 I call this meeting of the social equity subcommittee meeting to order. I'm Tom Alasko and I'll take role of the subcommittee members present at the meeting. Beginning with Gina Cranwinkle. Present. Jeff Gallegos. Present. Nika Scott. Present. Nara Sheen. Present. Ashley Reynolds. Present. David Sheer. There's no longer on the committee. Okay, that's okay. She's down to Davis. I think that's her wrong. And Lindsay Kirk. I'm not sure she's here or not. She's not going to be able to make it. And then... Julie in the room, can you tell me who is... Who do you go from the board? Oh, TJ's here. So, just me from the board and Nellie. And then it looks like TJ Donovan has joined us. He's replacing David Sheer on this committee. And Lindsay Curley is not able to join us today. And we have one member of the public. Two. Great, thank you. Two. Oh yeah, we have two. Sorry. I can't see who comes in behind me. Thank you. Paul. Thank you. So thank you, everyone, for your attendance, for all of you that have made the effort and have the interest to attend this subcommittee meeting. Since this is the first subcommittee meeting we have, I wanted to do brief, and I do mean brief, introductions for all the members of the subcommittee because we have a lot to do and discuss. Again, I'm Tom Alaska, I'm General Counsel for the National Association of Canada's Businesses at the NACB, which is a national trade organization specialized in increased standards and best practices. For the cannabis industry, our goals are to legitimize and elevate the growing cannabis marketplace. And part of the NACB's function consult with state legislators and regulators as we are doing with this engagement. My background is a 20 plus year attorney focusing mostly on commercial and business litigation. I've been in the cannabis space for about seven or eight years starting with partnership disputes in cannabis lawsuits that grew to compliance employment real estate issues. And serving on panels from the Arizona State Bar where I'm based out of and then panels throughout the country on issues like licensing, TUE, and social equity. So it's my privilege, NACB's privilege to help coordinate these various subcommittee meetings that we've had throughout today and will have going forward on Mondays and Thursdays and that help me create good policy for the state of Vermont. So before getting into the brief introductions for all the esteemed advisory subcommittee members, I wanted to introduce the members from the NACB that will be leading this group. Junie, do you want to say hello with a brief introduction? Hi, everyone. So excited to have you all here today and excited to be working on social equity for all of Vermont. Just a little background about myself. I've been with the NACB for about three and a half years now. I also teach at the City University of New York for over the past decade in public health and health sciences. I was also a Chief Operating Officer at a private wealth management company and truly very passionate about social equity. You know, we last year heard the cries of the Black Lives Matter movement and what we did as an organization was that we're going to show you how these laws matter and so we did a social equity model around it and we've done conferences and comparison analysis of what's happening in different states. This year we are trying to develop diversity, equity and inclusion centers in the workplace. We have just come up, we are coming up with an article right now about the aftermath of incarceration. So, you know, we live and breathe this all the time. We're truly just blessed to be able to be here with you and to assist you with your social equity program. Thanks, Gina. Jeff, you want to say hello and maybe brief her intro? Yes, my name is Jeff Gallegos. I'm an attorney in Los Angeles, California focused on civil rights and teleadvocacy and public interest law and I'm a career musician as well and I'm thanks to be part of this part for social equity. Thank you, Jeff. Hi, I'm Danika Spatt. I lead marketing communications and strategic initiatives for NACB. I started in cannabis in 2018, primarily on cannabis banking and payments and I have been a career marketer and communicator for over 30 years. Thank you for allowing us to be here. We are grateful. Thanks, Danika. And now our advisory subcommittee members, Nader Hashim. Thank you. My name is Nader Hashim. I worked as a Vermont State Trooper for a little under eight years. During that time, I was a drug recognition expert and served on the fair in the Park of Solutions City. After about eight years, I was elected to public office, served in the Judiciary Committee on the House of Representatives and currently I'm working at a private law firm in Brattleboro. Thank you, Nader. Ashley Reynolds. Hey, guys. President Co-Founder of Elmer Mountain Therapeutics, full spectrum CV company here in Vermont are main missions and principles of the businesses creating safe access to cannabis, especially for women and mothers. I worked really hard in the beginning of starting this industry in Vermont to bring as many women into the industry as possible. Really lucky to see those same women that are still being successful today and extremely important to me to see social equity at the forefront of creating this brand new industry. Thank you. Thank you, Ashley. Senator Davis. Hi, I'm Winnes Southerly. I'm Susanna Davis, the Racial Equity Director for the State of Vermont. I am this role excited in agency of administration, but it is statewide, so I tend to collaborate with all the state agencies and the three branches of government, as well as local and federal partners. Before this, I was in New York City Government and the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. And before that, at the New York City Council as the Director of the Blackboard Communication Caucus. Thank you, Susanna. And thank you again, all of you, for your time and your service on the subcommittee. I know we have a few members of the public in the room with Julie as well. I want to make sure that everyone knows that every public comment can be submitted electronically via the web form on the