 Welcome to the Vermont House Government Operations Committee. Apologies for the delay in getting started this morning. It took us a few extra minutes to get connected to the YouTube feed. We are coming back to our deliberations on S25 and act relating to miscellaneous cannabis regulation procedures. We've already had a good walk through with the bill and spent some time with the incoming chair of the cannabis control board. And some other folks testifying this morning and with us right now we have David Shearer who's the assistant attorney general. And I believe that primarily David will be talking with us about the sections of S25 dealing with advertising, because as folks will recall from the testimony yesterday from the incoming chair of the cannabis control board. There is a vacuum at the moment in terms of what the advertising policy will be. And so David Shearer thank you for being with us and welcome please please share with us the perspective of the Attorney General's office with respect to the advertising language and S25. Yes, thank you Madam Chair and for the record David Shearer assistant attorney general. Our office is in support of the advertising sections to put the headline up front here. I'll limit my remarks today to the sections that are related to advertising which I believe are five through nine, although the really substantive meaty ones that have the biggest legal impact and potentially concerned that are most likely to be litigated I think are sections six and nine. And they are substantially the same with regard to cannabis establishments and and dispensaries in section nine. constitutional issue and I and let me also back up and say sometimes I appear as sort of a policy person and today I'm appearing more as like a legal advisor person to talk about the constitutional issues and happy to answer questions that may arise from that. And there are other folks in my office who are more expert than I am including our solicitor general who I have consulted on some of these issues to make sure I'm up to speed in testimony here today. We're talking here about constitutional issue whenever the government seeks to regulate speech and there are different levels of scrutiny depending on the speech that's being regulated. And the type of the speech the way the regulations happen there's a bunch of different considerations for this type of regulation we are talking about commercial speech because we're trying to regulate speech related to commercial enterprises and specifically advertising of commercial enterprises. And there is established case law that governs how we look at these things and there is both the sort of broad case law that would be applicable a federal case law that would be applicable to this and also a couple of specific cases that deal with the respecting cannabis advertising in particular and I'm actually going to put a pin in those and return to them at the end of my testimony because I think that'll be a clearer way to go through it but hopefully what I say will be helpful to you and obviously feel free to ask any questions. The key federal case that we look to when we're trying to figure out if a proposed regulation is likely to be upheld by a court or struck down is called central Hudson central Hudson gas and electric versus public service commission. It's a case from 1980 but it is still good law and still governs how the courts look at whether or not regulations of commercial speech are in fact lawful. And that case laid out a four prong test and I'll just run through that now. The first prong is that the speech must in order for commercial speech to receive free speech protection in other words to have it be unlawful for the government to regulate it. It must first of all concern lawful activity and not be misleading so if it falls outside of that then it's not really protected by the First Amendment at all and government can deal with it however it would like to there's no real limitation in that case. Once you pass that bar you are now in the realm of speech that does get First Amendment protection and there are three more bars that need to be met. The government interest needs to be substantial in order for the regulation to pass muster the regulation that needs to directly advance the governmental interest that is being asserted. And finally the regulation must not be more extensive than is necessary to serve that governmental interest. And so when we go through the potential regulations here kind of look at them. You know what we what we did in our office is we looked at them one by one and I'll sort of make a few general statements about it but if people have specific questions about specific prongs I'm happy to do that. Go into more specific issues on those prongs but generally speaking you know we think that we would stand on fairly solid ground. We're understanding these prongs under the central central Hudson test you know we're talking about regulation of a substance where there is valid medical concern about consumption and potential harm that can result especially to young people. And it is, you know that's sort of like a piece where you'd present evidence from the health department from studies from public health authorities showing that there are reasons why you wouldn't want this to be sold in the way that you know a fire truck for a kid might be sold and it's clearly a different category of product than that. And we do think that meeting prong, the basic prong of is the government interest substantial we think yes. And for some of these potential regulations, we think there's an even stronger one than that when you're talking about young people under 21. There's very good science and very solid data showing that there is a higher potential for harm for young people who consume it and again that science is quite solid and I think for that we have a governmental interest that's even more so we'd be an even more solid ground. We do think that looking down through these potential regulations that the they are. There is a decent argument and a strong argument even in each of them to say that the regulations are directly advancing the governmental interest asserted. For example, you're talking about say let's pick number six on this would be I'm looking right now on page 15 of s 25 is passed by the Senate. It says depicts a person under 21 years of age consuming cannabis or cannabis products so that's one of the things they're not allowed to do. And clearly that falls within the concern around young people. They're not consuming cannabis and it very directly advances that governmental interest. So then you go to the final piece of the puzzle here and you say well is that regulation more extensive than necessary to serve that interest. And we would argue and we think we would be on secure ground arguing that no that is not more expensive than is necessary. In general, this is a product that is not allowed to be sold to those under 21 and even you know even under this incoming legal scheme. And given that this is narrow not narrow I don't want to use the term narrowly tailored because that's actually a term in a different test that we legal test that gets used that is not applicable to this one but it is sufficiently focused on the potential harm to prevent. And for that reason we think it would pass the fourth prong as well. So that's an example of the analysis we did for each of the prongs and we think that they all are going to. We at least feel what we are on secure ground going into court one of the things that's tough about being a lawyer sometimes and you think even more frustrating for those receiving legal advice is that we can't give guarantees on cases that have not been decided