 this meeting is being recorded and or transcribed okay my name is James pepper I'm the chair of the cannabis control board in Vermont it's 930 I'm gonna call the meeting to order just a few administrative details we have made our most important hire to date earlier this morning Nellie Marvel accepted the position of administrative coordinator for the board she's been an integral part of our team since our inception and has been such an important thought partner to us as we move through these early stages of our work so thank you Nellie for accepting and thank you for joining the team very welcome officially we've also hired our general counsel he's still making his personal notifications so I'm gonna build the suspense for one more week before I announce his name but a great a great asset to the state and to the board so today really marks an important milestone in the evolution of the cannabis control board when Kyle Julie and I started in these roles back in April it was really just the three of us with our laptops and a hundred page document to sift through we didn't have a staff an office an advisory committee or really any sort of personal acquaintance with one another and of course the pandemic further complicated what was already a complicated process of meeting each other developing a plan in a vision for how to proceed and of course the just nuts and bolts of starting a new state agency from scratch so we decided early on just to dive into the substance of cannabis policy and learn all that we could from the people that are the true experts in this field Kyle built a website for us Julie prepped all the kind of behind-the-scenes memorandum we needed to hire Nellie and Nellie got us online and organized to start holding meetings I can't thank the three of you enough for all you know dropping everything you were doing at the time all the sacrifices that you made and and all the support you've shown each other and me as we you know as we get to this point in our work since then we've been holding weekly meetings on issues that we believe are at the core of an effective safe and equitable cannabis marketplace fortunately for us Vermonters care deeply about this endeavor and sincerely want to help this inaugural board act responsibly and prudently as we try to craft the initial conditions of this industry so I can't thank all the people that have provided testimony to us submitted public comment written to the board watched our meetings and helped us find our way forward and I'd also just note that while this is a significant point for the board this is just a moment in time with respect to cannabis policy in the United States so many people have sacrificed both willingly and unwillingly to destigmatize this plan and end the criminalization of it and I'd like to acknowledge all the people who have paid a price either with their reputation or with their liberty to end the war on drugs so we are at a pivot point in our work we're going to shift our focus today to consolidating the testimony that we've heard into a vision statement for the board then we're going to attempt to lay out a plan for how we intend to work with our advisory committee and our consultants in order to meet the reporting requirements in Act 164 and 62 and how we're really going to develop a regulatory framework for the adult and medical use programs in Vermont so I'll get into greater detail on those later in the agenda but next week's meeting on Wednesday August 18th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. will be with our full advisory committee and the physical location for now is the Waterbury State Office complex and so please feel free to attend in public it's going to be an important meeting for us so with that I would as everyone reviewed the draft minutes from our meeting on July 29th yeah I take a motion to approve the minutes okay so we are going to shift now to drafting our board mission and vision statement so as I mentioned we've heard extensive testimony on the seven priorities that we identified with the help of some of the lead sponsors of the bill in Act 164 and Act 62 I thought what would be helpful for us to do today would be to look at those seven priorities and think about all the testimony that we've heard on those priorities and really start to draft kind of some guiding principles that might help us you know as a touchstone that we can always refer back to as we make some really important and really foundational decisions in the coming weeks and months so I have let me just pull up some of my notes so we have a mission statement that's embedded in Act 164 and I think that we should certainly start with that which is the cannabis board is an independent commission created within the effect executive branch to safely equitably and effectively implement and administer the laws enabling adult use and medical use of cannabis in Vermont so that of course is our mission but as we know it goes those those words on the page have a lot of meaning and a lot of depth to them and I think that what we should do is focus on our seven priorities and start talking just amongst ourselves about what what those what those priorities mean and what those words mean so essentially you know the first the first piece that we took testimony on the very first you know the very first meeting on this kind of list of thematic meetings was on the legacy market and small cultivators and how we can prioritize them and create a welcoming environment for them to enter the regulated space and so I don't know I'm gonna have an open conversation with Kyle you and Julie just about what we learned from that kind of that meeting and what we've learned about how to kind of encourage the legacy market and the small cultivators in and so please feel free to kind of jump in with your kind of takeaways I think among my top takeaways from that particular meeting where the lab concerns access to lab testing and a number of labs available and then barriers to entry which really I think we'll probably talk about a lot go through a lot of our priorities I think and then the ease of folks who are in the legacy market to move into the regulated market and lowering the barriers there those are probably my two two top takeaways along with some of the innovations that the small cultivators have yeah I mean I would certainly agree with Julie I think those are major takeaways you know I've got some some stuff on my notes some some data that we've heard anecdotally that has been collected around Vermont 85% would support local locally owned businesses versus corporate outlets 65% of folks that were pulled testing is important but could be prohibitive I think it's important to keep those in the back of our mind as we looked incentivize or excuse me help small cultivators really enter this marketplace it needs to be fair and equitable reasonable zoning laws the municipal and the state level reasonable fees Julie mentioned affordable testing and now we can work to further drill in and defined what canopy size might actually look like with respect to how it was defined in act 164 so you know from my perspective I think there's a lot of folks out there that that are happy that 164 made it across the finish line I think there's still some anxiety or hesitation around act 164 and how it might work to to help small cultivators but I've been I've been excited from what I've heard and what's found in act 164 that really can help us work to provide a good platform for small cultivators yeah just to kind of build on some what you all said and these are more thematic not really drilling down to specifics but essentially a regulated adult use marketplace will not be successful in Vermont if it's inaccessible to legacy cultivators and the people who specialize in small Vermont scale growing practices access to land and access to capital are the fundamental obstacles for small cultivators access to capital is further burdened by federal prohibition and the lack of traditional banking options access to land is burdened by commercial land use requirements and zoning restrictions you know the exorbitant fees we've touched on this a complicated application process in overly prescriptive regulatory requirements any sort of kind of arbitrary testing and environmental and security requirements are our major barriers entry for small businesses one thing that I always come back to also is just that federal legalization you know if and when it happens will result in dramatic changes to the market and Vermont really needs to focus on what it does well in order to be competitive when that happens and to me that's really craft cultivation the Vermont on honoring the Vermont brand that has been developed you know with respect to organics and sustainability environmental stewardship and those are the things that will really set us apart from you know the mega grow operations and wherever they pop up you know just a few more I guess specific ones are just that we have some incredible resources at UVM extension and the intervail and some models there they can really help incubate small cultivators new businesses help growers understand best practices and help with business planning and then yeah I was just gonna jump jump in there you know from my experience coming from the agency of agriculture and working with a lot of folks that are working in diversified farming operations there's always gonna you know Vermont this for better or worse is always had to operate in those niche quality markets especially in commodities that are that are handled at the at the more federal level we only have so much control over what happened at the federal level and you know there is that demonstrated experience that we've as you mentioned Chairman Pepper the Intervail Center other great organizations in the state have really worked to help people succeed while operating on razor thin margins and I think drawing from some of that experience and utilizing a lot of our partners our public private partners in the state we at least have a little bit of that foundational aspect here that can really help incubate these businesses as they look to add is smaller ones look to add you know this emerging market to their diversified portfolio on farm yeah and on that note my last just bullet point was just that creative license types can also help improve access to land reduce costs and you know I'm thinking like the cooperative licenses the seed or nursery licenses that we've heard about allowing people to co-locate allowing farmers to co-locate requiring business incubation those types of those types of issues can really be a benefit towards small cultivators they're trying to enter yeah again ditto again sorry Julie again just really quickly ditto on my last comment fortunately folks in this in the broader ag and commercial space have experience on those special you know business situations and license types and we can draw in anecdotally from those to really help make sure that that we're doing this correctly I was just gonna add cottage licenses to that production that can be done on small scale particularly considering the number of people that have left the workforce during COVID-19 strictly women and the cannabis industry has not been immune to that there were something like 37% of CEOs in the cannabis industry were women and now it's it's down by something like 10% so those types of licenses that people can achieve and then work within their lives is useful to this conversation well Brinn you've heard all of that do you want to try your best at trying to consolidate it into a statement or a number of statements we don't have to there's no you know there's no vision I mean there's no template for what we're doing so yeah I'd love to so I this one is um this one is a biggie I think it there was a strands of this that were woven through every meeting you have I think you could say a lot in a vision statement about the legacy market and small cultivators but this one I see is as we could craft a pretty general statement here that's pretty all-encompassing so I think something like the the board seeks to encourage small cultivators and entrepreneurs and the legacy market to enter the regulated market by reducing barriers to entry and facilitating innovation that sounds great yeah absolutely I think my my thinking on this just for your benefit Julie and Kyle and please like add to the conversation is that we try to get some basic sentences or paragraphs or each one of these priorities and then kind of think on them talk to some relevant stakeholders about them just to make sure that we're actually and seek public comment and public