CCP website and happens in May 2021. I want to ensure everyone that your comments have been received, reviewed and considered by each and every subcommittee member and we do appreciate your input. There will be time at the end of this meeting for public comments as it will be at the end of every meeting toward the end of the hour. And in addition, the CCB will be hosting dedicated meetings for public comments, both at the Friday Board Meeting via the public link or at the CCB's public comment evenings that will also be posted on the website. So your voids will be heard and considered, but we do have pressing deadlines on this, particularly for social equity. And it's critical that we can start the meeting. Tom, this is T.J. Donovan from Auditoring General. I think I'm a member of the social equity conference. Sorry, Dave. Dave shared and became the general counsel of the board. Good to see you. Good to see you. Sorry, I don't want to interrupt your introduction. Go ahead. T.J. Donovan from Auditoring General looks forward to working with you all. Thank you, T.J. Tom, before we get started, can everyone on the call see the screen that I am sharing the PowerPoint presentation? Okay, very good. And if anyone decides that we need to go back or anything, we can do that. I'm driving the bus. And I apologize I'm in T.J., I was just about to turn it over to Danika. And then again, Danika, if we could keep track of the time, leave at least 10 or 15 minutes towards the end for public comment. Thanks. Absolutely. I'll go straight to it. So the request was made to please give a summary of the public comments that have been received, so that is exactly what we're going to do. While I'm not going to read these aloud to everyone, you'll receive these afterwards, and they'll also be posted online. I've literally lost Ashley Reynolds, so there we go. He's joining us right now. Okay, fantastic. But the comments that did come in quickly are that equity and inclusion priority for the future adult market, of course vacating all Reynolds-Warner convictions, being a possession of distribution was another one that was heard, but a focus on PIPOC which stands of course for black indigenous people of color. That would be social equity applicants with something that was out there. They want people to stay engaged and have direct lines of communication with the board, which as Tom mentioned, many of those are able to be done through public meetings that are held. Also, someone posted about hosting more public meetings around social equity and social justice with experts including Minority for Medical Marijuana and the last prisoner project. One of the articles that Gina referenced that everyone know, NACB has done an article on one of the employees of the last prisoner project, Stephanie Shepard, that'll be coming out in October that surrounds the aftermath of incarceration as she was a convicted felon that's 10 years in prison. Also, someone offered some recommended reading. There is a link to the book Chasing the Screen, the first and last days of the war on drugs, and a minor summary was also given. There are different comments made since the CCB offered the ability to post public comments online. And for everyone who is either watching or in the room, if you'd like to make public comments, you may do so directly from the CCB's website. This will also be available once this recording is posted as this deck will also be out online. Thank you, Tom. Okay, thank you. Take it over. I can or I can most certainly turn it over to Gina or Jeffrey to talk about the purpose of the social equity subcommittee. Gina, Jeffrey, if one of you guys would like to take it, please feel free or I'm happy to do so. So, I'll take that over. Thank you, Janita. So we just first wanted to go over what the purpose of the social equity subcommittee borders all that. And this is really on how do we rectify a wrong for those who were disproportionately impacted on the war on drugs, specifically for Vermont. So there are things that we have to determine right now, which is coming up, to find and determine application criteria for Canada. We need to develop a plan to ensure participation within the industry. One of the things that I really want to note here, this is not just about getting people licenses. I want to think of strategic ways on how we can have an inclusive industry. How do we get people into starting fields or cultivation? How can we provide education to those who really want to come into, who are social equity candidates? And how do we provide ways to reduce or eliminate fees for licensees and that industry? So I will hand this off to Jeff Frey, who will go over the purpose of our social equity program, especially from a federal constitutional level and then be going into some of the laws that Vermont has already handled and some modeling that are out there that can give us a better understanding of social equity. So I'll hand this over to Jeff Frey. Thanks, Gina. So the overall purpose is from what I understand is a remedy for an injury. And so there's the basic purpose and we have NACB models posted online. You can go to the next slide. So here we go. Here's where Vermont legislation comes in. So the phrase social equity applicants, this is kind of really the only place that it comes up and it's not really clearly defined what a social equity applicant is in the statute. So part of the subcommittee's purpose is to come up with criteria for what that means. And part of the reason why it's important to identify the criteria is because one of the benefits as you can see from this section 13 to Act 62 is its access to this cannabis business development fund. And that's located in section 987, 988 of Title 7. That's kind of the detail of what the money is to be used for. But that's one of the benefits of being a social equity applicant. We go to the next slide. So here's so in reading the entire act the only place I could find that really tied what the legislature meant by social equity is this part right here. So real quickly we'll talk about the fees because that's one of our first deadlines is to find out how to reduce and eliminate fees. And