 All right, this is February 16th, Senate Judiciary. The issue is the miscellaneous cannabis regulation bill. Michelle Childs from legislative council can walk us through the bill. Unfortunately, some of the funding is not available right now on the report hearings. So go ahead, Michelle, please. Good morning, everybody. So I have a couple of things to go over with you. There's S25 is introduced, but also I wanted to give you a little refresher about the timeline for the cannabis rolling out because as you know, there's a lot of stuff that's kind of front loaded that has to happen and think of, so you'll see the timeline. And then also I wanted to just go over section five from Act 164 that has all these reporting requirements because you're supposed to receive a bunch of information from the control board so that you can act during this legislative year. So 25 might be a vehicle for that. And but as everybody knows, there's some issues around the timing and whether or not that's actually doable at this point because of the late start. So I'm gonna start out with the timeline if that's okay with you, Senator Sears. Hope you're muted, Dick. That's fine, thank you. All right, so let's see. Oops, that's showing something that shouldn't be there, sorry. Don't have the, hold on one second, sorry about that. It's my fault, but I have the timeline up. Does that show up for y'all? Okay, great. So I'll just buzz through and I'll just show you the beginning part because that's what's important. So I think everybody already knows the governor did not act on the bill immediately. And so everything's kind of probably maybe a couple months behind. So he had the governor's office had the application period open for applying to the administration for the first time. Had that open till the end of 2020. And so then, and then we, since we have Senator White here, she can fill you in on the work of the nominating board. But the nominating board has been, didn't receive the names for quite a while into 2021, but they've been working really hard. And my understanding is they did wrap up just wrap up all their interviews. I don't know how you got through all of those in such a short amount of time. So those names have been sent to the governor and just a little refresher on the process is it's that the governor advertises, collects names, sends names that he is interested in to the nominating committee. The nominating committee interviews and bets those candidates and then sends back to the governor the names of those applicants who the committee feels are well qualified for the position. Do you want me to just say what we've done now to get that out of the way, Senator Sears? I don't care. Yeah, sure. So 94 people applied, the governor whittled it down to I think it was 48 and sent us 48 names. We interviewed 14 and his letter said that he wanted nine people submitted to him. Well, he said three for each position, but we had a difference of how you do that math and we sent him 10 names yesterday. Okay, and? And we urged him to act speedily. Jeanette? Yes. So you sent him 10 names and there are nine that get selected? No, three. Oh, I'm sorry, three, okay. He asked us to send him nine, at least nine names. Okay, and it's three ultimately. Yeah, it's three. It's a chair and two board members. So I will, I'll double check. I thought that, and maybe that got changed at the end of the call. There's so many different versions, but my recollection was that there had to be five names per position, but that may, let me, I'll go back and look at the language. Well, we did not do that. We sent, what did you say, Michelle, how many? I thought it was five names per position, but that might have been, I'll let me look at it. I don't want to take up time, but I'll, I'll check. Well, he asked in his letter for three names, at least three names for each position, and we sent him 10, so. Okay. So board members were supposed to have started their terms on January 19th, and then in February would have been interviewing and hiring for the executive director and assistant position. So there'd be a team of five. And then January and March was the time for developing a number of proposals for coming back to the legislature. So I'm going to go through, can you see this 164 at the top? It says section five. Yeah. So I'm just going to go through that. This is what the board was supposed to be working on right now in terms of reporting back to the general assembly for you to be able to take action on this year. The first one being the resources necessary presentation for the second and third year rollout of the program, including positions and funding. The next one is the state fees to be charged and collected by the board. Do you recall that there wasn't a specific fee structure set out in the board? There's like, it identifies what types of fees have to be collected, but it's up to the board to make recommendations to the general assembly. What those dollar amounts should be, how many tiers there should be, how it should be all broken down. And as you well know, it's the legislature's job to be setting the fees, not the administration. And so that's something where there's kind of a little issue from a timing standpoint of how does that get done now with the delay in the board? Third one is whether money is expected to be generated by the state fees are sufficient to support the duties of the board because recall that the board is supported by fees going into the cannabis regulation fund and the taxes are designated to go somewhere else either to general fund or to substance misuse prevention or with the sales tax going to after school or summer programming. So those are something else. Those taxes don't support running the board but there is a process to backfill the fund for running the board from taxes if there isn't enough revenue. So they're supposed to report on that. They're also to report to you on the local fees to be charged and collected. And y'all know that issue very well. The idea is that instead of a local option tax what was agreed to a conference committee was that there would be state assessed local fees that would then be distributed back to towns that host a cannabis establishment according to some type of formula. So they have to report on that. They also have to recommend specific criteria or additional requirements for environmental land use law and how those would apply to cannabis establishments and they have to do the same thing with regard to energy or efficiency requirements or standards for cannabis establishments. Then you'll recall, oh actually there's one more here before advertising. They also have to recommend whether cannabis product manufacturers and dispensaries should be considered food manufacturing establishments or food processors which are currently regulated by the Department of Health. They are currently not regulated. The dispensaries and the production of food items is not regulated by Department of Health. They've kind of begged off of that and didn't want to do that. And so the control board is supposed to recommend whether or not to require that. And then the final thing is the advertising. So as you know, last year at the endering. So the house had passed a complete ban on advertising. The Senate had concerns about constitutionality. And so the board is tasked with working with the attorney general's office to come back to you and provide a proposal for regulating advertising short of a complete ban that would take into consideration constitutional protections, but also not going and promoting the use of cannabis. So all of those things that I just went through, that's all information that was supposed to come to the legislature by July, I mean by April 1st. And so ostensibly so that you could get that information receive that information and take action on it. Obviously the things that are critical would be, and I guess maybe they're all critical because they're in here and they're gonna be developing regulations over the next year so that they can start accepting applications at the beginning of 2022. But you can't really function obviously if they don't have the fees established. So that one I think is really kind