 Thank you everybody for joining us this early afternoon on Monday. This is the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition's press conference for the release of our recommendations to the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. As we're all aware, the new state agency, the Cannabis Control Board, is tasked with defining the initial rules and recommendations for adult use and also our medical marketplace. Our coalition has submitted its own recommendations for the Cannabis Control Board and legislatures to consider in their process. This is a press conference for us to go through our recommendations with everybody, share why we submitted them, talk a little bit about ourselves, introduce ourselves, and to take questions from the media. Again, if you have not already done so, please take a moment to identify yourself either in chat or through renaming yourself so we know who is a member of the media and we can call on you at that appropriate time later in this press conference. Just to begin, we'll go through some introductions, then we will talk about process a little bit, some process concerns that we have, then we will go into just larger themes. We will go into racial equity and social equity, which will be handled mostly by Mark and we will then go into agricultural access, which will be led by Graham, and then we will go into market structure and economic equity to be led by Josh, and then medical to be led by myself, Jeffrey, and we'll have a moment to introduce all of ourselves as well. So thanks again for coming. We are the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition, which consists of member-based nonprofits throughout the state, so really our communities are the communities, our constituencies are the communities that are most impacted by this marketplace and their rules and regulations that ultimately materialize. We are the Racial Justice Alliance, NOFA Vermont, Royal Vermont, and Vermont Growers Association, and we are growing and we expect to have more member-based nonprofits with us as we march into the legislative section next year. And that being said, we have a little bit about sort of who we are and where we come from and why we're doing this, and that is our vision statement. We do have a pretty clear vision for adult use and medical cannabis in this state and we'd like to share that with you. So our vision for a cannabis economy in Vermont is one that is racially just, economically equitable, agriculturally accessible, and environmentally sound. We envision a Vermont cannabis market where Black, Brown, and poor folks are assured an equitable opportunity for success within every aspect of this industry. This vision is for a racially just economy that is grounded in an understanding of our true national history and the impacts of systemic racism. The history of criminalization and disproportionate violence, enforcement, and prohibition in communities of color and poor communities across this country, and the necessity for mechanisms for repair to establish those members of those communities most impacted. In this decentralized economy, self-scale appropriate regulations facilitate and prioritize small businesses, outdoor cultivation, and distributed access to the wealth generated by this industry to community members throughout the state. Cannabis is grown, packaged, and distributed in ways which protect and improve soil health, water quality, and account is taken for climate change mitigation, adaptation, resilience, and human health. Cannabis really in its totality is an opportunity and our policies and our vision really is to make sure that that opportunity is captured by those who were most impacted by prohibition and those who need it most in our communities and across Vermont. So that's a little bit about us and who we are. And I would like to go into some of our process concerns. Before I do, I just want to say that there will be a moment after all of us have a chance to give our statements, to open up and receive questions from the press. So at that time, please feel free to raise your hand or use the chat and we will bring you into the conversation and call on you. Again, please take a moment to identify yourself through renaming or using the chat with your media outlets so we can identify the members of the press here. So thank you everybody. So I will begin with introducing myself. I am Jeffrey Satello, the Executive Director of the Vermont Quarters Association and I'm going to take a moment to speak to some of our process concerns. Our process concerns really began when S54 was enacted in October of last year and it's now Act 164, 2020. Keep in mind and this was made aware pretty covered pretty well in the media so thank you out there for who covered this. This enabling legislation has sort of been a slow moving train wreck from the very beginning. The nominating committee was about 30 days to 60 days behind and this was right after the legislation was enacted. So by December of last year, we were already sort of falling behind in terms of missing our critical timelines for this legislation. Fast forward to the kind of control board, the new agency that formed earlier this year and albeit it formed several months late so they pretty much hit the ground running. They were forced to and they have a lot on their plates. We feel they have too much on their plates. The lawmakers in the State House really gave too much to the CCB and too little time to figure things out and we know that in a rushed process it really is the voices that we should be listening to that are that are most impacted. So we want an inclusive process that folds in for monstrous voices and we feel because of the enabling legislation that as of this moment in time the process has not been afforded that that capacity. We think that the CCB has been doing an excellent job themselves in trying to build up an inclusive process but they've been shortchanged by the enabling legislation and it's really made their job and their due diligence difficult if not downright impossible. That speaks to our process concerns as we're aware the CCB even had came out with a revised deadline for their initial recommendations so our concerns have been confirmed by the CCB by lawmakers and others in this policy making process. So it's important for us to call out the unrealistic timeline and identify that an inclusive process one where all voices are heard is really what's needed here and that's not being afforded to the exemption of the CCB's intent. I will pause there if any of my colleagues with the jump in and speak about process please do otherwise I think that we should move on to racial equity and social equity with Mark. Jeff for you. Thank you for the intros and Mark Hughes from my racial justice alliance. I'd like to just go back if you don't mind over to process and just at least flag the disruption for public comment that occurred and I just wanted if you could just speak to that before I hop in not to put you on the side or anything like that. Certainly and thank you Mark. So the CCB though they have a public input portal which is a very important aspect of their website and this overall process. It allows electronically members of the public to communicate with the CCB and for the CCB to field those comments. The public portal tool on their website went down for I believe it was seven whole days and if I'm not mistaken this was October 7th to the 14th I may be getting those specific