then social equity in this if you look deeper in the section it identifies both an injury and the beneficiary of what social equity means. So the injury is disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition. And the beneficiaries are individuals from communities that have been injured and individuals that directly have been injured. And so I kind of like right now I'd like to ask Nodder who was a member of the Vermont legislature. So we're lucky to have some living breathing legislative history in the circle right now. When you were there did the legislature discuss what social equity meant? I mean we had extensive conversations about it and we did talk about social equity although that was not at the forefront. The primary thing we focused on in judiciary had to deal with traffic safety. That was one of them. But when it came to social equity we did often talk about expungement, the expungement type of thing. So am I correct in saying that the purpose of social equity is a remedy for an injury? Does that sound right? I would say it's part of it. A remedy for an injury in terms of social equity. I think it's also it also involves dealing with removing disparities and barriers when it comes to entering the sort of market or the sort of industry. I just want to make sure I'm not talking out of school. So let's go to the next slide. And here's another benefit for social equity applicants for individuals who have been historically disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition is access to this outreach and training and employment program provide economic opportunity. So we can go to the next slide. And then Gina if you would go through the NACP social equity model please. So this is what after doing the comparison analysis of social equity models in the different states that are available now we've determined that there are many things that we have to consider. For one is we disproportionately impacted areas. A lot of people have been viewing that as a number one concern where it's high incarceration rate low social economic background. And obviously these people have had a disadvantage and they've been highly targeted on the war on drugs. During our community outreach and the information that was provided to us we have realized that based on your social demographics there are some areas that have very high income and very low income who live right next to each other. So that is a very unique thing about Vermont and something that we will be addressing when we have to think of what the qualifications should be for a social equity license. And the next slide that I really want to bring you to is to really understand the difference between what is social equity and what is DUI. This was briefly mentioned by Jeffery just recently about what is social equity and I'm again not right. And the major difference is what is the individual disproportionately impacted by Canada's prohibition. Now if we can show some harm, you know people of color had higher rates of incarceration due to cannabis we can show that that was harm and that was impact. The same thing with lower social economic community. If we can then we have to go to the conclusion of are they historically unrepresented individuals and businesses and governments and societies. Now that would be considered to be diversity, equity and inclusion. Now one of the major things that we always have to look at is the judicial review in a social equity program. If we can not show that they have been harmed by Canada's prohibition you know we will have a big challenge if that ever gets to judicial review. So we want to make sure when we're enacting anything for the social equity program that we really have scrutiny tests. With that being said after our community outreach it does seem that Vermont is very insupportive of social equity and DEI. So my one recommendation to the board is to create both programs and have the subcommittee look at both characteristics and how will that look like. I would love to find out the subcommittee members feelings about that. And we'll talk about more about social equity in a few minutes. Ashley how do you feel about looking over both social equity and DEI? Honestly I think it's really comprehensive that we're tackling it in this manner. I've definitely had some constituents reach out to me from the as an active try and I feel like there's a lot that's being talked about for my community and I feel like there's one voice that we're not really discussing in Vermont than a lot of others and so I myself felt like I should have really brought that into my landscape when I was thinking about social equity for cannabis. That was another demographic I was thinking about so I just want to present that to you guys and to the board. And then if we're also thinking about creating diversity equity you know are we looking at you know a residency requirement for these licensees? Are we looking at you know you were talking Gina I guess about if we can't find this like to see if we can't create this perfect scenario to right the wrong now it's then what? So I find myself thinking I was really like sheer footed about being on this subcommittee and now I'm like well there's a lot of people I'm not thinking about or there's maybe people that I mean maybe are outside of the state thinking they want to come to the state to create that diversity so I don't have a good answer for you right now I'm still really getting information from what our constituents are really wanting from what I'm seeing as potential issues. For right and wrong in the state I was right reading through what some of the requirements are as they are laid out now certainly I like the idea of violent offenders you know I think that's or nonviolent offenders being expunged but seeing that the limit of the amount that someone was in possession when they were arrested is only two ounces I feel like I don't know anybody who's distributing and getting arrested for that that was only distributing two ounces so I feel like that's really an out of touch way to create any kind of expungement for the state of Vermont I've definitely first-hand seen family members