 your certification of occupancy from fire safety. And I know that there's a number of people that don't have that stuff done that are pending and I just want to remind everyone to kind of spend the next four days getting that stuff in and work with your licensing agent to make sure that you have everything complete. We will review for completeness those applications after July 1st to make sure that they are complete and we'll be dismissing the ones that are not complete by July 1st. When it comes to renewals and yeah, I should just once again reiterate that was for new outdoor and mixed tier applicants that got in before the cutoff not renewals. However, when it comes to renewals we're kind of now seeing some of our first renewals come through our licensing system was set up to automatically notify people a few months ahead of their expiration date. The system had some kind of glitch in it that we're fixing but those emails have not been going out automatically. We've been internally keeping a list of the people who are coming up for renewal and doing manual notifications. However, if you don't if you know your license is going to expire within a few months please and you haven't seen any indication of renewal you can reach out to the board your licensing agent. If you haven't seen any correspondence come in about your renewal and of course you know we're not going to we're going to try our best not to let anyone's license lapse. Because of a glitch. I wanted to mention just that we did our hemp tour just wrap that up hemp drive products is very grateful to everyone who participated over the past two weeks it was really great to see how hard this industry is working. How many products that are out there that are helping people. You know I've said it a few times that no one at the board likes to act through emergency rule. Particularly when it impacts people's ability to access products that they rely on therapeutically. I think you know the feedback that we received over the last two weeks and prior to that since the issuance that rule has been very instructive for us and also reaffirming as to how we should proceed in the short end the long term. I wanted to mention about inventory tracking we've launched the new process for all license types. We decided early on to move away from the more traditional platforms. We believe this decision was in the best long term interests in Vermont both from kind of a resource perspective and for our licensees. But we know that there's a learning curve for anything new. We are in the process of developing tutorial videos that are specific to each license type. And they'll explain how you interact and comply with the inventory tracking platform. It's my understanding that the first one of these videos will be up on our YouTube page by the end of next week. I've been getting a few emails about product registration we know that our backlog has grown. We've had some staff turnover we've had some people who have been out and we've been onboarding new staff. And that's really the kind of main driver behind this backlog. We've made the decision to dedicate more staff to product registration. And so we are going to get through this backlog as expeditiously as possible. H 270. And what is now act 65 has become act 65 I know Bryn walk through the major major changes at our last meeting. And we have a summary document. Up on the homepage of our website. I would really encourage everyone in the industry to read the bill, or at least the summary, because there are things in there that will have a significant and immediate impact on your operation. Things like packaging for edibles. Who needs to get a tobacco license from liquor control. You know the application of the 92% tobacco products tax sometimes referred to as the vape tax. I mentioned though that there were some modest improvements to the medical program. Including opening up the ability for the board to make some meaningful changes to the rules and regulations that govern the medical program. We're not going to do that in a vacuum. We're going to hold a series of meetings this summer and fall with interested stakeholders to help craft regulations. We're going to give recommendations to the legislature about how we can improve the laws that govern the program. So, I know, Priya from our medical team and others have been doing some outreach. If you would like to participate in those meetings, please email us at CCB dot med at Vermont dot gov. And we will of course keep our event calendar up to date when we have dates and times and links to those ready to go. So, other than that, I think, you know, we've got a long meeting today. And I think we should get right into the agenda. Julian Kyle, you had a chance to review the minutes from our regular board meeting in May and our special board meeting. Yes. Yes. I have a motion to approve those minutes. So moved. Seconded. All in favor. Hi. All right. I think we'll start with you. This is the last meeting of our previously adopted regular meeting schedule. And so we need to approve a new one for the kind of remainder of the year. Yes, that's right. And we have a slate of proposed dates for the remaining months of 2023. And I'm going to ask Nellie to help me with this list of dates. She will go through them one by one and you guys can vote on them. Yes, I have a document that I'm just going to pull up on the screen really quick. Just give me one second. And you'd hopefully all be able to see a list of dates right now. So they're all going to be Wednesdays at 1pm. We have July 19th, August 30th, September 27th, October 25th, November 29th, and December 20th. Okay. Well, I guess is there a. Is there a motion to approve these meetings. This regular meeting schedule. I move to approve the meeting schedule as presented to us in this meeting. I second. Any discussion at all before we approve. Nope. No, looks good. Thank you. All right. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Okay. And Nellie, when you, when you have a free moment, if that ever happens, could you just update our account and then calendar with those dates? Can do. All right. Great. So I think, you know, next on our agenda is review amendments of the CCB administrative rules. I think, you know, if history is a guide here, Gabe, this will fall to you to walk us through the changes and maybe the comments and the comments that motivated some of these changes. And then, you know, I would suggest just given how long this historically has taken that. My advice is that we hold questions. Or I guess hold discussion until Gabe gets through everything, let him get through. And then as he's going through, make sure you kind of Julian Kyle write down the sections you want to visit or have comments on. And then we go back kind of and systematically review those sections together. Okay. I'll try to free up some screen real estate so that everybody can see if this renders too small on screens at home. Please let us know and I can try to blow it up. So, as the chair said, we've got quite a lot to get through. There are 3 rules under revision. There are rules 1, 2, and 4 of the 3 rule 2 has the most substantial content to talk about. Rule 1 concerns licensing generally and has some some pretty simple amendments for concerns enforcement. So, Rule 4 is amended really just in respect to adding specificity about the appeal procedure. So 1 and 4 should be quick to move through 2 will take some time. As the chair suggested, it's probably easiest if I want everybody through each change and explain each one in brief. And then if you have questions about any particular part, please note the section number. And at the end, we can go back through and clarify or dig into anything that folks might want to. So, turning to the 1st amendment you have in section 1, there was a the strike out of the definition of employee. That's really a technical amendment that was it was creating confusion about who can get an identification card. It meant to apply only to 1 specific subsection of the rule. So, the thought is that striking that general definition will make it easier to read. The change in definition of outdoor cultivation has been uncontroversial as far as I'm aware. And what you see here is the same as was proposed in the in the published rule proposal. That is to get into some detail about the limited use of artificial lighting. Just to prevent flowering. Again, not aware of any significant controversy there. So I'll move through that one quickly because I think most people involved have had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with it. The next amendments that you see in the definitions concern how the board defines who is a social equity applicant. That category of persons can receive certain benefits under the board's guidance and by statute. And really hear the board clarifying what it means to be incarcerated. It sounds like off the cuff. The raise hand part. I'm sorry. I think that was just a open mic. Not Mike. Thanks. Sorry. So the changes to the definitions here are meant to clarify what it means to have a qualifying incarcerated sentence and the board has clarified and this is consistent with its past decisions when it's taken up the matter on a case by case basis that incarceration means actual serve incarcerated time as a result of a sentence not pretrial detention and incarceration that occurs in a jail or prison facility. So if one received a sentence of home furlough, for example, that wouldn't constitute incarceration for the purposes of the rule. The board has gone on to elaborate a little bit about upon what it means to be a social equity business applicant and has clarified here that ownership has to be at least 51% by a social equity individual applicant. That is not a change in the law. The underlying federal code already contained that requirement, but few readers would know to dig into the underlying federal code from which this is adapted. And so saying it out loud is helpful to prevent confusion. Finally, the board has tried to offer more clarification again consistent with decisions already made and interpretations already given in cases concerning the topic. What it means to be from a community that has been disproportionately affected by cannabis prohibition and there's a lot of ambiguity around that term community and what can constitute a community. And so the effort here is to be a little bit more clear about that. And I think fairly summarized as we're talking about born or imposed circumstance not voluntary participation in club advocacy organization obvious group following particular style of music etc. And so that's what the board is getting at here I think and so hopefully this will add when the little bit of clarity to applicants in deciding whether or not their candidates for the social equity applicant status. The amendments that you see here to rule 1.1.4. The first is technical the second simply reflects the assignment of statutory authority over hemp derived cannabinoids and potentially intoxicating hemp products to the board. And down in 1.3.1, you can see there's a strike out of that narrow piece concerning mixed cultivators rephrasing of the discussion of what a tier two manufacturer can can't do, clarifying that that super critical CO2 extraction as well as the other methods are not available that a little bit of clarification about changing tiers also has been in the rule since the original amendment proposal and I'm not aware of any controversy related to it. In one dash or 1.4.5 be you can see a straight out of the express escrow provision. And 1.4.9. You can see the one we're talking earlier about why the definition of employee was struck from the general definition section. It's reinserted here where it is meant to where it's meant for again there to avoid confusion. You can see there also a part of the original proposal and so far uncontroversial as far as I'm aware. A proposal to allow that a plan to pay applicable taxes on behalf of a medical patient. It was duly registered maybe one among the several kind of good deeds that retailer may do as part of its positive impact plan. 1.7 is amended again really to reflect the board's statutory authority over after I compounds. 