of, the legislature's gonna have to figure out how they wanna deal with that. And then the advertising issue is that if nothing is done there's nothing in the act of all regulating advertising which I don't think was anybody's hope. It was just a disagreement on how you regulate advertising. So if nothing is done this session on advertising, you know we can look at it when you wanna talk about this stuff and I don't wanna detract from S25 this morning but we can look at some options of how to do that because I think we're gonna have to figure out how does the legislature get its work done if you're not in session. Michelle? Yep. Is it possible, worst case scenario, we don't do anything on advertising is it possible for the control board to pass a rule, a temporary rule against advertising given that they control the life of the board? Like a ban? Yes, making it clear that it's a moratorium until the legislature acts. Let me think about that. The board can pass rules around stuff like that and let me just think a little bit about how that would work and the timing of everything. And the issue is one that, because you have to think about the legality but you also have to think about the practicality of things and how does it work or does it not work? And so I would just want a little time to think through that in terms of the rulemaking and then also how that would impact people who are applicants who are applying for licenses and probably for some dishing out a lot of money and not really knowing what the playing field is. Yeah, the reason I ask is because given the history, it doesn't seem impossible that we could reach an impasse with the house on advertising, agree on everything else and not wind up being able to figure that piece out. So if as a failsafe, the board could prohibit advertising until the legislature is able to deal with it. I wouldn't want a Wild West scenario where there's a year where these operations could download a lot of advertising and poison the well with people who don't want the advertising, if that makes sense. Sure. No, no, I understand. There's high stakes for any way you turn on it. Yeah. Okay, so that's it. I just go over those things. So does anybody else have any other questions about that, about timeline or about all the information that has to come to you? Not really. I think it is what it is. If there's something that we need to do in this bill to help with the advertising, so Senator Peruz, just. Senator Sears, can I jump in for a second? Sure. I was supposed to be in a court hearing at 9.30 this morning. The court is not open yet and I'm gonna be here for a little while but I'm anticipating being yanked off to try to get my guy out of jail. So I just wanted to give you a heads up. If I disappear, that's where I've gone to. Okay, well, I wish there was a way I could help you with that. I wish there was too. I got a whole lot of files. I'd like to have you help me with. Yeah, I think we're all have our issues today. It is awful. Yeah, the court particularly, but that's for Friday. Yep. All right. Senator Sears, may I ask a question about the timeline? Senator White has a question. Well, I'm looking at this timeline and we didn't have any proposals, even had the timeline been kept to and we were not two months behind which is what we are now, two months behind. We didn't have reports coming to the legislature until April 1st. How on earth did we think we would get anything done from April till May because it would have to go through both houses. How did we think we were gonna do that? I don't think that's a question Michelle should try to answer. It wasn't actually, it wasn't a question for Michelle. It was a question on Michelle's timeline I misspoke here but how did, does anybody remember how we thought we were gonna do that? I think we were being the first media conference in COVID times, trying to settle with a house that didn't want to budge on anything. Okay, I just, okay. That's my recollection. Senator Benning may have a different one. I mean, it is, we did what we did and if it needs correcting, this is obviously the bill to try to correct anything. I think that one of the governor's complaints was the time when it is non-signing. I think Senator White, if I do, I would just say is that because of the long legislative session last year, because cannabis, you know, kind of stalled in the house and then wasn't able to get resolved until the fall. And my recollection was, y'all didn't want to wait another year to put it off. And we're trying to see if you could still stick with having an open market by 2022. And we discussed that and everybody knew it was really tight. But we're, folks seem to be hopeful that if everybody were together, you could try and get it done. So I'm going to move to S25 as introduced. So starting with section one. So this is an amendment to the local government section. And so you recall that what was settled on last year in conference was opt in for retail sales. So all other cannabis establishments, so whether you're talking about cultivation, product manufacturer, testing lab, wholesaler, those do not need buy-in or an affirmative vote from the town prior to them being able to operate. They wouldn't still need a state license. And if the town just decides to issue local licenses, they would need that local license and need to be in compliance with all the town's local rules. But they would not need to have the vote. But the vote would be required for if you're going to have retailers or integrated licenses. And remember, integrated licenses are just for the five existing dispensaries could get an integrated license. As part of that integrated license, they could have one retail point of sale to the public, only one, just like with the other licenses. But there seems to be some confusion about, we added in the integrated kind of at the end there. And there seems to be some confusion is it applied to the whole integrated operation or just where they're meeting the public and serving the public. And the intention was that it's just the retail portion. It's not like the whole thing. So that if they integrated like right now dispensaries, some dispensaries, they may have their grow facility in one location, but where they actually serve patients is in another location. And so the intention was that this would be the same and that a subsection A would only apply to retail sales whether it's by a retailer or an integrated. And so that's the clarifying language on line 10 around there. Michelle. Yep. So could someone with an integrated license have one point of sale, but multiple points of growing let's say? No. Only one of each. Yep. Okay. Yep. And then the second portion that's addressed, the second thing that's addressed in this section is the idea of having all towns vote at a certain time on the issue of retail sales. So this kind of harkens back to in the late 60s, this was done with alcohol. It used to be that towns would vote every year on whether or not they were gonna have alcohol sales. And then there was something put into statute that said, well, as of whatever that particular date was, that's gonna hold for the towns unless they put it up for a vote and reverse it and change it. And so I'll let Senator, if Senator Benning wants to address that, that was something he was particularly interested in is having a set question for all towns to get everybody on the same page so that everybody kind of knows the landscape and which towns are permitting retail sales and which towns are not permitting retail sales. That date coincides with when people will start applying for licenses. So I don't know if you want me to just keep walking through and people talk. Yeah, please. If somebody has a question, they know how to. Okay. Alice, I have a question. Is there? Where are you? I'm still on that same paragraph, line 17 on page two. I just wanna know is integrated licenses, licensees defined in this bill someplace? Yes. Well, not in this bill, in the underlying law. I can send it to you, but essentially what it is is the new system allows for five, six types of licenses. That's okay. You can just send it to me. The integrated incorporates all of them and it