but we do think that we're on secure legal ground. Making a case for this. I want to return to that other piece that I talked about the cannabis specific landscape that this is happening on which is, and there is a little wrinkle here which is that there are a couple court opinions as far as I know only to say Montana one from Washington State addressing the question of whether or not cannabis gets first amendment protection at all because it is unlawful under a federal scheme. Montana said, Well, no, you don't like this was actually not Montana's. And not a retail market this was the medical dispensary system set up in Montana and they said no advertising there's there's no first amendment protection here at all government can do it or they want to regulate because it's unlawful under the federal scheme, Washington State Court went the other way and said actually, this is lawful in the state of Washington, and therefore, first amendment issues apply and we are going to apply that scrutiny, and they did in fact strike down a particular aspect of the signage regulations that existed in Washington State at the time. So, that's a sort of baseline question that has to be met and we, you know, there's not a lot of cases to go on to know what happened we do think that it is certainly an odd position it's one that we could try to take but it would be an odd position to go into court and say that well the state of Vermont has decided that this is lawful but we are arguing that it doesn't get first amendment because a different jurisdiction the federal jurisdiction says it's unlawful. And the other reason why we support this approach going forward is that thinking about it, the sort of combination of public policy risk and litigation risk. We would have a complete free hand to regulate in other words maybe a band say it would be an extreme version of that but say there's no parameters from all places no parameters around what the regulations can be in the board goes off and introduces some very significant regulations that may be tough to defend on first amendment grounds. Let's say that that gets struck down that the sort of legal scheme the statutory scheme gets struck down just I permitting any you know permitting any regulation or saying that there's a total ban. Once that gets struck down by the courts. The state of Vermont has no legal authority to regulate anything and say so let's say it's a ban so ban is deemed unlawful and now it's a free for all, and there's no statute left in place to regulate and people running establishments would be able to do whatever they want at least until the legislature step back in to try to fix the situation but that could be many months as you as you well know if a court opinion came out in late June. Got a ways to go before the legislature can come back and try to fix that, whereas if you have something like this and you have specifically enumerated types of expression that are being prohibited. So one of those prongs fails or maybe even two of them fail in a court challenge. The other one still remain. And so Vermont is still left with some protection, which I think is the intent of the legislature where you certainly think that's a very reasonable and appropriate intent. That is a safer litigation stance to approach this from where, alright, maybe one or two of these doesn't withstand scrutiny, but on the whole, you know, just because those fail we still have a system in place to appropriately regulate. So that's where we are coming from on this we support it we think it's a reasonable way forward, and we think we're on fairly solid ground defending these and for the inner time public policy and litigation stance issue that I just talked about we think that this is really a fairly safe way to move forward as well. Thank you. I have a few members with questions so Ripley Hobsky. Thank you. So I have two questions one if for some reason and it doesn't sound like we would but I'm curious if Vermont went the way of Montana and then cannabis was legalized federally with that force to us to look at that again given that that law had changed. I mean I think that we are on safe ground. What our argument would be is that we're on safe ground, even if we assume that the First Amendment applies. So if it gets legalized federally then definitely the First Amendment applies that questions removed entirely from the equation but we're saying that even if a court in Vermont were to decide that it does apply here. We're safe now and certainly under the or we're on a good. We have a we have a solid argument to bring to court and certainly if that changes we still have a solid argument to bring to court we're in the same position we are now. Awesome thank you. My other question is also a little bit hypothetical but if corporations and businesses were not deemed people would they still be protected by the First Amendment. Commercial yeah the commercial speech test is not that question about whether corporations are people are not it's not relevant to the question about whether commercial speech is regulated or not commercial speech is regulated under the central Hudson test, regardless of how you legally categorize whoever it is that's doing the advertising. Awesome. Thank you so much representative Anthony. Thank you madam chair. Are any of the lessons that you have incorporated into your discussion, arisen from state constitutional decisions or they all interpretations of the, the case law at the federal level. So the Washington case did incorporate both the in its decision it said it was basing its decision both on the both on the federal Constitution and on Washington state Constitution but my understanding and I will check this but I'm fairly confident in saying my understanding is that often as the Vermont Supreme Court often does as well. I basically said the Washington Constitution has the same level of protection as the federal Constitution so the analysis is the same in both cases so it didn't really substantively change the inquiry they but they did base it on both the federal and Washington Constitution. So thank you to follow up, though it may not help because there's not a lot of case law of Vermont has diverged from the federal, particularly in the areas of personal freedoms. So that's that's unplowed territory. I guess the other, excuse me. Certainly true I didn't mean to indicate otherwise especially fourth amendment that criminal defense related issues the Vermont is more protective. I don't think we've done any commercial speech case that I'm aware of where Vermont has gone differently but your point broadly is well taken. The second issue that came up, I, you know, like many of us who are holdovers so to say, we dealt with the, the should we ban or should we put a tight set of range on it. This last biennium debate, and obviously deferred to the judgment that on your boss's advice would keep us out of court or at least give us a good shot at prevailing. I'm wondering because I think there's a reasonable basis in in precedent to distinguish between the levels of scrutiny or the levels of reigning in as between the age of the likely observer recipient of the ads. I'm wondering if you think that there's any way to go tighter on the current language where it's likely that a person under 21 years of age would actually be even on a chance, able to see the advertisement. But because it's illegal under 21 in Vermont, I assume from your discussion, and I trust that that we're there are latitude to be very parsimonious about the latitudes is different for under 21 and I guess where I'm going is, is there any way to tighten that language. And say, you may not do this this and this, because it's possible, not