input and and try and narrow them down maybe for next week and make sure that we're trying to really capture what we're trying to capture in them so I'm gonna move on only because we have seven and we've only set aside 45 minutes for this but the next meeting that we had on a specific priority was around social equity and so I'd open it up to just kind of the key takeaways from from that meeting but also just throughout all of our witnesses and anything that we've done or any other people we've talked to on social equity Julie you want to start sure I was just looking at my notes so you know I think my key takeaways from this particular meeting were about being inclusive in the process but also to be slow and thoughtful and take a measured approach and then to think now about the type of data we want to collect to sort of demonstrate success and prepare to retool that there will be steps forward and steps back and that we need to be prepared to be flexible and retool as much as possible and then the broadness of a social equity definition again trying to be as inclusive as possible I think those are my key key takeaways along with being knowledgeable and educated and can and consider the past systemic policy issues and how that might play into decision-making that happens today yeah I agree with with Julie I think she pretty much hit the nail on the head the only thing that I would add is we need to be when we look to define social equity applicant we need to be broad but we also need to be specific at the same time just so folks do understand if they are a social equity applicant and how they would qualify you know for being one I've I've heard active versus passive when it comes to a social equity applicant active being somebody who experienced the war on drugs themselves versus more of a passive role in the war on drugs you know pandemic for lack of a better way to describe it where a parent or a family member may have been arrested or convicted and that trickle down effect on on how that affected somebody's lives so helping people unpack what that means and how they qualify and educating folks on as as giving as clear guidance as we possibly can to help folks completely understand that element of our program yeah totally agree on that I mean I think it was Bo Kilmer who mentioned that you know that you want to be broad but you want to be specific as well just like you said Kyle because you don't want to be giving priority or privileges to folks that don't that don't need it and so yeah I agree with that the thing my key takeaways and this is gonna sound redundant to what has been said already just that equity in Vermont should include more intersectionality than merely race and ethnicity it could also include sex gender identity or expression agricultural equity socioeconomic geographic by that kind of rural versus urban you know Susanna told us to think about you know kind of academic achievement as well Bo talked a lot about health equity and generational equity equity should be considered in every decision the board makes not just with respect to specific social equity programming one thing you know determining actual ownership of a social equity applicant can be a very convoluted process I think we heard you know David Silverman and a few others shallene title talk about you know there's things that there's managing contracts they that can prop up a social equity applicant but not actually give them the authority to own it own the company affiliate ownership beneficial ownership you know we need to think very intensely about what in dish of control this is a Silverman piece we want to require and what will be disclosed publicly just some word on criminal history records you know expungement I know from experience is a deeply complex process and not available to everyone who might be technically eligible and so the use of criminal history records by the board to disqualify an applicant should be very narrow and we should really focus on you know the folks that presently pose a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of the regulator market as the legislation spells out and really think about the policies of expungement and why the legislature allows expungements because the value of a criminal history record diminishes over time and the predictive value I should say so it's really you know we should be thinking very closely about how we're going to use those something that has been brought up is start small slow and steady and plan for midcourse correction and analysis and another piece that came to mind is just that the municipalities do not have the same equity mandate that was in Act 164 and Act 62 and so we should do our best to assist the local municipalities with model ordinances and guidance that will ensure equitable access and and then just the one thing that always sticks with me is just that moving quickly and promoting social equity are very often opposing forces and the faster that we move the more we'll default to kind of traditional business as usual that usually favors large larger corporations well well capitalized corporations I think to thinking a little bit more broadly that at some point we can think about equity and what we can do to encourage equity within the industry in terms of how hiring happens or what education we can provide on equitable hiring and then you know when businesses are contracting with with marketing companies or accountants you know thinking equitably about how this affects ancillary businesses I don't think I don't know but I don't think everyone who has a past cannabis charge necessarily wants to be directly in the industry so there might be opportunities that are you know want to install HVAC systems right whatever that is yeah yeah it's a it's a great one social equity is not just about license ownership it's it's about community reinvestment it's about a benefit to folks that have been harmed echoing everything that you both just said so bring do you have enough there to kind of think through I mean I know that trying to consolidate it on the fly is not easy no it's not but it's I think I think I have a few sentences here that can summarize a lot of what you just shared this is obviously another big one that could be talked about for pages and pages but here's what I've got the board acknowledges the disproportionate impact of the policies created in the war on drugs particularly those impact by pock and economically and educationally disadvantaged communities the board aspires to play a part in repairing the harm created by the prohibition of cannabis by building a program that is equitable and accessible the board will prioritize inclusivity and data gathering in the process of building that program to have the ability to course correct and demonstrate success I think it's great yeah you're really good on the fly friend my only question it can you say the part about play apart and repairing the board aspires to play a part in repairing the harm created by the prohibition of cannabis I wonder if we want to use a different word than repair I don't know if we can repair the harm right that might be too advantageous maybe it's mitigating or reduce future harm or or something like that good point I'm gonna use the word mitigate yeah so now it says the board aspires to play a part in mitigating the harm created by the prohibition of cannabis that sounds great so moving along and I know that this feels like it's happening very quickly for the benefit of people watching you know we sent our notes to Bryn earlier so that she could get a sense of what what what we were thinking with respect to each of these but we haven't shared them with each other and so this is kind of important for us to do as a board to really understand what's going to be driving our decision-making so our next priority was really around energy considerations and environmental and land use considerations Kyle did you want to take the lead on kind of your thoughts on this yeah I have a lot I have a lot of thoughts on this I'll try and keep it at an overview level for for Bryn's benefit you know I think energy and environmental issues are really at the core of what we need to do as a board I think all of us are cognizant that in Act 164 we have a lot of a lot of power to help small applicants or small cultivators and others one thing that we really don't have the ability to waive as a board for for any license type is environmental and energy considerations and how any size operation might put stress on our our regional grid our mediums like air water so on and so forth so from that perspective I think it's it's important that the board recognizes that indoor growing versus outdoor growing puts different stresses on our environment I think that needs to be acknowledged there's a lot of benefits that cultivating cannabis can also bring for our environment especially from an outdoor perspective how it uptakes nitrogen how it can operate in buffer zones to prevent further runoff so I think that's you know extremely extremely important that the board makes that known as we as we craft our vision statement I think the only thing the two things I would add to that are municipal zoning because there are some towns in Vermont that have fully built out zoning departments and then some that don't have zoning at all and what that means for land use in the in the commercial designation of the product and then also considerations as it relates to cost as Kyle was talking about the energy stress is different between indoor and outdoor growing and so is the cost yeah I think that's a fundamental thing that we need to understand why we can't waive a lot of these things that compliant regulatory compliance and fee structures that are pretty serious barriers to entry so yeah on this piece you know I mentioned in the past that I've been a long time advocate for legalizing and regulating cannabis but you know my faith really did get shaken in whether this is a good idea or not when we heard from efficiency Vermont in the public service department and you know just we heard about the potentially devastating impacts of controlled environment agriculture and hydroponic growing and so I agree that we need to do what we can to encourage and facilitate outdoor and mix like growing I don't need to review a lot of the statistics but we heard a you know the efficiency Vermont told us you know the some really devastating statistics about controlled environment agriculture and the equivalent of you know three million new cars on the road or six billion dollars in annual energy costs one thing that I that I think is really important is that industry participants particularly small cultivators understand the goals of our regulatory framework and the underlying intent and then they help us achieve those goals you know we're not overly prescriptive they can kind of help us understand how they can meet you know these kind of environmental and energy benchmarks that we that we create so that so that they can kind of be part of the solution and they're helping us can I jump in for one second and just compound on that because I think that that's vital I think one of the things that we need to do as a board is create a regulatory foundation a regulatory framework or floor from a environmental and energy context and also you know make sure folks are meeting the spirit of those regulations but allow for room for third-party certifiers whether it's cannabis specific ones or the NOFA Vermont or other sustainability certifications that a business might seek to further define and help separate their products at a market level so it's gonna be you know we've as you as you mentioned we need folks to come in and help us not only meet goals but but knock those goals out of the park to the extent that we're able yeah and I think there's some understanding of the benefit as well to outdoor growing I think the one of the notes I had is that one acre of outdoor growth sequester 4.2 tons of carbon yeah and I think yeah and I think coming back to one of the points you made earlier earlier to leave this being designated a commercial product and trying to incentivize outdoor growing I still think we've got a lot to learn a lot to learn on how that interplay is a municipal zoning level you know what what commercially it's a somebody to take their farm out of current use if they want to pursue more than a craft cultivator license what commercially zone tracks of land are there right now right now that have been oil tested and are great for growing this product and there's a lot of these outstanding questions that we need to understand I think I think how does