allows them to be vertically integrated, but for an integrated license, you can only have one. Okay. I'm just trying to prepare for a question from constituents as well. And they see it all in this bill, so it's not a definition that's here. Sure. Michelle. Michelle. The integrated licensees, can you scroll that? Thank you. Shouldn't we clarify that that be integrated licensees with a retail license for sale? Are you talking, so on? On line 10, you've done a good job at distinguishing that there is a retail portion of an integrated license, but the question being placed on the ballot could be confusing because you're talking about an integrated licensee. If they don't have a retail license, are we not suggesting in the absence of clarifying language that somebody with an integrated license that does not include retail would then be permitted to sell to adults? I'm just thinking it might be- Wait, say that last statement again. Sure. The integrated licensees who don't have a retail license, you've now got the language on the ballot that asks whether or not those people who don't have a retail license would be permitted to sell cannabis to adults. But as part of an integrated license, one of the things you can do under an integrated license is sell to retail. So all integrated licensees have the ability to sell retail? Yes, I think- You don't have a separate retailer license. It's included in that one license. But I think Joe has a point here. If I'm a town's person looking at this on my ballot, I don't have a clue what it means. Yeah. And I think that we need to reword that. Not the concept of it, but the rewording of it so that people who are voting on it know what they're voting. Well, can I ask, is there a need to say anything other than licensed cannabis retailers because an integrated licensee is a licensed cannabis retailer? Yeah. It's not technically, it's its own license that allows retail sales. A retailer, cannabis retailer, is defined as something different. I would suggest if you want to- I'm hearing two different things from you, Michelle. Integrated licensees all have a retail license. No, it's not that they have, it's that they can do under the integrated license, the same as all five of the other kinds. They don't possess a separate retail license. I think we've got to define that somehow. It is defined in the existing. I think that we're spending too much time on this. We can come up with language and make it clear. I agree with Senator Warren. I agree with Senator White. Okay. Also, all you have to do online, 17 and 18 is just say, shall licensed cannabis establishments be permitted to sell cannabis? And you just take out if it gets too confusing. This is clearly government operations work. I would think. Yeah, we can, we'll do that. We're doing it next week. All right. Here, this may help y'all right here. I forgot I had this in there. So an integrated license, you'll see subsection A existing law allows the licensee to engage in the activities of the other five licenses, but they don't have to obtain those other five. They just get that one. And now the way that this is structured under Act 164 is that in order to have fees and tax revenue coming in as early as possible, their integrated licensees along with small cultivators and testing labs get licensed first in the spring of 2022. And so they are allowed to start selling to the public as soon as they can start to cultivate and to be able to engage in the activities and cultivate and have product and because retailers under that retail license aren't coming on until the fall. So right now, let's see. It's clarifying that there shall not be more than five total integrated licenses, one for each registered dispensary. I think that's like a way we're underlined there on line 21, but I'll double check. And then upon compliance with all the application procedures, the board right now it says shall issue an integrated license to the applicant and this changes it to May. So it's discretionary as to whether or not the board has to issue an integrated license to a dispensary if they qualify. So they might qualify with everything, but it would still be up to the board about whether or not to issue that license. I'll just mention there that if they don't issue those licenses, then there will be a substantial financial impact just so you know. Section three for social equity. So when reporting to the general assembly with regard to section five, which we just went through, the control board is to consider reduced licensing fees for individuals who have been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition. So that's supposed to be, they're supposed to consider that and as part of their recommendations back to you for April 1st. Subsection B, not later than April 1st, general assembly is to receive a proposal from the cannabis control board for a low interest loan fund to be made available to persons who have been historically disproportionately impacted by prohibition and who seek to participate in the regulated cannabis market. Can I ask maybe the sponsor, is this to be a revolving fund? Meaning that the legislature would put in less money as it goes forward or maybe ultimately it would be self-sustaining or how is that Well, don't have a recipient of the question, I guess. Senator's here. Yeah, I don't know that I can answer that question. Okay. I believe that it's a placeholder. All right. We will get, I believe Senator Rahm's amendment may address some of this. Can I ask a question also, it's Alice. Yeah. With regard to line nine and section three, is there guidelines for how it determines who historically has been disproportionately impacted or has that defined someplace else too? How is it determined? That is not defined in the existing law or in this bill. The whole approach was that, so those terms were used in Act 164 on the assumption that the cannabis control board was going to be through adoption of rules, be identifying a process for how they determine who has been disproportionately impacted. How does one know that rules will do that? I mean, is that in the other bill that says that they will determine that? There are rulemaking requirements around things that are related to that. It doesn't say specifically, you have to outline your process for identifying those individuals, but I think it's kind of implicit within the things that they have to determine for licensing. And some programming. I mean, could, might this not apply without some clear guidelines, which maybe some, there may be, I don't know what there is, but anyway, could it not mean that, you know, persons who have been arrested several times for possession in the past in Vermont here that they be the ones who are given priority. And I don't mean, I understand the piece about race and that piece that people are desiring to get in there, but I'm just wondering what about the, you know, just folks who have been arrested multiple times on some ground similar to this? Are they? I think it does contemplate that those may be people who are included. I think it depends on how it's further, how it's further defined and implemented by the board. You, of course, the legislature can choose to identify, to take that and to further refine that or change the term or anything like that, but that's the term that's used and it's not given any specificity, but there are people who think that it should encompass people who have records for cannabis offenses. Right, seems to be. Can I just throw in something here? Is it both Massachusetts and Illinois are the kind of the ones that are used as models for this? And they had very, very good written rules and legislation, but the implementation of the, in both cases, was pretty much a disaster. And so I think that whenever we get to this point of having recommendations, and maybe it has to be not by rule, but by going somehow through the legislature and I'm not sure how that would look, but what we have learned is that they, it sounds good on paper, but when they started looking into it, they really were not getting to the impacted communities at all because of the way it was implemented. I have a question and again, maybe for Senator Sears in the