 30 to 35 minutes for the forums and I'm Ann Galloway I'm the founder and executive director of VT Digger in Montpelier, and I'm really happy to see you all here We have a Facebook live Stream going on we're also thankful that Orca is here to film the forum and we'll be posting the video later We have bagels from Myers and in Chittenden County, which are fantastic if you haven't had a chance to get one yet and there's coffee and This is sponsored by a Green State Gardener and We're very glad to have Gwynzakov with us to my right Tom little and Jake Perkinson all three of whom served on the Vermont advisory marijuana advisory commission and Jake and Tom were co-chairs so I'm going to do my best to Summarize a little bit about where we are because as you all know last year we passed a marijuana Legalization bill in the state of Vermont that allowed people to purchase a small amount of marijuana and To grow a couple of plants and now the legislature and the governor's office are considering a tax and regulation System which is I have to say pretty darn complicated if you look at the commission's report which came out in December It is even the executive summary runs to some pages so I think it's very clear that the folks who are on the commission are really making an effort to understand every facet of of tax and regulation and So where we are right now, I mean big picture There is being there is a tax being proposed by the Senate and Dick Sears committee That's a Senate judiciary He wants a 10% excise tax and an excise tax is a tax that's passed on to the consumer that you don't actually See then there's the sales tax which is 6% and most of these bills include a sales tax and Then Sam young Representative from Glover and the house actually he lives in Greensboro now. I'm sorry to correct that He has also proposed a bill that came out yesterday that would impose an 11% excise tax a 3% local option tax On top of a sales tax And then the the commission recommended a 26% excise tax. Is that right? Oh, 20% sorry. I got that wrong 20% so I Know that's a lot of numbers to absorb early in the morning But the point of all this is that it actually costs money to regulate a drug like marijuana and There are debates about how the drug should be regulated What law enforcement should be able to do should they be able to? Conduct roadside saliva testing that's something that commission felt strongly about And others have said it's not as important Dick Sears for example head of judiciary Really doesn't want to see a roadside saliva test Both Mitzi Johnson the house speaker and Governor Phil Scott are for a roadside saliva test Even though at this point really there is no Connection between THC levels and impairment that is reliable So there are questions about that from a scientific standpoint. There are drug recognition experts who are out there who You know work for police agencies that Recommend testing when someone appears to be impaired Boy, I'm rambling on I shouldn't have studied so much this morning Let's see what else One of the things that I found really interesting and I'm going to ask the panel about is the Substance Misuse Advisory Committee What that would look like and what it would mean for the state of Vermont? and you know how local municipalities would Would deal with the placement of retail facilities around the state So those are just a few of the things we're going to be talking about and as always I like to lead with reader questions Because our readers are really thoughtful and they ask great questions So I'm going to start with Deb Wolfe who emailed me the other day. She's from Middlesex and she worries about the placement of Retail marijuana shops near schools churches neighborhoods and playgrounds and I'm wondering if you all think that's an issue Well, it's it's certainly an issue not only for a policy decision on behalf of the state of Vermont, but there's also with everything involved in cannabis the overlay of federal law and the continuing federal prohibition and there are Increased penalties and specific legislation on the federal level Concerning drug activity in or around schools in the current medical marijuana program there is a prohibition on placing retail and cultivation facilities within I think it's a thousand yards of a child care center church school etc and Particularly with respect to child care Facilities if you look at the map of where they're located and you include home daycare It becomes extremely challenging to locate anything anywhere within a even a very small buffer zone so if that policy decision is is adopted and You have a continuing prohibition against the location of retail shops as an example You are going to have some challenges as far as location go I Think that you know the location of retail shops in particular we heard from the experts on the Commission from the Health and Education Committee were very adamant about the placement and availability of retail shops And so far as it's influence on the perceptions of youth Towards the use of cannabis So those are important policy considerations I personally think that absolutely there should be some consideration But again given the practical challenges when you pull in all the home daycares and so forth there may need to be some flexibility To actually provide spots where the retail activity can happen I would just add that under current statute. We have Our communities our towns in our cities Do cluster development sort of in our downtown area So it makes it even that much harder to locate these Facilities and areas that are suitable just because settlement patterns have to look a certain way so that thousand-foot buffers own as an extra layer on top of the layers of Our zoning bylaws generally saying they have to be Any development has to be in a downtown clustered area Great. Thank you Jeb Wolf also asks whether habitual heavy use of marijuana is Necessary in order to support a Marijuana industry here in Vermont and she worries about how that could impact young people The statistics that you often see cited are that a High percentage of the sales of