dates wrong but around that time period the public portal was on the website and it was the individuals of the public could use it but it was not those comments weren't being fielded received by the website itself and so the CCB the agency was not collecting that those comments. We think that upwards of 30 comments were lost and why is that important that's important not because this process is so condensed and the time frame is so short but our coalition publicly and formally submitted our recommendations to the CCB through their public commenting tool at that time and they did not receive our comments because of that. They received them some seven days later because of this website glitch that not only impacted the general public but also impacted our ability to communicate to the the CCB. Thank you for bringing that up Mark. No problem Jeffrey thank you for flagging that I thought that was pretty important again my name is Mark Hughes with the Vermont Legislative Justice Alliance. I'm the Executive Director and we are a member of the cannabis coalition the cannabis equity coalition and we did we have continued to participate in this process since at 54 and throughout this entire process across this last session with I think it was at 21 there's a lot of numbers. As far as background is concerned on on racial equity and social equity in this process I think it's important to flag at the very very top of my discussions is at my comments rather is that the cannabis market is the first market to be created in Vermont since the acknowledgement of the existence and the commitment to eradicate systemic racism. Now what does that mean? So there's a lot of there's a lot of activity happening across a lot of policies ranging from at 54 2017 it was first identified that there were disparities if you will across all systems of state government. We appointed a racial equity executive director in 2018 with a charge to eradicate systemic racism and there's also the the recent joint resolution that was released in May of this year which quote calls on the legislator to the legislature to commit to a sustained and deep work of eradicating systemic racism throughout state and actively fighting racist practices and so forth. A lot of the work that we're doing in all of our policy work is focused on this whole idea of systemic racism which we feel is this it includes a complex array of anti-black practices the unjustly gained political economic power of whites and the continued economics and other resource inequalities along racial lines and the white racist ideologies and attitudes created to maintain and rationalize the privilege and power. Why is this important? Because this really gets to the heart of the observations that are previously made in how the war on drugs if you will are policy associated with over criminalization of black folks particularly as it pertains to marijuana has been powerful has been framed in a much larger system and this being the first time we rolled out a market while we're addressing systemic racism we just thought it was important not to look at social equity with equity with a status quo lens this approach and attempting to quote unquote correct harm to those just impacted by all of the disproportionate policing what we wanted to do is we wanted to to really introduce a more substantive and an approach that accounts for the impacts of systemic racism across the entire market from the time it's actually created through the entire process and that means all aspects of the market and that's what we've attempted to do. I believe that the the absence of the an impact a racial impact analysis by the marijuana commission at the beginning of this process was with the spoiler and we still have a lot of ground to recover so what we did is we just basically introduced some very high level principles for the ccb some principles that this market should really take into account when rolling out this market as reflected in the enabling statute of the racial equity executive director as well as the panel and that is a fairness and diversity policy systemic racism awareness training a strategy for collecting racially disaggregated data a mind towards hiring and promotion processes the integration of eradication of systemic racism racism into organizational and individual and individual performance reviews and processes and finally the establishment of a program within the cannabis control folks of the the board so this is all programmatic as well as transformational there's a long way to go and of course all of that stuff couldn't happen at the breakneck speed that Jeffrey just described so what we're doing is we're doing catches catch can what I'm about to do right now is just give you a high level overview of some of the things that we covered in our recommendation and if there's I'm pretty sure everybody has had the opportunity to to to receive these recommendations if there's anything in particular to specific that you want to talk about I'm happy to answer those questions in those recommendations we spoke of the cannabis development fund you'll see some of the language of that on our h414 which is currently on the wall in house government operation there was also some recommendations around a community social equity program and I think that this is a conversation that's really worth having because it was originally our intent I think it is kind of modeled after the Illinois policy that we would be focusing on the damage that was had not just the damage that's been done to individuals in our state but the damage that has been done to underfunded and the under supported communities across the state the economic digestion the violence the historical overview over use of criminal justice responses to these communities needs to be addressed so that's when I want to flag because I don't know that we've really gotten after that there there's also a social equity program I'm just going to stay on the service level of that and I'll conclude just with the some of the area of recommendations and that's you know we've we've dived down into all of the major areas that the cannabis control board and the consultant have been working on up until now and what we've started to do is again because we're addressing this as a whole a market approach what we did is we just essentially went through and offered recommendations across each one of those areas from market structure licensing and and fees to public health to sustainability and even compliance and enforcement a lab safety we've also stopped and made some specific recommendations as they pertain to act 62 I'm going to stop there and I think that is essentially a framework of the social equity recommendations that we make in this report thank you and thanks Jeffrey thanks mark um excellent uh such an important uh component of this marketplace we want vermont to be a leader in this and um the racial equity components that we have hopefully position us to be as such um moving on from mark uh we have uh agricultural access with graham uh bro vermont graham if you want to take a moment to choose yourself as well hey there folks thank you all for showing up today my name's graham unanks to ruffinott and the policy director at rural vermont's you know member of the vermont canis canis equity coalition uh rural vermont is a member-based agricultural organization we've been around for about 35 years since the mid 1980s uh we work on equity access food sovereignty in the agricultural