thinking about how this is gonna work, just building on what Jeanette just said, clearly here this was kicked to the control board to think about prepare a recommendation that would come back and it was April, but now maybe it's June that they do that. We're out of session. Is that the preferred method to use the cannabis control board to send recommendations or was that a placeholder? And we might think about doing this session. I think, frankly, that's what Senator White just said is, this is probably a placeholder to figure out how to deal with the racial disparities and other disparities in the system that the Illinois has been held up as a model, yet implementation has been difficult there. So hopefully learning from that, but... So I guess I get that. I'm not sure what other than that. I mean, we were drafting a bill to try to respond to the governor's non-Vido message, a strange message to be sure that you usually don't write, I'm letting this become law, but this is wrong with it. So that was part of it, but then as we learned more about Illinois and other states, how you implemented is key. I guess my question is really how important do we consider the consideration and recommendation from the control board? Is that something we definitely want before? My guess is as we get testimony from witnesses, from those who represent those disproportionate, this, hopefully with that word, disproportionately impacted, as well as others, I think it'll become clearer what some of their goals are and help us to fashion this. But I think it's a follow order to do this over Zoom, I find when something is, we know it's not working elsewhere, even despite their best efforts to put something together. That's why I think part of the reason for leaving things to the control board that maybe about in other times have been more direct and now that the control board has slowed down, this makes it a little more, but I think this is obviously an important section. I don't know if that answers your question. Well, I understood you to be saying we'd figure it out as we go. Pretty much, yeah. Is it okay to move to section four? Please. Okay, so section four, this lays out the implementation of the licensing. And you'll see that, like I already mentioned, the first applications are in April of next year. You'll see here on subdivision A3 that if a dispensary obtains an integrated license and begins selling cannabis and cannabis products to the public, and they would be doing this prior to the retailers obtaining their license in the fall of 2022, that between August 1st and October 1st, when the other retailers come online, 25% of the cannabis flower that would be sold by that integrated licensee has to be obtained from a licensed small cultivator. So as I mentioned earlier, small cultivators, testing labs, and integrated licensees get licensed first. And so those small cultivators could then sell their product to the integrated licensees for sale to the public. Section five is not later than July 1st for this year, criminal justice council is to report to justice oversight regarding funding for requirements that honor before the end of this year, all law enforcement receive a minimum of 16 hours of A-Ride training. And so that was a provision that was in Act 164. So that's just kind of having them follow up and update you regarding that. That, my guess is that you could probably find that out before then, but because I know that this is something that they were planning on doing anyway. So that might be actually in the budget proposal now, I'm not sure. In section six, so you recall that with regard to the excise tax, there's a 14% excise tax on cannabis that is sold to the public and cannabis products as well. And that money, there's a 30% of that money goes to substance misuse prevention. That was in section law in Act 164. Section six repeals that as session law and section seven establishes that same language in statute within title 32. So you'll see there's a reiteration that 30% goes there. There's a cap of $10 million. Subsection B is that if there's any unexpended money at the end of the fiscal year, the balance is carried forward and only used for the purpose of funding substance misuse prevention programming in the subsequent fiscal year. One of the things, and it's been a while since I've looked at that non veto message, but one of the things I think on the governor's list was ensuring that that money didn't get raided or something like that or, and as you know, you can't restrict a future general assembly, but this is the language we came up with and just saying that there's money that if there's any money left in the fund it carries forward, so it should be there. Subsection C is any appropriation carried forward shall be in addition to the revenues allocated and not a substitute. So just a clarification there. Is that the exact same language that section as what was in law? No, it's tweaked a little bit and I'll pull up the- That would be useful if you could red line it or something. Yeah, yeah, and I can have, this was, there was a long discussion between kind of the money attorneys in my office and Senator Sears about looking about how to tweak that back and forth. And so if you wanna talk kind of a little more in depth in this, I might have one of them come in and chat with you about it. Even if you could just give us the existing language alongside this. Sure. That would be- Yeah, yep, yeah. I will, as you can see for folks following along at section nine of back 164 and I'll just excerpt it and email it to the committee. Okay. Sounds good. I think we modeled it after, we just went through something similar with the justice reinvestment funds how to make sure that money is reinvested. No problem. And then the bill is effective on passage. That's the easiest section. Yeah. Peggy, if you wanna know, are there any further questions for Michelle on this walkthrough? We have, there are groups who are interested in making significant changes to the act that we passed last year when the rest didn't work. And we will be hearing from them. And as I said earlier, one of the lumber is how you kind of do all this while we're meeting remotely and then getting a house that's pretty well firm and not making significant change to this move. It'll be interesting to say the least. But I thought the questions that the committee asked were excellent. And they receive a call that I have to take. So, Senator Sears? Yeah. So just so that you know, GovOps is going to be working with VLCT around the opt-in opt-out and also the language on the, what should be on the bill, I mean on the morning. And the deadline is that we put in here presents a real problem because they won't even have rules until June now. Or even if they had rules in April, they'd be putting something on the ballot that they had no idea what it was going to be because they have to have their warnings done by January 25th. So, and they wouldn't be having any rules or any rollout or anything. So we're looking at that. You just got a text from Senator Pierce that Bennington, Brandon, Brattleboro, Burlington, Danville, Linden, Milbury, Montalier, Pondville, Richmond, St. John's, Berry's, Rafferty, Stratton, and Blottieberry, and Modursky all have ballot items. And probably the village of Bellows Falls. They just didn't list that. They may, they have, the village hasn't done their warning yet. Oh, okay. The town has, but the village hasn't. Oh, I see they're separate. Yeah. What is the question they're allowed to have on the ballot right now? Well, the one in Bennington has, whether or not retail sales should be allowed and whether integrated licenses should be allowed. Oh, so that has that integrated license language. It has two separate ballot articles. I don't know about the other towns. No, but I'm thinking they, the person on the street who comes in to vote looks at the integrated language. You know what, what the heck is that? Right. Are they gonna? Well, yeah. Well, I don't know. And they can't have more integrated licenses. I have to take a call. I'm sorry. Go ahead. So I assume, unless there are other questions, we're moving to Senator Rahm's amendment. Is that okay? Senator