regulated cannabis in states where it's it's licensed for retail sale A high percentage of the sales goes to a relatively small percentage of the population who are regular if not heavy users, so I think that's That's something to keep an eye on and then the the Education Prevention Committee And the rest of the Commission's work recommended a robust Gathering of information and statistics along about that and other things going back to the the local impact issue there's a threshold question that the Commission actually was not able to come to a complete consensus on and that is whether We Vermont in a regulated environment should be an opt-in or an opt-out state an opt-in would mean that Cannabis related businesses including retail sales would not happen in any town unless the town Affirmatively voted to allow that That's opt-in the opt-out model would be Towns would be given in a period of time in which to take a vote to opt out so that no Cannabis related businesses would be happening in that town Those are the two two models and As I said the consensus was we'd leave that to the General Assembly Nice punt on that one You know I so the next question is from Dave Crowley from Bennington, and this is directed at Jake He says that you argue that investing in additional law enforcement resources is a necessary step in rolling out a legal market Sighting California Mr. Perkinson makes the argument that an illegal cannabis market is still thriving because the state failed to make an investment and police Resources how do you compare the policing needs of California population? 39.5 million and 164,000 square miles with the policing needs of Vermont population 624,000 in 96 9600 square miles doesn't this make the case for a lower tax on cannabis? Obviously high taxes drive and sustain in the legal market Why is there this discriminatory and prejudiced branding of cannabis users as out of control people? And there are more comments, but I'm going to stop there Yeah, first I would say that it certainly is Valid and important to make distinctions between California and Vermont California obviously is the size of a small country and Vermont's the size of a mid-sized city so As far as the allocation of resources there are going to be differences and there will be differences in economies of scouts and the efficiency with which We can approach the issue Having said that I think that in analyzing the issue. It's not limited to California that my comments would be applicable to other States as well including Oregon Washington, Colorado Where they face the challenge of an existing market which has been operating outside of the law for over 60 years And trying to bring that within the purview of a regulated system Obviously, you know as the founding fathers said if people were angels, we wouldn't need government people aren't angels and You really need to pay close attention to how you're going to incentivize people who are currently operating outside of a legal regulated market to come into that market and so Obviously one Approach and really the main focus of the legalization push has been to provide a legal market in which they can operate however in the context of the United States of America where you will continue to have jurisdictions where there is a Prohibition there will be an incentive to To at least operate under Continue to operate illegally or to operate within a legalized system and and provide that product to Areas where it's not Permitted we saw an example of that in recently in Burlington where there was a shop selling Product produced from states where it is legal being sold in Vermont. So I Believe that you can't simply say now it's legal and expect everybody to come in and join the regulated system as long as there remains an incentive for people to operate outside that system and I think part of eliminating that incentive would require a robust enforcement mechanism to ensure that those bad actors that are not within the system Will have accountability and the threat of enforcement and really if you don't have that you're punishing the people that are Electing to operate within the regulated system, and I think that's the most unfair part about it And so I certainly appreciate the the comments and understand that there's a lot of emotions wrapped up in this The way that I look at it is really from a pragmatic standpoint of what is going to Bring the most amount of people into a regulated market and prevent the most amount of product from being Put out you know and being available in an illegal matter especially to minors I just wanted to add to that. Um, so every state that has legalized so far Has a very different law enforcement environment environment in general. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a town or city in almost any state that's legalized that doesn't have a police department or a Robust County sheriff in place that simply just doesn't exist in Vermont at the level In other states including all of the out west, but I'm also in Massachusetts and Maine so considerations for How a Community might be impacted whether it be a rural grow facility or a downtown retail operation Consideration of what kind of wrap around law enforcement is in existence is actually really important because it it simply might not be there at all Great. Thank you Rodgers from Colchester wants to know can the legislature assure us that smoking marijuana will not be in 20 or 10 or 20 years a major health Issue like cigarettes were in our right now No, I Think I would urge people to read the report from the Education and Prevention subcommittee that's incorporated into the Commission's overall report and The folks on that subcommittee are health and education professionals and also involved in prevention and treatment of Substance abuse Patients and families dealing with substance abuse. No, no, I don't think anyone can make a guarantee and if someone's looking for a guarantee They're there that we can't purport to do that and in fact, I think if you polled the the members of the Education and Prevention subcommittee, they'd say don't do it Yeah, and