realm and um I think one thing I just want to say quickly about the whole suite of these recommendations is even though we're breaking them out into sections and we've sort of isolated them by topic it's important that folks see these as an integrated whole you know these organizations we all came together because we have a vision for this intersectional future you know within cannabis was certainly outside of canis as well and we're here talking about cannabis today um like mark said this is a new marketplace there's a lot of potential to really bring equity to this um but our goals are intersectional for this industry and beyond and we should we'd like these recommendations to be seen as a whole um that said I'm going to speak mostly to agricultural access right now um and we folded in recommendations both for the cannabis control board but which we know are within their statutory requirements to fulfill but also recommendations for them to influence the legislature for decisions we know the legislature will have to make uh to affect outcomes we'd like to see so I'm going to start I'm just going to go through and there's going to be some of both and I'll just point them out where that's important and I'm going to focus on some of our sort of biggest items and like mark said there's a lot of details in there this is a big document we encourage you to check it out we encourage you to ask more questions in the question and answer period um there's explicit legislative intent in the legislation with respect to creating a structure which invites in the legacy growing community I think I believe in the legacy of legislation is called the illegal cannabis market or economy um and small farmers and cultivators in the cannabis control board is tasked among other things with explicitly developing tiers for cultivation retail and other types of licenses so some of our primary agricultural recommendations are that the outdoor cultivation of cannabis be considered an agricultural activity in that uh cannabis and agricultural product currently it is not considered such that is not in the control of the cannabis control board that is in the control of the legislature but we we would appreciate the cannabis control board support and recommending the legislature change that designation um and then primarily for the cannabis control board we focus on scale appropriate regulations which equitably differentiate between indoor and outdoor production which establish reasonable reasonable production caps as well as craft to your allowances in which facilitate direct producer to consumer market access and the ability of producers to process manufacture and sell their own products so some quick details about those things you know when we talk about equity between indoor and outdoor we're talking about you know for every 1,000 square feet of indoor space we're talking about 4,000 square feet of outdoor space um that would be the beginning of what we'd expect for a craft scale a small cultivator license tier um and in the maximum in terms of the production caps we are recommending would be 10,000 square feet indoor and 40,000 square feet outdoor we also recommend um and recognize that a lot of the legacy growers and legacy community may be growing in their homes or in in places that are not um large commercially commercial structures um and we've suggested that the ccb develop a license tier to bring those folks and to allow that type of home cultivation either the indoor as well at a very small scale micro scale we recommended a license for about 250 square feet that wouldn't have to meet some of the other facilities requirements as a larger commercial indoor facility we also are asking for fees which incentivize smaller scale craft production versus economies of scale so again making it more affordable for square square foot at a smaller scale of production than to reward and incentivize larger scales of production if cannabis were to be considered an agricultural product um then then folks would be allowed to directly market their product themselves through on-farm sales and retail as it's not we are asking for a license which allows producers to directly reach consumers and vice versa for consumers to directly reach the producers um and we think that the ccb um can make that recommendation directly they can recommend as tremendous as one of the tiers of retail and we would recommend that they do that currently they've recommended it as a potential future license which we appreciate but we think it really fits in at the baseline as a fundamental means of equity in this marketplace we also address breeding nursery sales seed production and more we want to get into more of those details in our recommendations um and i want to speak to you know through as mark said you know throughout each part of this coming industry we sort of isolated well here's what we can do to really increase economic access right to distribute more wealth etc and whenever we strip that down there's always those racial inequities that remain and the way the legislature has approached this is to create means within the industry um of addressing the impacts of systemic racism but we wanted to make sure that and we think it's very appropriate to also um take money from this industry to address the impacts of systemic racism outside of this industry and because we're talking agricultural access it really needs to be noted that racial inequities and access to capital land and housing they will affect people's ability to participate as producers and consumers in this marketplace we need to address those impacts with funds from this industry we've recommended that 20 percent of revenue from this industry in perpetuity go towards some of the racial equity and social equity programs that mark referred to um and last I just want to say that no firm of Vermont we're two of the three largest agricultural member organizations in the state we have VGA the largest as far as we know member-based cannabis organization in the state we have a racial justice alliance and justice for all so significant member-based racial justice organizations and despite this intersection we've we've achieved here um we have still received remarkably little uh respect and invitation from particular parts of legislature and I would say in particular on the agricultural and we are asking that the Senate and House agricultural committees invite us in to provide testimony invite our members in invite our community members in um and with that I'll leave it there and pass it on to uh Josh to deal with market structure and economic equity. Thank you uh thank you very much Graham uh hello to members of the press my name is Joshua Decatur um I uh the Long History and Cannabis previously is co-founder of uh Trace as well as a cultivator at one point in time and I'm very happy to be here with uh all the members of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition um and want to underscore again like Graham referenced that none of these issues exist in a vacuum uh they all relate to each other and the market structure and economic equity at the heart of uh the emerging cannabis market whether it's through the licenses themselves or surrounding policies uh really impact everything um so let's uh let's start at the top um you know so currently there's uh limited licensing very limited licensing uh even more limited definitions around the licensing but the result of all this uh is of course limited