and friends be put in jail for this plant in the state and ruin their lives and ruin their family's lives they happen to be white people but they're native Vermonters and I care deeply about expunging them I care deeply about creating space for them they know how to grow, they know how to care the families, they know how to pay taxes they know how to survive here in Vermont and have for many hundreds of generations of years and I want to make sure that those people's voices are heard but I don't know exactly how to do all that you know this is a big issue I'm going to glad that Vermonters are putting this at the top of their list but it's not like a lot of states that have legalized straight up it's not don't have the same diverse population and therefore this isn't as kind of black and white if you want to call it in those manners it's not it's not like that in the state and I just want to make sure that we're including Vermonters, real Vermonters as it sits today first I'm trying to create a market that all these people are here, all these people are ready but maybe not exactly the same level diversity that we're hoping for and you brought up a lot of great points Ashley I'll first press upon the question that you had about residency we have the same question and that is something that we will be discussing in the subcommittee group right now the social equity program which only has $500,000 that's allocated to it so far there potentially could be money coming in from integrated licenses and then there'll be funding once the industry is up and running but we have to make a distinction do we want to put a residency requirement on it so that we can ensure that it goes to people who have been in Vermont during the time period that we are speaking about and so we will definitely discuss that we will definitely go over social justice I know that there is concern about I think right now there's only one ounce that is being able to come off of now two ounces but exactly you're not being incarcerated for those levels and we really have to talk about how we get that off their sentencing how do we allow these people who have been injured because of the war on drugs that were in prison or are in prison for this what do we do how do we give them their life back so we will definitely be speaking about those issues and I do see Nader your hand up thank you I just wanted to throw in one piece of information that I think is important to consider which is that when we're looking at the residency requirements you know Vermont has I don't have the numbers right in front of me but Vermont has a rapidly growing minority population especially in Wyndham County the southeast corner of Vermont and I think that we just want to I just want to advise that we should give some pretty good consideration as to what the residency requirements will be because that is something that will affect primarily five box people around Vermont just want to throw that out there I agree with you I wanted to second that to you I was brought up to one of my questions as well it's like okay you make the residency requirement really you know two years five years then the tiny pool is even pioneer that we have to create the right side of the rock so I'm sorry I didn't mean to interrupt don't worry interrupt as many times as you want that's how ideas flow I'm TJ I would love to hear from you and your thoughts on that thanks Gina I agree with what I think Ashley said about the complexity of this I like the idea of being as broad and as inclusive as we can to the point data made about making sure that we're acknowledging folks that are coming to Vermont and it's complex and I think disappointed to hear that the fund only has $500,000 in it you know the access to capital is a big part of this we need to discuss that so I appreciate I think what you laid out in terms of the differences of social equity that I'd like to frame the remedies to to address the harm but I also it sounds like the diversity and inclusion equity would be much more broad and inclusive in terms of creating that pool of applicants but this is I think Ashley is right Vermont is it's a complex place and I want to make sure that everybody has the opportunity to participate in this you know the expungement issue you know I'm happy to make sure that we have a legislative proposal for January that I gave share window this off the top of this head I don't know it but so the expungement is only to one ounce or less right now on the possession so it's automatic for the one ounce or less you can get any possession amount expunged if you apply okay so is there any marijuana conviction that is not expungable anymore yeah all the all the selling feeling is still not expungement eligible and also any one with violence correct violence or a gun or any sort of weapon is that correct David and you know when you're just talking about possession that wouldn't really play into it and there's no like possession offense that also takes into account you know possession of a weapon or something like that there's other rules around expungement for other offenses you may have gotten that may make it hard or impossible to expunge the possession offense but taking possession by itself it's just any possession amount can be expunged I agree with you TJ in all of your points that you've made one of the things that I would like to say is that we want to make sure that you know the social equity which was supposed to go for grants, loans and you know education that we still hold it for those social equity applicants and you know see you know with diversity equity inclusion what other funds are available for them you know I think you know we definitely need to be to the cannabis control board about this so we can go further and see can we be more inclusive and I think that we also need to take steps with working the banks and seeing you know you know state banks how can we get low interest loans for them so maybe we're subsidizing the loan instead of you know just giving out a grant because at the end of the day we still are dividing this and it will come forward you know it's $10,000 really going to make