not necessarily gonna be centered in the town. It may well be on the border. So there may be impacts in towns that don't host an establishment. The other thing is that the way the house bill is structured, every town is potentially a host to a licensee. It may not be a retailer, but it might be a processor or a cultivator or manufacturer. I probably got some of the terms wrong, but so I don't know if that's true in Colorado, but it's true in Vermont and the impacts of some of those operations may actually be bigger than the retail establishment, just depending on where the retail establishment is located. You know, we just have so many small towns that small in geographic size that we just felt it made more sense to funnel money through the Education Fund and then also to recognize that there may be impacts from other licensed establishments. I mean, the benefit of the local fee is it's likely to impact many more towns who are not gonna have retail establishments than a local option tax, which is only gonna impact probably larger towns. So, you know, if somebody has a small cultivator, they can collect a fee. Well, Wilmington certainly depends on the local option tax and has done quite well with it, John. Yes, we have. We appreciate it. Thanks for the explanation. So I'm gonna move on to the board reporting requirements. So it starts at the bottom of page 12, continues on to page 13 and goes through 14. So both proposals require the board to consider a utilization of current expertise and resources in state governments and cooperation with other state departments and agencies where there may be overlap. Both require the board to come back and report some recommendations to the General Assembly on fees for all the various licenses. So again, the legislature is sending the fees, but they're gonna receive recommendations from the board after they do their work, trying to figure out where the appropriate fee should be. If you look at page 13, kind of the second grouping there, you'll see the bottom of the second paragraph. It says to the extent impossible, the recommended fees shall include an amount to repay over a period, not greater than 10 years to the general fund, any application of excise taxes to the Cannabis Regulation Fund. Generally, again, the fees that they're recommending are the same. You'll see there to report on the local fees as well that we already talked about the local collection by the state board of any type of local fee and then redistributing. Bottom of page 14, other board reporting requirements. The Senate had a proposal with regard to the outreach and training. It's very similar in the House proposal of amendments. You can look at just some slight differences there. Both require the board to report on the experience of other jurisdictions with their cannabis markets. You'll see that the Senate proposal specifically looks at whether or not there should be delivery. In the adult use market, there is delivery currently in the medical program right now, but it's not contemplated or allowed in either the House or Senate version in the adult use. In the House proposal, you're to look at establishments to accept online ordering for in-store pickup as well as delivery. They're also looking at recommendations whether the legislature should add additional types of licenses such as a craft cooperative license, delivery license or a special event license. Another thing that the House added was that the board has to report to the General Assembly about whether or not cannabis products should have a minimum amount of CBD added to products for the prevention of cannabis induced psychosis that can occur in some users. Also in the House proposal, there's a recommendation that they're seeking from the board regarding the display and sale of cannabis-related paraphernalia that's sold by persons who are not licensed as a cannabis establishment or a dispensary. So that's kind of a somewhat of a separate issue that came up in House healthcare around people just wondering why your local general store can sell pipes and bongs and things like that. That is done now. Then you'll see at the bottom of page 15, this is some of the reporting requirements with regard to the environmental and the energy issues. So you'll see that all these folks, so Secretary of ANR, Chair of the Natural Resources Board, Secretary of AG recommend or to recommend to the General Assembly exemptions, specific criteria or additional requirements for local environmental or land use law for cannabis establishments. And those recommendations should address additional groundwater quality requirements. Top of page 16, after consultation with the Commissioner of the Public Commissioner of Public Service and the Chair of the PUC, there to make recommendations on energy or efficiency requirement standards. And you can see the list there. Middle of the page on page 16, the board is to make recommendations to the legislature on permits licenses or standards that a licensed campus cultivator or product manufacturer has to demonstrate as a condition of licensure or as a condition of renewal. And then bottom of the page, the board has to recommend to the legislature about whether or not a licensed cannabis product manufacturer should be considered a food establishment, a food manufacturing establishment or food processor pursuant to current law and therefore be licensed and regulated by the Department of Health. There are some testimony in house government operations about this. The Department of Health currently does not inspect dispensaries who are making edible consumable products. The dispensaries are interested in having them inspect but the health department has said they don't feel as though that's required of them now. And so the question is if you are a bakery in a coffee shop, you're inspected and licensed by the Department of Health. But if you are creating cannabis