commercial designations fit in from an outdoor growing perspective and and how municipalities can help us there and jumping off from that Kyle there's also like wastewater so the runoff the water use all of those pieces that municipalities some municipalities will handle yeah and you know yeah and you know I think I think we've heard we've heard you know from ANR from ANR and VAFM and you know typically the AGC of ag or the folks out on on fields that are zone current use and what's the interplay going to be like with with ANR and their expertise when it comes to helping us understand some of these wastewater issues if it's under their jurisdiction as a commercial product so working with our state agency partners to understand potential pitfalls that we may run into because I'm not sure that there's a very clean glide path for us to follow from another product designation like this where it's kind of it's kind of not an agricultural product but it's growing in soil you know so yeah it would be it's this doesn't necessarily fit into this this mission and vision statement but I just have to acknowledge that we have incredible partners at efficiency Vermont that have seen the writing on the wall they've anticipated these these issues for years now and I just was so impressed by the amount of incentives and the amount of intensity that they put into creating programs for cultivation cannabis cultivation and assisting farmers with greenhouse design you know providing incentives for thermal curtains and HVAC systems smart controls the things that really can reduce the energy demand and so yeah one thing that Jacob mentioned also which is kind of a really narrow point but worth mentioning I think is that permitting weather contingency planning which can at times run afoul of seed to sail tracking but can really allow for outdoor cultivators to feel confident that they can bring their plants inside if there's going to be a frost and things like that so you know things that we can do to really try to encourage outdoor cultivation anything we can do in that realm is important to me and yes and relying on a and R I mean one of the key takeaways that I had from their presentation was that they have programs out there to educate and support you know local folks with regulatory compliance and we need to make sure that people understand how to comply and that it's easy to comply yeah I mean bouncing off of that I'm all for education before enforcement if we're not doing a good job educating the public on on our expectations for this program then some of that falls completely on us and not not the person who's maybe well intended but I'm not not up to regulation or up to code with respect to certain environmental or energy standards and perhaps there's even education before licensing and you know I can see a scenario where in particularly in this area it could be so complicated that someone just decides not to participate and I don't I think that's your point that's not what we want right you know it's important here it's been even jumping back to the small cultivator conversation not completely but very briefly I do not want folks to feel like they need to every single time they have a question seek legal assistance or business advice or assistance it needs to be and to the extent that we're able something that folks can really feel confident in in doing without having to pay all those and additional costs Bryn do you have a sense of how to move forward on this one I do okay so I've got a few sentences for this one Vermont can be a trailblazer in the national market by establishing a program that prioritizes environmental stewardship as a foundational principle as a result the board has a fundamental responsibility to encourage and facilitate outdoor and mix light growing over controlled environment indoor cultivation the board will endeavor to educate stakeholders on the goals and intent of the regulatory framework and support industry participants to achieve those goals that sounds great to me sounds comprehensive to me okay we have about 12 minutes left on our agenda but I think we should just kind of blow through the next item on our agenda and keep going so I don't want to short-circuit the conversation the next the next piece is youth prevention and education and I'll just start so the trends in harm perception and usage ease of access are moving in the wrong direction they have been for a number of years in Vermont some of the statistics that we heard I'll just summarize is that legalized states have shown either no or minor increases uh or sorry they've shown increases in the 21 plus population as far as usage they've shown minor or no increase in adolescent or young adult usage which I think is an important thing to to have on our record that was from Dr. Volanti's presentation but that in Nevada at least and I don't know about other states but in Nevada they're seeing earlier initiation ages so people are starting to use cannabis for the first time at younger ages which is troubling there is there's we've seen some recent trends that in legalized states there's a decrease in binge drinking so there might be some kind of substitution effect happening by the 21 plus but there is also been shown to be potentially increases in sedative misuse we have Pace Vermont in Vermont has been funded to track how policy changes are impacting behavior and they've done a tremendous job looking at cannabis use digging in much deeper than some of the behavioral risk surveys let's see so uh there's huge amounts of gaps in services around the state um in with respect to prevention and you know that's a result of most of them being federally funded and as priorities shift federally these programs even if they're incredibly successful it can just disappear overnight and so I think that that investment in prevention is a critical piece there's very few prevention programs or campaigns designed specifically at young adults which is the 18 to 21 age and let's see I think that just that the after school piece also is pretty important just I think that the statistic that Holly gave us was that uh only 50 percent roughly 50 percent of the demand for after school programs uh can be met by our current services so that's that kind of sums up uh the some of the key takeaways that I had from the Prevention and Education Week that we did and on that with the after school it's those hours that they find are the highest risk taking hours the three to five p.m. so between school and and time when parents or adults are home um and then so my takeaways and I'm not I think I need a little bit more education about zoning in general but you know in terms of towns and what they can do in terms of zoning and and what would be you know within our purview and what would be within theirs um but then also uh for takeaway for me was about consumer behavior and how much advertising can affect consumer behavior um not so much the location or the you know the existence of a retail operation or or a production operation but the actual how it's advertised and and the messaging that comes with that was probably the overall biggest takeaway that I had along with the the statistics that showed that health warnings work and that Canada has the gold standard for health warnings that they change those health warnings on a regular basis to keep them new and and continue to keep people reading them yeah I agree with everything that's been said thus far a couple of additional things that that stuck out for me where I'm hearing about six the six points on prevention strategies you know education and skill building access community norms um support and early screening physical design and etc and how do we and our policies fit into these already established and in use prevention strategies and then Julie mentioned zoning I think it's going to be an obviously important um for municipalities and the board to understand interaction and expectations of each other point of sale training for owners managers workers at the retail level and at the cultivation level as well and compliance checks you know education before enforcement but you know at the point of sale I think it's going to be important that we have some type of a compliance check in training um for folks to make sure that that youth prevention is top of mind when anybody's in there retail establishment yeah Bryn did you want to take a stab at this one yep okay so the board acknowledges the effects of cannabis use on the cognitive and emotional development for youth and young adults to this end the board will endeavor to develop a program that deters cannabis use among youth and educates consumers on the risks involved in cannabis consumption I think that's great I think that kind of bridges the gap between what we can do as a board and what needs to be done as we move into a legalized system yep absolutely yeah um consumer protection uh Kyle did you want to get started on this I really thought that maybe the um the day that we did with Stephanie and the labs was kind of most dedicated to consumer protection but feel free to kind of bring in anything that you know or anything that you've learned about this yeah no I I think I think you're spot on I think consumer protection and this is one of those other other unique areas that I think touches upon everything that all of our other main priorities as well right but that's going to start even at the well I guess really at the point of cultivation but I think what you're getting at is is lab testing and how from an environmental perspective testing for heavy metals mycotoxins and so on and so forth can can really help to make sure that what we're doing is putting a safe product out on on retail shops and and what that means for me is is you know making sure that we're something that is is being offered to the public is safe but what is the shelf life also look on that product and we need to make sure that we understand certain things there you know it's it's interesting to me because testing is so vital I think to this consumer protection element along with youth prevention strategies child safe packaging so on and so forth but it's cost prohibitive to a lot of folks that want to enter this marketplace so what can we as a board how can we get creative to ensure consumer protection but not overly burdened folks that are trying to enter this marketplace with additional costs and that's something that we've got to keep in the back of our minds as we look to build out this program I think we talked a lot about safety on this particular day too and that to me that's part of consumer protection so you know the type of safety requirements that we have for extractors or processors and what kind of training they have to have or certification they have to have before they use anything that's potentially volatile and then the other piece for me related to safety is the banking and maybe that's a stretch to bring this into that but it seems like this is like you know predominantly cash businesses can be I mean there's there's a risk in carrying all that cash around or having all that cash in a retail location or you know in any business so I think that there's a safety concern as it relates to the the cash piece of this yeah ditto like like I said Julia this is another one of those kind of overarching concepts that we need to keep in the back of our mind because it affects everything yeah so for for this one to me that what would really stuck out on consumer protection is how much the current agency of agriculture has been ahead of the game on this and they developed an incredible cannabis quality program at the agency of ag it exists today is probably understaffed a little bit especially if we're going to try and rely on that but they already certify labs they have testing requirements throughout the value chain they have labeling requirements record keeping requirements contaminant thresholds they created a common vocabulary that they use in their in the hemp program which has already over 400 registrants so to me like we really need to tap into that knowledge base in that experience that they've built up over the last you know five five or so years they they provide they do inspection and compliance already they have educational programs FAQ guidance documents so you know a lot of the things that I think about when I think about consumer protection are kind of you know partially built already which is just a relief to me but it also you know when you think about adding all of these new businesses layering it on top of that that we really need to kind of use their their knowledge and their expertise and build