likely possible that a person under 21 would be exposed to it. So it's a very good question and I'm not sure I could give you a specific. You know I assume you're talking about the piece where it says that a licensee can has to show that not more than 15% of the audience is reasonably expected to see the advertisement. And I think yeah, I think that's pretty permissive 50% Yeah, I think it's one five of 15%. Yeah. You know, that's one of those things where it's really hard to say that X% is going to be the thing that the court says is too restrictive. I do think that at a certain point of restrictiveness, you're going to run into prongs three and four and especially for which says whether the regulation the court has to ask whether the regulation is not more extensive than is necessary to serve that interest. The court will say yeah completely banning the possibility that anybody under 21, you know, we're going to because under 21 is already a legally separate category with respect to this product we're going to say that that is fine and it's not more extensive than is necessary. But the tighter and tighter you make it the more likely you are to raise a court's concern that you've gone too tight and then it is more extensive than necessary. Again, I can't sit here and say that the X% is going to be the point at which they say that's too much we just don't know. It may be that they say a complete ban under 21 is fine it may be that they say that well because that effectively means that you're banning virtually any type of advertising because it'd be very I think is a practical matter it'd be very hard for an advertiser to show that advertisement would reach the eyeballs of somebody under 21 a court may say that well at that point because you've effectively banned it entirely. That is too far it is more extensive than is necessary and you fail the central Hudson test for that reason. So my guess is and this is a bit of a guess is that a complete saying no possibility that our new 21 can see it if that were the regulation. I think that would be harder to defend under the central Hudson test. And it would be more likely to be overturned some sort of percentage where okay, you really have to show that this is primarily directed to adults. There's some slippage there because you can't be extremely difficult to guarantee no under 21 eyeballs see it. You know some leeway there built in makes it okay and there and meets the final prong because it doesn't become effectively an absolute ban. So I think where you've landed is again one that we feel like is defensible on the reasoning that I just spoke about I think being more restrictive. You are definitely entering into tougher territory to defend I think more likely a court would have a problem with it. Thank you. I just, it's unfortunate from my point of view that the a numerical quota or formula is included for the instructive reasons that the judicial branch generally uses terms of art like preponderance and clear and convention convincing rather than mathematical apparatus. And so for my money, it would be much better to use a word like unlikely or rarely or possible rather than fooling around with 50% because that's just a trick wire. Actually, you know that it's a fair point that it isn't usually courts often do make decisions on the basis of likelihoods and so forth. The other state that does have a, and I should also say at the same time, courts have to be able to take into account more precise sort of mathematical issues that does happen sometimes so I think the point is well taken I think that this is based on a concept that came out of Colorado where they do also have a percentage that is a specific percentage in their regulations that actually has not been challenged in court at all. And that's one interesting test case I think for Vermont in terms of the practical outcome of how this is played out not so much in the courtroom litigation but it's not even challenged early on in courts in sorry in Colorado's statutory scheme as it came into play. There was a challenge from a set of media organizations who are basically saying we're going to lose a bunch of revenue because this is such a restrictive regulation, and the federal court said, I believe it was a federal court case basically said you're not standing because you are not the ones who are being directly regulated so that's not a sufficient interest and, and then nobody who was being directly regulated has ever brought a challenge in Colorado and I think that effectively what's happened is that the various establishments feel that they are able to have commercially viable enterprises under the regulations and have a challenge is going to be not necessarily productive and so it just hasn't happened even though it's a very robust market there with a lot of people involved in it so just to note about how things have played out elsewhere we obviously can't be certain how they, whether that would play out similarly here. Thanks David I think. I think it's worth just noting that when we when House government operations crafted this restrictive language around advertising in the last biennium. We're trying to be as as careful as we could be to make sure that that we were crafting an advertising regime that would keep cannabis advertising out out of view of people who are underage and and for whom cannabis use is not legal. And so our, our 15% that we that we put in in our initial language is is a bit stricter than other states than Colorado and California, who are at 70 and 30. But, but we felt that 15% was, you know the right, the right way to say, we want to be sure cannabis control board as your, as your regulating advertising we want to be sure that this isn't, you know, promoting use among underage Vermont youth. So, anyway, just a little bit of context, I have representative Hooper with a question. Thank you madam chair. Hey David. My questions were really along the lines of representative Anthony's I think that this 15% number, all of a sudden dictates where you can do business. More than how you do business to some degree you can't, you're very limited as far as where you set up in a shopping center or something like that. And that's sort of a weird backdoor way of getting to it I would have preferred no, but this really restricted things. Secondly though the first prong of your central Hudson. Does that effectively say you can appeal this state court jurisdiction only. Well that's a good question. I think that's one of the things that we're going to have to see how it plays out as to the extent that litigation develops in this area and again. I believe that it actually hasn't really developed in other states mostly establishments have just been willing to accept regulations and move forward with them but I that's going to be one of the fundamental questions is whether or not the fact that it is unlawful on a federal level is going to dictate how courts treat the First Amendment question. And we don't know the answer to that right now again we're working on minimal, not not zero but but very little precedent. But we do think that the Washington precedent is one that could and that was a state court decision that decided that the federal legal regime applied and the federal case law applied so I. I think that that is a very possible outcome here if a court were to look at this too and say you the state of Vermont you're a state jurisdiction but you decided it's lawful. And so once you decided it's lawful all of the First Amendment protections that apply to speech will apply to this too. And the federal court saying even though this is even though bank robbery is illegal and going to allow you to advertise that you're a bank robber