brownies, you wouldn't be inspected by the Department of Health and does that necessarily make sense? So the board would be coming back with a recommendation there. Any other questions about any of the reporting requirements? Thank you. Page 17, I realize I have a type of there exiting medical dispensaries. So in the Senate proposal, dispensaries receive priority application for cannabis establishments. That's the same in the House proposal. The Senate proposal goes through and has a considerable amount where they're shifting over the medical program to the Cannabis Control Board from DPS. The Senate proposal lays out their reasons for wanting to maintain a robust medical program while at the same time having an adult use program. And then they go through and they list the things that would be permissible under the medical program that would not be permissible under adult use. And that's on page 17. I would just mention that, I think we're all familiar with it, but this is a very important issue for the Senate. We believe that it's time to move from the Department of Public Safety to the Cannabis Control Board, the medical program. And just as a position that we're very, feel very strongly about. So top of page 18, what the House did do with regard to dispensaries. Again, medical would stay with DPS, but they did create the integrated license that we've already talked about. Integrated licensees, small cultivators and testing labs would be the ones to receive priority licensing. So they would be first kind of out of the gate on the rollout. And then small cultivators could begin selling to dispensaries as soon as they were able to have a legal product that they cultivated under their new license. All right, I'm gonna move to highway safety. That's all right with you guys. Are we doing okay on time? I realize, you know, it's 1045. I'll just kind of zip through these maybe, because this is maybe some of these, or I have a guess at maybe what might be some sticking points and other things y'all might be okay with. So I'll just go through these kind of quickly. Is that all right? Does anybody need a break or are we okay? Okay, great. I'm okay to try to finish this, then I will need a break. Okay, so the Senate proposal does not address highway safety. So they just did the regulation and the setup of the new system. So they didn't go in and address other issues in their version. Well, you know, you're framing it in a sense that we didn't address highway safety. That's not true. I'm sorry, I don't mean to. Yeah, I don't like that presentation here that the Senate didn't care about highway safety. We certainly did. What we disagreed with was the governor's proposal for a saliva test, roadside test. That's where we disagreed. And so we didn't add that to our version. But we've certainly, both Senate transportation and Senate judiciary worked very hard on issues related to drug driving as well as DUI with drugs as well as with alcohol. I just don't want to leave because this is a public meeting, Michelle. I don't want to leave with the impression that the Senate didn't care about highway safety, the House does. Sure, and clearly the Senate does and those issues have been dealt with in other legislation. I just mean that those issues are not in this particular piece of legislation, whereas the House chose to put them in this legislation rather than have them in separate bills. Yeah, right. So the first one in the House proposal is makes A-Ride training a part of basic law enforcement training and directs the training council to provide 16 hours of training to all officers by 2021. Seems like we did that in a different bill, didn't we? May I comment on that? We have, in S-124, we have required the training council to look at all the training that they provide now and to figure out what is actually needed training and what isn't needed training and what they need to spruce up in their training. And I think that by putting this in here, we're putting an additional 16 hours of training on every time we put additional training on somebody, on them, we push the box and they have to take something else out. So we've asked them in S-124 to review all the training that they have. And so I think this does not belong in here at all. This is not a, anyway, that's my feeling. We should be dealt with in that other bill. I would disagree. I mean, I think drug driving is an important issue. I didn't say it wasn't important. I said that if we add 16 hours here of mandated training, then some other training is going to be pushed, is going to receive less time because we have a limited amount of time for training. And I'm just saying that we should ask them to review in total all of their training, but that's a different issue, I guess. So the next is that saliva is added to the definition of evidentiary test for impaired driving. It's also in the evidentiary tests are also added to the implied consent statute in the same manner as blood tests. So again, just to, we had talked about this a little while back, but by adding it in here in this place, a warrant would still be required for a saliva sample. So this is not the preliminary step, kind of like the roadside. This is, you've been brought back to the barracks and they would have to obtain a warrant just like they would if they were going to do a blood draw. The amendment also codifies the presumptive admissibility of the field sobriety tests and the DRE evaluation results. Top of page 19 adds EMTs and paramedics to the list of professionals who are authorized to take a blood sample and clarifies that you can't take a blood sample at roadside. However, law enforcement certified by the training council would be permitted to obtain a saliva sample provided it's not taken at roadside. Didn't we add EMTs and paramedics to doing blood samples in a different bill? It might have made its way. I'm just somewhere else in the interim, you