any substantial difference and it's not going to be but I will say that I have a couple of ideas that we that will make this an interesting way on how to be able to help the social equity licensee and I think we just really need to get think outside the box and that's the great thing about Ramon you're really a small state you have more flexibility which these larger states wouldn't be able to do Susana can I do you have any comments that you would like to add and how do you feel about social equity in DEI program I feel really good about social equity so yeah I mean I'm listening to everybody that's being said and I agree with a lot of it I also have a hesitation about residency requirements we have a lot of people who don't live in Ramon simply because they were pushed out or because of the sense of I'm going to be discriminated against or have been discriminated against and so to some extent we implement a residency requirement that's too stringent and we're effectively rewarding people so I would just consider that and again on the topic of whether or not we should consider funding amounts I mean I'm somebody who strongly believes that government at all levels has money and that if we want to move the needle and really make meaningful change then it's going to require us coming it's going to require that we feel it and not just do the easy loss thing because it certainly came at a great cost to have the policies we've had on the books for this many years now so we talked about a whole lot and at this point I've forgotten the earlier part of the conversation but so far I like what I'm hearing there's anything specific you want me to draft I couldn't keep all the thoughts together at once and do you support this committee looking at a social equity and a DEI program? Oh absolutely yeah because I think we're talking about multiple tracks one is about percentage or proportion of representation not just in markets but in society in general and then the other trap is really reparation of harm or correcting harm and the question of course for us is harm that was just inflicted by or in Vermont or harm across the nation as a whole and that's another question that we can get to but I do think that they can be distinguished in different tracks and it's really worth exploring Thank you so much for your comments Susanna that is really important Stephanie? Yeah I kind of wanted to go on what Susanna was just saying about having two different tracks so one of the challenges that have come up I'm glad this slide is still up because from different states we've gotten sued over this you know someone feels left out and they'll bring a lawsuit saying that the law is unconstitutional and then the court will have to review it based on a series of three different hurdles and so the strict scrutiny test is the highest hurdle that a law will have to overcome to be deemed constitutional and so as we're entering the process to have this concept in mind to identify the compelling government interest which like from earlier so earlier is establishing the social equity program as the remedy and then the DDI is a different track so it's focused on like the social equity injury part is the compelling government interest is repairing that injury and then after you identify the interest you have to narrowly tailor the law so that it accomplishes that government interest and so for Vermont and also I'm glad we have a person who's got experience in law enforcement because we need to ask the questions of like what how did cannabis prohibition go about in Vermont and so the statute uses the words cannabis prohibition not war on drugs and so it's focused on cannabis but identify what a normal impact is and identify what a disproportionate impact is and then the people that have been just people in communities I should say have been disproportionately impacted are the ones that qualify for the remedy and so another thought too is we're going through this conversation is to identify what communities mean is it a geographic location is it a group of people and so that seems to be kind of another topic that you know for Vermont a geographical approach like some other states have taken may not be the best way to go and so just as we're entering the process just have in mind that if something happens and that the law is challenged that we'll be able to clear that high hurdle of the streets for reasons I think we can go to the next slide for that and I just want to add to that you know that is something that we're going to discuss on Monday you know who is a social equity candidate who would be a diversity equity inclusion candidate so you know just keep that in mind over this weekend when you're thinking about it but I also just want to piggyback on what Jeffrey said a lot of states have tried to include so many people and they have had a lawsuit because they then can't show harm that has been done by the prohibition of Canada so we don't want to get into that situation as well and later I just wanted to know if you would like to add anything I know you made a comment earlier but do you have any additional about this one topic nothing specific I mean I'm in support of creating these two different pathways and I think it speaks to the conversation that Jeff and I had earlier regarding social equity where it's not just a harm that's been caused to somebody but also a dealing with barriers and hurdles that different communities face when they're trying to get into this industry how has Vermont law enforcement approached Canada's approach well that's a really large question I mean I can't speak for every agency I can describe my time when I was a trooper when it comes to Canada's prohibition from that inside cultural standpoint with the Vermont State Police the police who did drug addiction were mostly seen we're often seen as the ones who were on that hierarchy of being a good trooper and so you know the more drugs you got out of a car the better of a trooper you were seen as some of your peers and you know when it came to drug addiction and DUI addiction those were the major points when it came to you know getting promotions or getting on