that's sort of the threshold that we're getting to said. Bank robbery is certainly illegal under state law as well. An analogy that you know has the same distinction that we're creating with cannabis. And I don't have it right off the top of my head. It's usually that's pretty common but okay thanks anyway. Moving on. Thank you madam chair representative Danon. Thank you. Thank you, David for testifying this morning. So as I understand it, the benefit of what the Senate proposes in S 25 is that if part of this is struck down, we still would have certain restrictions on advertising. Whereas an outright ban if it gets struck down then we basically have the Wild West of cannabis advertising until the legislature can stand up a new advertising regime. That's, yeah, that's concisely stated exactly right yeah. For example, I mean if the 15% park gets struck down we would still have the language in B about depicting children using cannabis so I mean there would still be some protections in place. That could be very beneficial because I think the part that's that that if something was likely to get struck down it would probably be subsection C. So, I mean I think that's good advice because at least we would have some advertising protections in place. That committee. Go ahead. That is right that is one of the major advantages doing it this way. And for committee members. Remember, with respect to the 15% restriction. That has to be shown by the cannabis establishment. And one of the good things about having a percentage number is, it makes it very easy for the cannabis control board which is responsible for reviewing advertisements to determine whether or not that threshold has been met. If we have something like, you know, some language like is likely to be, then you could have arguments that would go to court about whether it was likely to be seen by by children is that true David do you think there's more of a concern there. I think that that's that particular piece about how whether or not you can show it. You know, make it clear showing. I think that it's reasonable to use any game we did discuss this I think it is reasonable to use a percentage to say like this is what your audience is going to be in some cases like there's real data that you can show around certain kinds of media and who is being consumed by in which it might be relatively easy to show one way or the other for general signage it, you know, you'd have to find a very location where somebody, some young persons, extremely unlikely to be, and that's possible to imagine such a place. And so in those cases, it may be it may ultimately become more like a well, is this very likely to be under 15% then the control board will have to make a decision did you make a sufficient showing that that likelihood has been met, in which case, you might effectively get some melded decision making there where there isn't like very clear data that can be demonstrated. But we think it's reasonable to sort of set up this percentage because it will more precisely capture some types of advertising where there is clear data on viewership or listenership or whatever it might be. And for the ones where there may not be quite that much clarity, you're asking them to make a decision saying that very few young people are going to be able to see this. And are you the control board satisfied that they've demonstrated that. And I think that that's within their will be within their discretion the court will likely defer to them on that. And so our hope is that there won't be a huge amount of litigation as a result of that of having that line drawn. Thank you. Representative Leclerc. Good morning, David. See if I can articulate my question or in a way that makes sense. Does the intent of the advertising. Would that have any bearing on how you advertise. In other words, if you're looking to advertise to promote and advocate for increased usage, as opposed to just advertising from a saying informative standpoint is still to where and what you could expect to get. Does that make sense as far as the differential between the two. Yeah, you know, so if you look at section five actually the definitions do cover this. And it says what an advertisement is in subsection two of section five of the best 25 is passed by the Senate. And it defines an advertisement says any written or verbal statement illustration or depiction that is calculated to induce sales of cannabis or cannabis products. Now it is certainly possible that somebody may try to be a little tricky about that and say well I was just talking about this thing but it wasn't calculated to induce sales, or there may be genuine I don't want to impute bad faith and there may be genuine about whether a certain statement written or otherwise, or visual whatever it might be was calculated to induce sales that could become a subject of dispute. But I think that is a reasonable definition saying advertising is about increasing sales, that's its purpose. And if you can show that say there was something that was purely informational about the state of the cannabis market in Vermont but if you were really talking about any particular establishment or something like that you could say well this is this is just information about where things are and it's not calculated to induce sales, you know there there are. Certainly it's possible under this standard to make statements about what's going on in the market that are not advertising, and we think that that's a reasonable distinction to draw. Okay, very good thank you. Representative Anthony. Okay, let me go a little further in where I thought of my colleague rep LaClaire was going in the quintessential example example that I thought he was leading up to is the tobacco analogy trying to make sure that what I'll call our modes of impression on different age groups. The tobacco folks were enjoying from doing and that's the, the, the use of Joe camel the use of sports events the use of certain media and thematic kinds of context, which were clearly tailored to induce young people legal or not to pick up tobacco as a habit. I'm not seeing any kind of constriction on again the sort of contextual package, if you will, within which the verbiage would be located and I think that's too bad, because obviously I think the advertiser know advertisers know young people respond to some things that older folks do not. Thank you. Representative I think that's an important point I do think if you look at subsection seven under, I should say subdivision seven under section six it says things are not either the advertisements are not allowed to contain any statement or illustration that is designed to be or has the effect of being particularly appealing to persons under 21 years of age. I do think that allows the board to make reasonable regulations in that vein of the Joe camel type thing you're talking about. The tobacco just as a broader point to keep in mind is a lot of the regulations around that were actually as a result of the giant court settlement that happened in the 90s with the tobacco companies so they don't really get to appeal to first amendment questions anymore as a result of their hands being tied by that injunction and that settlement I should say so. That's a legal point but I do think this more substantive point around appeals to young people is addressed in this bill and representative Hooper. Thank you madam chair, David in jurisdictions like Colorado and Washington today land on the 21 year old restriction or is it a, you know you can join the army at 18 and go through grenades at people you ought to be able to look at advertising is that a justifiable number that has not been challenged in other jurisdictions. I don't