know, in this past, yeah, around like the first week of March or so. Let's see, DPS is required to report to the standing committees by January 21 regarding a plan to establish geographic equity in the distribution of DREs across the state. Upon identifying a threshold level of concentration of a psychoactive metabolite of cannabis in a person's bloodstream to establish impairment and approving a chemical testing device for roadside use, then DPS is to report to the housing, Senate committees on judiciary and on government operations on a proposal to implement the use of such a device. Bottom of page 19, the House Proposal of Amendment require, allows for primary enforcement of seatbelt laws for persons 18 years of age and older. Could House Comperies explain how that gets into this bill? It's a public safety measure. Well, as you know, the Senate and the governor have long opposed that and this is like a deal killer. So I find it very troubling that this was added to the bill by the other body. And I know I can't get it through Senate transportation. So this is a huge stumbling block for the Senate and I'm disappointed. And also part of our, you know, we're getting complaints about equity and racial justice and et cetera. And I think just adds to the number of stops that occur. That's just my personal perspective. And so I just wanna mention that I don't, I don't know how it got in here and, but. It's not just your personal perspective, Dick. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person practicing criminal law on the screen here today. A police officer does not need another reason to pull over a car. And in the middle of Black Lives Matter conversations, this does exactly the opposite of what we would hope a bill like this would be doing to bring some kind of racial justice into this picture. And I'm very concerned that if this is placed here, you're going to increase the number of times a car is stopped not because they're exhibiting any signs of impairment, but simply because they haven't put their seat belt on. And I would concur with my Senate colleague who's defined it very well. But the concern here is this, this is absolutely a deal breaker for me. If I can add one comment on that, I understand that there's strong feeling by people both in the house and the Senate that we should have primary seat belts. Probably fewer in the Senate than in the house. I'm not sure. But it does seem to me that there, this is a cannabis regulation and taxation bill. That's what this bill is about. There are 150 different public safety things that could have been added in here that have nothing to do with cannabis regulation or taxation. And this has nothing to do with cannabis taxation and regulation. And so I find it just a little unsettling that, I mean, we could start putting all kinds of wishlist things in here that deal with public safety that really have nothing to do with the core of the bill. And so I find it not, not well taken. Oh, I'm sorry you feel that way. This is a critical position for the house. You know, a primary seat belt law increases seat belt usage by 14% and reduces fatalities by 8%. And addressing Joe's concern. Well, there's no point in us continuing to meet if this is a deal breaker. We can all go back to our regular stuff because we're not gonna agree to a seat, primary seat belt bill in this bill. Just to let you know that I don't wanna waste everybody's time continuing discussion here. We can talk about all the other differences and everything else, but this is a deal breaker for us. So if the house is gonna insist on this provision then we might as well walk away today. May I ask a question of the house members? Sure. So I do understand that there are people feel that primary seat belts are, they save lives. We know that there might be a bump. I don't think we should be debating the issue. I think we're already, I think I've made this clear. And rather than debate, Jeanette, I don't see a point to it. I'm not trying to debate. What I'd like to understand from them is how this relates to the core of the bill and why you felt that this was the place to put this because it has nothing. Whether or not you agree that it should be passed, why in this particular bill that has nothing to do with cannabis? Why? Because it goes to our concern about highway safety, which is important component of this bill. And I mean, to address Joe's concern about the fact that we may stop more people of color, I mean, we also have a provision in there reporting on traffic stop data around safety belt enforcement for the next three years. So we are looking at that. John, in all fairness, this is like me asking to plug in a bill to get rid of the mandatory motorcycle helmet law. I can use statistics to demonstrate that Vermont's fatality rate on motorcycles where everyone is higher than the other four states in New England, which don't require it. It's totally irrelevant to whether there should be a tax and regulated system for cannabis. But we go down this road and I have to tell you as a criminal defense attorney, a police officer late at night will look for any reason they need to in order to pull a car over. And I'm not trying to belittle police by any stretch. Once you open this door, you are going to radically increase the number of stops because people aren't wearing their seat belts, whether they're impaired or not are gonna get pulled over. And you have to take that into account immediately. You don't have to wait three years for data to come in. That's just common knowledge in the criminal defense bar. And you can bring in any defense attorney. If a police officer has a reason to pull over a car, it could be their license plate light is out. You're adding to the reasons that they use to pull over a car, that's going to have an impact, especially on people of color who are coming here from out of state that may not have