special teams and that sort of thing so drug addiction was seen so there was an incentive to enforce definitely there was also an incentive to not mess it up and not do it if you don't know what you're doing because messing up drug addiction is the and then it's actually to throw out for the people that are watching in the public that want to comment if you can share thoughts about what the impact has been for citizens of Vermont with the Canada's prohibition that's information that will help the subcommittee as well I think I can thank you Nader for that information welcome and we've spoken about this slide it's a strict scrutiny test that when this gets the traditional review that's what we're going to be looking for how can we show injury and the things that we need to focus on is what happened during Canada's prohibition what was that impact to people and or different groups is this an individual is this community that we're going to be looking at and you guys have a good question in terms of the injuries and the prohibition is there a time frame in which we're looking at in terms of the lens 30 years this is the last 40 years because the criminal justice system while not perfect has evolved particularly in the last 10 years even with prohibition and not to get too much of the weeds you're going to have very different approaches because law enforcement is it's a local control issue it's a county based system and so you get a lot of disparity based on the county and so I'm just wondering as we frame this are we looking at it over the what is the time frame we're looking at I love that the prohibition of cannabis has evolved since 1937 and so there's like I look at cannabis prohibitions like three kind of phases so there's the 1937 marijuana tax act there's the controlled substances act in 1970 and then there's the cannabis crime bill of 1994 and then as you said Mr. Attorney General about how the enforcement has changed over the last 10 years so thinking about who's going to be joining the market now would probably be people that have been that were impacted starting around between controlled substances act and crime bill of 1994 thank you that's very helpful for me to frame this to think about those who have been impacted because I do think the last 10 years particularly in some parts of Vermont it's been essentially even before decriminalization it was de facto decriminalized through diversion programs but that was not consistent on a statewide basis and again we can get into the complexity but I appreciate Jeffrey the framing the time framing of this because that's helpful for me to think about that well I think it's helpful what you just said about measuring the impact too because the impact has changed over the years and so what is disproportionate and what is a normal impact or what is a life impact so thought for the subcommittee sorry to step in Gina we're about five minutes until we need to start taking some public we're going to be wrapping up shortly Jeffrey if you can go over the proposed bill Vermont's age 414 and this gives us the best information of what a disproportionate impact area is so this goes back to what I was saying earlier about what does communities mean for Vermont is communities a geographical location or is community something more underlying and so this proposed legislation from Vermont is similar to what we see in other states which kind of identifies a geographical area and here's a criteria that can define the area is you know the what an opportunity zone is, a census tract poverty rate SNAP assistance and the high rates of arrest, conviction and incarceration related to cannabis this one is in the works right now in the Vermont legislature but it looks to me like this is more focused on a geographical thing so that's something for the subcommittee do we want to go into geographical classification or do you want to go into what does community mean in Vermont and is it limited to geography as well as the idea of this slide yes and we're just going to end this on really what our upcoming priorities are we need to define what social equity is who is that potentially that licensee or that candidate as Stephanie has just said is that a geographical location or is it just groups of people we also have to consider about you know these DEI programs do we create these two separate programs how do we reduce or eliminate licensing fees and how do you know one of the things that I will also want to think about is how do we ensure an inclusive industry so how can we get people into other positions within the job and not even you know do we you know promote for minority companies vendors you know can we supply things to that do we support minority products you know other ways that we can really create an inclusive environment that may not touch any that may not actually work in the industry but for very businesses for the industry any comments before we get to public comments yeah let's just say something Gina what you just said as far as the inclusive part of it this more goes into the licensing priorities in section 903 A1 through 5 in the Vermont statute is that a business plan I think it's A3 a business plan that is inclusive can get you ahead in the line for like and that they are deeming as a social equity potential candidate if you can hire 51% of social equity candidates as for your business so those are also inventive ways of how we can get more candidates into the industry any comments before we move on for public comments okay thank you I'll hand it over to you Tom thank you Julie I know we have some some in-person attendees do they have any questions for the subcommittee no no public comments this time thank you Gina and Jeff I'll let you jump in if you have some closing comments I had a couple thoughts for the committee to help steer it but if we have more if you guys have more to say I want to give you that opportunity no Tom go first sure I was I was scribbling down just a couple thoughts on what it is to start obviously this is a big topic it's a big aspirational topic and it started I'll just start with some broad brush strokes obviously last summer this spurned