 Well, I'm going to talk slowly until Julie shows up and David, um, but my name is James Pepper. Can we just go around to do introduction? Um, I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Board and today is January 31st, 2022. And I will call this meeting to order. So, again, today we're going to attempt to make it through the remaining comments we've received on rules one and two, including some that we received over the weekend. Um, just a reminder that the comment window has closed for rules one and two. That's not to say that members of the public can't fucking you to submit comments and really help us identify gaps in the rules. Um, only that, um, especially after today, we might not be able to guarantee that we can review them like we have been for the comments that we received today. So, um, but reminder that the official comment window is open for rules three and four. So, um, you know, we're going to be going through a very similar process with those rules. Um, members of the public, turn your attention to those two rules and, um, help us kind of figure out how we can improve those. So, um, with that, uh, Julie and Kyle, have you had an opportunity to review the minutes from our last meeting on January 27th? Yes. Yes. And I would take a motion to approve those. So moved. Seconded. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay. We left off yesterday or on, uh, Thursday, um, just Friday, Thursday. I can't remember. Thursday. Yeah. Sorry. Sorry. We left off, um, just kind of a natural kind of breaking point, I think with rule 2.9. Um, so why don't we pick up there and then, um, we have, uh, Cari Jiguerre, um, with us, um, from the agency of AG to help us work through some of the testing, um, rules. And, um, David, just for your benefit, I was thinking then we would turn to, you know, we got that general comment about all the reports that we're requiring from licensees and it might be helpful with Cari's kind of guidance, you know, he's been through this program to review which ones are necessary, which ones might be superfluous. And then we have a few cleanup comments that we received, you know, on Friday and over the weekend that I think we should look at. And then, um, just a few other kind of applications. We'll take a lunch break and hopefully we can vote on the final rules after the lunch break. Sounds good. So if you could just pick up where we left off, I think it was 2.9. But that's right. So I'll, uh, read the comments here, uh, and then, you know, Cari's here to help us out. So I'll open it for discussion like I have been. And just as a reminder to folks watching, all the substantively different comments are included here. It doesn't mean that every word of every comment is included, although the board has reviewed all of the comments individually. So they've all been seen, but this is all substantively different comments. We are going through every single, uh, substantive, uh, input, piece of input that we got. So I'll do two comments here, um, at once. Commenter recommends that the board maintain testing for STEC, Salmonella, and Aspergillus. I apologize for my lack of knowledge and how to pround some of the stuff and adopt standard action levels. And I'm going to lump in another comment here, another comment says to add testing for total Easton mold. Cari, I don't know, um, how you feel about this stuff, but we're going to rely on your expertise here. Um, comment one, I support, yeah, Salmonella. So the conversation in the work group, um, with the doctor, you have to help me. Dr. Hon. Dr. Hon. Yup. Um, really for us around to looking at only the contaminants at our human pathogen pathogens. And while the hemp program still maintains testing for total Easton mold, um, the reason for that is it may or may not cause cause harm, um, focusing on human pathogens as recommended by Dr. Hoss is where the working committee landed in the end, um, thoughts are that the market will, will absolutely moderate any Easton mold on sale of a flower. Nobody's going to purchase moldy flower or if they do, it'll only happen once and it'll, it'll take care of itself very quickly. Um, and remediating those products into an edible or somehow some other way extracting the product is one other way to deal with the Easton mold issue. Yes. My understanding that if testing for that too can be burdensome on our smaller cultivator too. Yes. And right now we have not set standards in the hemp program for Easton mold because uh, the results vary and the impact is, is unknown. Not only if we require testing for Easton mold, it would also, we would also be required to set suit levels. Yes. Yeah. I think we stay where we are with no, no Easton mold right now, but um, you know, I know where I was talking here about this is stuck. I don't want to get the acronym wrong. S-T-E-C. Seminella. Done. Yeah. These are, these are what Dr. Homme has his specialty in is these and we did say that these would be, we would put these into our, our roles, but those action levels would be determined through board policy. So we can be nimble. Should there be, you know, advancements made or, or health risks identified? Yeah. And also I think David, do you include the caveat that other contaminants as the board are set in the rule? Um, don't remember. But we certainly can't. I don't remember if it's in there right now. Yeah. We do 2.9.4 has the Seminella, the human pathogen language. So it is certainly something you can capture if we start seeing a lot of molding, molding fine. And as an adulterin pool, stomp sandal would pull it off the shelf without specifically setting the energy level. And I did just see here, I remembered here, 2.9.11 does give the board broad authority to add parameters like that. So we're just going to keep it. So it's covered if it becomes an issue. Yes. Yep. So just keep it as is. And again, we'll develop those interaction levels through policy. That's fine to think. And most, you're saying that mold is kind of easily identifiable visually. So people are going to confuse it for something else. No. Okay. So there's kind of a natural check that's built in already to, I mean, retailers don't want moldy products on their shelves. So okay. There was a comment related to this, and I don't know if it's covered or not, but we received a comment over the weekend recommending to include a mycotoxin test as an additional test. Any thoughts on that? It is important and we can go back and I can share with the board the mycotoxin results from hemp grown in the state. I don't believe any have been positive for mycotoxin. And again, if it becomes an issue, it's covered under the catch-all. Yeah. Okay. This is the comment. You can read it. It is true. I'll respond to that in writing for the board. Okay. And specifically about mycotoxin. So we're going to just keep where we are now and if that's done. I would suggest, yeah, okay. We're not seeing any sense of how expensive mycotoxin tests would add anything to the cost. Not specifically. No. Okay. There are a number in mycotoxin, there are quick assay tests, $25 is a mycotoxin screen. Okay. Okay. Great. David, I think no change. Great. All right. Cut that down. Going to the next one. The commenter notes that the rule should explicitly address failed tests and allow for remediation. It goes on to say with mandatory testing for STC, salmonella at Nassberg, Gillis, many operators face the issue of batches of cannabis failing such tests. While providing these batches from reaching consumers is good for public health, this could also lead to significant financial losses for cultivators as destroying a batch can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Currently the regulations do not address procedures in the event of a failed test. While the transportation of failed product is contemplated, it is not clear whether or how operators can remediate failed products in order to bring them into compliance. Those states address this question by allowing for the remediation of cannabis and cannabis products as long as they pass a subsequent round of testing to demonstrate compliance with stated action levels. I could be wrong, but I thought we've been generally receptive to allowing remediation for everything but a willful. I think that was our last conversation about it, yes. Yes. So are we just not, is it because that language isn't also strictly in this part of our rules and it's elsewhere or, I think we put it in like the pesticide part of our rules, but do we need to? I would suggest that you allow for remediation of everything except for human pathogens. Okay. If there are human pathogens, this is like the lettuce recalls you see, you know, that would, this involves something explicitly harmful to humans and you don't allow for remediation. That's unfortunate, but if you were to get any of these specific pathogens, it means your sanitation needs help and if you were to sort of use the Food Safety Modernization Act as an example, this is not something you want to see in supply, but all the other listed contaminants that you're looking for, there are ways to remediate those products. So we should be clear in this section, I guess, then to allow for remediation for everything other than human pathogens, and then we also have that same kind of language in the pesticide portion of our rules that allow for remediation unless it was done willfully. Yep. Great. Yep. That makes sense to me. How's that, David? Yep. That sounds good. And yeah, we do have the remediation part in the adulterated cannabis section, so we can also work in a reference. I'll figure out how to draft it, but we have language and human pathogens to be carved out for this piece. So this, I believe we actually took care of this comment already, because it was the substance of this was actually in another section, but I'll just read it out. Harvest lot potency, the three weeks before harvest timeframe is not representative of the potency of cannabis flower. Potency should be tested after harvest and be labeled on the product. You guys already decided to change that accordingly, so we'll move on unless there are any other... What was the language we ended up with? I wouldn't mind Carrie having a chance. Oh yeah, absolutely. It was before packaging, essentially, testing should happen before packaging. Yeah, that makes sense. You want it as sold? You want it as sold? Guarantee. Yeah, great. Okay. Okay. Good. Next one, looking at 2.9.2, which is the potency parameter, I believe. The commenter asks, is this parameter, is this testing parameter too tight and notes that for hemp there's a 20% variance allowable according to the commentator. I haven't independently checked that, but Carrie can verify. Commenter says with a cap of 5 milligrams per serving and an increase in demand for microdosing 10%, it may be difficult to obtain and will result in large amounts of waste. That's accurate, and I do agree with it. When you're talking about a concentration, a concentrate, I mean when a cap is at 60%, that's 600 milligrams per gram, and the 20% variance or 10% variance makes sense when you're talking about 5 milligrams. That's 10% of that is 4.5 to 5.5. You're not going to be able to see that with the analytical variation of the instrument or whatever it is that's being marketed, whether it's a gummy or something. In that case, 10% is too tight, and I would recommend that you sort of tier that. So that 10% apply to your 50% and above. I think something down around 5 milligrams, even a 50% tolerance is okay, because 50% gets you from 0.25 up to 7.25. And if you're eating a gummy that's 0.25 up to 7.25, you're not really going to discern a difference. Yeah. That's fine with me. Sorry, what was your suggestion? I'll write it down for you. Okay. 10% at 50% and above, and then tier it down to maybe 50 milligrams. 50% tolerance up. So if you're above 50%, even at 30%, you're going to be able to see the difference analytically because you're talking a difference of a number of milligrams. 30% that's plus or minus 3 milligrams. At 5 milligrams, that's half a milligram difference. And when you take your gummy, dissolve that in a solution and run it through your instrument, the analytical variation of the instrument is going to potentially be larger than your cutoff percentage. So the comment here about disposing of product based on those levels is accurate. And I'm suggesting down at 5 milligrams, even a 50% tolerance will be okay and won't necessarily be not shorting anybody. You're not overdosing anybody because the difference of a milligram or two in a product is going to have a discernible effect. How do you get to this level of variance? Is it someone that accidentally puts in too much THC isolate into their gummies? Is that the problem? And then we don't want to have to throw them away. So do you formulate your product if you're making gummies? You put in all your ingredients and your batch is for 20 dummies. And you put in a thousand milligrams and mix it all up and put, you know, you're trying for 5 milligrams in each batch, but there'll be a variance just based on... People have an incentive not to do this, honestly. It's like giving away free THC. Correct. So I don't have any problem, especially on the lower ones on that. So why don't we just follow the suggestion here, David, if you're okay with that. Yep. It's how do you get a representative sample? How do you analyze accurately? And then how does somebody that's formulating the kitchen get a scientifically accurate sort of like making chocolate chip cookies? One's going to have 10 chocolate chips, one's going to have 3. Yeah. Sorry. That's an oversimplification, but... When you're in El Carr. All right. Use the chocolate chips. To clarify, I thought you were saying that follow the suggestion of the commenter. Follow the suggestion of Terry. Got it. Terry, is everyone okay with that? Yes. If you'd like that written, I can send it over. It's helpful. Yeah. Thank you. So another commenter going to section 2.9.4 says or recommends that the canvas control board consider adding to subsection 2.9.4 the following aspergillus quote aspergillus speciation testing shall be performed using a QPCR method or alternate DNA based method on sample material that has been enriched in a medium that promotes for minimum of 24 hours end quote. Specific. It would help. That's definitely one of the lab's commenting. Is it okay? Well, I don't know. Probably. I mean, someone... It's probably Sherman High, honestly, but he was helpful in drafting. Yeah. I don't know if you have to do it specifically, get that specific in statute. Yeah. You want to use a method that works. So any board verified method should be allowed to analyze for that compound. And specifying QPCR is extra. So any board... Nothing cost prohibitive to certain labs wanting to test for that specific? No. Okay. But can that... Does this methodology change from time to time and we don't want to change our rules every time? Yeah. Yeah. So is there something we can put a guidance or... If somebody has QPCR, there's soon could be a test kit for it. Okay. And a mass produced test kit that uses sort of a DNA based method is found to hit the market sooner or later if it isn't already there. So it sounds to me like we need some sort of catch-all somewhere in 2.9. I think we have it already in 2.9.4. So the following human pathogens would be measured and the limit set in accordance with guidance issued by the board. I would say that in accordance with guidance issued by the board applies to both the measurement and the limit. Yep. Okay. And I think that makes sense for all the reasons you guys are saying these methods are going... The methodologies are going to change over time and we shouldn't set those in the rule. Yep. And I think specifically here, he's talking about... The overall growth for a minimum of 24 hours. If you run a six-hour test, you're not going to see it as well as if you run a 24-hour test. So as long as the board verifies that the method that the lab is using is sufficient to answer the question if it's there or not, you're good. Right. That sounds good. There. Just looking ahead, I see that the next comments don't really apply to your expertise. I'm wondering if we pause. The next comment that I see moves to 2.10, which is about integrated licenses. So I'm wondering if we pause and try and use Keri's time wisely here on the areas that I think you really should be weighing in on. That's good to me. Yep. Is that all right, David? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Why don't we knock out Rick Fox's kind of few points that he wants to touch on specifically. Let me just pull those up. I mean, I know the first one was around whether we should allow... I see these two issues as interrelated. So I'll just say them both, whether we should have... We apply a plant count equivalent for our first two tiers of outdoor cultivation. So we allow 1,000 square feet outdoor cultivation or 125 plants. And then for tier two, it's 2,500 indoor or 312 plants. And that's based on a formula that Rick has kind of given us. It seems legit. It seems defensible. Three to one a spare. Yeah. So essentially trying to accommodate how people grow, recognize that there might be kind of buffer crops that you want in between your cannabis rows. And so we're decoupling just can't be... Comment really is, should we allow that all the way down the line for all six cultivation tiers, that same equivalency? And then I think a related comment he asked for is if we're going to just do canopy size, do we allow for non-contiguous rows? So the only canopy that gets counted towards your cap, your 5,000, 10,000, et cetera, is for the rows where you're actually growing cannabis. So my take on this is not from the grower side. It's not from the control board and the inspectors. And you want something easy to measure, easy to count, easy to determine compliance. You want to be able to determine compliance as fast as you can. And I think extending plant count makes it a lot easier because if you're measuring canopy of non-contiguous rows, your inspectors are going to be there all day with a measuring tape and it's probably going to take more than one person. So they're going to have to team up the inspectors to go and measure canopy that's going to change over the course of the growing season to determine compliance or send one guy there who can do a quick count of number of plants. And not every plant is going to be alive. They're going to have row skips. So I think plant count, again, with some standard variation is going to allow your inspector to cruise through an inspector more so than measuring plant canopy. Even if you were to do that with aerial surveillance, you're going to have a much quicker time determining whether somebody's compliant basically with a finite thing to measure. And I think the easiest way is plant count. I mean, I don't want to sort of tell you all what to do, but I think just for ease of inspection, plant count will make it easier when you visit a facility. And it was sort of the same conversation about indoor room size and the ask to only count the canopy in there instead of the size of the grow room. It's really easy to measure the size of the grow room. If you're measuring, if you're taking out the aisle space, then compliance becomes subjective. And I think you want to take subjectivity out of determining compliance. The non-continuous row is probably not a great idea from just a workflow perspective on RN. What about having the plant equivalency, I mean, for the larger tiers, which would clearly, you know, it poses its own challenges, honestly, like, you know, our highest tier, 37,500. So you're talking about, you know, what, 100,000 plants? Potentially. Really? Outdoor? Well, I can't do the math in my head. So it would be a divide by a thousand and multiply by 125. So I can't, I could do it, but it's not that many plants. I mean, no, it's a hemp. You were getting less than 2000 plants on an acre. There's 46,000 plants. Roughly 40, almost 47,000. That's on three acres. That's a three acre plot. That's on a 37,500. We applied the same ratio. I feel like three to one. The equivalent, the ratio that we're using is a thousand square feet equals 125 plants. If they're planted in a grid, it's still easier to count plants than it is. It's still easier to count plants. Okay. And square footage. But yeah, I'm just saying, like, we could say that it had, like that 37,500, the plant count equivalency does not apply and it has to be a continuous plot. Does that make things a little bit easier? Not to mention, we're requiring fencing for that level. So we can kind of just follow the fence and count. Yeah. At that point. Yeah. Either way. They both make sense. But like I said, you want your, your initial, but you don't want this to be subjective. Right. So whatever it is needs to be measurable. And I think we ought to do that math again, because on an acre, people were putting about 2,500 hemp plants and it sounded like you're going to squeeze them a little tighter. So I think that 37,000 is closer to less than 5,000 plants. 5,000. Yeah, I did the math wrong. Well, can I just clarify our two sort of decision points here? One is about contiguous rows. And then the other is about plant count. But we already, I think we already talked about contiguous rows that the, that the square footage need not be contiguous. So do we, are we feeling like we're going to change that? I'm hearing that, I'm hearing that it could be problematic, particularly on the larger cultivation tiers. Okay. The alternative, I mean, that's a move point if we go to, I guess it's not necessarily a move point, but it's less of a pivotal point if we go to plant counts. Okay. For all the reasons that Carrie's suggesting, I think plant counts are good. Yeah, I know I've been the one that's been cautious and that's for other land use planning issues. I think some folks are going to be challenged. Get direct 250 depending on what they're planning to do. Especially if that impact and whether it's a couple of thousand plants or more, it's going to be over larger than an acre. It's an incentive to keep, keep your growth small. Right. Isn't it up to that person or a cultivator to decide, okay, I'm going to plant these things far apart and have two, I mean, that would be up to them to navigate that. Not that it would be fun by a new stretch, but it would be up to the cultivator to decide that. That's a point. All right. I think. I'm suggesting as you make it easier on your team. No, totally. I guess my thought is, is maybe I don't need to play this protector for my 250 jurisdiction, but I feel like it's part of my job to do to make sure that I'm not letting folks into that black box, which can be a black box, recognizing that district coordinators have their own semi autonomy to help from a commercial impact perspective, to maintain the integrity of their specific district. And so I don't know how many of them feel about campus. And so that's kind of where my fear comes in all over. We'll see if the Senate makes it all. And that removes that. Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I'd want to see what the plant count numbers are. We need somebody who's good at math. I'm not that person. So I know how to scale them appropriately. Yeah. We're like an acre, you're reserving about six square feet per plant. So that was 43,000 divided by six. And we're talking here. Eight, right? Eight is the equivalent that we use. I think I was just off by a factor of 10. Honestly, no, I'm looking at this. So it's 46. 4,688 plants for 37,000 square feet. So, yeah, it's, I was off by a factor of 10. Sorry. It's 4,687 is the number of plants that the tier six outdoor cultivator could grow under those ratios. Well, a quick, quick hearing that's still one person. Oh, I don't want to make everybody else do math on my behalf. What would the, what would the 20,000 count? We had a 20,000 square foot canopy and then jumped to 37,5. So what would the 20,000 equivalent be for? Divide by eight is what you're. You tell me, I don't know. I was thinking of math in high school. So. Okay. Which also, you know, when they're young, if you did pop a drone up in the air, you've got a record. I think it helps growers in the sense that, well, what, like, you know, 30 ish percent of plants are going to fail. Likely regardless of what you do. So it helps. Yeah. Else from that failure rate perspective too. What I'd like to do is propose one for that. 20,000 square foot equivalent and mixed hearing to allow for. I'm jumping conversations here, but I thought it might be appropriate time to raise it up to add a mixed hearing. License type. Here. That would be that 20,000 square foot equivalent. And then. Have a small indoor kind of like the inverse of how we've been looking at. The next hearing thus far. Just for the folks that are growing a lot of outdoor plants providing them some indoor canopy. For mother plants for vegetative stock and. You know, allowing them an opportunity to have. An indoor grown plan. If that's what they would like to do as well to 20,000 outdoor. Yeah. What was that number equivalent again? 2,000. 2,500 plants. And then. 1,000 square foot or 2,500 square foot indoor. We got to crunch the numbers on that one again. And, you know, carry one thing that we did was we just created mixed cultivation here is because we figured that that, you know, she's what Kyle's talking about, which is allowing people to kind of have a. You know, cultivation room inside, trying to move some plants outside. Moving for the winter, have some continues. You know, we were just pulling numbers pretty much out of the blue. You're going to have to until you see what the market and growers produce. Yeah. And I think thus far we've, we've done some, you know, plant counts tied to some of the smaller indoor licenses up to like 5,000. But I'd like to see one where it's folks that are pretty much all set on sunlight outdoor grown cannabis, but still need a small indoor space as well. Yeah, you got it. So the tears we did were 1,000 indoor 125 plants outdoor. And 1,000 indoor 250 plants outdoor. And 2,500 indoor 400 plants outdoor. Yeah. Those are the tears we ended up with. And then I think Kyle suggesting 2,500 indoor plus how much outdoor 2,500 plants outdoor 1,000 square feet indoor. We can do the 1,000 square foot indoor, but I didn't necessarily want to provide them the small and greater exemption if they have such a large door footprint. We can talk about that. So it might be better to jump them to a 25 square foot, 2,500 square foot indoor category instead just to kind of be clear there, but I don't know how either want to be feel that makes a fourth mix cultivation tier. Great. That's what we're doing. It's a fairly large jump between 400 plants and 2,500 plants. That's about 400 plants was about set. I mean, you guys heard the ones doing math. Correct me if I'm wrong. It was about 7,000 square feet. And before we made this tack to plant counts, I was thinking, okay, do we want to do this for 10,000 square foot outdoor canopy? I'm like, ah, we're already almost there. Sam, we might as well go to the next highest one. And that's kind of why I made that decision. That makes sense. Yeah. We've almost accommodated folks that would otherwise grow in that 10,000 square foot outdoor license type with the 400 plants was what I thought. Almost not necessarily. So people who might do this would have a large grow outdoors, but would be able to keep their mothers indoors with the start. They're, you know, their stars might be indoors for a little while or, you know, Yeah, that's that would be the purpose of my mind. That would be the purpose of that. Do you all separated indoor space between flower and veg? No, because it's definitely a plant canopy. It's all living plants. Okay. It seems to me just that this is kind of an odd like an odd license type compared to the other ones. Like I want to have some kind of rhyme and reason between this. It seems to me like what we've said is, you know, 2,500 and 400 plants is maybe there's no logic to that one. Maybe we just need to just jump that tier to a larger, just like eliminate that tier changes 2,500 indoor and 25,000 or 2,500 plants outdoor. But it seems to me like we're kind of losing any sort of like rhyme or reason to this mixed cultivation tier. I would like to just kind of look at what the plant count equivalents for each of our outdoor tiers is going to be. Yeah, I mean, I'm getting a little lost in all the numbers that I'm throwing around to. I need to see it on a piece of paper. We're going to take a lunch break. Why don't we just finish this conversation after the lunch break? And we'll during lunch break figure out because what I was thinking is you're essentially combining a tier one and a tier one. And then you're combining a tier one and a tier two and then a tier two and a tier three. And like, I just don't know how like there was some internal logic consistency to it. And this just seems like a pretty significant jump. But maybe it's not. I think there's just a lot of numbers that we've been discussing and it's hard to keep track of where we are. When there's a problem you're trying to solve, right? Is that we've heard and comment that people need some indoor space even if they want to cultivate primarily outdoors. Yeah. And I've, you know, we've been approaching the mixed tiering as you have your indoor square footage and you get a plan count as supplemental to that. At least that's kind of how I think it's being perceived. And I think what I'm hearing is folks that are growing indoor over 5,000 square feet don't necessarily have a vested interest in maintaining an outdoor stock. So as much as it might on the inverse. So I'm just trying to meet people who are looking to pursue a larger outdoor license to provide them some availability to have some stock inside. I think it makes sense. And I think people are going to do it regardless of whether or not we allow them to. And you otherwise can't combine two cultivation licenses, right? So that would be the only way to do it is to create. Yeah. So I mean, what I'm hearing is generally people recognize that we just need to sit down with these numbers and actually see them on a piece of paper to kind of figure out what's the right ratio to apply to what. Yeah, but I do think we need to decide today also. No, for sure. Let's do that after lunch. Carrie, how many just in your kind of just wireless imagination, how many 20,000. Square foot outdoor cultivators. Do you think we should be expecting? Okay. Any, any, any venture? You want to venture a guest at all? Or is that just kind of? I haven't seen your latest license structure. Folks growing out doors are probably going to have a combination product. They're going to have some boutique flower, some outdoor grown flower and a lot of what's there is going to go into extract to be sold as a concentrate or ingredients for an edible. Okay. So they're going to be going to have to be large enough to have mixed outputs. Yeah. So 20,000. Third feet indoor. Outdoor. Outdoor. Which was changed to plants. Which was 200. 2500 plants. That's about the level that 90% of the hamper jumped in at. And that's manageable. 