1.9 is amended again as it was in the original. To strike the obligation of a plan to contribute $50,000 to the. Business Development Fund that October 1 date has come and on. Next to them you find is 1.11.3. This is about the. Criminal convictions that would be presumptively disqualifying the board in this case is just trying to articulate an objective standard by which those decisions will be made. And the standard that they've landed on is kind of the common sense 1 I also I think also reflective of the statute. That what they're really testing is whether an applicant will pose a threat to the safety of the legal cannabis market or the general public. They're not sitting in moral judgment of whether somebody's taking responsibility, etc, etc. That's for the courts. So that's why you see that. In 1.15.1 be just a technical amendment to avoid the appearance of any loophole associated with promises of notifications about expiring licenses. Just affirming the principle that even if the licensee doesn't receive reminders that a license is expiring the license still expires into duty as a licensee to know the expiry date. In subsection e this is a fairly kind of a technical and legal adjustment without of the qualifier and complete to the provision that if a licensee files a timely and complete renewal application without getting an action without a decision from the board. The license continues in effect. This change was necessary really for 2 reasons when it matches the administrative procedure act statute from which this rule is derived. So 1 actually has to complete the application when you couldn't file the first page of it and just to hold the door open and say that the license is still active. So that's that's why you see that provision there. It changes nothing in substance because that already was the administrative procedure act language. Technical rephrasing here that doesn't bear getting into 1.17 a. One here the effort is to add a sentence clarifying that there are certain de minimis changes that just don't call for the elaborate process of filing a renewal application. One still has to tell the board about those changes, but they don't they don't necessarily promote the full boat re application process. And then the waiver provisions for tier 1 cultivators. There's I think a long history here, but the general thrust is not hard to understand. It's that there's a significant policy interest in making sure that the marketplace is accessible to tier 1 cultivators. And so there were some some leeway given there. So they are in rule 1. Mr. Chair, do you want me to stop by rule or would you rather I go through all three. You're muted cover. Yeah, why don't you go through all three game. So we're here. We're into rule 2. And as I kind of warned, this is the one with the most activity in it. We've received a lot of comments about aspects of this. Some of them really helpful and provoked thought and and in some cases in the month rule has been pending. Just changes in the marketplace have led to the suggestion that things be updated. So we'll try to walk you through what we've got here in the efficient way and then we can dig into anything that I've glossed over at the end. Amendment to 2.1.2 again reflects the statutory assignment of responsibility for for the oversight of synthetic and hemp drive cannabinoids. 2.1.3 a there's a new definition for adulterated. The term is used throughout the rule. Especially in regard to when things become reportable. And so it's felt that it was important that it be clearly defined the definition you have here is a sort of emerging of the federal definition. In the fdca are used by the fdca and the the definition of adulterated in the health and ag titles. So that's what we have here. But in general it means something is wrong with the product and especially that the strength quality purity ingredients or composition that a representative expected aren't there or that what is there is not consistent with the labeling. And so definition becomes important because it guides what what triggers certain other events in the case something is adulterated or deemed adulterated. As in the original proposal clone was defined for the first time we had some helpful feedback that said not all clones are growing in the water solution. They can't yet be root bound but as we all know clones are for sale in the soil. So that corrections sort of there to reflect reality. The the definition of distillate is added the definition of full spectrum is added as originally proposed. But there is one change which is that we have feedback concerning chlorophyll. And it's my understanding I think it's been checked out that there are products that all folks in the field with regard as full spectrum that don't have core fill in them really just because of its solubility or not in the same solvents that that the system making the other extracts. So that's kind of technical but should hopefully avoid creating problems for folks making those products. Harvest lot is defined with the purpose really of letting that definition be applied to the testing requirements that are developed elsewhere in the world. Isolate is defined. Outdoor cultivation is defined redefining differently in order to account for the minimal use of the lighting to prevent flowering exact same thing that we were talking about with respect to the rule one definitions. Process lot is defined. This is again because we're going to have a section on testing that uses the term and so clarification about what the term means is helpful and necessary. And tincture is defined and in conformity with the with some of the h270 changes the milligram cap is is adjusted up accordingly. The applicability of the rule the section discussing the applicability of the rule is amended. Just to avoid technical and legal conflicts basically says anybody that's licensed. First of all, one. The insurance requirements in 2.2.2 are amended slightly. The board will publish guidance in consultation with the Department of Financial Regulation about what constitutes commercial commercial reasonableness in various contexts. And so we want to verify that the escrow requirements are updated. There's a clarification sub D that escrow has to be held by a third party money that's held by person himself that can be put to any use isn't truly escrow. Then a clarification that the escrow can only be dispersed in accordance with guidance issued by the board. Same idea the point of escrow is that it can't be used for any purpose at any time and held aside for special contingencies. Coming to we're coming to some sort of the media. Amendments this one I think bears particular attention from board members and participants that has been a significant source of commentary because I think it would it would have some non trivial effects on people and the products that would be available