market access um that's difficult to have an equitable market through whatever lens racial equity uh economic equity agricultural equity uh when you have some of these limitations in place um historically and cannabis as an industry and you know we're uh coming up on 10 years of having nearly 10 years of having legal cannabis markets in the country um we've seen uh efforts by more money now publicly traded cannabis companies to control new and emerging markets influence the political process and the rule making process happening around the industry um it's designed to give them privilege access and first mover advantage to the new money and new market that's being developed because they have the old money and it enables that uh access for them and that's and that so in that way cannabis becomes a continuation of many of the social ills we see in every other industry around our communities and around society um Vermont has not been exempt to this uh there are three vertically integrated uh businesses um that are all ready to go with respect to having clarity around their permits when they'll be able to have access to the market um and uh you know their specific allowances uh currently local Vermonters uh small businesses don't have the same privilege they're more or less in the dark uh and have no legislative guarantee of being able to conduct business at any point in time um so you can see the conflict of interest that emerges there between larger companies and locally owned uh small businesses that would be managed and run by Vermonters um once again reference back to something that Graham brought up if we're asking Vermonters to uh begin cultivating and to be allowed to cultivate they almost have they they must certainly also have the ability to sell directly to consumers much like micro breweries uh and how alcohol is regulated in the state this is a process of decriminalizing cannabis it's it's vital that that decriminalization continues um which you know with respect to that touches on um uh the issue of compliance and enforcement and who's actually going to be overseeing the market in the licenses uh this is something that was not addressed in our recommendations directly as it's an emerging issue but um we strongly feel as a coalition that a law law enforcement approach so relying on the likes of the department of liquor control given the history of racial inequity disproportionate enforcement as well as prohibition itself and making the criminalized treatment of a plant that we're now all recognizing as a community should not have been criminalized in the first place it's not the right direction to take uh we have an existing hemp program within the agency of agriculture that inspects and oversees a cannabis plant supply chain um we also have the ccb itself being established uh developing expertise in this market uh both of these are much more appropriate places for compliance and enforcement to come from and again decriminalizing cannabis means moving it away from law enforcement approaches and treating it more akin to any other agricultural product um we've seen in other states california and some of the larger west coast markets that market access and overproduction uh go hand in hand and they've been a struggle so keeping things scale appropriate for brahmanas is very important and uh if we allow large businesses to create giant grows or giant production facilities that don't fit uh the size of the expected market in brahman um we risk uh the market itself becoming unsustainable for anybody other than the largest uh participants um and once again to reiterate market structure and economic equity goes hand in hand with the brahman cannabis equity coalition's racial equity goals if there's not a structure that enables small businesses to exist within brahman then all the social and racial equity programs in the world aren't going to make a difference to the market itself and if we actually want to make a difference and to do something different than the status quo uh if we want to live by uh the language that was passed in act 54 um then uh it's going to require that things are done differently and that means that some of the more privileged and money money participants of the cannabis market are going to have to give things up and it's not going to be the same as it has been uh so we call on the legislature to live by the words they've already passed another legislation uh and and do something different with cannabis um and I'll pass that back to uh to jeffrey thank you thanks josh um and thanks graham as well and mark um the last uh theme that we wanted to touch upon before we uh open it up for questions is uh medical um and so while our coalition uh primarily focuses on adult use uh we want to be cognizant of the medical marketplace uh since 2007 vermont has had a medical cannabis program the vermont marijuana registry uh really has existed in a state of stagnation it has not changed uh for over a decade and what i mean by that is um patient and caregiver access and equitability has not changed we have the smallest and the least amount of plants allowed for medical therapeutic grows um just to give you an example uh we have two mature plants new york state which just came online last week allows for six because they identify uh what a practical number is for a patient or a caregiver to provide medicine for themselves uh that's really important so some of the things that we're seeking just very briefly in the medical space is an increased plant count to make it more realistic and address things like seasonality and if you mess up a plant you need to make sure that you have a what you know one backed up or else you will be without medication for a period of time so uh having access and equitability in cultivation as a patient and caregiver is central to our reforms we also are seeking uh an allowance for caregivers to be allowed to grow for multiple uh registered patients this is commonplace in other medical programs because our program has not moved for over a decade we did not integrate this uh this improvement to our state medical program and other states have this we do not have this so we are seeking a uh patient allowance for caregivers uh we also ask that um the fingerprint uh step gets struck from the application process for caregivers act 164 actually introduces greater law enforcement into the application process we're asking to uh reverse that um some of the other things that we're seeking are uh eligibility uh we think that it should be up to the medical professionals uh determination if an individual is eligible for patient and uh and medical cannabis and not simply they have to have a chronic or debilitating symptom uh cannabis uh is therapeutic and effective for more than just terminally ill individuals so we need to broaden access uh so it should be left up to the uh medical health care professional uh some other things that we're seeking are our reciprocity with other states uh this is again commonplace in other state medical programs Vermont does not have that and allowing greater access so for instance um our dispensaries are allowed to re uh deliver right now we think that uh caregivers and other entities at service patients should be allowed to deliver as well so just meeting individuals uh where they're at so those are some of our gentle reforms we invite you to check out our recommendations for the full breadth of all of those concerns and items that we're seeking um and before