upon it so and then this day we also talked about the fire safety and you know where that should fall in the application process and we learned a decent amount about pesticides and which ones you know various models I know you know it sounds like California has the most kind of comprehensive with their inhalation studies and you know Colorado goes a different way than Massachusetts so you know those are all kind of really important pieces on that on the consumer protection side that we need to be thinking about yeah and it's funny sorry I didn't pick up what you're putting down Mr. Chairman when you want to meet elites I used to be on the hemp team and help create some of those those guidance documents I think one of the things that will help us in looking to the hemp program looking to other jurisdictions you know we're we're not the first to enter this marketplace in Vermont even when you're talking about this plant more more broadly but across the country and we we we can look at what's worked what people have done well and what people haven't done well and not reinvent the wheel where it's it's not necessary but recognizing that you know that's important from a consumer protection perspective and and we needed to at the same time do something that's going to build off of what Vermont does well and what Vermont values and the hemp program is a great place for us to start there okay on that note this is what I have it is imperative that cannabis users in Vermont have the option to purchase cannabis and cannabis derived products that are tested labeled and free from harmful contaminants to achieve this goal the board will rely on the expertise of the agency of agriculture to ensure minimum consumer protection standards are achieved in both the adult use and medical use programs in Vermont yeah I hate that word minimum because it sounds like we're setting a low bar but I think that's the idea is there you know we need to have minimum standards that uh that can protect those can protect consumers I agree I when you said that that was my first thought too and I but I can't think of a better way to say it honestly we could just say standards but you know we just got to set the floor shoulders at the foundation right okay but that's great so we are at our public comment period for the people watching I just want to keep going we have two left and and I think we can get through them with relative efficiency the medical program we had a day dedicated to the medical program you know the board's taking over the program in January I think that you know my main takeaway here is that well one just that there needs to be continuity of services and access and affordability by the patients as these dispensaries that are currently serving them you know move into the adult use space you know it's it's hard to know we have I think 4600 patients give or take and when you think about kind of economies of scale and profit motive we just want to make sure that the the patients that rely on these on these services and products have access continued access uninterrupted access to them and then just my other big takeaway is that the Vermont medical program really is one of the most restrictive in the country and I think that when we are redrafting the rules which were required to do that we need to think about whether that's necessary in an adult use when we have an adult use program and some of the restrictions you know you need a doctor referral every year even if you have a chronic or terminal condition there's a very limited number of qualifying conditions nothing related to mental health with the exception of PTSD and that has additional hoops you need to jump through you need to have a three month relationship with your health care provider there's no reciprocity with other states you're only assigned to one a single dispensary or a plant caregiver there's purchasing monthly purchasing limits and a few other pieces that I think are important to note here is that third-party testing has been something that both our advisory committee member Meg Delia and the Vermont Trade Association has said is important as well as I think universally is important to the patients that are on the registry increasing the patient-to-care-giver ratio and the plant count allowing patients to purchase tax-free and adult use in retail locations has been something that's been brought to our attention eliminating fingerprint support background checks for caregivers and reconstituting the marijuana for symptom relief oversight committee to make sure that when they're advising us that we're actually hearing from you know nurses and doctors and patients and caregivers and not just kind of you know people that use the dispensaries and the local municipalities and law enforcement so that's that's what I have on this one I think my takeaways are very similar I recall that there was no nurse or health care professional on staff and the dispensaries and making something like that available or having some sort of consistent medical education related to this is a symptom relief effort I think is important along with expanding I think you talked about this a little bit the the conditions that qualify particularly mental health and addiction I don't think that I have that much else to add I think you covered most of my notes where too I've been also sitting in on the marijuana for symptom relief oversight committee meeting so I've got kind of a wrap around you know thoughts on this I know that there's nothing that we can particularly do about this now but cannabis is not covered under health insurance I just feel like it's worth stating is something that I think about a lot in terms of access as a medication or symptom relief program yeah for the second time I'll just I'll just echo everything the two of you just said I will say just as a general overview you know one thing I've heard is is with an adult use marketplace coming online we cannot let the medical marijuana system and community fall by the wayside it needs to be important and as we move into all of our goals but recognizing that and moving for a maybe a little less restrictive program and one that that works for the folks that want to be there need to be a part of that program is important yeah we're in okay so I have the board will ensure that patients maintain a continuity of access to the existing medical program services and will endeavor to reduce the regulatory burden that impacts patients and caregivers reduce costs for patients and create educational programs for health care for professionals was there anything in there about quality because I think that the testing is is something that we've heard kind of universally okay but you can kind of think where that might fit in okay all right the last priority that we have is public safety you know we heard a lot about the DRE program we heard a lot about crash statistics and we heard a lot about safe banking and I'll just review some of the things that came really quickly just because we're running short on time but essentially 2020 was I think the worst year since they started keeping statistics on highway fatalities and they were most predominantly alcohol but there were I think 20% cannabis only and that's you know worst statistical year based on a vehicle mile travel not not just I think strictly numbers wise however the numbers were pretty alarming that year as well the highway safety plan the state highway safety plan is being redrafted this year and it's a five-year plan and I think really should involve some input from the cannabis board maybe through our advisory committee but the current state highway safety plan calls around proving public awareness of what impaired driving is increasing training for law enforcement to detect driving while impaired incidents and supporting a more efficient means of collecting data on impaired driving and I think that that was spoken about that a lot of the officers who are not a right train I think a right training is going to fill this gap just they don't they might see a collision and they don't recognize cannabis impairment there the DRE program I think it's important to note you know it's roughly 50 years old it was adopted in 2005 in Vermont in 2017 the Vermont Medical Society endorsed it there's 48 active DREs in Vermont the northeast kingdom is the area of greatest need there's also need in Wyndham County 2015 a ride became a part of the core training at the academy so that's going to help fill the gap for detection with respect to data collection I think this is related we heard from rob and joy from the crime research group you know she said that administrative data alone will not always tell the complete story she talked about people's kind of feeling of safety at the various courthouses that were kind of people that have relief from abuse orders and that you need to kind of ask the questions that might be qualitative data but those are important to fill the gap of administrative data which can be skewed by either improvements in data collection or kind of improvements in data quality it might not actually match reality the ccb should be clear on what data and metrics it wants to collect it should involve stakeholders in that process including the agency of digital services and you know data researchers and we need to constantly be thinking about equity transparency and mapping with the other systems that we have in the state and use results based accountability and equity analysis to about to constantly course correct and evaluate the data that we're collecting and whether it's good with respect to safe banking I know Julie touched on this already but the you know compliance with safe banking requires high fees for the members and either rescheduling federally cannabis is really the only thing that will eliminate the risk for the credit unions and all the other banks that are associated with with banking this industry however safe banking the mclean talk amendment and others may help there's only a handful of potential banks around the state that could bank in this space at least initially so the advice that we got from vsccu and the department of financial regulations was to start slow and vsccu mentioned that they're going to make a determination about their kind of involvement in this industry either later this year or early next year and then just one final point Kyle this is a question that you asked we got an answer from christian cedarburg which is as far as he knows no banks have been shut down because they were banking in cannabis funds I don't I don't really have anything to add I don't either other than you just we've talked about education a lot and I think in particular around banking that's another place where you know participants in the market will need and want a lot of education absolutely well bring okay this one I have a pretty broad statement for which is legalizing cannabis and cannabis sales can be a harm reduction policy if done responsibly great okay um thank you all for doing that I know that uh that was kind of a whirlwind you know I've been thinking a lot about the meetings that we've had over the past you know a couple weeks in order to get us to this point and I know you all have as well and I think that this document will be an important one that we that we've done as we pivot to kind of our new the new world that we're entering the new phase I'd like to moving down the agenda just to try to make up a little bit of time I'm going to open up to public comment and I'm going to move our 1030 to the kind of more towards the end I'm going to combine it with our 1140 agenda item because I think they're interrelated but for now I'd like to open to public comment and we're going to start with the people that have joined via the link and so if you have a public comment please raise your virtual hand I don't see anyone joined by phone so we'll just start with I think that's is that you David Silverman I can't read the list okay yeah thank you chair pepper just for the sake of transparency I wanted to raise this issue that's completely unrelated to your agenda today but I wanted to raise it publicly in a meeting because I will be reaching out to Executive Director Hare via email about it I was talking with some of our legislative sponsors of Act 164 about about the licensing structure because it occurred to me that growers and wholesalers are not authorized under Act 164 to sell seeds or clones to other licensed growers and that seemed like an oversight to me because it doesn't make much sense in a world where a grower can very easily buy seeds online to make them go to a retail store to buy seeds