2500 plants is very manageable with. Two or three people outdoors. Okay. And it really depends on the license fee. Okay. I went there, recognizing that we likely won't even open up to 375 at least initially. Okay. All right. So I think you will see a bunch of people jump in at that level, but it's, it's not, that's not a lot. That's not an insurmountable amount of work. Okay. And again, I thought those other intermediate tiers between the 20,000 square foot and small cultivator level outdoor, I thought we got close to accommodating those specific outdoor numbers and playing counts already next tiering. So we had up to what, a 400 something. And I thought that almost got to equivalency of about, you know, 7,000 square feet. Again, I'm not a math expert. So don't quote me on that. But I'm like thinking, oh, do we make an accommodation then for the 10,000 square foot pro or do we just jump to the next highest licensed tier? So that's kind of where I arrived at what I arrived at. Okay. But again, I think we all just need to see it on paper again. Okay. All right. Then let's move, let's move on for now. I think that captures most of Rick's comments here. We jump in. So we received a general comment regarding reports that the board is requiring and plans that the board is requiring. So again, the comment was just basically, you know, anytime you require a report, make sure that that information is actually valuable to the board. Otherwise, you know, where are we going to store it? Is it a public record? What are we doing with that information? It becomes kind of burdensome both on us and the licensee. So David sent me a list of all the kind of reports that we're requiring. I'm going to start 1.4.4, which is these are plans that we're requiring as part of the application process. And we made some changes. I'm looking at the updated version. So all applicants must submit a health and safety plan. They have to submit a storage and record keeping plan. Submit an inventory control plan. Submit a contingency and continuity plan that addresses the dispersal or disposal of inventory in the event of an abrupt closure. Submit a timeline for beginning operations of the cannabis establishment. And the last two kind of our attestations. Those aren't really plans. So, but do you see good logic behind these and are they necessary? And are they necessary for all license types in your, in your view, having just been through the hemp program, you know, lessons learned from that. It really depends on how much hand holding you want to have over. If you want to ensure success or do you want to let the market do that? And what are the elements in that? What are the elements in each plan? Like you're saying you need the plan, but what's a health and safety plan actually mean? Is that where do you go during a fire drill? Like what, what level of detail are you asking for? And are you, do you really need to be privy to that information? I guess that's the question. It's accurate and fair to ask for that during the application process because you want to understand how much effort and thought has gone into each proposed business. But is it, but is it up to the board to decide whether that entity has done their due diligence or not? You have to assess exactly how much hand holding is appropriate given that it's a new industry and you're trying to. Help people learn how to be regulated? Yes. Yeah. I think that's one of the, you know, how we look at these, I think that's, that's really how I've, so I think I put forth a lot of the plans, you know, not necessarily these ones, but especially in the cultivation plans and the, you know, energy usage data records and what we're looking to accomplish and it's like recognizing that market dynamics are that some people succeed, some people fail. How much do we as a board want to help certain folks reach a degree of success and plan for the inevitable worst case scenario? And so I think it's just where we draw that line in the sand and I think some of our requirements have aired on the side of, you know, for checking people from themselves a little bit, you know, and anticipating failure. But again, is that the role we want to play? And I think to your point, Carrie, at the time of licensing, I think we do want to know how well thought through folks have done in terms of their initial application and plan. Do I think we need updates, regular updates when they change that plan in the middle of their license? No, probably not. We have health and safety training requirements and I just wonder if we actually need a health and safety plan, you know. What you don't want to happen and we have a golf course permitting program and originally no golf course get through the Act 250 process. Then finally one day and they used dilution calculations and different methodologies to do a risk assessment and then 96 golf courses copied that plan. I mean, that's going to happen in this industry. I just know that a lawyer is going to look at this and create just one document and charges clients $10,000 for that document every time and then we're going to get the exact same one every single time. Does that get you what you want? Exactly. And I guess the kind of more fundamental question is are we going to reject an application because this we believe is unsatisfactory or maybe doesn't meet some kind of threshold and then that's really a discretionary point for us. No, I think it would be. It is there or it is not, right? That would be the... I think we can give it a B, a storage and record keeping plan. I mean, we require the records to be kept. I think we only need to hear a plan about how you're going to keep them. Well, an inventory control plan just be accounted for in seed to sale. I think so. So what do you think about D, Carrie? The contingency and continuity plan to address an abrupt closure and... Yeah, that's a keeper. Yeah. Right, because about your seed to sale is all about diversion. Right. And if someplace closes, you want to know where that material is going, even if they don't know it originally, that's having a plan in place is appropriate. Okay. So are you thinking of breaking A through C or you want to keep A? I... There's too many pieces in my opinion through the health and safety plan because you're going to have slips, trips and falls, a plan for that, a plan for evacuation if there's a fire, and then you're going to have all the worker protection piece associated with pesticide use. So your health and safety plan is going to be a very thick document. Yeah, A through C. We're looking to strike. I'd get rid of A through C on this one. I honestly dealt with slips, trips, and falls of OSHA at the federal level. Yeah. Right. That sound okay? Yes. Yeah, all right. David, we're going to strike A through C on this. All right. 1.6. The next one. Deborah, did you want to cover the last part of 1.4.4? Just the employee stuff? Yeah, I mean, you don't have to. Just wanted to make sure. So it's applicants who intend to hire or have hired employees and overview of the positions and staffing levels, overview of the general roles, overview of the management structure, employee hiring and training plan, including safety training. So isn't this where we would get some of our information for the application prioritization that we need to do? Yeah. I think that's why those are key. Yeah. H and K, because isn't one of the 903A requirements or the priorities. Isn't it not having a plan like that? I think that's where that came from. Yeah. What if we tie it to those criteria? Or if you have, what do we say, three or more FTEs, then you have to figure out how we structured that. It was two or more for a certain number and then 10 or more for another number of selections. So what if we had one from both, one from a couple of categories, and if you had over 10, you had to pick three from. So what do we just say if you have over two and you have to do H and K? But how, so then how does, how do 1.4.9 and 903A set? Like how, because there are two, like what if you don't choose to do the hiring plan as an option from those 1.4.9 selections? We still have to prioritize the applications based on certain things. Based on the 903A pieces, right? So I think that's fine as long as we figure out how to marry those two together. The 903A, okay. The 903A is, yeah. Seriously, I mean, I think you're talking about the positive impact criteria and just knowing whether somebody needs to fulfill certain levels. Yes, and that regardless of what somebody fills out and their positive impact criteria, we have these prioritizations that we have to do for applications. And in my mind the, some of the, where we would get the information to do that prioritization would be in these H through K without having to have some other separate, which is in a piece of that. Yeah, I think so. I guess inherently this has a one, a one employee minimum before this kicks in anyway. I don't think that will really worry. Okay. All right, we'll leave it right. All right. Nice try, David. Sure. All right, 1.6. The requirements in this section apply to applications for manufacturing licenses. Manufacturers must provide a list of intended production items and means of production in a format determined by the board. So this is again a report. And the thing that struck me about this is we're not asking for kind of mid-year updates or new product updates. And so really what's the value in this if, you know, they, you know, some manufacturer is going to list some potentially intended products. Something's not on there. There's really no penalty. There's no like, we're not going to ding them for anything or if they add a new one after they submit this list, there's no like consequence to that. So this to me, the intended products doesn't really necessarily add a lot of value. So how and given that, how will we get market data and what will we measure it against? So if we don't have it in the application as a baseline, then down the road, what will we measure our market data against? Well, we have point of sale tracking information. Right. So we'll know everything that's been sold and including just interest supply chains. So that could cover that. So, you know, it doesn't sound like in your thinking that we would need a baseline before the market starts. We would need to start collecting that when the market starts. Okay. Do you see value to this provision? I haven't looked at it as a whole. And I think it makes sense to know if your manufacturer is an extraction lab versus a bakery type. Like if you're making food or you're making a concentrate, just walking in the facility, you know, let you know if you're dealing with pressurized gases and solvents versus butter and flour and gelatin. But if you've got somewhere on the application that says I'm a manufacturer that's producing concentrate, like I'm an extraction facility versus I'm a... This could be a checkbox, not a list. Yeah. A checkbox instead of a list of products. It would be helpful for you to know what the facility is because a manufacturer concentrates our... You're making concentrations in big cartridges as a different facility. It's like going into Korea. You've been in Korea. We haven't. I haven't. Okay. So they take hemp flour extract. They're making tinctures and extracts and big cartridges and all sorts of CBD products. They're not making gummies. They're not making bakery products. Those are made elsewhere. Part of it will make up for it with which type of manufacturer it is and somebody sees it. As long as you're capturing it somewhere. Is there a value to our inspectors knowing at the time of application when they go back what they're looking for? Probably. But you're going to know immediately when you walk through the door. If you're doing all... If you're prepared to do an inspection almost like a commercial kitchen inspection for temperatures and sanitation as opposed to as you're solving and purged fully. It's a different inspection. But I think to your point operationally this could be a radio button. It doesn't have to be a check. It doesn't have to be a bonerous. Can we clarify that in the role here? David, I guess the clarification would be product manufacturers don't need to provide a list of intended products. They just need to kind of attest to their production methods. As in like are you a commercial kitchen or are you doing solving basic extractions or both? Check all that apply. Yeah. Okay. And really I think you would come down to potentially just if you're a tier one product manufacturer are you doing both? Right. Okay. I'm cool with that. 1.7 Retailers must provide a list of intended sale items. This is the same pretty much the same conversation. We don't need... We don't necessarily need this, right? For the same reasons. No. I know we talked about this and you know, I don't... We would expect them to provide it at licensure knowing that things change and we wouldn't ask for it again. So... I think a checklist though is helpful. Yeah. I would imagine both intended to sell as many different types of products as they could. So the checklist would be for kind of 1.7 sub B. Yeah. So the list of items that contain CBD hemp drive compounds or that is consumable that's non-intoxicating. Okay. That makes sense, David. So you're saying that the list will... Will it be a check mark as to whether it's a yes or no to sub B or a list that includes anything that might fall under sub B or the same as what we have? I think just because we don't know... We don't have our licensing portal quite yet that you could probably just leave it as B and then we could just... Okay. Just leave B. Just leave B and then we can hopefully create a checklist on the application portal. Okay. Either check a box or enter it. Sounds good. All right. Next is 2.3.1. Canvas establishments with a cultivator license will report to the board regarding the use and quantity of pesticides if applicable. Do you require this in other areas? Yep. I think we keep that one. I'll suggest you don't make them report. They just keep the record and make them available upon request. Okay. You don't need a report of what they use. This shall maintain a record of the use and quantity of pesticides. And that's in our ranks as well. That sounds good doing that. Yeah, wherever we can mirror what's going on at the agency bag and program, I think it helps all folks. I feel like they're up against two different standards. Yep. You got that, David? Yep. Okay. 2.3.2F. Visitors must be logged with time of entry and exit and log will be made available to the board or doesn't need upon request. Logs must be retained for one calendar year. This isn't necessarily a report. This is more along Sorry. F was for the rule as filed. You're looking at the amended one. Yeah, so it's a different F now. I think the F that we were, that that was referencing was the safety protocol must be on record with the board and you already decided to delete that provision. So they just need to have the protocol but they don't need to file it. Okay. I think we're all set on that. Sorry. It's fine. There's like three different versions of this rule. Yeah, okay. Alright, so we'll move on from that then. 2.3.8 Cultivating licensees shall submit cultivation and operations information to the board within 60 days. Information shall include the cultivation schedule the grow medium the mix light cultivation plan and schedule irrigation plan and schedule waste management plan, pest management plan and a plan to secure regulated products such as pesticides. I feel like F and G are the same. I want to know the truth but that's only how I think I kind of felt like getting rid of G. I know we've talked a lot about this as a board. I just don't know if anyone's going to say anything more than I'm going to go to the store and buy it. No, I'm going to order it from Amazon. I'd like to keep pest management plan in them. Yes. That is very important. Okay. Do the rest of those make sense to you or are they superfluous or unnecessary? No, they're good. And do you want to impose IPM like integrated pest management would be you'd have mites. You're going to use Lyswing larva instead of Neen. Do you want to impose IPM here? It's sort of the same tactic you're taking with packaging like you're imposing an environmental benefit on an entity. And in this case, IPM is the best strategy. It's not just spray and pray. You need to identify the pest target that pest and control it. And it's largely an opportunity to put in statute best practices most environmental friendly practices as well as sort of produce cleaner canvas than any other state. I like the sound of that. I was trying to signal that with pest management plan, but if it's not clear enough they're integrated pest management plan in path, not just pest management plan. Is there any reason to waive that for tier one cultivators? No. It's not going to kind of push people with this Lyswing market. Could they're doing it in the Lyswing market already? Yeah, I think they know and can anticipate the issues that they currently have and it's just kind of formalizing that kind of brain trust that they've built. Okay. I just have a question on G. Are there already rules about how pesticides are handled? I think secure is not obtained. It's secure as in like put in a safe place for G. But there's already existing rules around