we open up to questions something that we should have uh addressed at the top of the ticket I just want to recognize that our group right now on this press conference is without an individual from NOFA Vermont we've been working closely with Manny Kempner the policy director at NOFA Vermont we are appreciative and thankful for them being part of this organization this coalition they're leaders along with us and so I just want to comment that she is missed they are missed and I look now to open it up to any questions for the press for any of us all right Bob are you able to speak now can you hear me excellent thanks for joining us we can hear you oh good um I had a couple questions one uh right at the beginning Jeffrey you mentioned uh the train wreck of the uh the whole administrative process and the board being appointed late and you're you're feeling like uh they're they're moving I guess too fast so would your recommendation be let's push some of these deadlines back and maybe have to uh delay the retail marketplace in order for public input to have its full extent thank you for asking that question um I will respond by uh saying this uh if you look back to uh senate and house committee activity we were in the house in the senate uh in january and february uh we were having conversations uh in january and february with uh lawmakers publicly about the timeline for formation and implementation and in those conversations and you can play back this tape uh there was clear frustration and just admittance that uh the deadlines from that point on moving forward with the ccb were not going to be met uh so there was I say that because there was recognition by policymakers that at that point in time the deadlines for april may june july at that time we're being expressed that we were not going to meet them so uh it's important for us to highlight that reality that uh these deadlines were probably weren't ever going to be met uh the ccb is finding itself to be three to four months behind so that's how I would answer that uh I opened it up to my colleagues to uh to jump in as well so are we asking to for more time yes we're we're asking for a more inclusive process do we want to push back the formation of the market I want to say no I think that we can arrive at formation on time with a more inclusive process that's what I would say I don't know if anybody else wants to add to that so you're saying stick with the deadlines that we have but make the process more inclusive is that fair I think that's fair um and and if that means you know uh moving some of the deadlines around to make it a more fair process than than by all means um any of my colleagues want to jump in sure I can jump in there if we appreciate that yeah I think I differ in opinion of myself my colleagues um which and we do frequently um just not publicly um I I think that you know we just have to do whatever is necessary to get the market rolls out properly and that that's uh that's that's my opinion I think that um you know collectively you know I want to go back just a little bit further because Jeffrey is talking about um you know earlier this year and we kind of go back a little bit further than that okay we've you know we've been at this a little bit longer than that um when when 160 was actually released I think it was last year unless my mind is not working properly um in the um the concerns Bob um oh by the way Bob thanks for joining us and I don't get a chance to say hi to you uh thanks for your work um so last year um when the governor was teetering on uh detail of um what what became act 160 you know we were asking to slow the bus a bit look I understand that you know this is an emerging market and there is money to be made and and all that other stuff but let's look at the totality of the situation that we're in as a state right now uh currently the speaker and the protestant are traveling the state trying to decide what to do with excess money trying to figure out what to do with a budget surplus unprecedented so you really need to be in a hurry to roll this market out or should we roll it out properly thanks Bob thank you um you know I talked to James Pepper last week about small growers and what he said to me on the record on tape was and I'm going to be a little bit over my head with some of this terminology so please excuse me but he said um in terms of determining the overall demand for the Vermont market if I remember correctly he was talking about 450,000 square feet of canopy um however big that is and he wanted to first see if the demand could be filled by small growers those being growers of a thousand square feet or less and that he hoped to bring the legacy growers into the legal market and do whatever he could to encourage them entice them because they are what he expressed he said these are fabulous growers they know what they're doing let's get them in the legal market so I'm just wondering if they start off trying to fill the overall demand with only small growers does that take care of your concerns thank you kick it over to me all right yeah thanks for that question Bob um we've had you know a lot of conversations with members of the ccb and I want to just say what what Jeffrey did in the beginning which is that you know the ccb has reached out to us they've been willing to not only bring us in for testimony but they've also been willing to bring in the growers members of our communities which we've been really appreciative of but I'm looking at the ccb's recommendations that they okayed a couple weeks ago and they include five tiers of output production with a maximum canopy of 20,000 square feet at the largest and actually I'm sorry six tiers about or at 37,500 at the largest and starting with five tiers of indoor with the largest tier being 15,000 square feet which is larger than the largest tier we proposed in our recommendation so um with regard to what James said I'm not seeing that in the ccb's recommendations and I would also say that starting at a thousand a thousand square feet is not is too small for the smallest tier of outdoor cultivation in our opinion based on our research and based on our recommendations again the legislature unfortunately limited the the maximum size of a small cultivator license to 1,000 square feet in the existing statute however as I said earlier we really feel due to seasonality etc that a 1 to 4 ratio for every 1,000 square feet of indoor space approximately 4,000 should be allotted for outdoors the appropriate amount so if James were to come to us and suggest let's start with the 1,000 square feet indoor grows and the 4,000 square feet outdoor grows it'd be an interesting conversation to have um but you know I guess that's my response right now is I haven't seen that in their recommendations and that 1,000 square feet for outdoor production is not an equitable um amount compared to the 1,000 square feet for indoor production and I'll hand it over to any other colleagues might want to respond further as you clarify too I think the the thousand square feet he was talking about indoor not outdoor um and while he acknowledged as you did uh the different tiers and licenses it was his opinion that they would not issue a license to a larger indoor facility unless it was clear that the overall demand could not be met so I remember I'm just trying to get a handle on this myself of of what he's saying and and how much authority he has uh to fulfill his commitment sure well I can and I can I