especially if you have a you know kind of well-developed market with wholesalers involved and other growers who are specializing in seed stock or clone stock the initial feedback I got from the legislators I contacted was that this was likely an oversight I don't get the sense that it was an intentional decision but I haven't spoken to everyone and I'm going to engage in a bit of a lobbying process at the legislature to try to get that change because I think it's inefficient and if we require growers to get their seeds from retailers and pay the 14% excise tax and potentially the 6% sales tax we're really creating an incentive for them to purchase outside of the regulated market and I think that undermines the sort of seed-to-sale tracking priority that that y'all will want to have so I'm going to reach out to director here with some with some proposed language and how to fix this I think it's it's relatively straightforward and I hope that the board will agree that this is a sensible thing to do once you've had some time to look at it and think about it because I think it'll be a lot easier to get the legislature to act if kind of everyone's on board and I do think this is something that ought to be relatively uncontroversial thank you great thank you for that uh up next we have mariel mariel if you could unmute yourself and provide comment hi thank you chair pepper this is mariel mathews i'm public health equity manager with the city of burlington vermont i just wanted to underscore that you had mentioned earlier about providing model ordinances to help cities and municipalities understand what their local licensing structure could look like I just want to provide further support for that that that's something that we've been talking a lot about where the lines are of what we do versus what the state does and we would definitely benefit from being able to see some model license structures one other thing that has been on my mind is you also mentioned uh helping making sure that the cannabis control board could be nimble to lessons learned and that's something that we've been thinking about how to incorporate into our licensing structure as well um thinking about you know the differences of folks who get licenses earlier on versus folks who get licenses later what kinds of things we're going to learn in that time what's going to change and how to keep standards the same for everyone um in an annually renewable license structure so wanted to underscore that point as well and thinking about a model um license ordinance thank you thank you uh up next we have jessie lin there you go hi thanks so much um thanks for having us here today and for all you guys are doing a couple things I just wanted to quickly mention please as you discuss consumer protection and that being a priority and thank you I appreciate that from the medical perspective I just wanted to reiterate what I've mentioned in another comment um public comment in another session you had is that clean green is specific certification program to cannabis it's the oldest in the country um third party certification and they their pillar is based specifically around both consumer and environmental protection so just to kind of throw that out there again because as we know agriculture their role and priority is not necessarily consumer protection though I know they care a lot about it that's not always their agenda as well as the USDA organic program is a labeling and marketing program or so than consumer protection so I just wanted to as Kyle had kind of mentioned that there are some great third party organizations and they're just an example of one that can really help promote and educate on clean cannabis um as to what Julie said thank you I always appreciate Julie your support and understanding that we unfortunately don't have medical professionals or education in a medical program and how important that is and also recognizing that on the cannabis advisory board we do not have any medical professionals who are proficient in cannabis so I think you know again Julie I just appreciate you kind of acknowledging that and recognizing that maybe we do need to find a way to have more medical professionals involved in both the advisory board or the medical program in-house dispensaries um and lastly just to mention that the American Nurse Association of Vermont they have started an education program to help healthcare providers have more of that education around cannabis because it's not something that healthcare providers have on a regular basis unless they're going out and seeking that education out for themselves the American Nurse Association at national level does support medical cannabis access and education around it and Vermont is you know kind of leading the charge nationally as far as hoping to be a part of that education process so again thank you for that and just to let you guys know and reiterate anyway they can help or you know we can have more medical professionals involved I would second that and Julie's comments so I think that's it thank you guys so much thank you uh you know feel free to unmute hi there hi guys um so I just wanted to um talk about uh Chair Pepper's concerns over indoor growing um and just to point out um how there's just so many different ways to grow indoors and um I ran a lighting analysis uh comparing power usage based on a thousand square foot flowering canopy grow using hbs lighting as opposed to using led lighting and the the difference was staggering I'll be happy to show to share this with you if the board would like to see it it was uh and power usage was was so much less it was it was just shocking and so I know efficiency Vermont is uh incentive incentivizing um purchasing led lights but I really feel like it could go a lot further it's you know these lights are really um in some cases and it would be really cool to just see some more incentivizing by the board or the state however that can happen for indoor growers to use leds instead of hbs lights and and and that's that thanks guys thank you Tito Sherman Haum is next good morning um as I oh yeah my name is Sherman Haum and I'm director of regulatory affairs for medicinal genomics and uh as I uh since it was mentioned concerning uh consumer as well as patient protection I think it's very important that um the appropriate test required testing for microbial contamination be conducted and chair pepper you invited me to um submit some written statement um recommendations I hope you've had a chance to read what I've submitted and again it's very important I do understand that testing can be a financial burden for the small businesses but I think it's very important uh to have the a scientific based testing and not uh over testing for the different analytes thank you very much thank you Sherman thanks for the kind of continued uh you know uh support for microbial testing especially with the medical patient is there anyone else no the race can from the pink line did anyone join by phone we have two numbers um that are joined by phone okay if you'd like to join if you'd like if you join by phone and would like to make a public comment um you can hit star six to unmute yourself okay um we're gonna leave the public comment there then we'll have one more session towards the end of the meeting um what we'd like to do now um is introduce our consultants um uh from NACB who I think I have joined us um Gina and I think I saw Tom and and maybe Josh but uh or Mark what's all mark pop up mark yep so uh NACB Gina I'm not going to try to describe the kind of breadth of the areas that you all expert that you all have expertise in but it would be great I think for Vermonters and everyone who's tuning in to familiarize themselves with you and your organization and maybe you could give us just a little bit of a primer on how you expect us to kind of meet the very aggressive deadlines that we have before the board over the next few months um and honestly whatever else you'd like to talk about would be great I mean uh we're just so grateful for your support and for the team's expertise that you're bringing into the state well we are so excited to be here today and work on these guidelines with the cannabis control board and wait your experts um in the advisory committee um we are the real I'm sure my team is saying how are we going to meet these deadlines what we are efficient in doing so and we know that you need to be timely and a lot of the things that we do already at the NACB has really built a really good framework um and just really needs tweaking around it from our Vermont perspective so we are trying to establish all of those things now so for people who don't know the NACB we create national standards for the industry that are created by the industry so we would work with experts on different subject matters we are in the process of developing cash management standards and delivery standards we have um lab standards already we have cybersecurity regular security standards we have we also do guidance so we have a social equity model that we have sent out onto various states and those benefits we act as a resource to different state legislators and give them blueprints of what standards should look like which is really helpful and we also have a really large national perspective on what is working in some states what is not working we do a lot of analysis for state comparisons on different topics as well and we are trying to create a self-regulatory framework for the cannabis industry as an entirety and provide checklists for self-orders for all those standards that we create we right now have over 750 members that are hemp CBD industry professionals their affiliate suppliers um recreationally um and also medicinally um so we also have our own advocacy advisory board that spans the entire industry so different sectors but also different groups because we wanted to ensure that all the voices are being heard and one unique thing about our association is that all of them are vetted so they adhere to the highest standards out in the industry right now and we will be utilizing all of the stuff that we have already created and the expertise that we have on our staff to bring the best recommendations for the state of Vermont so I'm sure a lot of people are saying why has Vermont gone with the national association of cannabis businesses so from our first perspective it's that we do have a national perspective on what's happening which is really very very valuable because this is a brand new industry you know a lot of states have tested out different models of what can work and what really needs to be involved we share very common goals we want every we want this industry to be safe legal held responsible um for both aspects of medicinal and adult cannabis use um we're already shaping the industry and legalizing cannabis and also we love social equity which is I know something very near and dear to Vermont right now it's such an important topic and I personally this is something very near and dear to my heart and can't wait to start diving in on it and we will be bringing on eight experts um from our team to really help jump start and facilitate all of these committees so there are a ton of people we have right now boots on the ground Eli Harrington he comes in as a consultant for the NACP and I know many of you probably know him from Greenbridge Consultancy Company and I will also be introducing Tom Nolasco who is our director of legal and he will be in charge of overseeing the entire advisory board but that means that I'm going to have Tom speak so he can give you the layout of the committee groups that we are creating right now and some time frames around it what we will be discussing and developing and how fast we can get that to you. Tom? Thanks Gina good morning Mr. Chairman and the board I'm yet another lawyer in this meeting my background is I'm a commercial business litigator for the past 20 years I was first introduced in the cannabis industry probably about six or seven years ago now I'm in Arizona Arizona like Vermont went medical first and then we just went recreational this past year so there's a lot to learn from that but one of the type of thing cases I handle as a litigator are partnership disputes and back in the day a lot of investors wanted to get into the market these were a lot of east coast wall street investors and they had to cross over onto the industry side and that was at the time pretty sketchy group and there there were bad actors bad players and that's what led to the partnership disputes and then from there a lot of people needed help with everything else because license holders