in the marketplace. You can see there's an addition among the health safety and sanitation requirements are added first to sub B which is that producers have a recall procedures in place appropriate to ensure that adulterator dangerous product can be called back from the point of cultivation or manufacturing through efficient communication. That just means sort of one would know who who product was sold to and have a system in place not unlike that in place from drug manufacturers and whatnot. Whereby, if a batch went out bad needed to be called back there'd be an efficient way to do it it's really a record keeping requirement. And that would be enforced at the point of inspection inspectors would be able to ask before the recall plan or procedure. The sub E would prohibit the production of a cannabis product that includes a nutritional supplement drug product or additive that may provoke drug interaction undermine shelf stability or suggest curative effects. That does mean that such things as a gummy that merge melatonin and THC would not be permitted where this adopted this form. The would additionally prohibit any products that contain meat or meat products and dairy products as defined in title six. There's a clear definition of when a dairy product ceases to be a dairy product. And so it's useful just to hitch onto that well understood definition. And also a prohibition on products requiring time and temperature control for safety. And a provision that documentation may be required for pH and water activity requested by the board and the documentation be provided. If there are any concerns about the biological concerns with product manufacturing process. I think will provoke a lot of conversation later today. And the underlying problem with which most people are familiar is that because of the federal status of the cannabis. The usual minders of the beat in food safety are not available to do their work and so it becomes a question of sort of administrative feasibility and safety. But that's really policy discussion that I'll leave for the end. A final safety addition to the safety requirements section is that if co located in a residence or building outside of DFS jurisdiction. This really means a residence that's not a public building. The operation would have to have operating smoke detectors at least equal in number to operating security cameras and would have to refrain from employing hydrocarbons in extraction. So for practical purposes that means it would have to be a public building meet the standards of the public building for those activities to go on for hydrocarbon extraction to occur. And in residential grows there would be enhanced the smoke detection. That arises from concern I think both from our inspectors and from fire safety itself that in home cultivation presents certain risks of fire and yet there's not really anybody there. Making sure that those are appropriately mitigated. The employee the employment and training sections are largely left alone. There's a type of graphical correction to 2.2.7. We have the original proposal to amend the warning label. This also will require some discussion by the board. And then we'll go through this summary. We're required to confer with the Department of Health in the development of these. And we're partially successful in reaching out to the right folks there. And I think there may be some further discussion about whether we're where we want to be in terms of the ultimate amendments. I may want to just slow down and talk about what's going on with labeling at that point. I know there's been a lot of concern because we heard it in comments about not abruptly changing requirements in a way that requires people to throw out printed labels and whatnot. And so be assured that whatever happens whether or not the board decides to amend the adjustments of labeling that are discussed here now. There will at least be a provision like what you see here in 2.2.10 D that allows or run that allows folks with labels that have been rendered non-compliant to continue to use them and spend them down for a year. So that's what this section is all about. It's a simple amendment that was in the original proposal for 2.2.11 striking that limitation in sub E. We'll just technical rephrasing here in 2.2.18 G narrow exception is made to allow co-location for mentorship and accelerator programs. So 2.19 a is the first section to kind of jump on that concrete definition of adulteration to provide that all licensees should make a prompt report to the board upon discovery of adulterated cannabis cannabis product regardless of cause or fault. And what is meant there really is that nobody's necessarily in trouble won't necessarily provoke an enforcement action to make a report. And let things flow from there. So that's why you see that why you see that language where it is. Another technical change of importance to the kind of ag safety and occupational safety folks is that cannabis once found to contain actionable level levels of aspergillus should be labeled that way and we travel with the product so that other people and employees in the chain will be aware that the product could be hazardous to them especially people who are very sensitive. So really a reminder here at 2.2.21 about product licensing and registration. General provision a certain board's authority to impose appropriate security requirements. And then a clarification that articulate decisions already may assert codifies decisions and interpretations already made about the one location rule that's obviously important for feature of Vermont's licensing program. And this clarification addresses what happens when somebody has locations that are very close to how close is too close or how separated is too separated as that point that would offend the one location rule. As you can see the the language proposed would clarify that this will be done based on spans the familiar unit of property taxation. And I'm not aware of any significant commentary or controversy about that but it is that. Notable because of the underlying board the under the importance of the underlying one location rule. A requirement that packaging must include cultivators license number and process lot number that's kind of a common sense. A way to supply chain integrity and call things back. They're problematic. So you must be technical