their seat belt on when they do. And I don't think we wanna go there in a bill that deals with taxing and regulating marijuana usage. Rob? Trying to think whether, oh, well, if you recall primary seat belt enforcement has passed the house several times over the years. So it clearly is a house priority. So we'll just add it wherever we can to try and get it passed. I mean, that's what this sounds like because it does have to do with highway safety but this bill has to do with cannabis, taxation and regulation. And whether you have your primary seat belt on or not has nothing to do with whether we have a regulated cannabis industry. They're just totally unrelated. Is there anything else in the walkthrough? There is. I've spent some time with House Judiciary on the survivor issue. And I appreciate you adding the warrant in there, not suggesting we will end up agreeing, but I do think that that does provide some a night given our recent conversation on seat belt. I wanna just say that I think that having the warrant there makes it a little more palatable. Michelle, can I ask a question? We were talking earlier about the opt-in opt-out. I'm asking this question in ignorance, trying to figure out if there's a way to circumvent the differences between both bodies. Does a legislature have the ability to require every town in the state? Maybe, Jeanette, you know this too. To place a warning on their annual town meeting warning that they are gonna vote on the question of opting in or opting out. So it would be, so the legislature would say everybody has to put a habit on their ballot this year. That's right. I don't know if they can do that or not, or we can do that or not, but it would seem to get around the problem of do we opt in or do we opt out? They would all be required to do it up front and then entrepreneurs would know immediately what towns they could go to to investigate. It's just a thought to think about if you have the time. Back up a bit, did I understand you, Michelle, to say that the legislature would require every town at their March meeting to put that question on their ballot? Is that what you're saying? The question is, can we do that in this bill? I don't think we can. I don't think we can tell towns what they have to put on their warning. Jeanette and then Rob. I'm pretty sure we can. We require them to vote on school budgets, for example. This is very different. I would, I'll check with Betsy Ann, but I do not. It's not a great idea, but I think we can do it. Rob. I would have some concern around that as far as the timing goes, because part of this discussion with any community is going to be how their local zoning applies or doesn't apply. And there are several communities out there in Vermont that don't have local zoning, so they defer to the state statutes. And I think that it would be a heavy lift for especially some of the smaller communities. It might consider entertaining this, but maybe don't have the infrastructure in place that they need currently to embrace it. So what would they have to do then, Rob, if they were faced with an entrepreneur who wants to establish a business in town? They would have to go through. That's an excellent question. They would have to go through, I suspect, and put the infrastructure in place. In other words, I mean, for instance, let's take like Lindenville, which I don't have any idea what the zoning in Lindenville is, but I would anticipate that there's probably some areas of town that commercial sales probably aren't pro, wouldn't be allowed. But if you have a community that hasn't gone to that level of detail, then I see that that could be an awful lot for them to try to do in advance of a vote. Well, we're placing in front of them a requirement that they're gonna have to if an entrepreneur comes along and wants to establish something and has a petition with the required signatures. I am trying to figure out a way with this opt-out, opt-in controversy between the two bodies to come to a way that we can actually accomplish getting that controversy out of our way. And if it is possible through this bill to require every town to hold vote on the question, that takes it out of controversy. Senator Benning, I will consult with Betsy Ann. She's really our expert here in this. And so I don't want to hazard a guess without checking in with her. Could I just make one comment on that also from a local perspective? And even if we legally could do that, what we would be saying is that every community needs to have this conversation now before March 1st. In fact, they need to have the conversation for the end of January, because that's when the warnings have to be, the articles have to be put on their warning. So what we're saying is that little quote on town up there who doesn't have no ability to have a retail, they don't even have a little center. They're gonna have to have this conversation and vote on this in March, whether they want to or not. And I think that is, I just think that from a local standpoint that we should not be telling them, we already tell them enough of what to do and prohibit them from things that they can do that I just, I think that it puts one more mandate in burdening the towns. I appreciate your concern, but this bill is actually telling towns they have to do something. It is now. That's number one, but number two is licensing requirements have not yet been developed. The rules behind them have not been developed. So we're not talking about this March, we're talking about somewhere down the road. One of the issues for the governor has always been this opt-out opt-in provision and clearing that obstacle I think would be beneficial to all of us to move this legislation forward, if it's possible. May I break in here, committee, if I might? I need a break. We go back a quarter or 12. John, I wanna see if I make sure we understand each other about the timing of this. And it