like everyone else they're big startups they have needs throughout the law employment real estate compliance and so I got more involved with that I've been with the NACB now for over two years helping direct the creations of the national standards that Gina just spoke of and I've spoken on various panels throughout the years on everything from legalization prospects to 280e to the safe act to consulting with different political groups including conservative groups which for me were the most fun those are the most contentious the most education that needed to happen and obviously we've consulted with various state legislators and municipalities as well I also came out here to the desert to Arizona to complete my one of my post-grad degrees I got an MBA from from Thunderbird so I've seen that business at least experience as well my only tie to Varan is pretty tenuous as everyone on the call probably guessed I was actually born and raised in Wisconsin so not the most popular state not the most popular city but filled with good pleasant hardworking down-earth people strong farming rural communities so I do feel like there's similarities cultural similarities between the states even though there's obviously some sizable distance between them and just quickly if I could if we need any inspirational thoughts this morning about this group the board the advisory committee and those participating on the call my personal philosophy is that this in spite of what's happening on the federal level with senator Schumer and the other legal federal legalization efforts all of which I'm skeptical of having any success in the short term in spite of that the legalization of cannabis is happening as it has the past 10 or 15 years illicitly or through state legislation it's all being led through the states right and it will continue to do so those of you that have kept up with the federal acts there was something called introduced called the states act by senators Warren and at the time senator garner and all that was essentially was a nod to the 10th amendment and what it was saying was hey listen if you comply with your state legislation and your state regs we the federal government will leave you alone and we won't we won't enforce and that was a real acknowledgement to the power and effectiveness of state legislation so when we look at this opportunity with remod I mean it's a real opportunity not just to advance legalization as a whole but you're setting the template for future federal legalization future state legislation across the board and really getting a chance to put remod on the map to to have a good robust program that works for the state and people of Vermont and we can learn now we can look back and learn from the mistakes of the other states of legalized so it's it's a real uh real fun opportunity for us and we're excited to get started on that so given that um yeah there there are some very daunting tasks ahead especially given the deadlines and uh we all know I mean ball experience that just through the pandemic there's a lot of stops and then quick starts that need to happen so we need to start boy play uh without question um the reason for optimism and just as a lawyer I'm not usually an optimistic person but I just want to give three reasons we should be optimistic here one is that as Gina said we're certainly not inventing or even reinventing the state cannabis regulation wheel right there are other models out there from states that have worked that we're familiar with and you also have your own state medical framework that has been in existence that we know I don't know it is intimately some of the other board members uh like Meg and some of the others that I'm anxious to speak with and frankly meet with personally if I can quickly um second reason is the board has assembled or someone has assembled a very competent good advisory committee with the expertise and information that we need so I'm confident with knowledge and information that we have uh that is there I mean really the first step is to set the proper organizational matrix and the proper like any good product functional organizational chart that's what we need to create and like with any good organization but I can quickly identify the horizontal and vertical conflicts or inefficiencies that exist with that and then make sure the relationship between the controlling authority of the board and the liaison and those project managers within those subcommittees works well on the line lines of communications are open I think we can we can get this done and and you know hopefully in fairly short order with a good product and good recommendations to come up with so with that I mean the NACB is kind of dimming in we dove in and started creating the subcommittees based on the statute act 62 and what we've been tasked with as far as the scope of work that I'll go through kind of quickly now and obviously well I'd like to have some follow-up as quickly as I can just communicating with the actual advisory committee members and making sure they're comfortable with whatever subcommittees they're on or if they have preferences for something else or recommendations naturally we're all ears but we created essentially seven different subcommittees and broken these down and and some of them have some extensive items within them but the subcommittees are social equity market structure licensing taxes and fees that's another subcommittee third the sustainability subcommittee fourth public health fifth compliance and enforcement that's a big one six medical or i'm sorry medicinal and seventh the product safety and lab testing and i'll go through each of these and kind of what some of the characteristics and goals are in each of those committees so first with social equity obviously we have to create the program design the applicant program and the design and execution of that the criminal justice reform aspects for expungement and what we want going forward the tax and fees structure and loan support financial programs within social equity and then how the ongoing program administration will include the transferability of the social equity licenses the next one the subcommittee for market structure licensing's taxes and fees uh we are going to get thankfully that the help of insente centerberg who's already done a market study for the state of ron but you know we need project projected market and taxes projected market size and structure the tax projections proposed licenses how that wants to be rolled out in a state like uh vermont are there going to be tiers what are the requirements and conditions or limitations for any future loans and that you know this is obviously also tied into social equity and the percentage of licenses that will be social equity next subcommittee sustainability energy efficiency standards groundwater considerations air quality the types of environmental things you'd expect destruction composting conservation measures and accommodations for small cultivators economic sustainability the next one is the public health subcommittee this will include issues like advertising and marketing packaging and labeling any considerations for the food manufacturing establishments and other public health considerations the next group compliance and enforcement and this seems to be kind of growing by the second but this entails a lot so it's it's cultivation compliance retail compliance things like age verification facility inspection standards employment record management buffer zone seed to sale tracking insurance banking i mean there's a lot that falls into this one and it might even need to be broken out even further but that's what we've created as another subcommittee and the last one will be the product and safety standards things like lab testing and sorry other the pesticides the potency issues uh as well so those are the seven subcommittees that that we've created again anxious to to get rolling we internally and i used to be already know who we want among our staff to be on the different subcommittees and we we've kind of assigned just by you know through paper because that's all we know so far who might be best suited for each subcommittee but obviously i'd love to talk or meet with those folks as well and get this rolling as soon as possible because the way we were looking at it is with October 1st deadlines for the recommendations report we really need to get these approved through each subcommittee um and to the board by early September which is three weeks away so like i said we've got some feverish work ahead but i think we can get the the matrix and the functions in place where we can start moving forward fairly quickly so i threw a lot i'm sure there's some questions that i'm i'm happy to answer or jina well thank you thank you for that yeah or go ahead jina i just wanted to add some time frame so that people will realize how quickly we're going to anticipate on doing this next week we are hoping to meet with the entire board um that the advisory um committees and then august 30th we're going to try to bring some people in if we need some presenters for topics um we'll be doing some community outreach in between them we've already started community outreach and then the week of September 6th starts sending material that has already been completed with recommendations and other information that's necessary and have our first subcommittee call hopefully that week as well and then to do hoping to do two meetings per week after that until we have all of the final completions because these turnaround dates we have our first one on october 1st and then another on october 15th and november 1st yeah and one thing i want to add to social equity is just to ensure that we definitely understand that this is multi-dimensional you know we're dealing with community groups that have been affected um but we're also dealing with people who have been impacted on the war on drugs we don't want to just solely focus on getting a licensee into it but how can this really be a comprehensive social equity program in its entirety and when we speak about social equity involves so many equity out there um you know definitely racial equity but you know um people with disabilities um we're we're talking about age you know people this is very vast and wide um and also we want to try to get people into entry-level positions how can we make a social equity program that is diverse and it's going to be wise spectrum and not just help a few but help the many um and you know maybe other programs that can be involved with products or and or services that bring in social equity as well that's uh that's a great point uh because i think that um as you know the war on drugs and the second and third order impacts of prohibition have taken many different forms and their kind of tentacles have reached deeply into systemic kind of structures and and our our society and so you know what I really was appreciative of Gina and the whole NA CV team is that they're willing to come to Vermont um and actually work with Vermonters and actually understand um exactly how we can make a social equity program specifically social equity but the whole market structure really that is uniquely Vermont based and addresses the kind of ways that prohibition and the war on drugs has impacted Vermont and how we can kind of mitigate some of those harms the other thing that I just really wanted to stress for the benefit of folks that are watching is that these timelines that we have are very aggressive um you know we have our big report due on October 1st in order to get that report approved and get um you know stakeholder input you know that's why Gina and Tom are talking about early September um so we can have a product that can be reviewed by the full advisory board and can be approved by the cannabis control board um you know it's just a monumental task and um NA CV really had not just the the kind of comparison charts of what you know Colorado has done in Washington and California and you know Michigan and others it also has um draft model policies that builds upon um those states those the best practices in those states and is vetted by people on the ground the actual business holders the license holders the employees um and the people in the industry to say well yeah this was the intention this is how it actually ended up playing out and this is how we would improve upon it and you have those for every aspect of the industry you're the only I think um organization that that we interviewed that had the capacity to come to the state um you know jump start this the work that we're doing provide the context to our local folks