changes here just the instead of listing out some lessons. The addition you see to 2.3.9 has been made in response to feedback that we really hadn't accounted in the sampling rules. For competitions think of the cannabis cups for example or a panel of judges would be evaluating samples of product. This new section sub C would you know parallels those provisions for vendors and employees and provides a rule for competition samples. As you can see it's set at twice the employee limit so instead of four grams per strand per flower eight and then the rest of the proposal there speaks for itself. But that again was an effort to cover that contingency which the older rules did not. Personal use rule 2.3.10 which kind of operationalize in section 42 30 allowing for personal use or allowing books to grow for personal use is amended to clarify that there has to be physical separation from the site of commercial operations and unambiguous labeling. And then a reminder that that personal use product or flower stays out of the inventory tracking system reasons for that are kind of self explanatory very hard to virtually impossible to enforce a distinction between. Once commercial grow and personal grow unless they're physically separated so the inspectors keep guessing. Turning to 2.6.3. These are manufacturer labeling requirements. Provision similar to the one we just discussed requiring that the manufacturers license number and process that number be printed. That's obviously for trace back purposes. And suggestions to add labels to concentrates in vape cartridges as you see here. And then an express prohibition I say express because they're already prohibited by rule but an express prohibition on disposable vape pens and other disposable vaping devices and that verification of what that means. Section 2.6.4 concerns additives and subsection a is amended for really technical reasons so as not to contradict other sections of the rule. An absolutist read of a would say that additives but another any additive that was generally very safe by FDA no matter what has his characteristics might have in context but be prohibited. So obviously it makes sense to qualify that with the cause that you see. In some be the the board. Clarifies that it will keep a schedule of approved and disapproved ingredients that will be readily available to the public. Prior to this amendment we were just talking about approved ingredients and in terms of just practicality. It is sometimes a lot easier to to list out disapproved. There won't be any additional compounds and substances rather than approved ones so that sort of common sense. Finally a terpene limit. This is subsection C so the total terping content of a generous product intended for inhalation or vaporized formulation may not exceed 10% by weight all terpenes added to canvas product must be naturally occurred in the canvas plant. Concentrated terpenes added to a cannabis product should be just closed on the label. So that 10 percent rule I think follows rule in New Jersey is a little bit, pardon me, a little bit more permissive than the 5% rule that has been embraced by some other states, but it's meant to get at that, at the question of additives and what the consumer ought to be able to know about terpenes added from elsewhere. So just a technical change in 2.6.6 it doesn't bear getting into, change in 2.8.2 that clarifies you don't have to keep your own front door locked for the customer to walk through. So that doesn't require too much explanation. Just an elaboration on the heading so that people know that the information about personal information is in that section as well. And we're into employee samples. This was I think part of the original proposal as well, but a provision that retailers may provide samples to an employee to determine whether to make the product available to sell provided that such samples may not be consumed on any licensed premises. I know that I recall a thoughtful comment on that section that sort of said, well nobody's actually giving samples so that they can decide whether or not to sell the product they're really trying to educate the employees on the characteristics of the product. So I just wanted to raise that because I recall it coming in and that may be a minor issue, but one that the board might want to think about as you go through this. And then when it's on the aggregate calendar month samples available to an employee, those will be five grams of concentrate or extract or 100 servings of edibles per employee provided that the content of each has to be the doesn't exceed the five milliliters per serving and fits within potency limits generally. And I think we had commentary suggesting that that was too big and too little. And so we've heard both things on that topic, but that's where things would be set right now as proposed. A requirement that the samples be labeled and they be tracked in inventory tracking. Now here comes the probably the most interesting of the amended sections. The board has kind of redone its testing section. We've removed a graphic flow chart that was a little bit confusing and replaced it with text because of the way the word processing program marks up these changes. It's going to be a lot easier for readers. I think if I switch off the markup and just show you what the what the proposal is in black text, this graphic that may be familiar from the old rule would be gone. So let me do that now before we start talking about the content of the testing requirements. And here as well, we had some interesting and helpful commentary that's quite recent that I think we'll want to be sure to discuss deliberately. All right, there's a more reasonable version and this does again doesn't show the markup but shows what it would look like in final. So there's a preamble in 291 that clarifies that the board kind of exists as a board, among other things, to be able to respond nimbly to new developments that may call for different kinds of testing. For example, if there's a novel pathogen that needs to be monitored, if there's a specific concern about specific kind of contamination that wasn't covered before, the board would be able to use its guidance to steer laboratories and licensees into getting the appropriate tests done. What we say here once and I point this out now because it's taken out elsewhere where it was redundant that