that. Okay. So how should we say that an integrated pest management plan? That term's not unfamiliar to folks. Okay. It's defined in the definition. Why don't we do that then? And then irrigation plan scheduling that's all relatively straightforward. You don't care about irrigation? I think we've you know, my thought is it's not, most people are not going to be directed by that if we were in a state with a different water resource profile. I think it'd be a lot more important. All right. So why don't we get rid of D then? And then what about the mixed light cultivation plan and schedule? I mean, we're trying to with the mixed light trying to kind of like let people have a little bit more flexibility. But if we tie them to a plan. You know, maybe it doesn't it reduces the flexibility for sure. And then are we going to really when we go there, are we going to compare what they're doing to their plan? Well, we might just in a sense of so our inspectors know where to look, right? And to ensure that there's no unaccounted for plants, right? I mean, it might help to submit a diagram what they're doing now. So it's kind of I think we can strike in and just let folks be flexible. And then cultivation schedule makes sense, I think. Yeah, I think we for our market dynamics need to kind of recognize when things are going to be grow medium is indoor versus outdoor. Now grow meeting is the style with which you're growing your plants. So there's different ways that you can grow. Soil. Soil is medium. Is that a good one to keep? I think so. I want to know that information. I want to know how folks are growing. What's the most successful way to grow? Well, could people change it? Like if you started off one way, and you were indoor, would somebody change it to save a plant? Maybe they would change something that foundational to their grow operation mid-cycle, but Gary, I don't know. You're not going to change it mid-cycle, but you could be doing multiple. Yeah. You'd have your mothers in soil, your clones go soil-less. You bring them the flower in a soil-less media or hydroponically. It's you wouldn't care if this was you? No. I mean, part of what we're trying to do early on, and I know this is like, I'm not trying to micromanage this market, part of what we're going to try to do is to anticipate overages and underages and supply. And this might help us understand overages and underages. The only kind of thing that we are, I mean, the kind of thing that the S told us to really look out for is how much outdoor versus indoor, just because they're kind of in 5 to 1 turns, but just this like, if someone's growing hydroponically versus in soil, that significantly change the amount of they can produce. How is this information going to actually be useful to us? Why don't we strike it like asking them surveys? Okay. So then, we're leaving cultivation schedule. We're getting rid of the medium. We're getting rid of C and D. We're leaving E and F, but we're changing F to integrate a pest management plan. Last one on the reporting. This is a big one. This is the energy usage one. So 2.5.6. So license holders must report energy efficiency and water performance benchmarks annually to the board. License holders must annually update and submit to the board on the procedures regarding equipment maintenance, calibration and proper operation for all major energy equipment, including horticultural lighting, HVAC systems, dehumidification. And then license holders must annually assess and report to the board opportunities to reduce energy and water usage. There's a number of kind of sub categories there. So this is, you know, obviously this is valuable information. I don't want to suggest that it's not. I'm just wondering how much of a burden this is going to be and does that burden do the benefits outweigh the burdens? So this essentially really, well I'd be fine with waving it for small cultivators. I would still like to see it for the larger cultivator so we can kind of recognize our impact as Cermont looks at different climate goals. I think we would be unwise to completely strike the whole section, you know, I think. But every year is that needed? Other states ask just simply for the usage, right? The energy and water usage. Do I remember that correctly? I believe so. Yeah, I could wave this one for just tier 1. I think that the like calibration proper operation stuff like that, you know if I was a young entrepreneur trying to get into this business, all this stuff might be just seem like what am I doing again? How do I comply with this? But anyone who's got kind of enough capital to be you know, getting these things probably wants to maintain then I think we all have an interest in them having being maintained properly and properly calibrated. Yeah, you know, I think the downside is that if we wave it for 20 well, I don't know how many small cultivators we're going to get but our data will always be incomplete if we ever need to record out on our footprint and so forth. So is the data that we're trying to get from this the cultivators way that they've identified use or ways to improve their use of energy and water or is it how much they are using? I think there's elements of all of that. Okay. This is a recommendation from PSD, right? Yep. Like you're thinking about something. I'm just wondering where if I were to do this, I have no way to meter water comes out of the backyard. How do you measure water if there's no way to have to install a meter gauge how much water I was using? To give it a water performance benchmark? Well, no, I'm not weighing in and just sort of thinking about how that would happen. And I think, you know, it would be interesting to separate at the facilities where the water is being used because I think you'll find that you're using less to keep the to produce the plants in the yard to maintain sanitation or process water, right? Why don't we focus on energy and less on water performance? Okay. It's measurable. You can definitely measure and the energy is where you can reduce, you can reduce to get rid of water performance in a if you were if you were I mean, looking at the numbers it was roughly 10 acres that we need statewide 17 that's not even a small cornfield. Yeah. Water is a tough one in the Northeast because we're not we're not on irrigation. Nobody's got water, right? It just it's here. I don't meter it unless you're on a municipal system. Okay. When we look at C, this is license holders, misannually, and again this only applies to really indoor cultivation and the kind of mix light the indoor portion of the of the mixed here cultivators. So license is misannually assessed and reports the board on opportunities to reduce energy and water usage including identification potential energy use reduction opportunities and this is all good stuff. You know, I don't know if requiring us requiring everyone to kind of annually report that I started out with the most efficient light bulbs and I'm going to continue to use them make sense, but maybe there are ways that they push them towards solar renewable sources or something. I don't know. No, yeah, please. I just I don't know if this again I think probably was a recommendation from the public service department efficiency Vermont folks that they consulted with. I think it's good to constantly be pushing people to re-evaluate where they're at. And just as a reminder, I had it minus the BNC of this section where we're waiting for tier one cultivators, not hey, but and then otherwise it's applicable generally. I'm thinking like what if we just waive the annual aspect and push it annually. Buy it. Every two years. Yes. Okay. And then eliminate the water again. Water usage. How long is your license good for? A year. And again, this added burden to the licensee but if you don't ask for it every year and you have a that was what I was just thinking in my head. If you're going to ask for something every other year, you need to tie it to a renewal or some other mechanism so it doesn't put the burden on you to ask for it. Why don't we just leave it annual and get rid of water and just leave it and we'll see how people see what we get. Yeah, okay. That's it. So the reporting, those are all the reports that we found or I found on Davidson. We did go with the Rick Fox issues. Last one, Kerry, while we have you we had a pretty good conversation last week about requiring either compostable or non-plastic renewable packaging. This gets tricky with the child-proof packaging like the tie into that. A lot of the child-proof packaging requires a certain amount of plastic whether even if you had a glass jar or the lid sometimes, you know, in order to be compliant has to be plastic. You can use all metal or metal. I think I would like to so child-resistant packaging to me is kind of a carry forward from Colorado the early legal states when it applies to flower because, you know, in my mind and correct me if I'm wrong that if a child under 5 which is usually the threshold that they use for child-resistant packaging consumes flower they're not going to have a psychoactive effect. Yeah, the THC is not psychoactive, it needs to be burned. So while it is kind of a political landmine to try and change that because every state has carried forward the definition of child-proof packaging, actually Washington state has recently changed their definition that says child-proof packaging shall be satisfied by so long as the person who gets into it won't be poisoned by the material. You can change it to kind of a poisoning standard you know but, again, that requires a legislative change because the definition of child-resistant packaging is in statute. So setting that aside what do you think about us trying to go down a path of requiring packaging to be compostable or non-plastic renewable? So more or more we're finding that the compostable plastics aren't but I like your standard. When you say not are you meaning that composting companies won't take them? No, they don't break down. All of us don't break down when we think about the word compostable. They break down under a very specific set of circumstances and even then they have a mixed bag of results. So instead of composting organic material might take one to three years the biodegradable plastics are there three to ten years and it's just not like there's a push among the composters to sort of have those compostable plastic bands because in a compost pile you can't really distinguish between compostable plastic and non-composable plastic. So I was trying to capture and maybe it's just captured in non-plastic reusable there's a whole series of brands of cardboard child resistant packaging these days and I was trying to capture that but maybe we just consider those as non-plastic renewable or reusable. Anything you can do, same with the IPM anything you can do to move away from plastic I think pushes this industry in a progressive direction. So the IPM, the lighting standard, the least toxic pesticides and moving away from plastic packaging is going to be what creates the Vermont brand and that's what you guys are sort of in charge of. We're going to we looked at the language from Colorado last week which permits licensees to reuse, to collect and then clean and then reuse even plastics but so we're going to include that but then the step further would be the part of non-plastic to collect. Does ag plastic fall into your definition of non-plastic? I think you're talking about packaging containers but we're tackling that non-plastic plastic from agricultural feedstocks like PLX like I've worked in corn plastic my mind always goes there and they have again a very mixed bag of success at this point some are also biodegradable and compostable some are recyclable are not all compostable so I mean I was going to use the definition that I chose is pretty technical but it's the one that's in the single use plastic bill that passed in Vermont and I don't know the answer to whether or not the bioplastics would fall under that but I would assume that if they're not actually a benefit you know if it's not if we're just creating a bunch of plastic waste it's actually not doing what it's supposed to be doing and I would not include it no. Is your language has to be 100% non-plastic because the jar that we talked about last week the top of that is still plastic I would like to see no plastic I think I would like to pursue a fix if the board's okay with it on the child resistant packaging for flower and then that would open up a lot of opportunities for us I think on the flower side of things and then if we need to have some small allowance for the child proof lid the problem there the door you open there is that sometimes the lid, the child proof lid has more plastic in it than the pop-top plastic pop-top but the two similar jars that I have in my office one is for flower and the other one had a drink in it so you would want the child proofing for the drink definitely any sort of edible anything that is psychoactive or fine consumption packaging I just think we can get there without plastic though I think if you require it the market will respond it might be a little bit of a kind of there might be some friction in the initial uptake but I think I think it's good to just say that's the direction I'm trying with it as long as it's available my only concern is having product that can't be packaged because we've made a roll and the packaging isn't available that would be my only concern I'm on board I think let's go with your single use plastic definition that stays silent on bioplastics for right now and we can always do a policy kind of event and that should we find out recyclable cycle haulers don't accept it does that sound like good yeah I think that's right because then hit plastics and whatever else bioplastics would be allowed but I just know that they're contentious right now I know that I think the legislature's been talking about bioplastics too so yeah I'm going to go on Thursday talk about micro plastics and all of those that'll be it we'll see the exact, I'll work with David over on before we kind of make a final decision but I think that's a good one that is it for you Carrie you're more than welcome to stick around if you want but I think the rest that we have to talk about just really doesn't involve kind of agricultural practices very good thank you great well David can you jump back in I think we left off at 2.10 before you go Carrie can you just get me the language you were thinking of on the potency parameters yeah thank you okay so moving on to 2.10 let me just pull up the right spot here that's great thank you this is about co-located operations specifically with respect to integrated licensees and 2.10.3 somebody comments on subsection B that the recommendation recommend allowing integrated licenses to commingle inventory until they reach retail requiring separate inventory will cause the business to incur double the cost double the cost because they have to track it separately I don't understand I thought we said they could come from both the inventory tracking can distinguish between I think this comment came before thanks Carrie I think this comment came before we had that decision I think this was the trade association we submitted a letter with a bunch of comments I remember still kind of like drafting the rules I think we've already accommodated said that that's allowed yeah we say I think it can be clarified all this clarify that it's at retail that it has to be separated yeah okay 2.10.4 this is the duty to maintain continuity of services to medical patients somebody comments integrated licensees should be permitted to purchase product to sell to registered patients through medical dispensaries in an effort to ensure medical patients have continuing access sorry tax and retail I mean we regulated market to sell to registered patients through medical dispensaries in an effort to ensure medical patients have continuing access to product so and then I I think that this is related let me read the next paragraph here the inventory tracking and transfer of product between medical and adult use it only be an issue if the integrated license tier sizes are over the maximum