um and really hopefully get a work product to us that we can approve by October 1st um and I think you are uniquely situated to help us in that respect um which is just like uh just so encouraging to me um that uh and we're just so thankful for your willingness to take this on and you know we didn't we're trying to keep our budgets low it's not like we have unlimited amount of money to um to get this done and I think that you guys are willing to work with us on that as well which is also just an important side note um but yeah I mean I'm looking forward to the work ahead Tom I think I'll just underscore something that you said is that um you're forming these subcommittees and you're going to have distinct members with specific expertise from NACB staffing those subcommittees giving them the direction that they need in order to kind of and incorporating their Vermont expertise into the mix and they're going to have to work simultaneously they're going to have to work at a furious pace and they're going to be guided by you which I think is an important piece for everyone to remember that um the amount of work that needs to be done is is just uh monumental and it's going to take everyone kind of pulling together so thank you I just I guess that's a long way of saying thank you for your willingness to do this hi Gina hi Tom well I just wanted to briefly echo Chairman Pepper's comments um I think the plan you've got for us is is fantastic and I'm I'm looking forward to see the implementation over the next month and a half it's going to be a whirlwind and I'm I'm looking forward to it yep well we definitely appreciate all of you as well I mean you've been so helpful and you know given us guidance and uh having conversations when we needed I know we've been on a ton of calls already and you have just such great expertise for this advisory committee I mean it was really easy to be like oh this one will be good and that one will be good and um you know anything that we can do to really help the industry move forward because because for us you know Vermont implementing successful standards you know shows other states how to do it as well and that's what we really are trying to do for creating these best practices is is to ensure that we have what is needed on a day-to-day operations and having these expertise voices be heard um and so that we don't have to continuously provide something because it doesn't work because we're doing it from you know sort of a textbook version um so we're we're really excited I'm sure the advisory board may not like us by the end with all the work we bombard on them um but we really hope to get all of this done as soon as possible and into your hand Tom. Gina um sorry Gina here's a question I've been getting from a few folks is you know you touched on this but who is NACB why did you choose them I mean I think you're uh I described that a little bit now and you did as well but for folks that may want to do some just background research on you are there things that they should do other than just go to your website are there things that they can do to kind of see you all in action or kind of I know your social equity plan is you know one of the most popular pieces of your website and you know generates a lot of traffic but are there other places that they that you know Vermonters who are curious about NACB should do to kind of you know lift the hood kick the tires kind of on NACB? Well we would you know we have um NACB has happy hours on different topics we also give some other educational monthly webinars so we do blazers and blazers connecting the cannabis industry with the finance industry I know you spoke briefly upon that we're coming out with our first cash management standards and then um next year we're coming out with payment processing because that's even a a larger issue um right now in the industry um also we have the doctor's lounge so that's also for our medicinal cannabis so we can send you out some information and provide this to some people in Vermont who would like to see us in action and do some work. We have lots of articles out there as we have blogs in our on our social media pages we can upload to you all of this information to send out to people of Vermont. We will be at MJBiz so some people in October if you're be there we're be there for Association Day um we'll also be there I'll be speaking on a panel on social equity about some simple ways that we can start to change your industry um and create a more inclusive environment a more diverse environment um in simple things like you know not requiring a college degree and just saying it's preferred or you know taking someone's name off when you're looking at the candidate or you know non-gender specific contracts um just to name a few of those and we have on YouTube some videos where did a social equity conference last year um that people will be able to look at and view and we've been on a number of panels and committees and can send you some of that information so you can see some of the work that we're talking about and take a look at some of our templates that we have online you know all of our members follow them but we have other people follow them other associations have picked them up um we're love to hear your thoughts on everything that we're working on great any other questions for Jeanine and Tom while we have them here today um I just have one I hope this is a relatively quick question but but I I think you've described before how you developed your social equity standards and it was a very inclusive process so could you just maybe briefly touch on how you do that? Well for social equity the first thing that we did was a comparison analysis of what different states and different cities have done for social equity you know what is something that they really all could agree upon you know that was one of the most important things for us and then we took that and said okay so these are the things that they agreed upon but what is actually needed in order for a social equity program to work and then we brought in experts and even got some help from some governmental legislators as well and their lawyers looking over these things that was entirely helpful on divisor committee um you know Tom was a part of creating this and all of our experts here at NACP and expert panels and we realized that you know we looked at courts you know why are people being lost what are the lawsuits about you know what have they done in other industries as well for social equity what might have they tried to do in other countries um and then said one of the things that we noticed that failed the most is accountability you know how can we set a program up to say this needs to be held accountable what does that board need to look like and how do we get this past the finish line another thing that was really important that we noticed is to really be definitive of what a social equity candidate looks like and obviously Mermont that's going to shift a little bit from what our regular model is but also if we're going to get a social equity candidate in how are they going to survive what choose do they need to be successful because we not only want to lower the blob entry we want to ensure that when they enter they will be successful because you know we're going to be tutoring ourselves in the foot if we don't ensure that what the whole purpose of this is trying to make their lives better um another thing that we really did and we had noticed is that there are some states who allow people to opt in so oh well we're not going to deal with social equity in this county but um some other ones well and so we need to make sure that this was very inclusive what do we do about people who are incarcerated you know what are the expungements afterwards what are these records because that is part of social equity to be able to rebuild their lives which some states really haven't dealt with um then we one of the most important things for me was about tax revenues going back into communities because I think at the essence of all of this is to change the lives of people and if we can just get a couple of candidates in with a license it wasn't going to change the root cause of the problem so we recommended that 20% of tax revenues goes back into these disproportionately impacted communities on the war on drugs in order to support them for education counseling community outreach programs and even legal aid so that was you know those were all some major things that we thought were vitally important um and where we went to community groups we went to experts how much money do we really need really to try to get a true assessment of overall what was needed to create this one of the things that we really want to hope and do is to speak to people about social equity when we're creating this we've had a couple of phone calls already and we're just you know we want to hear your story we want to see what you've been going through I think this is really important to hear the troops because it helps us be able to create a plan that is going to be Vermont focused and really beneficial to all and we're going to be doing that with all of our standards we've already spoken to some community groups already just based on because that is the most important thing in assessing any program is what does the state of Vermont need thank you I just I your work product is so great what I've seen on your website and I think process is important so I appreciate you kind of detailing that because I I like the way that your team approaches their work so I appreciate that thank you well thank you and you know we constantly are revising our standards as well if we see that there is definitely a trend or there's some court cases I know you're seeing some court cases around social equity the major one being quote quotas for different minority groups so we make sure to stay away from that that we're seeing in Ohio and obviously we're looking at the one in Illinois as well but I think you know we just need to choose are we going in a point system or are we going to lottery and just stick to that one but you know always it's like you know because this is just a new industry we're constantly needing to be on the top of the news on top of court cases to ensure that you know the state of Vermont or any of the people that we have out there are saying you know they don't fall into those traps thank you okay well this was go ahead yeah I was just thinking of giving some overall process and not just what we did with social equity models but um how we create a standard and so it is quite a lengthy process um so you know we start out our standards when we get our primary advisor our primary expert who's working with Tom myself and some of the other team members and then we're doing research so we're research what different states are doing we may research what has been done in different industries different countries and we start with that initial draft then we have an expert committee so more experts on that topic to go through it and then continue to edit and revise and make sure that any standard that we're doing is very comprehensive you know we just don't want to focus on one thing we really want to focus completely as much as possible on that topic after that process we then bring it to our standards governance board and our advisory advocacy board um so that entails all of our members once we have bi-weekly meetings and then once that draft is finalized we have an open public comment period that lasts for two weeks so we send this out into the industry and we try to get people's opinions we may send it to a different additional experts if that is necessary um and then we will have a final meeting to say we need to edit revise based on the public comment period time then NACB's members then get to vote on it for approval so the entire thing is very extensive but it allows the industry's voice to really be heard and I you know at the end of the day that's what we really need to hear that's great yeah I think that's exactly the process that we'd like to see play out here and you know what's so helpful to us is that you've already been doing this you know you've been doing it all around the country and so um we have a strong foundation which with uh we can jump from um as we move into this new phase of the board's work I mean as you know Gina we've been doing kind of thematic meetings over the past uh two or three months to really understand what the Vermont system should look like and now you can help us tailor kind of the specifics uh to to what we've learned so I'm just I'm thrilled that we're going to be working with