believe 21 has been challenged anywhere. Excellent. Any other questions from committee members. So thank you so much for being with us this morning I apologize for the delay and getting us started but. But this has been an important dialogue here this morning and we do appreciate you coming and sharing your perspective that that this appears to be headed in the right direction. Thank you madam chair. Thank you so much for the committee we are going to shift gears now we have two more folks to give some testimony this morning so. Graham, I'm afraid I've only ever heard you say your last name once so I need you to say it again for me so that I know how to pronounce your last name. Please Graham unanxed roof and oct. Okay. Thank you for being with us from rural Vermont and I understand that you have some some thoughts and perspectives and ideas on what's in this 25. So, take it away and we will try to hold our questions until the end of your presentation. Thank you chair and thank you committee for having myself and the other members of Vermont cannabis equity coalition here today. Well Vermont is a member of that coalition and supports everything that was said by the former members that coalition who testified earlier this morning Mark Hughes and Jeff. And we also support Maddie Kempner's testimony and Josh with a caters when he gets around to testifying as well. For those of you who do not know rural Vermont is an organization that works to organizing education advocacy to affect agricultural access and equity throughout the state we've been around for more than 35 years starting sort of at the beginning of what we're at that point called the farm crisis of the 1980s. And I just want to check really quickly. How is my volume. I live in a part of Vermont where we don't have excellent reception so I am dialing in. If you see my video go out it's probably because I'm just seeing things slow down a little bit. I want to keep my connection. Good. But I'm seeing a knob and it looks good. We're hearing you just fine. Thank you. I guess I just like to start. You know we had a conversation as Mark and Jeffrey mentioned with Madam chair and representative Dan in a couple of nights ago. So we have some understanding of where folks stand and respect to some of our recommendations. And I think in particular related to our concerns related to agricultural access in cannabis being considered an agricultural product. I understand that there is very little willingness at this point to affect that. However I think it's important for us to put on record our concerns and our thoughts with respect to that. Our position is that outdoor production of cannabis is an agricultural act and an agricultural product. In 904 a small cultivators in that 164 the language states that it is the intent of the general assembly to move as much of the legal cannabis market as possible into the regulated market for the purposes of consumer protection and public safety is also the intent of the general assembly to encourage participation in the regulated cannabis market by small local farmers. We know that in the required agricultural practices and agricultural product is defined as any raw agricultural commodity that is principally produced on the farm includes products prepared from the raw agricultural commodities produced on the farm. We understand that crops such as alcohol and for those going towards biofuels are all considered agricultural. The Vermont State Agricultural Strategic Plan was recently released has multiple briefs about the critical nature of alcohol sales the production of alcohol ingredients cultivation of hemp and more non food products and related activities to the state of Vermont agricultural future. We also recognize that the existing local cannabis economy which was referenced earlier, and much of the small farm economy is dependent on direct sales from small producers to local consumers. When we can find cultivators to selling in the wholesale marketplace, it can find sense of being price takers, not price makers. They create a disproportionate degree of influence of market influence and power for cultivators a greater scale of production for wholesalers for retailers product manufacturers and dispensaries. And I think it's also important just to recognize that we are just advocating the outdoor production be considered agricultural. There are significant differences between indoor and outdoor production. They differ substantially in production ability in terms of seasonality in terms of versus year round production in terms of impact with respect to water usage, electrical usage facilities requirements, visual impact and more. And just the real importance of what you're taking the step to differentiate between indoor and outdoor production as our coalition member Jeffrey spoke to earlier. So, with that, I think some of the pushback we've heard when we when we begin to speak in this way is that we're advocating for the unregulated agricultural sale of cannabis, like any other agricultural crop and I just want to say that that's not true at all. We are advocating for licenses to be required for these folks. If you might look other agricultural crops like meat and milk and hemp, they are strictly regulated through testing and otherwise. We also have been told that it's simply illegal. We understand that this is a control substance those who will be consuming in Vermont selling a point of sale. Processing are all going to be engaging in illegal activity at the federal level, and we'll all have the same risks related to civil and criminal asset and forfeiture that we have been told to be concerned about for agricultural producers. We have also been told that enabling more outdoor production might be a greater risk to children and youth. And we want to just adamantly say that we see no evidence that agricultural production increases youth access or youth risk. And we would urge you to be very careful at the unintended consequences of moving this industry to more towards an indoor production, which Act 164 absolutely currently does by default. But critically important to our work as an organization that represents farmer voices is bringing farmers and community members into testify. As you may know, the agricultural committees have not taken up this bill over the many years Act 164, S54, S25. S25 is the only bill that briefly went to an agricultural committee in the Senate agriculture two days before crossover. We have many people, we have hundreds of people who signed up reticence last year around this bill. We can bring in people who are cultivators who are growers and unfortunately none of these folks have had the opportunity to influence this bill and what it looks like. There's a substantial lack of informing this bill from the direct stakeholders who are going to be hopefully constituting industry and who are in legislative intent, supposed to be constituting this industry. And maybe I'll just leave that there for now and move on to what I think are some ways of addressing some of our concerns about how farmers, for example, have land in current use or in agricultural easements where they will not be allowed to grow this plant. How we can address some of those concerns and perhaps give you some more amenable things that you can work on. So, as I said earlier, I think you can focus on directives to the cannabis control board related to equity and access and scale appropriate regulation. You can put things, some of our recommendations directly in, but if you feel like that's too detailed, you can also always focus on directives. So one thing that was focused on earlier by Jeffrey was rather than limiting the number of licenses limiting the scale of