allowable amount for adult use I would suggest including language that details the need to separately track or transfer inventory from medical to adult use or that the need to separately track or transfer inventory from medical to adult use it only apply at the total canopy for both operations is above 25,000 square feet this should simplify things dramatically while addressing the board's concern that integrated licenses would try to use medical cultivation to increase their tier size for adult use I don't really even know how to begin to unpack this so I think the first part let's take it one part but you separate issues the first part is just I think they're just asking about it's essentially letting the integrated licensees purchase from other culprits behaviors if they need to which is already permitted it's already even required for window of time I'm interpreting the first part of that but right off the bullet point to just say you can transfer from adult use to medical which I think is already true we already are allowing that you can go from adult use to medical you can't go from medical to adult use but I think the response there is just this is already permitted yeah currently dispensaries are allowed to source from other entities I believe yeah it's different for going the other way and then this next comment I think what they're basically saying is the only issue here the only way we gain an advantage is if we are effectively able to grow larger cultivation tier than anybody else you are allowing us to do that solely to the extent we need to to provide for the medical market they're saying if we're not even getting to that plant canopy limit then it shouldn't really matter because we're not utilizing whatever advantage we might have I think that's the argument that this comment is trying to make we're only requiring knowledge of transfers if you're transferring above whatever the highest tier is that's right I sort of yes my take on this is essentially the same as the last one which is that I think basically the rule already says this we're not even as long as that sort of bubble that the integrated licensees get to have above the top of the cultivation tier is only really going to come into play if they are at the top of the cultivation tier if they're not it's just doesn't matter there's no need to measure it it's just not relevant so I think effectively I would say the same as the prior comment this is already what the rule provides for I think it is clear that there's going to have to be a lot of guidance shall we say conversation with enforcement to make sure that all that is clear but I do think that that's what the rule says now yeah I agree that that's what the rule says I think that's why it's hard for me to really understand what was going on here but yeah Julie and Kyle do you know I agree yep there is a a supplemental comment that we received over the weekend around 2.10.4 for a question honestly how are we going to enforce that kind of maintaining continuity of products and services and how are we going to enforce the like commitment to maintain three months of biomass I mean this is a condition of their license so we have ways to enforce it 2.10.5 the comment is that this section should clarify whether a dispensary can purchase or transfer product from the adult cannabis supply to the dispensary side and I think the answer is yes but it doesn't actually say that plainly it's just not prohibited transfers in the opposite direction again are prohibited to avoid that sort of like unfair advantage that the board has been worried about and that many we've got many comments on um the clarification happening in rule 3 and not rule 2 and this is about the integrated license rule 3 is about the dispensary seems like if we don't prohibit it here then we can clarify in rule 3 that's fine I think that's really just a drafting issue either way it's fine but I'll note that we can clarify in rule 3 if it needs clarification not saying it does looking at 2.10.5 D this is purely a drafting issue just highly technical just making sure that it's clear what clause was being referred to when you're looking at subsection D it's of the cultivation we subject to the limits of subsection B or to subsection B um but we're really talking about a um the cultivation tears in subsection B there's also other stuff in subsection B anyway we don't need to go into that it's just drafting an issue trust me on that I think it'll be fine no meaning change there um now here is one that is more substantive um the recommendation of the board does in fact allow transfers from the dispensary supply to the adult use market with the explicit permission of the board well they are commingled right and so really this is kind of like this is allowed and but if it's above if they're transferring too much then they do need explicit permission so this I feel like is already accounted for our rules am I wrong did we I thought we took that well wait for the writing so I think that what they're saying it what I understand this to be saying giving it the sort of benefit of you know of the doubt in terms of fitting it in with what the rule says now I think what they're asking for is saying hey look what if we actually did make too much for the medical side can we now transfer that and right now it says that no they can't at the total and at the last sentence of subsection D1 makes that clear it says if the total biomass set aside for medical cannabis cannabis products is ultimately not needed for that purpose it may not be transferred to the adult use market so that's again if they're already in that bubble area where they get to go above the maximum cultivation tier can they then if this won't really matter if they're not above that can't they just store it and you know like they're maintaining three months supply so eventually that supply will be depleted right can't they just store it and save it for the set aside for medical patients I think there's other ways that they can make up for their own mistake other than transferring it into the adult use market that's just an advantage that nobody else has and I wouldn't support allowing them to do that right that's their business wrong not our duty to make up for their mistake okay yeah that's good I think it's fine the way it is next substantive comment is on 2.10.6 we're asking that permanent there be a permanent requirement 25% of integrated licensee purchasing must be from small cultivators and I've got another comment that's related to this also which is again more of a question we received over the weekend just this section right here how are we how is this going to be enforced with how do you define available like if available so and I agree with the questions I have the exact same questions this seems like a very challenging provision to enforce mostly mostly because saying 25% of what is sold has to be sourced from small cultivators during this window but you're not going to know what 25% is until the window is over so it's just like the legislature put this provision in I understand the intent and maybe this is one thing that needs some clarification in our rules like I just I don't know how an integrated licensee would achieve this other than we are requiring them to submit a plan on how to achieve this and we can say at that point that this plan is insufficient what I would hope that they would be doing is saying I've set up relationships with these 10 small cultivators I anticipate maybe selling X amount and during this window and here's how I'm going to source it from small cultivators yeah but as far as the permanent goes I don't know permanent to me is a legislative change I think that if people want this to be permanent they really need to go kind of lobby their local representatives I would agree with that I think it belongs in statute not necessarily enrolling you know recognizing the internal politics that exist in the cannabis community here they're not always this requirement isn't reflective necessarily of some of the politics that exist I don't know if small cultivators will want their products at one of these establishments and then we're diving into market dynamics and relationships that are part of business relationships not the regulator in the business relationship so we heard early on that that may not be the case they may not want to sell to integrated licensee they're right then we're going to be making waivers we can't need this yeah great and then the general question this probably could have gone in a packaging section but as I look at it now somebody else is white labeling allowed can licensee transfer products from on licensee at various points in the supply chain and just to give the lawyer outlook on this I think the way the rules are now it certainly is there's nothing that we can date or prohibit with respect to branding certainly products are allowed to go back and forth between licensees branding is totally a commercial question for the licensees to decide on we know that retailers can't package for now for today yeah I agree I mean it is a well and I think we all know that this isn't a linear supply chain it's going to bounce around like a ping-pong ball sorry and then I'll there's a couple of questions that came up I'll go through them one at a time here and then there's some sort of I already have some suggestions here about how to manage them but one of the suggestions is really just how do we deal with interaction with the municipalities who do have some limited authority with respect to local control commissions and decisions that they might make and how will we know about them how all the licensees how that communication happened with licensees and so in response to those comments and just so folks remember or know there is nothing in the rules at all right now about that so the proposal I think would be if the board wants to would basically be to put in a few four different items which is that municipalities should notify the board if they create a local control commission because that will then become a factor in a licensing decision and they should notify the board if they deny license if there is a local control commission they should notify the board if they suspend or evoke a license and the local control commissions who need to make decisions about licenses they can't use that as a reason to effectively prohibit licensing there has to be some reasonable period of time to make those decisions so those were a few points that were responsive to comments about increase in clarity around how we'll be interacting with municipalities and this the timeline for making decisions I mean that's sort of in line with what permitting is like too right a municipality has to make a permit decision within a certain period of time with the authority to do any of this though I mean it does the section eight sixty three of our statutes explicitly says that the board will make rules regarding municipal authority and the local control commission so I think we were explicitly granted authority to make rules about this exact set of issues one of my questions though is that do we have the authority it says the board will not require local approval as a condition of an applicant pursuant to eight sixty three unless the board has received notice of the creation of the local control commission from municipality and that basically unless the way I read that is any municipality that doesn't have a local control commission is mooted out of the process unless they create one that's right we have that that's my statute if you don't have a local control commission you don't have the authority to do not have license you have all the other authority to be clear I mean reading that not knowing that I'm like I don't know if we have the authority to do that at all you still have a local municipality would still have all of the zoning authority like all of the other permitting would still have they just would just do this piece okay that's right no local control commission means no local license under the statute not under R not under anything we're doing that's the legislative step no worries the step is obscure okay I think we should do all those things and then the final piece was in the last couple weeks just about the complexities of what we might see and pepper had actually brought this up during a conversation I think you brought it up during co-location but it's potentially broader than co-location because it could be examples of people running out equipment for other people's use and perhaps the person running out the equipment might not have otherwise been a permitted licensee because of the one license rule or some other reason and so there's some concerns about around effectively around our fundamental licensing requirement or potentially around the one license rule as well and so we already have in the co-location section we have a sort of catchall that says hey if any co-location stuff is effectively subverting the one license rule or the basic licensing obligations you have to you know the board has the authority to enforce accordingly and but that was really limited to co-location and the point I think has been raised by at least one commenter that it's not necessarily going to be limited to co-location type situations it could be other types of situations so effectively the proposal would just be to add that broad catchall to the rules as a whole instead of just to the co-location piece and just say hey if there's commercial partnerships commercial arrangements going on that are effectively subverting the one license rule or the basic licensing requirement and the board still has the authority to step in and it sounds very pretty and that was it we've reached the end let me just see if there's anything left on this section hold on it's reached the end of this compilation can we revisit the background check yeah there's one on section section 2 section 2.13 yeah it's just no specific recommendation just interested in the scope of this okay so actually are a number so here's the situation it's quarter to one I'm pretty hungry but I do think that we could actually knock out just the rest of our comments pretty quickly just the rest of the ones that we received over the weekend and yeah the criminal history use of criminal history records we do need to warning labels you know I did reach out to the department how they gave me some responses and then we do have to do an executive session on social equity criteria and we want to do those now or do we want to take a break now and David's going to need some time one way or the other when we're all done to make these changes so if we do them now you can do it during our kind of lunch break if we if we break now he might have to do some now and some later David which would you prefer I don't have a strong feeling and I think we could keep going for a little bit now and see how go for like a half hour more and see how far we get that makes sense I mean I think we can get through all this stuff in half an hour we can that's great because it is easier to make changes all at once because things interact with each other so it's easier to to do it all at once we're in Nellie are you hanging in there so let me just finish up the comments that we received yesterday at five o'clock just go through some of those again this is about mix mix light I think we've been pretty clear on that we don't have to really do anything more there insurance we fix the insurance piece you know this is about reducing the insurance rates for the insurance requirements for small cultivators I think we've done that definition of what enforcement training is in section 2.2.5 I think we can do that in guidance the seed to sale tracking inventory tracking is prohibitively expensive for small craft cultivators there should be some way of sliding scale or waiver that's not really something specific to our rules and well I mean I guess we could wave it I don't want to wave tracking for anybody yeah we don't know how much it's going to cost this could potentially be something that the cannabis development fund looks into the people that oversee that money having subsidized seed to sale