on a lot of programs some of them were in existence but a lot of them developed then and there's been very success across the country and people wanted to be these programs you know not unlike the discussion today include everyone let's figure out how to do this and you're reading a lot about how a lot of programs aren't meeting up to those lost expectations so there is that element out there and there will be that struggle with this committee about how to achieve all this and how to make it a success program and what has been said a lot of it is going to come to how much capitalization can you help these applicants with because that's just the reality of the cannabis industry right now it's not cheap to make it but a couple things that were said as far as the residency requirement that's pretty standard across the different states and I hear you on why you want to get rid of it but just consider this one of the reasons that it's in there the primary reason I think is to keep out the MSOs so just realize the other side of what you're doing maybe some unintended consequences of you discarding the residency requirement because you will just be opening the door to some actors out there that you may not want to be doing that for the second thing is what is MSOs for those in the multi-state operators those are the big players out there and some of the concerns and the dangers of the social equity program is that those players will come in and partner with a true social equity applicant and then take over that license and that's what's happening today across the country the second thing and this is more of a broad concept is when Jeff and Gina were talking about the constitutionality challenges to social equity programs and this goes all the way back to for the lawyers or even non-lawyers there have been constitutional challenges going back as far as affirmative action and a lot of those racially based programs those exist certainly within the cannabis industry specifically with social equity programs and there is straight language from some of the states I'm not saying this will happen in Vermont but you should be aware of the dangers of it and I'll just read you from this case and this is from Ohio this is the most famous one that's found unconstitutional while remedying the present effects of past discrimination can be a compelling state interest and that's the strict scrutiny part of the strict scrutiny test that Jeff was talking about while that can be a compelling interest because they had as part of their social equity program racial elements to it the state does not have does not have a compelling interest in remedying generalized societal discrimination which is what people usually talk about when they're talking about a social equity program so what we have with the Vermont legislation and I'm aware of it you have they're saying well we need to give preferences and I've even seen a quote from the governor about this preference for social equity and they combined into that preferences for social equity and the other underrepresented groups the DEI groups that you're talking about and you can try and parse it out into different programs social equity and DEI but when I'm looking at this and I'm happy to take any other analysis of this because I know there's folks with experience with this but I think both those programs fall under the same scrutiny that you know a social equity program would and I don't know how you could distinguish from one another the other thing that is looked at heavily in these cases I think it was kind of addressed in the slides is when you're trying to remedy that past discrimination courts did not accept even data or evidence from other states or the ACLU it's what have had this state done to study that and so what we've talked about I think before this group is what studies, what information is out there to determine how you're going to define that social equity applicant and that DIA section there needs to be some evidence you have backed up about what the impact was from cannabis prohibition and that should, I think in my mind we moved to kind of the forefront on the study of what that is this is for your social equity program and I know that you're walking on the path of the social equity and the DEI program which I think is both subject to that same constitutional scrutiny but I probably talked long enough about those thoughts does that make sense to everyone? Todd it makes sense to me yes I would ask and Dave I don't know if you can do this but can we get a one pager on just the law really summarizing Tom what you just said on that Ohio case and others to really understand the distinction the complexity that you just outlined I think about that and read this quote from I guess Forbes this is our challenge we need to do our homework here in Vermont and get our data ready so we can make an argument so we can defend hopefully a social equity program that is broad and inclusive and provides opportunity to the folks that we intended to but as we know as lawyers we can have the evidence yeah and I can I'm happy to email you to Dave again that's one court in one state but just be aware of the risks so one of our challenges is that we do not have a disproportionately impacted report but I know the cannabis control board and other departments are trying to get that information and reports that we need in order to verify our information and if you know of any reports out there that can help us support our social equity applicants that would be tremendously helpful from that so social equity isn't so easy after all you know there's a lot that really goes into this and you know with these challenges we're going to try to make the best decision possible and really try to create a really inclusive industry or we'll say you know everybody in Vermont needs to be very supportive of these programs so I'm really really happy to do that do we have any comments or questions before we leave this session well thank you everyone I'm going to move to adjourn we've got the next meeting starting in three minutes if I can get a second we will join everyone again on Monday second thank you