in fact that the Vermont Department of Health has compiled a health impact statement, which is extremely detailed about the existing Scientific research on cannabis, but the unfortunate part about you know trying to make Comments on what the health effects of cannabis are is the lack of scientific study or lack of studies that are Generally accepted in the scientific community and that has of course In what is in large part due to the fact of the federal prohibition and the lack of availability for cannabis? research opportunities throughout the United States that's beginning to change But yeah, I would echo that nobody can make any guarantees. We just we simply don't know What the long-term effects will be And and I'd add that the the governor's advisory commission was not asked to Give a recommendation or an opinion about whether Vermont should move to taxed and regulated retail sales we were asked if Before Vermont was going to make that decision before the decision makers are going to go there What would the Vermont version of that look like if you made that decision and that's really You know the governor and the legislators are the ones who have to decide whether Vermont should do that We were just saying if you if you make that choice, this is these are some guidelines you should follow Thank You Tom for clarifying that You know there there seem to be a lot of questions about the tax itself and the level that would be appropriate and William Magnus from Swanton Wants to know whether a 20% tax will perpetuate the black market Couldn't we just go with the sales tax? That's basically what he's saying And you do see these bills in the legislature that have a lower excise tax level I wondered if you could talk about why you all came up with 20% I think it's 20% in the in the right and the commission's report plus the 6% Sales tax plus in towns and cities where there's the local option tax It could be another another penny on the tax. That's kind of it's sort of in the middle of where other states have gone We kind of threw a dart in the in the middle of that It's it should be I think we've mentioned this before but it should be emphasized to for a state government to try to control and regulate and tax and license a Market that's in existence been existence for 60 plus years that's churning millions and millions of dollars worth of sales in Vermont is no small undertaking Regardless of how much money we spend on law enforcement that market it will be and in my opinion will be a Persistent and if he had a 3% sales tax on cannabis sales in Vermont I think the underground market would persist as well We've but we've read recently that the state of California is now considering lowering its excise tax to put more pressure on the underground market But I think the the the folks in Vermont and and who are at least as ingenious as those in California Who are who are who have been growing and processing and selling cannabis for decades are many of them are likely to try to continue that because that's the business they're in now and to for them to Spend the money to get the license to upgrade and rent the space and go public just may be unattractive to them So I just think we need to be we go need the state needs to go into this with its eyes wide open just just a flesh out some of the logistics behind coming up with the 20% the the tax department worked with the joint physical office to come up with estimates about What tax what what amount of money would be required? Looking at what the expected sales in Vermont could be and then calculating the tax off of that and that's really what the analysis wasn't coming up with that 20% and That is I think that's actually slightly lower than the majority of states as far as a tax rate overall Some some states tax at the wholesale level some have other Means of taxation but at the end of the day, I think Vermont's 20% proposal would be on the lower side So I I feel that It's it's just important that to recognize that that that process was gone through under the assumption that It was going to fund the necessary programs that the committee that the Commission had deemed Appropriate in the event of a legalized market. So it wasn't that simply to fund the administrative agency, but also to fund the programs in the through the health department and through Educational facilities as well as the Department of Public Safety For roadway safety and so we tried to you know figure out what all the costs of that would be and come up with a Reasonable tax rate that would fund those and so they you know really it's sort of a philosophical shift where you're saying you know and and that's kind of what concerns me about the proposal just to have a Straight tax it goes into the general fund because then it goes in the general fund and it gets dissipated to whatever through the appropriations process and At that point you're not having direct accountability with respect to the effects of this particular product so we have an opportunity to have Everybody who's participating and chooses to participate in this market to bear the burden of what the effects of this are and I'm not saying the effects are necessarily negative, but there are effects. There are requirements to Regulation and so I I readily admit that that's a departure from What is typically the case, but I think that if we have this opportunity to do it You can step back in time and imagine what it would be like if that was the same philosophy applied to Licenses to drill for oil and where we'd be today So the opportunity to have sort of this anticipatory approach I think is a valuable one and one well worth exploring That's right the legislature could do something entirely different, but I doubt they would go there Just quickly before I go to Ken. I Took a few notes. I took the liberty of taking a few notes and the range is Oregon at 17 percent Massachusetts at 20 California at 27 Colorado at 30 in Washington State at 37 percent So 20 percent is even a little bit on the low side compared with other states that have implemented a tax and regulation system Can you have a