tracking subsidized testing so we're not going to wave it but another question about the initial transfer of living plants into the tracking system I think we all kind of understand what the law requires there so we're in that box but we don't know what our tracking system looks like we don't know how to bring plants into it quite yet so we don't have to make any accommodations in our rules quite yet I don't think warnings and symbols for THC content and child safety are cost prohibitive I think we need those in our labeling standards it was in the legislation yeah social equity allowing cannabis establishments to use photos and imagery so long as they're not using the products we've talked a decent amount about social media social media and I think we have addressed that issue I think that's in our kind of parking lot for you too mostly because I think of the 15% allowing family our family members considered visitors even like if they in an emergency situation need to step in and take over the operations of the business you know I think if someone if a family member does need to step in and take over a business it would be the change of control like notifying us about change of control we have rules around that and when you have them as like an employee or you'd have them somewhere I would think as someone who doesn't see they'd have all of the background check and so forth done in advance one other thing just to clarify the change of control is really about the the sort of like financial interest holder type of control in other words are you a beneficial owner basically meaning you have 10% stake if someone used to step in operationally that's not going to invoke the change of control issue so they would need to though be a licensed employee and then temporary cards though we're giving out with a pretty low barrier to entry so if there is some like serious situation it could be done in a day there's nothing in our process that would really hold people up for a temporary card if that's the issue I think if any of these worst cases get hurt, sick, cannot participate if those come up we can respond accordingly as they come up I think our guidance might be that you would want to think ahead this is part of business planning family members and if that sort of situation does ultimately require a change of control they wouldn't have time to do that I guess part of the point too if it is limited to the financial type of control okay allowing for co-located cannabis establishments allowing people to go above tier six we do have some accommodation to that at our discretion I think yeah again I think as it stands you can't but I think depending on the situation with which you're trying to create and incubate you might allow that and I think often with these kind of waivers as we've discussed and folks have given us input what does satisfactory waiver consist of and that's just something we're going to have to work out and guidance so people are clear and it's not super subjective agreed alright 2.3 regulations applicable to cultivators does this section apply to dispensaries medical dispensaries David can you just remind us if dispensaries seek an integrated license and they're subject to integrated license rules they're subjecting themselves to that that's right whenever they are behaving as a well whenever they're doing something that is intended for the commercial market even if some operation is both for the commercial market and for the dispensary they'll have to follow our rule to general rules they do get you know obviously there's a manufacturing operation that is also producing for dispensary they can lawfully produce a different level of concentrate for example but in all other ways they have to follow the general rules we sent out for everybody for manufacturing to take an example so I don't think that this comment needs any further clarification then I think that I don't think so I do think that this is a piece I'm going to have to explain clearly the statutes aren't perfectly I mean I think that they lead to what we've done it's not perfectly clear on its face but yeah what we've effectively done is just I don't think it needs further change it's clear I think we've tried to create a system that's pretty clear that if you're once you're an integrated licensee you've got to follow all the commercial market rules whenever you're behaving or whenever you are operating for the commercial market there's a few comments around applying our tier one waivers to license types that have not been statutorily created yet so I think we can just deal with all those all at once which is when they are created if they are created then we'll have to develop rules before we can actually allow them to operate we can decide at that point where they fall so information 2.3.6 C information obtained from inspections at non-cultivator cannabis establishments may inform inspections at cultivated licensees and then the comment is that this information should be objective not hearsay truth is that all complaints and all information received I think can be the basis for investigation so I don't think you know that we need to make any special changes here let's see how enforcement action would be taken on that specific hearsay as it's being referred to here alone you know it would just lead to further discussion and conversation we built in some rules around that in our compliance and enforcement rule basically you can get a complaint from anywhere but you can't the board couldn't violate somebody solely on the basis of a complaint there has to be an additional investigation or some other fact-gathering that happens so that's taking care of it in roll four the sampling limits are too low for cultivators and cultivator employees I mean I don't think we can reopen that right now I think they're finally I think the sampling limits where they are have found to not be problems with the version those limits in other states and I think we should just keep them where they are now and if you know folks are limited in their ability to sample and get products for commercial use we can we can revisit it if we hear a lot about it on the road like where they're at right now 2.4.4 about visibility from a public road the crop cannabis crop so eliminate this I don't think we can really do that I think we're looking at legislative intent and our views on fencing you know without this our views on fencing become a little bit more front and center and rather these crops be protected through a natural barrier than requiring super high fences with barbed wire and so on and so forth so it's just where we're at right now yep I think I'm mixing that way requiring indoor cultivators to comply with CBEs is too onerous essentially I would just say again this only applies to new buildings and I don't think we have the my opinion we haven't got David the way in yet I don't think we have the ability to waive CBEs that's strictly with PSD yep I'm with you on that I'm just reading the next one the comments around H-Bag systems essentially is like this is too burdensome we've waived all these comments in the first year for small cultivators already yep for energy efficiency standards to energy uses reporting reduction rules talked about that fire and safety code we can't really do anything to waive those yep I mean we can't change other regulatory authority we can only do what we can do employee samples I think there's another just that certain types of licensees might need higher sampling allowances but talked about that regulations applicable to retailers again about future license types so we'll deal with them when and if they're created if there's an age limit on cannabis is there an age verification that should take place at the time of sale I thought we did that entry in okay and then the rest we've done it's all just the testing stuff that I brought up in carries here okay sorry Pepper there was two other things that you had circled back to in our big compilation document you want me to do that now or sure okay we're getting there almost done you wanted to circle back on the sampling requirements potentially compromising the security of a growers developed genetics oh yeah oh this is the taxonomic 2.3 point 60 very recommended we leave it in alright and then disposable date times do you want to provide anything particular about that prohibit them or that's to go use plastic or would it be made of paper right like it's this will be resolved by the single use plastic alright so let's go to the criminal history section yeah I thought about this a little bit more after our conversation last week and I do think we should include chapter 64 which is the child exploitation pieces okay because those are technically nonviolent crimes right so they would we would not be looking at them but we'll bring them in so we will look at them we can still overcome the presumptive disqualification right um but that's right and it gets rid of any argument about whether they're violent crimes or not which is a somewhat undefined uh concepts but um but yeah and it's also not listed which is odd but it's not so it doesn't get captured by anything else clearly so that'll end any ambiguity on that I didn't pick up what you were putting down I know I mean it's hard it's hard to jump into this um okay uh warning labels um and standard symbol there's a comment that we should change that any word said this product you know may you know have psychoactive effects or this product may impair your ability to drive to change that to cannabis and or cannabis products um just so if it was a warning label that's on for instance a flyer for a store there's no confusion amongst the members of the public that don't need this paper yeah they did say right not to be mean we couldn't have kinder eggs for a long time so the department of health as you can imagine is swamp that reached out to um our two advisory members that represent um kind of public health or both employees at ahs um and um they suggested just don't change anything in them we've approved them we went through a process just leave them alone um so with respect to the health warning we're going to leave that the way it is or that's my recommendation um with respect to the symbol um they didn't specifically get back to me on the symbol but julie if you can remind me they their recommend the public health recommendation to us and what the department of health approved was actually alternative symbols and they gave it to us to choose correct they approved two and we picked one the comment that we received is essentially use the other one because if you look at it it's very similar the two and I can pull them up if you want I have them like ready to go but they're essentially identical I think the yellow one I think that um astm approved one um is a black triangle and not a red triangle oh okay maybe can I pull them up? Yes I don't remember what the other one was care enough or should we just keep it so the the benefit of the astm one is that it is approved by astm so if there is a movement to have changed across the week that eventually that would be the likely to be that symbol or something similar we could be saving folks some money in the long run because they would already be using this symbol if that does happen but the one that we did choose is sort of regionally consistent so that's the and I don't have a particular you know strong feeling about one or the other okay so this is the one that was unanimously approved I think last week as the now kind of international or at least the American standard symbol for cannabis THC containing cannabis products only Montana has adopted this so far but again only last week was it approved and it was approved unanimously this is the one that the Department of Health I'll just post that one quickly so they said that we should choose either the white one at the bottom or the yellow one so just to add the reason why they did too is there was a concern that the yellow wouldn't stand out against yellow packaging but on the other hand this other label was approved by people who specifically look at right labeling so I trust that they know what they're doing and they've edited it through hundreds of members right yeah thousands of members was unanimously approved by thousands of members but the voting committee was 280 but it was 280 of the voting members it was unanimous to approve the one on the left so in some ways I kind of just because it is different than the the red background and if you look the leaf is just ever so slightly different I almost feel like we just leave what we did the white one yeah yeah I think that's fine we might have to come back and change it in a few years yeah I'm cool with that yeah okay and let's leave it there okay last thing is social equity executive session do we want to do that now or do we want to take a break now I could go either way maybe have the brain power without more nourishment I'm fine with going now if you guys are okay I'm just pulling up the language that we need to go into executive session how you do okay ready to go and move that the cannabis control board go into executive session to consider confidential attorney client communications made for the purpose of providing professional legal services to the body and that the executive session is required because premature general public knowledge regarding such communications would clearly place the board at a substantial disadvantage for a second all in favor hi so what we're going to do then before we actually move into executive session is to we're going to pause what we can leave the recording going so I don't anticipate this taking a long time we're just going to turn our camera off and our microphones off the people that are going to be in the executive session include David our general counsel Bryn and Nelly and we're not going to make any decisions there we're going to hear the advice of our counsel we're going to come back and make a final decision on the social equity criteria anything else I should mention David I think that's it okay well then Nelly would you mind you just putting up a in a way message that we're in executive session I've got it ready to go great all right we're back just for the purposes of the record 129 we're coming back the cannabis board from the executive session we're specifically talking about social equity criteria as the rule social equity criteria the way that we handled it in our rules was really to lift a lot of the criteria for communities that have been impacted by cannabis prohibition from a federal program because that federal program while there's a kind of strong kind of disfavoring of using race based criteria to assign any sort of advantages or benefits there has been a program that's been upheld federally that uses race based criteria the consideration that the board was thinking about is well it's it includes a lot of communities that haven't actually we don't have kind of definitive reports or data to show that some of these communities have been specifically impacted by the war on drugs and so but we do have a lot of both recent and historic reports both in Vermont and nationally that show very clearly that black Americans and Hispanic Americans have been targeted by the war on drugs selectively policed pulled over at higher rates arrested at higher rates charged more severely and sentenced more severely that we can kind of point to if this program does get challenged and so what we discussed in the executive session is whether to limit the definition the criteria for becoming a social equity applicant which is in it's in two places in our rules but let me just pull up so I'm looking at one point one point three okay okay J J I lose this so quickly I was just there I don't know so one way to be a social equity applicant I'm looking at a different version than you are thanks so one way to be a social equity applicant is to have been arrested and incarcerated for a cannabis related offense we're not touching that one we are touching is the first criteria which is that you're from a community who's been historically disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition and that has a