any change to that guidance should presumptively take effect at least 90 days after its announcement and publication. We don't want to pull the rug out from any under anybody. There are transition costs associated with decisions like that. And so that's going to apply to any change in the guidance that we're talking about. But the effort is to lay down the kind of broad tracks in the rule with the understanding that guidance could be used to adjust to changes in the world that move a little faster than a rule. So what we'd have here is that for general harvest lots, all cultivars would have to be individually tested for potency and pathogens, but up to five simultaneously submitted cultivars may be commingled by the laboratory, not by the submitting client or customer, but by the laboratory itself for pesticide testing. There was some discussion about whether pathogen testing should be part of the commingling, but the information that we are getting is that fails are common enough that that would be self-defeating and it wouldn't actually save anybody any money or offer any efficiency to businesses. So that's why you see what you do. From mechanically extracted or infused process lots, final potency must be tested and harvest lot pesticide and pathogen COAs travel with the extract or solvent extracted process lots. These four elements here are pesticides for the Israel solvents, potency, and heavy metals are to be tested. For manufactured process lots, COAs from all process lots in the manufacturing process must be associated with the manufacturing process lot and for finished edible products harvest lot or process lot COAs would have to travel with the product and there would have to be testing of final product potency and potency consistency, another way of saying homogeneity, and in parentheses we recognize that the guidance will have to be developed around the product types, simply saying that you're going to have the same kind of homogeneity testing across the diversity of products out there would not be possible. So then we're into potency parameters that I think are familiar. I don't think there's anything significantly changing there. And similarly the board has sort of reserved to guidance the action limits to be assigned to the metal contaminants. I think that, you know, that gets you to the end of the testing amendments. Those four are significant because that whole graphic has been replaced with tests now. So having been through that, I'll turn the market back on so that because I think it helps more than hurts the rest in the other sections. So an express requirement that labs maintains our application technical rephrasing section 2.15 is amended to reflect relocation of the confidentiality provisions to section 901a rather than 901. Yes, see that a few other places. And 2.17 brings us to the next significantly controversial section of the rule. This is the addition to rule two of what is now the emergency, the active emergency rule on synthetic and hemp drive contaminants. Everyone familiar with the emergency rule will be familiar with this text because it's cut in paste with renumbering, of course. The only real difference is just a clarification that taxation would be part of the kind of a common sense statement that that goes along with being a registered regulated cannabis product. So there's a, I know this has provoked and will provoke a great deal of discussion. And I know that there we've explored options in other states, including the safe harbor approach taken in Colorado and a couple of other states. So I expect that the board will probably want to discuss those in some detail when the time comes. I assure you we are mostly through it. The last one is rule four. So we kind of let's take a stretch at this point. But I don't know how you have that code on going through all this. It's like 85 degrees in here. So yeah, take it off if you need to. I may take your invitation. Thank you. So here we are with for those of you lucky enough to be joining you. It's incredibly hot. I don't know. It doesn't feel like it works. So rule four is the compliance rule. Not much is changing. As a matter of fact, I can tell you in two spots what's changing. There is a significant addition of a procedural section concerning how appeals work. And there is an express prohibition on altering COAs, which is already wrong and illegal. It would cause trouble. But here you can see 4.5.2 among the long list of thou shalt nots in category one. These are sort of the more serious, the most serious of the categories of violation, altering, manipulating or falsifying a COA. No need to explain why that is prohibited. And then we get down to the administrative appeal process. This I think is welcomed by some of us internally because it really offers a little bit of structure about how administrative appeals from final decisions of the board would work. You'll notice here that we've set a party to a contested case, which is implicit in the word party. But the point here is that what is appealable is important. Under the administrative procedure, I think contested case is one in which the rights of an individual or a company are to be adjudicated by the board after a hearing. So if there's been a hearing, the decision of the board can be appealed from what can't be appealed from or kind of quotidian decisions of the board, like what kind of ends to buy or what color paint the walls or something. This would really, the clarification here is that this really applies only to the appeal right. And statute applies to final decisions of board in contested cases. And the challenge may be brought by a party then that almost always going to mean responding in this context. That's important because, for example, if you were a frustrated complainant whose complaint was not acted upon or something, you're not a party to the administrative proceeding and you would not be able to appeal from it. So a long, long way of saying that the people affected are the people that can appeal and that this applies to enforcement in the sense of administrative sanctions, suspensions, etc. So the text here follows and is adapted based upon very similar appeal procedures used by the Office of Professional Regulation and Occupational Professional Licensing, by the Medical Practice Board, etc. It also parallels provisions in the Administrative Procedure