appreciate that clarification but again the recommendations that the CCD has released um it does the largest scale of indoor they do have a little asterisk next to it next to it and it says that it wouldn't be available initially that if additional supply is needed they could allow the expansion into a tier six but that's for 25,000 square feet of indoor production so they even based on what they've ever recommended currently it goes up to 15,000 square feet of indoor production canopy so I don't see I I have not heard that from the CCD or from James and um what we see in their recommendations they recently released certainly suggests otherwise um Bob can I just ask for some clarification on your question as well too because I see into your question I think you said is that is that would that satisfy your requirements or I'm just trying to make sure I understand what you're getting at because it sounds like we're talking about one of a slew of recommendations that we have on the table right I was just listening to your recommendations and your hope that uh big growers don't come in and overrun the system and that small growers be given some sort of priority uh uh affiliation and when he told me that he would like to fill the entire state demand with indoor growers I mean indoor and outdoor but indoor growers being no larger than a thousand square feet um I thought that sort of philosophically or conceptually that you were on the same page with him but I want to make sure that I understand that I think my initial response to that Bob is that you know we haven't discussed starting at that limited scale as a coalition and we haven't discussed starting at that small of a scale with um James or with the other members of the CCD we've seen their recommendations here and we've offered our tiers which we believe are very are small on scale appropriate um and they're less than what I see recommended at the outdoors at last but the indoor is certainly less than what I see here recommended by the CCD um other folks in the coalition do you have a response yeah just one quick thing and then Jeff I saw you go off mute as well I think it's important to call out that right now the only license types that have access to the market from a retail uh perspective are vertically integrated permit holders which as of now with no with no caps or limits on production have you know have could be of any size and have no incentive to sell any product grown by a small cultivator and we've seen this play out in many many many states already um and it's created issues um in every single emerging cannabis market Vermont's gonna not be any different so while we are hearing some language and you know and some perspective from the CCD that is promising in terms of you know a philosophical approach to regulating the market that prioritizes um uh that prioritizes Vermonters and small businesses when it comes to these issues of you know what's the scale of the grows we're going to see etc etc that's great but the reality is that it's not where we're at right now the language on paper doesn't reflect that so something needs to be done that very issue came up when we did a show on this uh about 10 days ago someone from California called up and said California made the same commitment to small growers but it didn't take long for things to get quickly out of control maybe that's what you were referring to yeah yeah absolutely you bring up a great point bob um and thanks for bringing up that point uh and that is um there's a there's a retailer deficit out in California um they did not match their uh cultivation licensing with their retail licensing uh and that you know is through a myriad of of licensing issues for instance not enough empowering producers directly to sell to uh consumers and then also not giving out enough retailer licenses period uh to brick and mortar shops um and we think that's one thing that we've learned from we are friends with uh some of the advocacy groups out in California we've connected with them we're trying to learn from their mistakes and mistakes in other states and we account for that actually in our recommendations um and that's why uh we you heard Graham and Josh and Mark and others speak to uh emboldening vermonters by allowing them to reach market themselves by allowing them to reach consumers themselves we know as small businesses that's how they form relationships and and arrive at viability is by establishing relationships directly with consumers something California failed to do and that's something that came up at the board's recent hearing uh they for some reason maybe one of you can explain it to me they refer to this as farm gate uh I don't know and so they were saying yeah just like a small farmer might uh be selling corn or tomatoes uh that small growers should be able to sell their product directly to members of the public that's what you would like to see it seems like maybe they haven't put that in writing but it seems like they're talking that that's what they want to have happen as well yeah we've had some specific conversations with the the board about this and I think you're right there is um the board is favorable to this concept they um it's hard to speak I don't want to speak for them but um what they've told us is that there's they're still trying to figure out you know what that would look like from a security perspective et cetera but I think yeah the concept here is important enough we were going to start with all the small scale licenses those folks would need to have the ability to to market their own product to be able to make a price point that makes sense for them in their business um but you know from our perspective the reason we need a a retail license for this as well is because we're we're talking about equity of retail and if we're going to scale other licenses there's no reason we can't scale retail and they call it farm gate because there's a precedent set in agriculture where an agricultural product any a farmer can sell any product quote unquote principally produced on the farm directly from the farm without a separate retail license without the same types of inspections as a as a retail outlet received no health et cetera so that's one of the issues with this not being considered agricultural is that that type of it sort of relegates folks to being price takers as opposed to price makers it's basically telling someone that despite the fact that you've grown this you're going to have to give this to someone else to sell it unless you want to buy a retail license and set up your own retail store and the point here is that we just want equitable requirements for different types of retail if you're only going to set up and sell your own product the level of risk the amount of financial the amount of money you're giving any even time et cetera it's just far it's far lower you don't need a the same retail license for the same retail requirements for just selling your own product as someone does for selling other folks products for bringing in wholesale products et cetera so that's really what we're trying to establish and the ccb did include a farm gate or producer to consumer recommendation in their potential future licenses and I think our main point and we we'd like to make with them is that you can include this in your retail tier recommendation this is something you are asked to do by the legislature this doesn't have to be tertiary or perceived as tertiary by the legislature this