statutory site to federal code that includes a number of other categories we want to limit it the kind of the thought in executive session was to limit that to black americans, hispanic americans or people from communities that can demonstrate that they've been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition you don't want to say anything further about that decision point absolutely agree it's a lot of what the social equity subcommittee talked about it it's in line with the public comment and like you said the data that we've received and reviewed really the point is not to dilute the social equity program there's only a fixed amount of money in that cannabis development fund there's only kind of time is our biggest limiting resource as well so when we say we're going to prioritize and expedite certain applications that actually has to be meaningful and so I think that this change would be in line with everything we know about kind of who's born the highest burden of cannabis prohibition, war on drugs yeah I mean I would just say that our definition of proposed rules is a little broader and we think it might have been a little bit more legally defensible but this is something that we thought we needed to tweak and fine tune a little bit recognizing that what happens happens right but we're this is a place where we should be clear I think we received public comment specifically around leaving women in and I think that there are other areas where there's a prioritization under 3A there's other things that we can do around that right yeah I think we have created a whole separate economic empowerment criteria for people who have been historically underrepresented in society and I think women will fall squarely in that category as well so yeah all right then do you have some changes you need to make to the final rules and then so we should take a break now come back and then really I guess just review all the final changes and then vote to adopt them as a package yes so why don't we take an hour and 15 minutes for you to do that which brings us back at 10 to 3 am I doing that Matt all right so we'll come back at 10 to 3 we'll review the rules as kind of a final package we'll vote to adopt them and then we'll take public comment all right great so welcome back everyone let's see it's 2.53 p.m. January 31st 2022 we're resuming our regular meeting of the cannabis control board and you know just given you know where we're at I think that and given the time I think it really makes sense for us to resolve a few of the unresolved issues that we left that we still have left and kind of close this process out and have David do a final walkthrough just showing us all the changes what we decided on Wednesday and then us voting on Wednesday and I say that because once we vote on this and send it over to Elkar our flexibility is gone and I think we really do need to just make sure that we don't rush that this last phase of what we get to do but I that being said I will I said at the beginning of the meeting I will say it again right now just to be clear the public comment window on rules one and two has closed it's been closed for a while actually but we haven't been as strict I guess about that or as clear maybe and so any comments we receive you know from here on out we will consider of course but we're not going to consider them the way that we have been following this format where we have David kind of walk us through them and we decide whether or not they apply we just that that phase of kind of rulemaking has now passed clean it all up now we just can't sit on these rules honestly any day longer than is absolutely necessary and we can of course revisit all of these rules next year I assume we will revisit them almost as soon as they go into effect we'll start to revisit them so that being said rules three and four the comment window is open so please anyone who's paying attention please turn your attention to rules three and four make sure we get those right does that sound good Julian Kyle sounds like a plan David yep we're in absolutely I'm 10 a.m. I think you're thinking of 10 a.m. on Wednesday that's right that's what I was thinking okay so I think the first issue we need to resolve is for outdoor cultivation tiers we decided to apply a plant count equivalency and the question I think that we should just be clear with is are people allowed to grow either that canopy size that we've laid out or plant count or some combination of both I think it needs to be either or at least for the first year so that our inspectors and can have something to and it sounds to me like from an inspection and regulatory standpoint straight plant count is probably the easiest on our end and honestly I feel like it gives the most flexibility to cultivators they can they can grow a lot more plants yeah witness with this account definition so keep in mind of course the canopy pursuant to some of our other rules has to be surrounded by a fence for the larger tiers there is some kind of limitation on that and you know just as always you know other regulatory authorities may come into play the bigger you get what we're saying is if that if you happen to trigger act 250 or other kind of regulatory authority you know it's on you to figure that out we're going to require that you do that and that you're in compliance but we're not going to kind of help people come into compliance without you the thresholds number one point of clarification just for tier one outdoor are we going to my understanding we're thinking about about one doing equivalency both because of the statutory definition we don't want to accidentally pull the tier one people out of the statutory definition yes okay so yeah just as a point of clarification tier one the thousand square foot outdoor it could be either or up to a thousand square feet or 125 only because that definition is set by statute and so we don't have a lot of flexibility there however we will say that the equivalent playing count could apply but it's an either or there for all the other ones it's just a straight playing count sounds good so if we go to straight playing count David I'm curious whether we need to add some you know we got a comment just when we were discussing this earlier in the day into our inboxes I know I just waited us to make additional comments at this point but it really said do we need to add in the definition section a definition of total playing count of canopy kind of indicating that outdoor cultivation is a is a playing count and indoor is a square footage I don't think so I mean plant canopy is defined in statute I think if we try to redefine it anyway it'll be at best confusing at worst in violation of the statute and plant canopy that definition is really matters for outdoor small cultivators and for indoor people generally because you're going to be doing a square footage for the indoor folks and messing with that I think it's liable to pull us out of the statute or potentially put us in violation of the statute okay great excellent okay so now we were going to leave the conversation and clean up the mixed cultivation tears a little bit which I think makes some good sense we honestly were just picking plant equivalencies kind of at random and I think that sounds like Bryn and Kyle you clean that up a little bit so could you just walk us through Kyle with what you're thinking for the mixed cultivation tears yeah do you want to start it the first one yeah okay so we're going to have five different mixed cultivation tears and I think what this does is this you know it's really let's just go through them first mixed cultivation tears has an indoor canopy size of a thousand square feet and 125 plants mixed cultivation two indoor canopy size of a thousand square feet and 312 plants mixed cultivation number three has a thousand indoor canopy size and 625 plants mixed cultivation four again a thousand feet hundred twelve hundred and fifty plants and mixed cultivation five a thousand square feet for indoor and twenty five hundred plants for outdoor okay again like from my perspective you know I think I think folks that are growing outdoors need some accommodations indoor I think I've heard enough of folks from folks that at a certain point indoor they're not necessarily interested in outdoor I think this kind of helps further incentivize outdoor production recognizing that there is a small indoor canopy size that's necessary for that outdoor production to maintain the viability of your of your operation in the short and long term and again we'll revisit these if we need to and so those plant counts equate to a tier one, tier two tier three, tier four, tier five outdoor there's a little bit of logic to it it's essentially because people by statute are not allowed to have an indoor license and an outdoor license what we're saying is all the outdoor licenses have the option of having a thousand square feet indoors. Correct. Okay. Are you aware of that? Yes I am. Alright then we'll update that and obviously we'll have to fix the fee bill but we can I think fix that in the senate when it moves over there if it moves over alright another issue that is outstanding is around I forgot that we did not address family members that will potentially and maybe not maybe it's not limited to just family that are under 21 at cannabis establishments and the way that I kind of see this is obviously a hot button political issue there's just an outright ban on it I think in by statute but the way that I see it is child care center is closed and what are you supposed to do and so I think exposing kids to cannabis and cannabis products is the fear but I do think that there's ways that we can write our rules that will allow certain areas of a cannabis establishment to accommodate having people under 21 in them. Okay. Yes agreed I was just looking at the section in the legislation where it just says where cannabis is located. So I think that's the distinction that we would want to make which is for the purposes of 866? Yeah I think youth shall not be permitted in cannabis establishments where cannabis is located something along the there is like a back office at a retail store or anywhere. The kid could be permitted in there but that they just can't be kind of exposed to the cannabis or cannabis products. Okay. Okay David from drafting I think that's fine I mean yeah I think that's fine we can put that in the visitors section is that what you're thinking? Yeah I think that makes sense. I know there's a lot of questions on you but do you think there were running a foul of the statue as far as you can tell? You can answer that later. Yeah I can think of that for a second I had already put in that and I think we discussed this for visitors for home occupancy businesses. There's already a carve out says that for the visitors sections so for home occupancy we tried to already carve it out because obviously families and friends are going to be around but yeah I'll try to figure something out on this piece too. Hey are you able to pull up kind of what you did around plastics in the packaging section? Yeah let me do that right now. We need to change this better to let David know now just one second. Well David's doing that. Are there other things we have not addressed yet? There are. I'm sure there are too but I think it's progress not perfection that we're looking for today. You'll just want to finalize unless you already did finalize the tolerance for you already agreed to accept carries. Right right okay. So on the packaging piece the full packaging structure has been reworked from the way it was before in response to the interest supply chain issue so there's basically one initial packaging section that applies throughout and all that really says is all that really applies to is the interest supply chain stuff and then in the second in the next sections where packaging for each of the licensees is it says interest supply chain provision and then for retail for things that are destined for consumer retail you have to follow some additional rules which are different depending on which since you are so what I'm thinking is that in the initial section I'll add something else that basically says that the initial section will now become applicable both to interest supply chain and then one provision that will be applicable to all of the consumer destined stuff and that will be the packaging provision and the packaging provision will say something, it'll be pretty simple we'll put the definition of plastic in the definition section and then there'll basically just be a single sentence that says packaging intended for retail sale or intended yeah intended for retail sale I may change that phrase slightly to match some of the other phrases I've used shall be reusable and shall not be plastic and that's pretty much what I have, pretty straightforward and following pretty precisely Pepper's recommendation so no plastic even the cap that would like a cap proof? I think so and I think what I would like to do is in guidance really give people some some specific options as in I really think kind of a terror resistant coffee bag that rolls down and can kind of seal the seal may have to be a little bit more substantial than what's on a coffee bag but I think that that could qualify just really trying to think of options and then David we were also wanting I think to include that section from Colorado about what's already in yeah that was put in under the retail section so you can review that about collecting consumer waste and having the ability to clean and reuse it if the cow proofing has not been if it's still kind of sufficient for its purpose and it's controversial but I think that this is one of those things that actually will become less and less controversial over time and I think that I know it's not a regulated you know the kind of single-use plastic that we banned in Vermont isn't for regulated products but I think that I think that the market will respond in a positive way as in it will fill the void if we require this that's fine I was thinking a little bit more about the energy recording stuff during lunch and so one of the other things I think we've discussed kicked around and I hope to still do is after we get through you know the rulemaking majority of the rulemaking process is to start to look at programs that we want to happen that furthers certain goals that we have that we've outlined as priorities for us whether that's a sustainability program or something along those lines I know other states have specific programs because you can't claim organic in this industry in this state because it's a federally defined term that cannabis is not that high THC cannabis is not eligible for so and especially with the marketing issues that we're going to run into with the 15% how can we create programs that allow certain folks to take advantage of other ways to market their product meaning I have a Vermont Cannabis Control Board backed you know from a sustainability perspective product that can help them market so what I was thinking was all of those reporting those data reporting that whole section out and use that as one of the foundational pillars of the sustainability program if you're willing to give us the data to show your energy and this is just hypothetical I think it belongs in our program but I'm just trying to again you know recognize the onerous on the reporting is one of the things that we could look to do in our sustainability program if I can still start to develop a response is to put a lot of those types of elements of what we want to do into that program so if you're giving us a lot more information you get the gold star or the green star or whatever the achievement is California has their own little organic program and I know specific counties in Colorado and stuff have programs like these I'm just throwing it out as a option I kind of like where the reporting requirements are but it was another thing contemplating while we were you know eating lunch yeah it's fine I kind of feel so we've exempted small cultivators from all but the kind of energy usage reporting and I just feel like anyone else who's really kind of above that level