Act, which is the chapter of state law that governs how fair hearings at the administrative level are conducted generally. So a lot of what it's doing is bringing to ground general principles that are already the law under the Administrative Procedure Act, but that are a bit obscure for readers, if not pointed out here. So the record on appeal is everything that went before the board. The transcript has to be provided if necessary. And appeals are on the record, meaning if an appeal occurs in this context, it's not a rehearing. It's not at the noble hearing. It's a review of whether by a third party of whether the board aired in a significant way in one of enumerated number of ways in making this decision. So then the rule goes on to specify that there'll be an appellate hearing conference useful for ordering things, making sure everybody's on the same page. There'll be a briefing schedule, which is the exchange of two 15-page double spaced briefs. And then there is a hearing and a decision. There is a narrow provision, and this is found in the parallel statutes as well. Statutes and administrative rules concerning administrative appellate procedure, allowing that the appellate officer in really extraordinary circumstances could reopen the evidence to take additional evidence concerning irregularities in procedure. They're not otherwise a record. So that wouldn't be to re-argue what was argued before, but rather to address something that for one reason or another didn't get in the record. So that's what you see there. And so as promised, that's everything with four, mostly procedural and technical, but useful in terms of what the board's procedure will be in if yes. So I think that's a wrap. I can unplug and kind of think back over the chair. Sure. Thank you for doing that, Gabe. I know I could use a little bit of a break, and you know the air conditioning in this smaller conference room does work if you guys want to move in there. We got it. We got it working now. Okay. But Julian Kyle, do you mind if we take just the 10 minute break quickly before we get into the substance of the rule? No. Okay. So why don't we come back at 2.10? Sounds good. Thank you. Is everyone back? Recording is still rolling, so we're good to just get started again. Okay. See, it's 2.09 p.m. June 26, 2023. We're just resuming a meeting. We took a quick break. So thank you for reviewing those rules, Gabe. I know that over the past few months, since they were published, we've also received a number of written comments. I'd also like to take a moment. I know in our agenda we were going to take some oral comments one last time just about some of these provisions or about whatever is on people's minds, but could you just kind of describe a little bit about how we as a board are considering and what we do with those written and oral comments that we receive throughout the process? I'd be happy to. Thanks. So the overarching theme of this process and procedure is that it's meant to maximize public participation and input so that nobody's taken by surprise and that there's full public notice of what the agency intends to do in terms of the rule that it is promulgating and intends to adopt. So that we take feedback a number of different ways. One is at the 2 public hearings that were held on the published rule proposal. Another is in writing. So for a period of months, which we can now in fact reopen, we accepted public comments at ccb.info at vermont.gov and those comments go around to members as they're received so that they're all known. I know that the board in the past had done kind of an itemized look at each public comment. I did not plan that for today in part because it's not required and in part because the well simultaneously because it's not really required by the APA and because we had so much to get into. But I want to make sure the commenters know all of the public comments are compiled. They're put together. They have to be filed with the legislative committee on administrative rules and our filing has to be accompanied by an explanation which I'll prepare of each substantive point made for and against the adoption of the rule and then whether the agency has amended the rule in response to the comment or whether it's decided not to imply. So all of that is transparent to the legislative committee. The whole package of commentary goes to them. So if anybody's written to us at any point in this process and it's made it clear that their comment is meant for public comment, it's in that collection. And atop that collection is a summary of the points made and the reasons why things were done in response. Anyone who made public comment who would also like to share that commentary during public comment this meeting is welcome to do so orally of course. I just want to make sure people knew the fate of the rule or the fate of their comments that they're taken seriously that they're seen have been seen and ultimately get right into the administrative record that's seen by everybody. To that end I might suggest to you Mr. Chair that you consider deferring final approval of rules one and two. And this is in keeping with what we're talking about about the notice function of this process. We published what was intended months ago to be our final amendments to these two rules and we've had a lot of activity since. We've learned new things since. We've had commentary that led us to change what we were proposing. We've added the emergency rule to rule two, which is something we didn't know we would be in the position to do when the rule was initially published in newspapers etc. So I think it might to just in keeping with the idea we want to maximize public participation there's a lot to recommend deferring action on a final approval of one and two to your July meeting in order that you know in order that folks that are participating now can know what I just said some of them were learning about that for the first time that's the first notice they got of it and we want to make sure they have time to comment on the amendments made in response to comment if that isn't too certain. So you might want to consider that I don't know if there's an obligation to hold it over another month but so many changes have been made that good to watch right now. Thanks for that and that makes a lot of sense to me. I mean especially if you know in this meeting