Rahm. And do we have it or? We do. It's up on the committee's documents page. And, but can I put it on the screen too, please? Sure. I'll do it. Okay. Senator Rahm, welcome. Senator Sears had to step away for just a moment, but if you'd like to introduce before we do a walkthrough, feel free. Sure. Thank you so much to the chairman and vice chairman and a Senate Judiciary for having me for the record, Senator Keisha Rahm from Chittenden County. This is a bill in not an amendment form and in somewhat early stages as I was gathering input and feedback from the organizations named within the amendment, which include the Racial Justice Alliance, Migrant Justice, and the NAACP chapters of the state. The idea being that as you all know well, particularly because you were in session in the aftermath of the murders of Amad Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, the shots being fired into the back of a man in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and a number of other unfortunate and untimely events often involving the killing of black people by the police. There have been renewed efforts to help communities define public safety for themselves and work through those issues as a community. This all came in the middle of a pandemic where many municipalities have been depleted in terms of their access to resources for big picture conversations. But we know that we in Vermont have not been immune in any way to conversations about policing and what public safety looks like for communities of color. This has come up very specifically in places like Burlington, Winooski, Virgins, Newport, Rutland, Bennington, and the list goes on. And so the idea behind this bill is that it would help resource those communities to have their own conversations about what public safety looks like. I am often called on as a professional facilitator to help with these conversations. And one of the first things I say, I wanna be very clear about this, is have you worked to find resources to give stipends or give financial support in some way to the people who would need to be at the table in your community to have this conversation? So those who bring these issues up and try to help bring people to the table are often struggling to balance their access to financial resources and their ability to earn a paycheck with their ability to stipend or resource the people who need to be part of the conversation and be heard. And so I have worked with a lot of municipalities to encourage them to find the money to help pay those folks to be part of this conversation. Otherwise, what happens are things you might see in places like Burlington and elsewhere where they're only having half of the conversation. They may be talking about wanting to reduce their police force or have less resources go to their police department or law enforcement. But the other half of the conversation that's really important to communities of color and other marginalized folks is that they also have resources so they can figure out what public safety does mean for their community. They still want safe communities and they still want the ability to be able to resource those conversations and make sure that they're all able to come together and sit at the table with law enforcement, with the social work community, with mental health practitioners, with other social service providers to figure out what actual public, with educators to figure out what actual public safety looks like for their communities. So this would provide small grants for those communities to be able to do that work and the small grants would be administered by the Criminal Justice Council with the three groups that I mentioned before, Migrant Justice, the Racial Justice Alliance and the NAACP chapters. The leaders of those organizations are aware of the language in this bill and they're still reviewing it. But those who have responded to me, which is everyone who is at least one person named in those three organizations has indicated that they would like to continue this conversation and they do see a place for generating resources for community-based organizations to lead these conversations themselves. So that's the general intent of the bill and what it's designed to do. It starts with 20% of the cannabis excise tax going to these conversations. That is by all means just a starting point. I don't know exactly what the conversations look like about when revenue will come in. It was why I was trying to listen a little bit as you started your testimony before I went into committee. But I would characterize that as starting high and recognizing that there are demands for a lot of different things for this revenue that there are general fund pressures that we're trying to support with these. But I would really argue that municipalities deserve to have this conversation in a way where everyone could come to the table with facilitation, with support, with equal partnership. And otherwise what we're going to see is a lot of people on a collision course about what they want to see happen with their law enforcement agencies and with the future of their communities. And they don't have the resources available to them to reconcile what's happened with the war on drugs, what's happened with the over-criminalization of cannabis and now the aftermath of that where people are trying to right-size their law enforcement and right-size their public safety infrastructure alongside conversations about what true public safety and community-led efforts should look like within their neighborhoods and communities. So that essentially I believe is the bill. And I would look to Michelle Childs to see if I missed anything really important in the draft and happy to answer questions. Thanks very much. Michelle, do you want to walk us through? Sure, so Peggy, can you move it up a little bit? Sorry, I guess I should probably share it. So section one is just a defining municipality for purposes of this provision with regard to the cannabis taxes in title 32. You'll see on subsection A is the existing language that is in Act 164 with regard to the 30% and the $10 million cap. So that's like comes off, so up to 14%. 30% comes off the top and goes to substance misuse prevention. So subsection B at the top of page two and that's where you have the language 20% of the revenues shall be used by the Criminal Justice Council in consultation with the Racial Justice Alliance, Migrant Justice and National Association for the Advancement of Color People for grants to municipalities in Vermont to engage in the community-based process related to policing and public safety. And I have a question about that. It strikes me that I think there's only 60 municipalities in the state that have police forces and I may be off. The rest will either on sheriffs or state police and in some rare occasions constables. Is this basically for how would we deal with those other municipalities that don't have their own police force? I don't think it specifies necessarily that they have to have their own police force. It could be a community where they're having a conversation about what public safety looks like, regardless of what kind of interactions they've had with the Vermont state police. But many of the communities I named that are having this conversation around the state do have a police force, however small. Yeah, that's one area that we should look at. Yeah, this language could certainly be massaged so that it makes it clear it's eligible for all communities who wanna have a conversation about equitable public safety regardless of having your own police force. Well, one of the things that frustrates me and in many cases is we have communities that use high amount of our state police time that have chosen not to fund their own police department because they're receiving state police and then we have other communities that have their own police departments that are paying a lot of money to fund this. I just, I'm concerned about those that don't, that have large communities, you know, maybe over 2,500. That's a fair point. But anyway. I didn't know if you wanna address it further. No, no, it's just one area I would think we'd wanna look at. Should this