operation. This is production caps. We have articulated a tiered license structure in our proposals. And then Jeffrey went into that earlier, but the goal here again is to assure that as many people as possible can share in the wealth of this industry. We don't have the kind of consolidation that representative Anthony was expressing concerns about, and that you can have more of a distributed small business industry. The outdoor to indoor ratio is also critical. Jeffrey spoke to this as well. For every 1000 square feet of indoor production, we would like to see 4000 square feet of outdoor production. That's a 1 to 4 ratio. And the reason for that, again, is simply to achieve equity between these types of growing. We have seasonality versus year-round production. You have the impact from water usage, from electricity usage, et cetera, versus the sunlight that is growing plants and water that farmers can use to get drip irrigation or otherwise. We also recognize just the simple cost barriers to establishing indoor cultivation as opposed to what many small farmers are doing. And we are very unique in New England for those of you who might know more about the national and global agricultural scene. But we still, you know, we do have a lot of opportunities for small-scale specialty crop producers. And by specialty crops, I mean vegetables, fruits, et cetera, which I sort of see cannabis and hemp falling into the categories of. And hemp program also differentiates between indoor and outdoor production. So we have the ability here to sort of, at this point before federal law has legalized this, to create a model economy, which is equitable, the ends of the state boundaries. We're testing our market control mechanisms like limiting scale of operation, like articulating the indoor to outdoor ratio, which will hopefully create a more equitable market, prevent folks with more capital than others, folks with established wealth from dominating the market, and allow folks in Vermont to participate equitably. Given that we have these barriers still related to land and agricultural easements, land and current use, agricultural grant programs, et cetera. I would also urge the committee to do what it can to maybe consider language to specifically address that. For example, if we know that farmers will have to take land out of current use or agricultural easement to engage in growing this crop, it is possible potentially to put into this bill language, which would say that they would incur no penalty for dropping that land out of current use or out of agricultural easements. Currently there would be financial penalties for both. We also have concerns about the current allowances for home home scale production. That's the home grow allowance, which is too mature and for immature plants. I was on the phone with a Vermont based food safety compliance worker the other day who travels around the country. He was speaking to some of the real challenges simply of being in compliance at the home scale with this level, even with market, even with normal garden vegetables, tomatoes, et cetera. You know, you're growing a number that you know aren't going to make it to the end. You have seed viability issues. You have, you know, just poor plant genetics that play out in that particular plant. And with this plan in particular, if you're starting from seed, you have male to female ratios to consider if anyone wants to do any home scale breeding, et cetera. This is sort of directing people to purchasing clones to not addressing genetic legacy, the potential for people to engage in genetic appropriate development for our region. And it's really directing them towards the people who are going to be providing those clones in a lot less independence on their part. He also expressed simply concerns with the quality of product from home grows where people feel like they really have to hold on to what they have. He expressed concerns seeing a lot of local products over the years where it is moldy or et cetera, because people simply feel that this is valuable. They don't necessarily know what they're doing or looking at. And the importance of having outreach, of having folks who are available to teach people as opposed to simply come and punish and criminalize people. Rather than have outreach to ensure that there is safe production happening at the local level, whether that's for home grow or commercially used. And again, I just want to touch on our craft license structure that Jeffrey mentioned. We can give you more information about that. You already don't have our proposals in those. Hopefully you do. And again, just thinking about direct markets. I am a small producer. I sell grass fed beef. Small producers rely on direct markets based in the current paradigm that set up in ax 164. A cultivator will have to buy a separate retail license to be able to market their product. And there's no differentiation between scale at this point. And what we are advocating in our craft license category, the category of license, we're small outdoor producers, the smallest scale can have a vertically integrated license similar to the opposite end for the dispensaries. Where the smaller producers can process on site, can sale, can sell product from their farm from their cultivation site, directly to consumers so that they can actually achieve a price point which allows them to be a viable business. And I would love to take comments on this, but I also understand that Maddie Kempner from Northeast Organic Farming Association and our coalition members will just be speaking next. And I will perhaps just hand over my time for her and take questions either from you all now or at the end of all of our testimony. Thank you. Thank you, Graham. And since I don't see folks jumping in to raise their hand, I think we'll hold questions until the end. So welcome, Maddie Kempner. Thank you, Madam Chair and thank you members of the committee. My name is Maddie Kempner and I'm the policy director at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont. For those who may not be as familiar with NOFA, our mission is really centered on building an economically viable, ecologically sound and socially just agricultural system for Vermont. And that's the spirit in which I come before you today to make some recommendations and comments on this 25. So as you've heard, NOFA Vermont is also part of the Vermont Canvas Equity Coalition, along with the other folks that you've heard from this morning. And I thought I would just share, since you've heard, you know, a lot of detailed testimony from my coalition partners about different aspects of the bill that we would like to see changed. I'd love to just bring us back to the vision that that our coalition has for what this market can look like. So to take a sort of broader view, I guess, what we would really love to see in the emerging adult use cannabis marketplace is a market that is reparative of past and current harms of not only cannabis prohibition, but the economic disenfranchisement of the black community in particular, as well as low income communities here in our state. We are seeking a market that is accessible at all points in the supply chain from cultivation to retail to diverse communities across racial and economic stratifications to be able to be a part of that market. We are seeking a market that is supportive of small scale high quality production. And from an agricultural perspective, I just want to emphasize, since you know that's really our organization's expertise, small scale and high quality is what Vermont is good at. We, you know, we feel right now that act 164 in many ways sets us up for a consolidated commodity based marketplace through its licensing