question? Well, the the I'll say I'll offer a few a few comments in response There are people who are not consuming cannabis now because they they're not comfortable Not knowing what they're buying They want and they will feel more comfortable if they could go to a retail store Where the product has been? In a sense regulated by the state tested by the state tested for Pesticides and herbicides and for the potency of it so that they know what they're buying So that that provides a level of consumer protection that is presumably not available otherwise and Then there's the right by reference to the mention the the education and prevention efforts that the Commission is recommending to build stronger Education and prevention programs in Vermont particularly for the our younger our younger residents Yeah, I think I think that's right and those are those are contained in the Commission's report there's an outline specifically of what the anticipated cost of The programs recommended to be implemented are and again, you know, the youth programs are an important part of it I don't think that you can say that there's going to be no effect. There's clearly a Shift there's a shift that's going on already. Vermont has legalized cannabis and That causes a shift in perception. And so I think it is important to Give young people the tools to evaluate the effects that they might They might be exposed to The other thing I would mention is that the administration of it is is not free You know, the medical program has a budget of I think somewhere between three hundred and four hundred thousand dollars and they regulate five entities and so you know, I think that There is going to be a lot of costs associated with it is already has been Mentioned and you know having a laissez-faire is what we have now I'm not sure if the proposal is just to let it keep going and just not prosecute. I don't think that's a viable option And I don't think it's fair to people because there are effects. I don't think you can deny that, you know, any commercial activity has an effect And I think Vermont should definitely have the benefit of taxing that commercial activity and those taxes should go towards first and foremost addressing any effects that are caused by that activity could you all Recall for us how much revenue is anticipated from marijuana sales? overall the tax department worked with the legislature's Joint fiscal office looking at What's being recorded for revenue in the other states where it is licensed for retail sale we they Rated that to the Vermont population and market and came up with a low medium and high revenue estimate and those were As it rolled out and the low Estimate per year was in the range of 10 or 11 million dollars and the high was in the 20 million dollar range One of the tricks to the on the revenue side is when do you start collecting the revenue? and If you're trying to pay for the cost of the governmental infrastructure that's going to regulate it When how does that went? Do you what you may need before that you actually are regulating and taxing the sales? How do you how do you pull that one off? It's a chicken or egg problem, right I Suggest you may be able to bond in anticipation of the tax revenues because a lot of Many many if not all Vermont school districts and towns will borrow money in anticipation of property tax revenues In the slow times of the year and then pay back the bonds when the tax revenue comes in you could conceivably do something Like that the trouble there is is you keep bumping into this federal law prohibition And if you're bonding trying to issue a debt instrument like bonds that's sold in the public market It's regulated by the federal government. You run it you bump into a real problem there and that's Going back to our comments earlier about law enforcement. This is not only a robust Underground market. It's a cash market And the licensed version of it would also presumably be a largely cash for the time being And so the numbers that you're talking about sorry second, please the numbers you're talking about in terms of revenue They don't include Purchases by people from out of state who are visiting to ski or hike or whatever, right? It's just local Local use. Oh, they do take in. Okay. All right Okay, good. Um, we're taking questions not comments So if you can come up with a question, I'm gonna ask one now and then so Many people in the pro side of legalization. This is from Kim Hubbard and Jericho Okay, Kim, you want to go you want to ask your question good? Great, I'm glad you're here Many people in the pro side of legalization seem to conflate legalization with commercialization Recently I was horrified by a Canadian advertisement marketing marijuana featuring children's voices a fundamental question for anyone making decisions regarding regulating marijuana is What are your intentions for regulating commercialization of products containing THC? Now you all have a whole section on advertising in your report, right? You want to talk about commercialization? Well, though the recommendations on commercial on advertising specifically Came both out of the tax and regulate subcommittee as well as the health and education subcommittee health and education I think had the more detailed Recommendations with respect to time and place of sales Limiting the placement of advertising so that the the medium could credibly be Argued to only have I think it should be legalized. I so I mean I Sometimes I make comments and people think that that's an argument for not legalizing my my position is it should be legalized But it should be done in a way that's responsible and that protects children and Public safety so the reality is any product can only grow if it has new customers and so you see in the tobacco industry and people may not like that analogy, but It's a good. It's a good example of a Industry that understands how to grow their market and you grow the market by being attractive to new customers and That means Trying to attract children and so I do believe that there should be a concerted effort to prevent that from happening We