bill come to us? I don't know. It's hard to tell. I mean, I was surprised in some ways that the cannabis bill even came to us because it's got government ops, got economic developments and taxing. Any rate, seems like we're the marijuana committee that's just starting for cannabis. I guess it's just like earned time. I gotta remember that we changed the name of those. Well, and as someone serving on the other two committees you named, you know, certainly it's just a conversation that's come up. You know, I feel like in a lot of rounds. So I appreciate you taking time to hear about this. Yeah. Other questions, Senator Rob? No, I'm sorry. I can continue to let Michelle walk through the bill, but I was listening to apologize if I interrupted. No, no, no. Go ahead, Michelle. So just on section two, as Senator Rom mentioned, the grants are to be prioritized for communities that are looking to transition away from kind of traditional police force policing and looking for alternatives in their programming. Section three is the repeal of the, just like what you have in S-225 is the repeal of the session law that's currently in subsection A that you can see the language. And so Philip, the push that's in subsection A is what's currently in session law with regard to the 30% for substance misuse. So this is just kind of following the same kind of idea as S-25, which is to put it into statute. And certainly if you wanted to adopt this proposal, we can just drop it into those sections that you already have with regard to the funding. So, and then the last section on section four is just tweaking the effective dates of Act 164 because you're changing the session law into the statutory provision. Can you go down a little further? Yep. Thank you, section five. And this is again, just kind of belt and suspenders. So where you have it mentioned in other places, the 30% about the transfers made for the substance misuse is it adds the 20% transfer for the use for the leasing initiatives. Peggy, can you go down to the next page? And then page four, just the section six is the effective dates, just that the effective date section and the repeal and the amendments to the effective date section in Act 164 take effect on passage. And then the other provisions would take effect on March 1st, 2022, which is when they start to have the potential for sales. And that's when all the other tax provisions take effect in 164. Thank you. Any other questions? Pretty clear, I guess. Thank you, Senator Rom. Appreciate you've been joining us over here. Thanks so much for giving me time on this and forward to future discussion. Thank you. Yeah, and we're gonna have discussions with various other folks next week, sometime. We wanna tune in or talk with them and we'll see what their views are. One of them is Mark Hughes. So I know you're familiar with Mark's views. Yeah, appreciated. And we'll watch the tapes after and spoke with Mark just this morning since he's named in this piece. And I know there's a lot of efforts to try and do some repair to what's happened in the war on drugs and the way it's affected low-income communities and communities of color. So appreciate your attention to those issues. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Are there any other? Hard to tell. Thank you. Michelle, there have been a number of bills introduced or in drafting right now, because I understand it. Do you have other? You mean around cannabis? Yeah, yeah. I have my 2% of the 14% for two municipalities in lieu of local fees. That's a separate bill. Yeah, it's separate. You said you wanted to do that. Dick? Yeah. At the risk of repeating myself, I'm still not clear on do we feel that the Cannabis Control Board should weigh in on these things before we do or should we rather give them language if we can create it this session and have them implement it? Because I know that part of the work Jeanette's been doing is to find the most qualified people to be making the decisions. So it seems like a fair question. Should they be giving us the input before we act? I don't know how you all feel about that. Well, I think you're right in many ways, but I think we need to provide direction on the social issues and some, and particularly some of the other issues that I don't think that they're necessarily gonna bite us that direction in those. There are some issues regarding integrated licenses, cultivation and other stuff, at least we should hear whether we make those changes or not. To this committee, we don't wanna hear this. But I think on the social equity piece which is touches in this particular bill and in the amendments that Senator Bob just presented, I think we need to give at least the very least direction to the control board if we wait for them the session probably be over before they really get up and going. Since, I mean, we, you know, the timeline that Michelle was talking about isn't, obviously isn't that. So I don't know how many, I think we'll have to pick and choose the issues and see where we're at on some of them. Some of them I agree, we should probably wait for the control board to weigh in. Advertising, that's a problem. We, maybe we should ask the attorney general for information sooner rather than later. But again, just getting a bill through Senate House and signed by the governor, Senator Nitka. Is there another board that has similar powers in place right now that could maybe offer some guidance? Oh, I don't know about, well, liquor control board. But they weren't responsible for a set. This is a brand new, as has been pointed out, it's a brand new industry, a brand new, and it's an industry in an odd position because it's legal and not legal and federally. I mean, it's, I don't think that there is a similar board that deals with this setting up like this. Are there other boards with which have that much power? Or is this totally new too? That's what I was responding to. The liquor control board does have a great deal of power over licensing, advertising the whole nine yards. But I think Jeanette's right. This marks out new territory. We're actually asking them, at least in what past, we're asking them to weigh in on issues of social equity and other things that we would never put in front of the liquor control board. No. I think that we, in terms of a couple of the things here, advertising and social equity, certainly are two of them in my mind, that we need to set with advertising, maybe we actually even need to do something. But with the social equity part, I think we need to set some broad parameters. We need to give them more direction than we've given without getting into such minutia that we fall apart doing it. But we need to give them, I mean, just looking at what's happened in other states about the implementation, and they're being asked to implement this pretty quickly. So along with everything else they're being asked to implement, I think we need to give them more direction. I think so too. I mean, I think if you're writing the law, you ought to help them. Well, what are the problems that other states have faced in terms of, is it the legislative or the bureaucracy that's caused the problem with the social equity pieces in Illinois and Massachusetts? My understanding is that it's the implementation of it, that the rule, everything was written with good intention and made sense. But when they started implementing it, just an example, it's supposed to, in Illinois, for example, one of the things, I think it was Illinois or Michigan, one of the things they found was that it was supposed to be special grants and funds. There was a fund established to help people who had been disproportionately impacted. And when they, so they took the applications and the application was there people checked off and everything. And when they looked further into it, they found that there were some very wealthy people and very wealthy businesses that were getting these funds that should not have qualified at all. They happened to be either women or minority owned or in some cases, the company would put a woman or a person of color in a position saying that they were actually the owner or the person that was running it. And in looking further back, they