can be a direct recommendation and you're hearing this from two of the largest agricultural organizations in the state that this is really critical to small farmers coming in which is a part of the direct attention to the legislation you're also hearing this from our growers which represents these can't this legacy community and that's also part of the intent of legislation to bring those folks in and if you want to talk about racial equity as well if you want to be able to make it possible receive more and have an easier access point this this hits it that as well so I think that's that's a little that's sort of all I have to say on on that right now if anyone else has anything to say I'd also be happy to talk follow up on that one thing could you just remind me if you talked about a four to one ratio outdoor to indoor what is there a minimum number that you're looking at for both of those yes based on some surveying that the Vermont Rose Association has done and also based on existing statute in terms of establishing the craft the small cultivator tier for indoor we started at 1000 square feet for indoor and 4000 square feet for outdoor production and again for us that was mostly informed by hearing from people in Vermont who are growing about what would work for them in their businesses and Jeffrey you can speak a little more to that because you want to you did some of that surveying that established that that craft here for us so Bob the Vermont Rose Association has an annual survey we're going into our third year now we are we are the new kids in the block still you know we formed in March of 2019 so we're learning a lot from these excellent organizations that we're working with but our policy survey asks Vermonters notably those in the industry but also consumers questions about cannabis and we're arriving at data sets on an annual basis that are pretty unique we share them with the cannabis control board in addition to informing some of our decision-making as a group it's also available on our website what we learned was the average indoor canopy size of Vermonters is 1250 square feet that's important because if we're trying to as listed in the enabling statute to bring the illicit market or the traditional market on board we need to meet them where they're at we can't expect businesses to you know chop their store in half basically just to you know join this marketplace we need to meet them we need to be as accessible as possible so that's why we run those numbers and that's why they inform some of our decision-making process thanks for your question so for anything else as we come up on one yeah just one last thing if I had to summarize what you all were saying I want to see if I've got this correct one you're really calling on the board to develop more inclusive policies and take more time to hear from members of the public about a lot of the issues that you've been discussing today you also feel it's inappropriate to have the liquor control board as the sort of law enforcement agency here that the hemp probably serves as a better example through cannabis being identified as a agricultural product and you want to make sure that there are things in place that they keep their commitment to small growers and the experience of other states doesn't replicate itself here in Vermont okay is that close it is pretty close I think that you know like when you started with the equitable part of the market I think to frame that properly is what we're trying to do is we are trying to to create a and sustain a market that accounts for systemic racism in other words we want to you know we want to let me just back away from that just for a second just to properly frame a conversation about small growers and and and how this market works in like a vast portion of the aforementioned discussion without framing it in systemic racism what you what you create is you create a market that starts at a point where 0.2 percent of the land the farmland in the state is owned by white people so we got to be very careful Bob as we're claiming this thing as we lay it out and I don't think the to just say we want an equitable market or an or to provide more access to market in and also the discussion about the concerns that we have collectively in market structure is it really serves the the discussion well most one of the things we we want to be really really careful about and the group has been very intentional about in that we all need to be mindful of is the way in which we talk about this cast of unlikely characters being together in this work that we're doing is is that it seems that most terms we find ourselves being pulled apart because it's easier for those in the cannabis control board those in the legislature and sometimes even those in the press to deal with this separately but we're going to have to deal with this collectively because this is very intentional what we're trying to do it's really novel it really hasn't been done anywhere else at this level across the United States I would just add you know when for example when we when we when we talk about the work that we're doing collectively and I think Josh talked about compliance and enforcement I didn't get into detail on compliance and enforcement but we got to figure out as we roll this market out how do we protect black owned businesses in the market where you're dealing with a product there's a schedule one drug when we know the history of enforcement how do we create exemptions for home growers who are winter with landlord approval but how do we enforce and how do we create a new model that emphasizes equity and accounts purposes in this racism that avoids the use of law enforcement yes that's in the language in this policy in this these recommendations how do we rezone in terms of how do we conduct rezoning to account for the current inequities that exist so there's all of this stuff kind of folds together bob to your credit I think you were thought on point but I would just start by saying creating a you know by creating a market that accounts for the existing systems of oppression or systemic racism because I think that without that at the front end of the discussion and not only does it not properly characterize our collective message but it actually causes further harm to communities of color as this market rolls out thank you he's been very educational and informative for me so I and I'll be following this issue for vpr as we move ahead so I encourage any or all of you to be in touch with me to especially you know when issues come up that you think need to be addressed I hope that you'll be in touch definitely bob definitely I think one takeaway too is just at the end of that I just thought about it jeffrey is I think philosophically we're the ccb we're largely on the same page as the ccb as a group and I mean nobody has to agree with me just go like this if you disagree but I think largely philosophically I'm just talking to the group of folks is I think largely that's the case I really believe that and I think they're I think they're working their butts off over there I think so I think they're they're challenged with the timelines that they that they have in in due to no fault of their own I think all of them are working there I mean nobody's paying me to say this but I think all of them are working and they're doing the best they can under the circumstances I think primarily what we're really focused on what we're really experiencing I think is I don't