you and and Vicente Cedarburg is our other consultant they've got a little bit more of a discrete task than you all do and we'll introduce both of you to our full advisory panel next week um at our meeting on August 18th any other questions for Gina and we are really we are definitely excited to meet all of the advisory committee members we've been doing our own research on finding out about everybody and you know please if you would like to ask to speak to some of your constituents you know please reach out to the Vermont control control board and we would love to speak to you about different topics right here we want to we want to hear everybody's voices this is what makes a good recommendation for the state of Vermont yeah I don't know if uh if everyone heard that last part but if you want to talk to Gina and our team please um go to our website ccb.vermont.gov and click on our public input form and we'll do our best to make sure that if you have questions that those get answered so um I'd like to if you don't mind Gina I'd like to kind of shift back to you know the our agenda I think that was fantastic we look forward to working with you but um I wanted to talk just about what our next meeting is going to look like a little bit and then talk about kind of how we intend to comply with open meeting laws as we move into this new phase of work both from the cannabis board perspective and from our advisory board and the subcommittees of the advisory committee which is uh complicated so I'm just going to shift to that if you don't mind um I think uh it's pretty clear to us that this is an incredibly amount of short this is an incredibly short amount of time to do a lot of work and as you know Tom was mentioning that and Gina that we're going to kind of break the advisory committee up into subcommittees um we're going to be doing that at our next meeting which is um uh August 18th it's next Wednesday it's from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and uh you heard just kind of a brief overview of what the committee structure subcommittee structure is going to look like um at our next meeting will actually be assigning people um our various for various members of our 14 member advisory committee to those subcommittees will be introducing the members from NACB and Vincente Cedarburg that will be staffing those committees and will give them at that meeting specific timelines um and deliverables for their work products um and all keeping in mind that we have kind of these future deadlines that are in act 164 and act 62 that we have to meet starting with like our October 1st V structure and we have some subsequent recommendations due on the 15th and and in November. So that is the basic structure of our next meeting we're going to do some additional training with our subcommittee um on open meeting law compliance public record act compliance ethics trainings inclusivity and diversity trainings um and equity trainings but it'll be a pretty substantive meeting I think um and uh you know the subcommittees are going to have to meet uh pretty regularly I think um they have to meet in order to get some of their work done you know multiple times a week and uh so I think we're going to keep a close eye on what the best practices are with respect to physical meeting spaces and being in the same room and masking guidelines and also kind of really keep track of any state guidance that comes out and people's kind of personal comfort um with physical meetings the subcommittees um will comply with the open meeting laws they will be posting agendas you know dates and times of their meetings agendas physical locations there will be a physical location for the subcommittee meetings they will be open to the public to attend there will be public comment periods NACB is committed to taking minutes and posting them to our website the thing is we really do not have the staff to live stream those events or record them so we're not going to be doing that which is not a requirement of the public open meeting laws that being said the board will hold weekly meetings in our kind of traditional format which is this hybrid style of streaming and in person and these meetings I think it's pretty clear especially from our conversation earlier today that it's hard to separate one issue from another you know even though we're going to have subcommittees it's hard to kind of think of a tax structure without also thinking about regulatory compliance and how much that or the fee structure and thinking about regulatory compliance and how much those interplay with one another it's it's hard to know um you know market size and you know fee structures when you don't have a definition or understanding of what a social equity applicant is or how many folks might be included in that so the board is going to hold weekly board meetings to kind of consolidate and and really just kind of think about all of the work of the subcommittees and the work that's being produced by them the full advisory committee will meet on a regular schedule I think we have it set for once a month and those will all be in this hybrid style where we're streaming recording and posting but also allow in person attendance and public comment and then the last thing is also the board is going to be adopting a regular meeting schedule dedicated to public comment hearing from people of the public that will occur after hours in order to increase access to the board and we are currently thinking that that will happen the first Tuesday of each month from six to eight p.m and so folks can come after work and really kind of have access to the board and and make maybe extended public comment so that's that's the plan obviously you know we're keeping a close eye on the the delta variant the lambda variant whatever else is going on and things might need to shift but that's kind of how we're planning on complying with open meeting laws and the kind of timeline for the next few months I know NACB has a slide that they'll be presenting next week which really lays out the timeline of subcommittee meetings, advisory committee meetings, and board meetings and the kind of work product that needs to be delivered so it'll be it'll be an interesting meeting to see to see that as well. Any questions from the board on any of that? It's great, very comprehensive, thank you. Thank you. Well today is a somewhat abbreviated meeting because really we're trying to kind of shift focus and pivot to the next phase of our work and that really starts next week with our advisory committee meeting and then the subsequent subcommittee meetings so I would be happy to kind of move down the agenda I think the last thing that we have to do today is we wanted to do one more public comment session so again if you have comments for the board and you've joined via the link please just raise your virtual hands. It's Mariel. Mariel. Thank you Chair Pepper. I just wanted to provide one comment on tax structure from the public health perspective. My again I'm Mariel Matthews the public health equity manager with the city of Burlington, Vermont. My area of expertise is specifically in point of sale related to tobacco, alcohol, cannabis and food. One of the lessons that we've learned from tobacco from the public health perspective is that it's important to have taxes be directed towards prevention and treatment of substance use disorder that we expect to see basically the consequences that we expect to see from the emerging market. One of the things that states have done that has gotten some folks in a regrettable situation is devoting tax dollars as devoting tax dollars to funds that should really be funded through separate dollars such as education parks and recreation or diversity equity social inclusion programs and so I wanted to raise that as a red flag something that we're considering here as we think about tax structures and how best to fund an equitable business program that doesn't create a perverse incentive to have more retailers in the market or have higher sales volumes the things that would generate more taxes that would get into these funds and so I wanted to bring that up as a red flag as you know having states got getting into that situation then trying to back out of it is really difficult to say oh we realize you know we need to regulate our market more and now we can't we're facing all this pushback because it basically means cutting funding to a fund that we really desperately need so I know that that's that was just one small piece of the social equity presentation but I wanted to bring that up and thanks for the opportunity. Thank you. Dave Silverman next. Dave you able to join? Yeah thank you Chair Pepper. I was alarmed just now to hear you say that that there's not going to be streaming of the subcommittee meetings and I understand the staffing issue you know I've I've said publicly and privately you guys are very much understaffed I get that but if there's not going to be streaming of of these very important subcommittee meetings I think that's going to discourage public input in a way that a is is not beneficial to the public but b is going to make the work product at the end of the day be not as good so I really want to encourage you to try to find a way to get these things onto a live stream so that we can get maximized participation particularly when we have multiple subcommittees meeting throughout the week and it's just not possible for folks who are not in the Montpelier area to physically be there and you know folks who have other jobs and things like that you know I don't want to have I don't want to see this I don't think you want to see this end up be a situation where the only people providing public comments are the professional paid lobbyists. Thank you. Thank you Dave. Pito. Pito. Hi there I have to I was going to say something different but I have to agree with with David Silverman on that point I've thoroughly enjoyed being able to be a part of these meetings and it really does mean a lot for also just you know for the trust of the whole system working but what I wanted to go out saying was just the importance of the thousand square foot craft license referring to flowering canopy I think that's the only way that the small Vermont grower can be competitive in this future market and furthermore I think it's extremely important that all licenses have unlimited veg canopy it's just so important for having a full productive crop each time. Thank you guys so much. Thanks. Jesse Lindon. Jesse Lynn. I think it's working all right um all right thanks again I know I apologize always chime in but I wanted to thank Silverman and Tito for speaking to that and reiterate that with the advisory board or the subcommittees as of right now we don't know you know from our understanding we don't know what those subcommittees are going to include I agree and want to second as a patient and as a patient advocate and representative and as a caregiver for me to have access to these meetings has been so important and crucial and I'm very grateful for that so I would hope that that is something we can look at moving forward that the advisory board committees or these subcommittees um may be open at least you know for us to see your access or have some kind of public comment so that they do have access to more of the kind of communal communication and our interests and thoughts as well please so thank you. Anyone else? Not currently. Um if you've joined by the the phone by the phone and you want to make a public comment please um you can do that by hitting star six to unmute yourself. Okay um we'll stop public comment period I would just I would just note um you know based on the concerns that we've heard that it really does come down to a staffing issue for us um on the streaming question I would also say that you know the subcommittees can't make any decisions on their own all they can do is funnel recommendations up to the board and then the board uh you know will hold weekly meetings to review the recommendations that are being made those will be streamed those will include public comment um and so there is an opportunity for the public to have that increased access um directly with the board um and then anything that the advisory committee does will also be um streamed uh as well so um that's just kind of a summation of kind of our thinking on that but um anyway uh turning back to the agenda I think the last thing we have to do is to adjourn is it correct? Yeah um so I'd take a motion to adjourn. Move to adjourn. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Okay. This meeting is no longer being reported or transcribed.