were just kind of this figurehead. So it was those kinds of things that, and I'm sure there are tons more examples. I can't say what they are right now, but those are too big. I think, but it does raise an important issue though, both on the social equity fund, but also on the integrated licenses. How are we doing things that would avoid having, the lack of better term, the Philip Morris of cannabis under an integrated license. That was the fear goes all the way back to our initial hearings on legalization. So of course, here are many people. So I think if we write- They quit from the takeover. And that's one of the fears of the medical cannabis groups is that they are corporate. It may not be as big here as they are in other states, but the corporate weed, remember that discussion in our first went around the state on this bill was corporate weed. And so how do we make sure we avoid that in both the social equity piece and then whatever we do with integrated licenses. That to me is one of the most critical things that we haven't already taken care of it. That's really what you're talking about. I just want to add one more issue that came out is that when they were looking at the communities that were disproportionately affected, one of the things that didn't come up was rural poor who had been disproportionately affected. And that wasn't kind of even put into the mix. That, and so you have a lot of rural poor kids who were disproportionately affected. And that people were thinking mainly around people of color and women. And so there are a lot of issues here that need to be dealt with. Yeah. Back to Alice's point from before, or I think it was Alice's point, if someone has actually been brought up on charges and convicted, regardless of what group they're in during the war on drugs and without giving away any of Joe's secrets, Joe has told his own story with getting charged with marijuana in his younger life. Is that enough or would we say you were charged and convicted maybe more than once but you're not a part of the community that has been disproportionately affected. That seems odd to me too, where we would say to a group of people who can prove that they were targeted by the system under the war on drugs, but wouldn't be eligible for what we're talking about. So I don't know how I feel about that piece. Well, I mean, if you go back to Nixon and his war on the hippies. Right. That was part of his refusal back in the 60s to legalize. I think he had a commission, I think the name of the commission looked at it. And I know the tapes have been revealed as the war on the hippies, I guess. So those are folks who were also impacted but we were Senator, Senator Michelle. I just wanted to remind folks that you did pass expungement last year and that as of right now, even though it's gonna take the court some time to actually go through and issue those expungement orders that as of right now, anybody who has a prior conviction for possession of under two ounces can say legally that they do not have a conviction. And so those misdemeanor, so that is out. Also, you have an Act 164 provision that says when considering applicants for either a license or for employment at establishment that nonviolent drug offenses automatic disqualifiers for either employment or for receiving a license. And so one of the things that the board is to do is establish criteria for how they assess people's criminal backgrounds in terms of what might be disqualifying offenses, maybe some type of corporate embezzlement, you get and say, nope, we're not gonna let you in to have a cannabis license for that, whatever, but they're developing that. So I just wanted to mention those two things and how they might factor in. But if I zero back in on something that Senator Nick, or I think if you want to mention it, you go back to page, put the glasses on. Page five of bill is introduced, S25, social equity, section three B, it uses online 13, available to individuals who historically have been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition who seek to participate in the regulated cannabis market. How do we define that? That's what part of it comes in a critical piece. Well, that's an interesting thing about Senator Romsbill. If I understood it, the money 20% is diverted to criminal justice group, which then gives the money to municipalities. So at least conceivably, depending on what the municipalities conceive of doing with the money, it might not go to these communities. It might just be used to facilitate civic discussion. So then, I mean- It might be used to embed mental health workers in police departments that would be dealing with- Right. Or the general public of that community. In the version of S25 that you have now, it's direct economic benefit to people in those communities in the form of the cheaper loans and the cheaper licenses. And I'm sure, well, I shouldn't speak for her, but I imagine Senator Rom would be fine with those provisions remaining if hers was added. But I was surprised because 20% is a lot. That might be $3 or $4 million a year that would be in effect subsidizing civic conversations. That's a lot to think about every year putting into funding civic talk that goes on now for free. I honestly believe that every estimate of income has been really low ball. I believe the income will be much higher than what the expectations in the last sales are. I agree. But do we anywhere, anywhere in statute define disproportionate impacts? No. By anything? No. That's why I think we have to have some parameters around it. And I don't, because it's individuals who have been disproportionately impacted, not communities who have been or groups of people, it's individuals. And one of the proposals, and I don't remember if it was Illinois, Michigan, Massachusetts or Vermont, said that anyone whose parents were arrested on drug charges falls into this category. I mean, I think we need to put some parameters around what historically proportionately impacted means. I agree, and that would be some of the subjects in to continue the conversation with others during testimony. But I think if we leave it, if we left it like this, cannabis control board to report how this would all be made. And quite frankly, low interest loan, I mean, no interest loan in some, for some folks might be the right thing to do. Outright grants for some folks might be very, very helpful. So I know this is an ignorant question and I'll pose it to Senator White because I think she's most up on the data. But a couple of times we've thrown women in to the discussion of disproportionate impact. That seems counterintuitive to me, given that women are charged and incarcerated at such low rates with regard to men. Is it provable with data that women have been disproportionately impacted by marijuana conviction? I think not, and in Vermont, my guess is that the two communities that have been mostly impacted and certainly communities of color, but have been, I'm not sure in Vermont, I would say that in Vermont, the most disproportionately impacted communities are the rural kind of upper, rural poor and the hippies. And those are the ones that, I mean, come down here to Wyndham County and look at what happened at Wyndham College or any place else. I mean, so I think we have to be really careful about what we mean here and what we're setting up and what kind of preferences we're giving to people and why we're giving it to them about the impact from the systems in Vermont that have affected them. I understood, but I do think if you look at the, when it's the term disproportionate and you look at traffic stop data, there's no question that based upon race, clearly they are disproportionately impacted by traffic stops. By traffic stops. It resulted in marijuana charges or convictions. So it seems like- I don't think, I just don't see any, I don't have the data off the top of my head but everything that we saw back in a few years ago. I do agree that definitely there were groups that were targeted and said, you go back to Nixon. That's why it's important to me historically have been disproportionately impacted. I think that that means to me that people shouldn't call it historically. Look, if