think they have the time to process this I don't think they have the ability right now with everything else that they have coming from from the recommendations the very very fast moving can you imagine like every single week there's you know meetings every single day and from all like five or six committees and then they aggregate all of that and maybe put in the public comments oh the the portal goes down and that's just going on and it's churning our report didn't even get in the portal when we submitted it notice you did our constituents for a week then we finally get it to them and you know even when we did speak to them we've spoken to him as well as all of the other board members multiple times but when we spoke to him he hadn't even been through this he had been about halfway through so philosophically I think we're on the same page from legislatively they there are some things that are just outside of their reach because they haven't been given the authority to do so I think there is some daylight between them and the legislature but I just don't think they've had the time actually to really process and synthesize and formulate you know some really solid recommendations based upon what they're hearing not just from us but from everyone else so I'll leave it there and I should at least bounce that off these folks so I so I don't get accused of just cutting them out of there Bob for my for my own sake I appreciate your time and joining us and I would just add I was not able to make the cannabis question event the other week but if dpr or you yourself decide to hold a future panel discussions in Vermont about cannabis I'm sure one of my colleagues around around this virtual table would be more than willing to participate we are the policy leaders I want to say in the state for cannabis Mark Graham Josh Maddie who's not here and I think that having that perspective on not speaking for my my colleagues here but on that panel in the future would only enrich the conversation for Vermonters and I'm sorry I missed your event the other day you can if you're interested in seeing it you can go to the pbs youtube site just to hear what James and well Dr. Levine was there and also a Maxine grad but I I thought James was pretty forthright I don't know James probably as well as a lot of you do but here he was on the record saying these things so I encourage you if you if you want to hear and make a commitment to small growers and we're going to fill this thing I'm not issuing a license above a thousand square feet indoors until I'm convinced we can't fill demand I thought he was pretty strong or he made a pretty big commitment there now whether or not he's able to keep that or what needs to be put into place for him to be able to keep that and he also talked about what's going to happen when this goes to the legislature which all of you are much more familiar in terms of this issue in the legislature you know if they start to mess around with it who knows how it's going to end up yeah but I think your your point is well taken that cannabis thing was in response to a nova documentary on cannabis and I think this is an issue that VPR is going to want to keep looking at in the future and I don't know if we'll end up doing another virtual broadcast but I can definitely see Vermont edition you know maybe a couple weeks or a month from now saying all right time out let's see what's happening let's do an update of where we are and having your perspective for that would be very important thank you Bob and all my colleagues to have any you know maybe final statements as well I'm gonna have to find that that video of that event yeah thanks for bringing some of those words here um and you know if if all that like like mark said you know I think one of our message for ccb then is is b-bold we understand what's coming legislature legislators told us as an organization that before they acted on any of our requests they wanted to see the recommendations from the ccb they directed us to go there so ccb b-bold you know offer what you think is right and equitable regardless of how you think legislature may respond you know we're here with you and we think our community members are here with you if if you know you're really following through on equitable recommendations and we'll be there to fight that fight in legislature yeah and just to reiterate again you know it's great to hear um uh James talking like that we definitely as we've said don't thank the ccb and us are that far apart on anything um and we appreciate the work being done there but that's you know 10 to 15 percent of what's contained in our total recommendations I'd say right um even being generous you know and questions like well how many of those thousand square foot growers are going to be black have you know the questions like that need to be answered if we're really having a you know socially equitable market that's emerging you know the statistics and cannabis are lower than other industries when it comes to equity diversity and representation right now across the country so it's a great starting point for the ccb to be at but there is a lot more work a lot more conversation to be had and they like we're saying they really haven't even had the proper time some of those issues and that's why the legislature also needs to step up to the plate so I hope that's heard and what we've said today as well I'm pretty much fully expecting the legislature to come off in a in a foot race you know just off the record I would just say that um if we were just having a conversation um we've we've seen two consecutive years where um we we've went into those sessions with expectations and hope and even sometimes with the governor's support and um there has I mean there's been nothing we could possibly do to uh slow the legislature down at a pace nor have we been able to really speak into the legislature in a way in which it has felt effective and it just seems that at at each turn just like some many of the things that we work on there's always a reason to rush there's always a reason to slow down there's always a reason to um you know do something different that doesn't necessarily reflect a true commitment to doing to this work we know that we apportion it we know they'll probably return to insurance we've got a you know a number of things happening in the legislature and this is what I call the second half of the game too so we we're going to be very fortunate to to see much of anything happening in session I think we need to set our expectations there the hope is though is that since this is an emerging market there should be some level of priority set to an incentive the first time they've rolled one out with this mindset around systemic racism there should be some commitment made there h414 is on the wall and house government operations are supposed to fill culprins yesterday I've asked her to relieve it from our committee I hope she does because I think they're going to be far too busy to take it up I think somebody needs to really take the time and take a close look at this policy and and synthesize the the recommendations of the uh the cannabis control going to take the time for public hearings and at least you know testimony in these committees so we can get some real work done on this and it's going to take a good amount of time and so hopefully across your fingers it works but um you know we got a lot of work to do already all right Bob all right thank you take care everyone