understand that that will be an incentive for any company If they're looking at their bottom line, they will want to have new customers The new customers are youth and so if we know that we can operate in a way that will hopefully address that ahead of time and Cut them up off at the past so to speak so those are the generalized recommendations with respect to to advertising and it really do Focus mostly on preventing youth access and incentivizing youth to use the product in terms of You know, I'll just Read from The report Limiting advertising can reduce youth initiation and overall use prohibiting self-service displays internet sales free samples mass media advertising and flavored products should be a part of any commercial cannabis regulation and Advertising restrictions should be implemented to which ensure that youth and young adults are not targeted By or exposed to cannabis advertising Advertising should be restricted from any area where youth could potentially be exposed now that all runs into some of our other illegal traditions in Vermont in this country concerning The First Amendment to the US Constitution, but there are clear limits to that in the in the commerce area And I mean specifically to your point about counteractive measures the proposal from the health and education subcommittee was to use funds from marijuana tech or cannabis taxation To fund a statewide program For education specifically directed at youth and I think the price tag for that was set at somewhere as eight million dollars so eight million yeah, and it was it was you know, so the the idea is to have a robust program and Obviously, there's also an ancillary Benefit in that you know the conversation about cannabis it wouldn't be restricted simply to that it would be about all substances and hopefully Also counteract some of the opioid issues that we have as well And so, you know it does present an opportunity I think to address a need that's not currently addressed with respect to substance abuse and funding programs for children and schools To address that issue Thank you. Well, it is now 848 and I think we've run out of time. It's been a great. Oh, we have one more question We have I think I think Those of us in our communities who feel strongly and then that on that theme should Ask their legislators not to enact a retail Regulated market. It's as simple as that. That is the question up on the hill here this this winner there's a Senate Finance Committee is taking testimony this afternoon on the tax and revenue side I think starting at 130 and the Senate Finance I know we have more questions and there was a question that I didn't get to on the list from a reader Who is concerned that? It's a different version of your question around First Amendment rights, but This person was worried about corporations really Selling a lot of marijuana in the state of Vermont and that there would be limitations put on local growers and And and I don't know if there maybe we could just wrap up with other questions, too What do you have? Yes, we absolutely looked at that. I think there's some important distinctions Well, first of all, I'll say just because it's done in alcohol doesn't mean that's the way to do it I think there's plenty of problems with the way alcohol is regulated and lots of things It could be addressed that are not being addressed And again, that was really the the Commission tried to find to try to come up with what would be the absolute best way to regulate this if we're Gonna if we're gonna legalize it So alcohol was certainly looked at I think one of the biggest challenges with respect to adopting a straight alcohol model is the fact that That the the legalization of alcohol has been decades and decades and decades We are in this transition period and I think the challenge would be again as I referenced before How do you bring these people that are currently participating in in an illegal market into the legal market? and I'm not sure that the That all the tools to do that are in the existing Alcohol regime, but I do think that's a good model. I think the Vermont model is fairly good where the state has a fairly tight regulatory Hold if you are gonna allow a substance You know again, it's not perfect, but It certainly prevents presents a model that that could be explored one more question right here And then it really is time to go the testimony from from law enforcement was Based on the presumption their presumption and that I think reasonably broadly shared that if Vermont Opens up cannabis sales to a retail Legal retail sales more cannabis will be consumed in Vermont than is being consumed now if you don't Buy into that then you can I can see you can say well We don't need any additional law enforcement resources if you think the more Cannabis is and byproducts are going to be used in Vermont then you might say we need to beef up law enforcement And I'd add it's not it's not just you know law enforcement when we talk about you know road Side issues, I mean these are we are you have concerns about illegal grow operations you have concerns about Public use You might have concerns with sort of ordinance enforcement There's been you know in other states there's odor. I mean it could be something so simple as odor complaints From you know neighbor to neighbor So it's not just One small part of enforcement it's sort of a quilt of issues that sort of pop up and Right and so whether or not There are current resources to compensate what might be coming down with the increase of use With no additional funding coming through or no additional taxing or resources or revenue That money would have to come from either the general fund for the troopers or it would have to come from Property taxes if you have a municipal department, so I think that's why it's important to sort of Be better prepared on the rollout and then it's easier to pull things back as things Move forward it's harder to get things implemented after the fact Well, thank you all for going to the weeds on weed and if you If you want to just come up after and ask your question that'd be great. Thank you so much