has the ability to float on this stuff absolutely and I was just kind of starting to sketch out in my head what are the pillars of that program going to be I mean we're wrapping up this thing and I'm like okay what's my next task in front of me I mean there's many of them obviously but you know as far as a programmatic task for this adult use side of our program and so it was just a thought that kind of occurred that section right requires requires kind of establishments to like report but it doesn't necessarily require action right or it requires identifying ways to improve but it doesn't necessarily say and you have to improve by this much so there's no yeah there's yeah maybe that's the hook that that would be appropriate there because I think what it does is it asks for you to explore opportunities that ask for you to tell us where you are now but it doesn't require you get to a certain you know net savings on your energy usage or whatever the case maybe so maybe that's how we draw that line but it was just kind of thinking while I was eating you know how can we further help folks I think this program will from a number of different you know ways but just future thought I think that that's a better kind of line in the sand that next step yeah I'm nervous about shutting down the conversation but I guess it was always Wednesday and all right David do you have anything else for us that you need clarification on or that you'd like further discussion about I don't think so I think we pretty much covered it I would just note for board members as you're getting ready for Wednesday make sure that what you expected to be in there is in there especially on the packaging stuff I want to make sure that that all fits together because you made a lot of changes we're making more today so check that in particular but check everything okay are there any areas in your drafting that kind of leaves some ambiguity that you will need us to look at today on Wednesday not that I can think of it this particular moment okay yeah okay then why don't we take public comment and as always feel free to if you join by the link raise your virtual hand if you'd like to make a comment and we'll start with people to join by the link and then we'll move to people that may have joined by the phone so looks like first up is Jay Green hi there my name is Jay Green I use they them pronouns I'm a policy public health policy consultant for the Hartford Community Coalition I just have a quick question that was mentioned earlier my question was that there was a mention that there would need to be a local cannabis control board established in order for local retail licensing to occur and is that a requirement under the under the current regulations or would responsibility for regulation just delegate to the state if a local board was not established so we don't traditionally answer questions during the public comment period only because it just then turns into a kind of an ask me anything sort of situation but David is there a kind of just very is there a statutory site you can give that would kind of answer that yeah if you look at title seven the section is 863 it talks about the local control boards and in the local local cannabis control commissions is what they call it there and it does provide that they do get to have a say but if they don't exist then it's solely the boards decision making on licensing of course they were towns always retain the ability to regulate any business in accordance with their bylaws but yeah that's the deal with the local control commissions and if you have more stuff as the chair said always just feel free to send us stuff through this links on the website for contact points yeah thank you I do have one comment which is that I don't see a current regulatory framework for the prevention funding from cannabis excise taxes to be distributed and I was wondering if you could comment on what your plans are for that prevention funding and what infrastructure might look like for getting the prevention funding to places like the Hartford Community Coalition for youth cannabis prevention great thanks for the comment so next on the list is Bill Schilling hello everybody Phil here thanks for another great meeting just want to do comment real quickly on packaging there is a company called tree hugger containers that sell glass jars with plastic child proof lids for flower the plastic lids are 100% reclaimed ocean plastic lids and it says that they have zero single use plastics I guess based on this conversation I wasn't sure whether that would be allowed with the no plastics and I also had just like another general kind of clarification the law states that the packaging needs to be opaque and child resistant does the container need to be both of those things so can I have a clear glass jar inside of a cardboard box in which case the entire package is opaque yet you can take the glass jar out that has the child resistant packaging on it so I guess I just was wondering if we'd be able to use something like that and then just a further comment on packaging in general I mean it takes three months to produce cannabis three weeks to dry and cure it and it gets ruined in about three days or less due to poor packaging and so making sure we have available packaging that can be properly resistant to air and light to protect it is very important from a brand perspective to make sure that quality is there for our consumers and I think that's all I got thank you Thanks Phil Jesse old growth Hi guys thanks for the meeting and all your hard work I feel like I'm beating a dead horse here and you guys probably don't want to hear it but I need to at least make the comment I was shocked that you guys just switched the mix tears to a thousand foot indoor I yeah I just I feel like it's a real missed opportunity for the things I have discussed before but ultimately for sustainability and moving people more towards outdoor I feel like you're doing the opposite of what your intention even is in this so for example as I mentioned before there are products that the market demands indoor flower being one of them concentrates being another one or edibles the least energy consumption way to do that is to grow outdoor for concentrates in edibles because you don't you can just grow a lot more of them you don't have to baby them as much because you're not looking for this like quality indoor flower so you can grow outdoor and save energy that way and then have some indoor but because of our whole canopy issue where the legislature did not define it for veggie and flowering by keeping a thousand square feet all the way up when you're increasing your plant count you're either one you're not targeting small businesses how you guys initially attended with the mix tears but then also you're you're kind of favoring outdoor like someone can grow 500 plants outside and then you're but then you also get a thousand foot indoor it also doesn't it doesn't help with the the veggie issue so like if you have 300 plants outside usually you want to start your babies indoor when it's still frost so you can get a good size in them but you're not going to be able to do that with these mixed tears so anyways I hate this for you guys because I know I don't know if I missed a meeting and you guys explained why you were trying to keep it at a thousand because before even when you had three tears which was something to work with at least for the first year you guys still kept it a thousand from tier one to tier two so I don't know if I missed something I hate harping on you guys because you guys are trying to pay attention to so many details but I got to make this last comment because I mean it's the time is now and so just please please consider changing that and just making it simple even just sticking with what you had before if you need to so you give people the option of having indoor and outdoor to some extent since we can't have double licenses so anyways thank you guys I do really appreciate what you guys are doing over there alright that's all thanks thanks Jesse Rick Rick Fox well perfect timing I guess I want to say thank you for the decision that I guess Jesse is concerned about I think your decision really makes outdoor cultivation a viable proposition in Vermont and I don't think it would have been there before so that's fantastic and I do appreciate that the mixed tier will allow 1,000 square feet is sufficient for any outdoor cultivator up to 2,500 plants to maintain growing stock mother plants, propagate clones at whatever point in the year they choose so I think that's great you know and you know if there's a concern that the mixed tiers top out 1,000 square feet indoor you know again I think to me you know I think there's plenty of opportunity in the other tiers for indoor they'll have all the density that they want there so I'll say that I think I appreciate where Jesse is coming from but maybe if we sharpened our pencils into the math maybe some of her concerns would be resolved too so Jesse let's talk sometime maybe maybe I can understand better where you're coming from but mainly thank you because I think you just made outdoor a viable proposition in Vermont so very much appreciate it thanks Rick fine bud farms hey guys thanks for taking my call just wanted to touch on the packaging as far as what the person earlier was saying with tree huggers yeah they do really well but the tops are made by santa s-a-n-a they're out of Colorado also but if you have arthritis you know it's pretty good it's like a child resistant but they are 100% reclaimed ocean plastic which I think is pretty great and I just want to let y'all know it's very hard to find anything really sustainable that's not a plastic top you know I've been looking and requesting samples and tree huggers also they do things opaque you know if they want and then they label them for you but in their glass is 40% you know for anybody else they're trying to find something the sun's really bright anyway that's all thank you all and have a good one thank you next on my list is tree frog farms hey guys what's up how's everything you've been doing I just wanted to clarify a couple of things I was hoping that as we write up you were saying the tier one outdoor you're going to be doing a thousand square feet for the plant count I just like to make sure that that isn't written to be misunderstood where someone if I have 100 plants but it reaches over a thousand square feet that someone says no it's you know one or the other whichever you hit first so that it is decided and chosen upon there's no you know now as as far as the mixed here it seems like you've kind of used the mixed here to compensate for the vaging for the outdoor so I just want to make sure and be clear that if I'm a tier one mixed cultivator then that allows me the freedom to also flower indoors during the winter to be able to recoup some of my loss keep my business going because that's how I read it and interpret it other thing is simple grow tense set up for vegetation I'd like to make sure that those aren't considered new buildings and end up falling into some kind of regulation that might be burdensome especially for tier one growers because I'm pretty sure we're all going to be using something kind of like that and besides that that's all I can really think of thank you very much thank you anyone else they would like to comment I don't see anyone that joined by phone so again if you'd like to make a comment please just raise your virtual hands just give it a quick sec here okay so why don't we close the public comment period is it worth just addressing some of the issues that came up I think we're at the point where people are really looking for a little bit of clarity the allocation for substance misuse prevention funding is not something the board has any control over at all the legislature will decide that and it's not there's not a lot of clarity in the statute but I assume in consultation with the department of health so we don't have any control over how that money gets allocated the single use plastic or the kind of plastic lids from tree auger will obviously take a look at that to see if that's something yeah I mean the website looks cool and I guess I need to further familiarize myself with the single use plastic ban that we've got in Vermont already I don't this is saying it's not single use it's reclaimed plastic so I think that would be okay on first read but I would want to make sure that we're not creating more problems than single use I use it once and then I can toss it not that it came to me recycled the single use definition is that it's intended for kind of disposal after it's used by law but again like I think really there's so many buzzwords in this industry that people have their own definitions for and I don't mean that condescendingly it's just you know it's like sustainability means something different to everybody you know so I agree with the concern that child proof packaging usually involves some kind of plastic lead so I think we do have to kind of think about that but I'm willing say that I've seen packaging that does not involve any plastic that meets single use certification in other states or a kind of non plastic or child resistant packaging I you know I think it's good for us to kind of our flag and see what happens but I'm not saying that I can't be persuaded otherwise but anyway let's just I'll do our research and then we have to adjust on Wednesday we can the opaque requirement we'll just have to clarify that in statute whether the jar itself has to be opaque or if the packaging that you're taking home is opaque that that can set that to me seem like a creative way to skin the cat or you could put something paper inside the glass jar there'll be a lot of ingenuity in this space I can look at that the very last point Kyle I'm going to turn it back to you for Jesse's point the very last point about whether the tier one makes cultivator that thousand square foot indoor can be used for flowering the answer is yes the answer is yes yeah so all right so just if you want to maybe quickly just talk about the decision to kind of change course on mixed tier cultivation I think you know I think Rick kind of answered our perspectives I think the mixed tiering is it's designed to meet people where they're at but it is I think from my perspective it's designed to to help our outdoor growers versus our indoor growers and I can certainly appreciate how some folks want to see opportunities to advance and move up a tier as they develop you know their business contacts in this market and maybe that's something we can look to when we reopen the rules as soon as we file them so but I think you know from the mix light perspective from trying to change a narrative that exists about outdoor because I think we've got a lot of good quality outdoor growers in the state I think this gives them another tool in their tool belt so you know from that perspective I'm kind of in Rick's camp there I think that this is really designed to help our outdoor cultivators and help outdoor products and high quality outdoor grown flower really thrive in Vermont that's that's our intention so it's not going to please everybody but nothing we do please is everybody and we didn't get rid of the other three we added a fourth right we did change something there there was at one point and Jesse's right there was one point where there was a couple mixed tier options and one was a 2,500 square foot indoor and I can't remember what the plant count alternative was and you know think the way things are going it's a little bit more clarity from a regulatory perspective on what's going on for us to be able to implement and again the mixed hearing is designed to help our outdoor growers more so than anything I think all right well any last comments from board members or from brand or from David before we adjourn that we need to think about before Wednesday something will occur and I'll bother bring it 11 p.m. all right well then we'll wait for that stay tuned but I guess with nothing else on the agenda I will adjourn this meeting thanks everyone who stuck it out online and we'll see you on Wednesday