seemed like you were kind of suggesting that if we didn't finish it next Monday, there wouldn't be any other time. No, I just said it would be more difficult to find time. I would agree that it will be more difficult, but I'm curious if we could not necessarily schedule it, but people could reserve the Monday the 31st for another meeting. Since we would need, you know, I don't see how we get through all this in one meeting. One more meeting. And my conferees need more time and maybe I can arrange with them another time that we can all three of us get together before Monday's meeting to try to finish going through with Michelle. But again, I wonder if we could do that. Just set aside the 31st, like again, nine to 12 or whatever you want. Is that the time block for Monday's meeting to 24th as well? Yeah, I've got it written down. Yeah, nine to 12. Nine to 12. Yeah, assuming that committees aren't meeting. I mean, I know Senate approves might meet, but it wouldn't be till the afternoon on the 31st. So that works for everybody. Can we set aside on the 31st to hopefully finish it up in those three meetings? Janet, Rob, how does that sound? Yeah, that works. And I don't know how you, I mean, we'll have to play it by ear on, if we came to an agreement on the 31st, how you would get the, then we need to go to the rules committee to have a vote. Yes, they have to authorize us to vote. And then we would have the time to sign it out. Yep. Am I correct on that, that's the plan? I think so, Janet, you're muted. Talking away, I mean, generally, most conference committees, I'm on, we don't vote, we just sign, but they're giving us permission to sign. Okay, that's what they're doing. Yeah. You're right, Janet. I think that there is a plan for them to meet Dick and give whatever authorization is required for us to. Okay. All right, I just wanted to understand, is that the joint rules, the Senate rules or the House rules? Joint, okay. So we went, I'm sorry. I just asked the question about procedure. So given the fact that if we're meeting on Monday and then we're meeting on the 31st, it would be good if, as Dick pointed out, we can go, our committee could continue to meet. So since the breakout rooms aren't public and aren't, can we meet other than just a breakout on the 24th? Could we meet separately some other time, like Sunday afternoon or something? I mean, is that, is that legal for us to do? Are you talking about just like the Senate conferees meeting the council? Yes, you can, you have the right to meet with council privately. Okay. Yep. Okay. Since I have reserved today for Senate business, is it possible to meet this afternoon? I have Senate approves this afternoon, I'm for once. Okay. Late? I can't wait. Okay. Unfortunately, I can skip approves if we want for an hour on Thursday. Well, Thursday I'm not available, Dick. Friday afternoon, I can do it. Why don't we have Peggy send out a note? All right, Peggy, why don't you see if we can set something up around 12.30 on Friday, then I, if I have to, I can miss a half an hour to an hour of the props. I mean, it works for me. Are you three available in Michelle 12.30 at three and 12.30 on Friday? Yes. I need a 12.30 to say 1.30 or two, would that work? 12.30. Yep. Can we do that? Yep. Okay. The Senate privately with counsel. What time? I'm sorry. 12.30 to perhaps two at the latest. Thank you. Yep. Filming that your district mate gives me permission, Joe. Yeah, I'll let you work that out with her. Thank you. So I'll try to get through, John, if you'd like to have something else, what we've agreed, what we would agree with you on. Sure. We agree with your, let me get back, unfortunately I'm gonna get back to my side by side here. The regulatory authority, we basically agree with you on how that's all set up. We would like confirmation by the Senate of the board because that's similar to other regulatory boards that we've set up. But that does not mean that we agree with moving, with not moving the cannabis board, excuse me, the medical into the cannabis board's jurisdiction. We still feel that's an important issue for us to decide what to do about that. In words, do you want it to be moved underneath their purview, not standing underneath the public safety? We think it's time to move the medical cannabis program to the cannabis board and take it away from the Department of Public Safety, which back when we were doing this, the Department of Public Safety was happy to hear that. Frankly, so we agree with you with those two caveats. Regarding the appropriation, you know, if the money's available, it's available. The appeals process doesn't appear to be a problem for us. The licenses, again, if we are to move the cannabis program from public safety into the other, we don't disagree with your changes, but that's, again, a caveat if we don't, you know, that's a separate issue, I guess we need to resolve. Right. Your Senate priority had a Senate priority for remonters for the licenses. And as I understand it, you were concerned about the constitutionality of that provision. Am I correct? The Vermont resident, to some extent, yes. So we would agree with you on that provision, if you would agree with us on the advertising, would go to the Senate, other house government operations original position and the bill that went to the Senate, to the House. Okay. So that, you know, you can decide whether you want to do that or not, but we also feel that that provision's unconstitutional as it passed the House. Okay. And if I mistake here, Ms. Peek, for any member of my committee, please say so. We agree totally that the racial and social equity provider should be into the, in the, that board. I would point out that the position, I don't think existed when we passed the bill. Right. Now, we're still, we're nowhere near any agreement on the local control or opt-out opt-in. Nor are we in agreement yet on the local option or fees