structure and the lack of differentiate differentiation between indoor and outdoor cultivation. And we really don't want to set up a cannabis marketplace that is headed in the same direction of our dairy farms, which you I'm sure you all know. Our dairy farming industry here in Vermont has become increasingly consolidated we have seen farm closures, you know, increased rapidly since the 1970s. And that marketplace has become increasingly focused on commodity production and is inaccessible to smaller scale producers, and those who are trying to enter that industry for the first time. And just personally I see, you know, put a lot of potential analogy between the direction that our dairy farming industry has taken over these past many decades. And the way that this current, you know, existing statue around cannabis sets up this marketplace for that same fate. And, and I'll also share I'm sure many of you are aware, having been in the legislature that the legislature has over the years put funding and effort into studying the creation of a Vermont brand for dairy products as a solution and a response to that increasing consolidation and commodification. And the goal of that, you know, a Vermont brand would really be to differentiate ourselves in the market and align our producers and our products in the minds of consumers with the higher quality that our farms can and do produce. So, that's all to say, we are urging you to make some of the changes that we're recommending in order to set up this emerging adult use cannabis marketplace in a better direction and to save us from the trajectory that we've seen our dairy farms take. Tragically, I will add, and to truly capitalize on Vermont's propensity toward land stewardship, small scale, high quality production and distributed economic opportunity. I also want to reference that and just remind you all that the governor included some of the specific points for which we are calling as a coalition in his non signing letter last year. He particularly called out in that letter that of primary concern is the licensing construct, which will disproportionately benefit Vermont's existing medical dispensaries by giving them sole access to integrated licenses and an unfair head start on market access. He particularly called on the legislature to do the following, which aligned very well with some of the testimony you've heard, especially from our cues this morning. He called on the legislature to create a social equity applicant category for cannabis establishment licenses, a 50% licensing fee waiver for those applicants, and additional technical and financial supports, all of which are included in the policy that Mark referenced. And finally, he called on the legislature to in the event that the current integrated licensing structure is maintained to direct revenues from those licensees to benefit social equity applicants and the community's historically most negatively impacted by cannabis enforcement. So, I think what I'll do to wrap up, I would love to just leave you with, you know, some final points and just reiterate again because my coalition partners have really covered it so well. At a minimum, our coalition is asking you to, you know, again many of these points from the governor's non sign letters and that you've heard from us this morning, include social, excuse me social equity program in S 25 as laid out in each 414, including the policies for social equity applicants, establish a cannabis business development fund, and in a social community social equity program. We are asking you to include a craft licensing structure for cannabis businesses in the statute, and we are asking you to differentiate between indoor and outdoor production and set tiered production caps at a one to four ratio between indoor and outdoor. And we feel that all of these provisions on the whole will set us up for a much more equitable accessible marketplace that steers away from corporate consolidation and commodification. And that really will allow, you know, our our constituencies and diverse communities in Vermont to thrive in this emerging marketplace, which I will also just add represents such a huge opportunity for our farmers and agricultural producers and other types of businesses that are struggling. Currently in our state and I think that there is so much excitement in our communities for what this marketplace could represent, if it were rolled out in a way that was accessible. And we are particularly asking you to make some of these changes to codify some of these changes in statute and not leave it up to the cannabis control board to make all of these decisions because we really need some of these aspects to be included as found as foundational to the way that this marketplace is being set up, and we can't wait for them to be to happen potentially later on through rulemaking. And I'm happy to take any questions. Thank you. Thank you to both of you for being with us this morning. Committee members do any of you have any questions, either for Graham or for Maddie representative gammon. Thank you. I think this question is for Maddie. What do you consider small scale. So we have requested, you know, I think our the production caps could be a good guide that we're recommending. We're recommending that you set production caps I think that Jeffrey maybe mentioned this earlier at 1000 square feet for indoor cultivation for at 2000 square feet for mixed light and at 4000 square feet for outdoor cultivation. And we have also recommended that anything up to one acre be allowed to be considered agricultural use. Can I quickly also just follow up on that. I wanted to clarify what Maddie was saying, because your question could be interpreted in a couple ways representative again and one is like what do we mean by small scale agricultural in general and where are we articulating at the smallest scale license that we'd like to see. And as Maddie said that small scale like the our legislators already articulated at 1000 square feet. We would like to see that interpreted as that is the minimal for indoor would be at the 4000 outdoor in the maximum license which we still feel is is relatively small, especially when you think about commodity crop production would be 10,000 square feet of indoor production and 40,000 or approximately one acre of outdoor production. And the second question, if we were to contemplate a integrated license for for small scale production. Would you agree that all the protections that are built into Act 164 should apply to that small scale integrated license. Can you say more about the particular protections that you're referring to. One of the things that deeply concern me in your paper was that, for example, outdoor cultivation did not be being closed in a lock enclosure. So the principle points of act 164 is consumer protection, and specifically youth protection, and I just find it unacceptable that that a field of cannabis could be out there with no, no protection at all about it or it's up to the farmer to determine what level of protection there should be. That just, I just don't understand that, because this is a consumer protection law. Well, I would, I would just add, you know, on the one hand, I think it's really important to remember that producers themselves have an interest, both from a liability standpoint a safety standpoint and an economic standpoint to protect their crops. I don't think that we are advocating that producers wouldn't necessarily, you know, wouldn't do anything to protect their crop and to ensure you know that folks can't can't access it. So that's one thing, you know, I also think. Yeah, I think that that's important to keep in mind and I, but I don't think that. I