you really, what does historically mean? But if you're certainly looking at historically, certainly back in the 60s and 70s, as Jeanette said, that was hippies or they weren't all hippies, but certainly there were people targeted then and we didn't have much of a black population then or people of color, certainly some. And certainly, but in more recent years, you're right. It's been, and more recent, what's that? Say 15, 20 years that so many people have been stopped. Well, that's when we have the data. It's sort of like, if we didn't ask the question, we don't know what the answer is, but there's no reason to believe that 30 years ago it wasn't worse or the same. Well, if you look- In other words, even though we didn't have the data on traffic stops 30 years ago, it's safe to assume that things were just as bad. But there were a smaller population of people in the state, smaller population of people- But I, you remember the Irisburg incident. The what? Irisburg. Oh, yes, yeah. I mean, there have been a number of those. Those are way back then. I don't know the Irisburg. What is it? I'll get the details mixed up, but there was a person of color who moved there, I believe he was a minister. Minister. And the people targeted him, and I can't remember all the details. Was this the one that got turned in a straight during the kingdom? Yeah. Howard Frank Mosier. Yeah, I remember. Yeah. And it was one of those times in the, you know, we think of Grumman as being racially aggressive, but we weren't. That was in the 60s, wasn't it? Irisburg? I don't know. I think so. I think it was early 60s. Yeah. He was shot at and other things. And it was a bi-racial marriage to him. So can I just comment on- Anyway, all of my only point is that the race issues date way back. Oh, they do. So can I comment on the amendment that was just proposed to us? Yeah. So in general, I think that communities are having these discussions, but I and I support maybe some funds going to communities who are trying to have these discussions and need some support. However, as with every other issue that has asked to have money directed from this fund to specific issues, higher education, K through 12, anything else, I do not believe we should be doing that. I just think that that should be an issue that's left to the Appropriations Committee to figure out where money is needed. And we will be taking testimony on this. I had not seen this before, but because government operations deals with the council and the makeup of the council and with law enforcement. And I was very nervous about one of the phrases in there that said that they would- You're on the amendment now? Yeah, it would be given priority to communities who are transitioning away from policing. And that's, since we deal with law enforcement- This is a draft, I assume they meant related to traditional policing. Well, it doesn't say that. I know, but this is a draft. But anyway. It's like any draft. I would suggest they use the term traditional policing. Well, I don't even know what that means, but- Well. Can I just tag on to what Jeanette said? Yeah. I'm glad to hear you mentioned higher education. That's a personal belief of mine that the state is on the hook now for 50 plus million a year. And that's unsustainable going forward unless we plug in some new funding source. So my hope is that ultimately that's the decision that appropriations and this committee and the Senate and the House make. We're gonna have a series of requests that come into different committees for it. So I think it does make sense to have one committee make the decisions. I, in this case, I have to say, I like the language in S20, S25 that we walked through first. The revolving loan fund and reduced license fees. I like that better than what's in Senator Rahm's amendment because it seems to me to speak to the issue which is helping members of disproportionately impacted communities take advantage of this new market. Whereas Senator Rahm's is a useful, it's a useful discussion and maybe resources should go to it. But I don't, it's a, maybe not a separate discussion but it's somewhat different than getting resources to those communities. Because as I say, right now it's gonna wind up in the form of grants that go to municipalities and it may well be that people of color and other impacted communities don't see any of it. So that's just the first blush on the two side-by-side. I may, in this committee may, after further testimony decided this bill belongs in the government operations today. I should talk to the chair of the government operations committee about that. She wanna think about that over the week. She would be happy to think about that but I do think that this committee should at least have, at least give some consideration and some direction to the parameters around the social equity and the advertising because that's a legal issue. So whoever has the bill, I don't care who has the bill. We're going to take testimony on some of it. We can bring it in here. Well, if you could provide Michelle between now and the next time we meet the language from the original S54 or whatever passed the Senate on advertising, I think we did a great job. And I think we had it covered so that it's constitutional. And I think the house with its insistence took it. And I think that language is probably fine to send it again. Why reinvent the wheel? I can send you what passed out of the Senate and then you'll recall that what happened in the house is that. I know it was a floor amendment. Floor amendment said no advertising. Right, but house go hops took what you did and then just built that out a little bit and sent that for and then the ban was there. Well, send us both. I'll send you both. Send us both. But I think that would be an easy solution to the quandary and then send it back to them. And the house actually agreed. Most of a number of house members agreed. I know, but then they... Well, yeah. If you have those two, if you have that language is the two proposals from the Senate and the house go hops committee and then you had the AG's in, maybe you could do the work that the board would be doing with the AG's office. You could do it now and... Why don't we schedule that for a few minutes next week when we take this up again, Peggy, to have Michelle get the language to the attorney general and we take it up and I mean, I realize there'll be other things to talk about but that seems to be the simplest way. I'm pretty comfortable with either one. So can I just correct what I said that I think Phillip misinterpreted just a little bit there? When I said that I thought the Appropriations Committee should decide, I don't think the Appropriations Committee should set aside funds from this fund, this revenue to specific issues other than the one we've already agreed to but that the Appropriations Committee should year by year try to figure out where the money is needed from the general fund and this should go into the general funds. It might be to higher education but it shouldn't be earmarked for that in this revenue source is my belief. Okay, fair enough. I'm just thinking that for and to go back to the state colleges, they're in a kind of in existentially precarious position and the fact that we've been bridging them is one thing. If even if we were to make a pledge every year to increase the amount, I think that's less useful to them personally than if we dedicated a funding stream, not that that couldn't be diverted but it's, I hear you and that's gonna be a robust discussion from 14 or 15 different angles when we ultimately get to it. Thank you. Well, when we take this up again next week, the first item would be the advertising and then we'll hear from some testimony from others. And Michelle, you'll come to our... I'm sorry, I'll reach out to David sure about the advertising. I'll give them a buzz today and give them a heads up and send them the little push. I'm sorry, Senator White. No, you'll be coming to our committee too. Okay, pleasure. Well, we're done a little early but 10 minutes early, that gives me time to do the next thing before the caucus. All right, thank you all very much. We'll see you tomorrow morning at...