for town licensing. That I think needs further discussion. Yep. We have not, we don't have a position yet on prohibited products. We haven't really gone through that. We're okay with the House version on the small cultivators, the thousand square feet and your other provisions there. We're a little concerned about the Department of Health's role. We remain somewhat concerned there in terms of the retail provisions. Okay. Yeah, what have I? Small, okay, I'm gonna get back up here. The taxes were- We didn't get there. We didn't get there, but I will say we had some discussion about the substance abuse misuse advisory council determining the money. And I think we have less of a problem of suggesting that a certain percentage goes to prevention and substance misuse than with the process of having a council determinant. And it may be wise to put a limit on it. If the joint fiscal estimates of revenue are accurate, then I don't know that you need a limit, but let's say that they are way off and the revenue is much larger. Do we really wanna put? So many millions into that if we end up with much more money than since it was good. So whether we do a limit, say 30% goes to prevention, misuse and so forth, is there a, should we put a cap on that amount of money? Okay, I understand. And is that as far as we got? Yes. Yep. I think you already know a position on seatbelts. We had a brief discussion on the saliva. We need to continue to work on that with our people. We have an awful lot of senators who are opposed to the saliva at any place. We also have some that would approve of something in terms of a warrant. And I think we need to kind of pull our folks to figure out where we're going with that. But we do appreciate that the house put in the warrant. Okay. I don't think we're ready to agree to that. I miss anything. Michelle, feel free to pipe up. You were keeping track of me. No, I think you did great. And I think in such a short amount of time, you guys got through a lot of issues. So no, I think you hit the highlights. So I just wanted to raise two issues we didn't discuss, which is one, the effective dates. I think there is some concern about the implementation of this legislation during COVID-19 state of emergency. So that's something I think we should discuss. And the other issue I just wanted to raise is, is there some way to reduce the deficit that this bill creates by perhaps having some licensing fees come in early? So that, you know, given their current financial space, is that something we could consider? Yeah, definitely consider it. In some ways, as far as effective date goes, obviously there would be problems getting set up, but the longer we wait, the longer we're without the possibility of revenue coming in. And I was kind of frankly hoping that we could move faster. It's going to take you, but we estimate it a year, a year and a half before the first sales would take place. Michelle, back in 2019, is that? Right, I'd have to look at- So if we delay the startup, I would be concerned that we're just delaying ever getting to the actual sales for a lot longer and we're under the current system for longer than any of us would want. Well, I think part of the concern on the house aside, Dick, is that it's going to require a significant time and effort of several different agencies, although if we do agree to move medical underneath Department of Public Safety, I suspect that that will help them. But obviously we're initially, we were talking Department of Public Safety, health, ag, tax, I'm not sure for any other agencies. And I think there is a concern that, especially in today's times, that they just don't have the additional capacity right now to try to stand something up. This is pretty good size, but we can see. Well, I mean, no, it's uncharted territory. I just- Drew. None of us have lived through any of this. So- Yeah. Hopefully we won't have to again. I hope not, certainly hope not. So just to clarify our next meeting, we want to have Graham come in at the beginning of it and talk about the tax issues. Yeah, better understand the fees and how that works. I mean, we want, I think we all want some money going to the towns. It's just what's the best way to get them money. Okay. Jeanette. I just ask that the next time we meet since you brought up the, having to look at the effective dates that Michelle, just if you would just give us a list of the effective dates, so that we don't have to go through the bill. I noticed they're not on the side-by-side. Do you want, is it that you want a timeline so you can kind of see how things roll out or effective dates? Yeah. More of the timeline, right. Let's say we were to delay everything. So April 1st of 2021. Yeah, but if we could have a timeline. Well, but that's what we need, Michelle, is some kind of a timeline. If we're going to say to the agencies, you don't have to do anything about this till April 1st of 2021. Which I think was what Aubyn and John were talking about. Well, for discussion part. What impact would that have on the startup of actually getting retail, open cultivation going, et cetera? Can I ask that you have in timeline the way the bill is laid out right now with that timeline? And then we can look at it and see if there are things that need to be changed because of what Rob and John were talking about. So I would suggest looking, I'll send you a copy of the timeline for the house proposal, just because the Senate version was last year. So you have to change everything anyway. So then this year, if I send you the house proposal timeline, you can see kind of how it rolls out. And then we can just start adjusting and like what if we bumped it six months? What if we bumped it a year, that kind of stuff? That's perfect, thank you. Okay. Okay. All right. Anything else, Dick? No, thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you guys. Have a good day. Thank you. You too.