think that it's appropriate to use the same phrasing I suppose also to refer to outdoor cultivation as we would for indoor cultivation I think that the terminology and the phrasing could even be changed to make it more flexible because an enclosed lock facility. In my mind is an indoor cultivation scenario. So I think that the language could be changed to allow for outdoor cultivation. You know, with more appropriate language, I guess, in reference to, to security for outdoor producers. If I may just add on to that. We actually had a conversation with the president of the Humboldt County growers Alliance earlier this week. We spoke to how, you know, these security measures are actually barriers to access in some cases depending on how they're articulated and like Maddie said having the same security parameters articulated for indoor operations and outdoor operations. Just from a logistical standpoint for small production outside is is challenging. I think also the concern around hidden from public view can be very challenging depending on the actual piece of land people have access to. And it's. And I think one thing that should be thought about is then curious is what is the path. So it sounds like the scenario that you're bringing up representative Dan is that a youth would see a crop and would go and find a time to take it or steal it. And, and that would be, they would ultimately find a way to use it. And I think part of the question I have is what is, what does that path actually look like because we know that to get to a, at least a smokeable product. You're talking about harvesting it at the appropriate time you're talking about finding a place where you can dry a very smelly plant material for a period of time. You're talking about a lot of know how along that way as well. So both, you know, but Maddie says stands in terms of I think. Farmers want to find ways to protect their crop not only for the public good but for their own personal welfare. And there's certainly reason to articulate appropriate security requirements for outdoor production. But also I'm just curious as to what that path for that risk is that that you're seeing that like what what does that look like from your perspective for the youth risk there. I believe we have representative Anthony with a question. Yes, thank you very much and thank you both for your testimony. I'm wondering if the small scale integrative license would include on on farm sales. You know farm stand type of operation. Through hours of discussions about raw milk and figured. Well, you know, if you're going to have small scale. If you will on farm cultivation, and in fact an integrated license and create a craft dope. Why, why would it not also include a farm stand or is that not. Is that is that for sort of another another argument that you don't want to have. Thank you for that question representative Anthony and I would say in our minds absolutely. I think that we envision a small scale or craft integrated license to include on farm sales and I think you know Graham touched on this and in his testimony and I'm touched on it more but that just on farm direct to consumer sales is so so integral to how to the the marketing, you know that allow so many of our small scale diversified producers to thrive in any production type right now and it was really exciting this year to see the sales of of raw milk for example as you alluded to to farm stands and csa's and we would love to see a similar model with craft cannabis and do feel that that could be done. In a way that is that is safe and that really again is foundational to allowing producers to thrive and be able to access this market. Thanks just want to follow up observation and query. I'm kind of surprised that the House Committee on Agriculture has not been actively encouraging you to come make an appearance and talk about this because generally my my experiences they've treated agricultural activities is very very much a responsibility that not only they're proud of but they cover and so I, you know, I'm kind of surprised that you, you haven't had a day or so, because they're the experts at tailoring, you know, all the safety factors the environmental farming security issues that Rep Ganon referred to. That's what they do for farmers. So I'm disappointed to hear, but I'm not sure I'm hearing the whole story as to how or why you haven't been able to spend today in their committee and and sort of let them vet it and let them figure out the aspects that I know very little about quite frankly, except what I hear say. So I'm, I hope you do get a chance to make your pitch and for them to have input on this. And I'm kind of surprised that they haven't they haven't jumped at it. Thank you. I appreciate you saying that representative Anthony and I, you know, there were senators, especially in Senate government office who did help we're helpful getting us into Senate agriculture but we have been, it's been very challenging to get in the house agriculture and by the time we did get in the center agriculture was two days before crossover so they felt very limited but you should be assured that we have been asking for that time for a number of months now you can sense prior to the session and just to look up on Maddie's response to direct sales. I think the main point is, yes, direct sales, but that's not to say that we're saying direct sales cannabis would look like direct sales tomatoes from a farm stand. Absolutely like you said the agricultural community would be a great place to look at what security would look like what precautions would look like, what a model for CSA distribution or pick up etc could look like from a direct sale on farm environment. And I would just add to that as well I appreciate the question and I and I would just ask that, you know, anything that you can do madam chair to get this bill referred to house agriculture would be really beneficial I mean we have been asking since last year to get our constituents voices heard in both of the agricultural agricultural committees on this issue and would really welcome the opportunity in house ag. We were able to get a few folks in testify during a series of events we hosted called small farm action days over the past few months between no fun real Vermont who were able to to speak to some of these issues but I agree with you that I think that agriculture communities really are the place for us to bring many of these concerns and we would love the opportunity to bring forward just so many more voices that we ourselves are not able to directly represent who can speak to their own experience with this. Thank you both for being with us this morning. Any other committee questions I do want to just level set on how the legislative process works. The Speaker of the House decides which policy committee is going to be referred to bill. Each chair of each committee has the ability to, you know, to ask for an opportunity to weigh in on something or take testimony on anything at any time and so I am not going to second guess either the speaker's wisdom or the wisdom of the chair of the House Agriculture Committee on this. I'm sure that they will reach out to us if they feel they need to to have some changes made to the bill. So committee we are at noon. And so thank you for your patience with our issues getting connected to YouTube this morning and certainly hope that when we come back after the floor, we can get right started. There will be an opportunity for some more testimony this afternoon and then, and then hopefully an opportunity for some committee discussion at the end of the day. So appreciate your hard work and attention to the details of this bill and I'll see you all on the floor.