today we receive substantive public comment on things that people are seeing maybe catching for the first time after you just reviewed it all and based on changes that like you said like we made today. So I think I will suggest that we defer final action on approval of these rules which would be sending them over to Elkar I think is the next step in the process until next next month's meeting which is in July 19th. Okay great okay well I think what I would like to do before Julie Kyle and I start kind of opening up the rule and having our discussion is to open the floor to public comment and again the most helpful comments that we can get right now are about these rules but of course and we will have another public comment section a more general one at the end of this meeting when we always do but I think if people have comments that are specific to this rule you know please raise your virtual hand if you join via the link and then if we get through those we'll move to the folks that join by phone. Can you hear me? We can hear you. Okay thank you very much. One I wanted to say that I appreciated you clarifying the rules about the conversion or the transition of packaging I think that's very helpful. I know it's been a topic that we've been having internally and with other people like other growers over the past couple months so I'm glad to see there's not a cliff approaching there but it's very helpful but in the context of testing and how that integrates with the inventory tracking which is already kind of assuming these rules are going to get adapted it might be helpful to make sure that similar types of transition concepts are kind of built into these rules as well for instance people are already have plants in the ground by the time I'm not sure whether the rules will be adopted by the time that some of these tests need to be submitted so I'm not sure whether that's the old rules of the new rules or for indoor growers who have issues like this and who are live right now with doing certain things they also have issues with transition about what to follow in terms of you know how they're keeping track of different process lots and harvest well harvest lots is pretty is pretty straightforward but the process lots different process lots for biomass for for flower and for a number of other things and to make sure that the everything lines up both the inventory tracking the testing that's going to be required because a lot of indoor people are probably going to have a crop coming due mid-summer which which will definitely be before these are adopted and exactly what needs to happen there should be clear and also how is our grandfather in clause for flower that's produced with those tests you know does have to retest it or so forth and we've broken down clarification on that much I saw that in the rules would be helpful I hope that's helpful thank you very much thanks Robert Bobby thanks for taking my comment for those of you that don't know me my name is Bobby Berg I'm one of the proprietors of formulation station under which I produce my edible line out in Heady I have some various serious concerns with these proposed rule changes particularly 2.2 or as you you know may imagine um yeah my concerns are innumerable I'm not really sure where to start so I apologize if this gets a little disconjointed I do want to start with applauding the decision to defer for a few weeks I think that's going to go a long way and you know restoring some public faith here um basically if we want this industry to thrive we really need to nurture small craft producers with niche and unique product offerings not chop them off of the knees before they can even hitch dried these proposed changes would have an immense impact on innovative products I myself make a couple I know I have a bunch of peers that are also hoping to make you know great products we've got Martha out there with a fog belly farm who makes really wonderful frozen cookie dough her entire business would go belly up if this goes through um you know sorry let me pull up my notes basically imagine selling the alchemist or hill farmstead that they can't make IPAs because they should be refrigerated or should be consumed rather quickly Vermont would not only lose millions in annual tax revenue we would have a fraction of the credibility on the global beer stage that we do now and as you know we are global leaders and we are situated to you know take up that same mantle with the edible industry and that's not going to happen if we push through these changes I understand that uh understanding is one of the major issues pushing this and I want to you know be understanding of that fact but I don't think that it should lead to you know completely eliminating market segments and stifling innovation I will provide some further written comment at some point I'm sure but yeah I guess I'll finish off with saying you certainly won't transition any legacy operators if this goes through in the edible world I know if this had been on the agenda initially there I'd still be out there trapping throwing massive you know market parties and you know running it up with high dose uh freshly baked goods uh you know we already have one of the most restrictive edible guidelines in the country and it's really not going to encourage customers or operators from the other side of the tracks to so to speak to uh come on over so thanks sorry to ramble have a good day thanks bobby Amelia hey guys um yeah so first of all I just wanted to give you guys some acknowledgement and thanks for your work on h270 from my point of view specifically the medical portions uh I know that a lot of people might not know how hard it is to get medical legislation through specifically progressive reform but it is a pain in the butt and there's a lot of compromise involved and so I just want to thank you for your work there um a little confused and frustrated on how we got sampling for the sake of competition before we got sampling approved for registered medical patients um especially when we're looking at allowing double the employee allowance of flour to be given to a non-registered patient or a non-registered employee as a competition entry for consumption um some of these judges aren't even from Vermont and are not are not registered in any system um but a registered patient still can't walk into a dispensary and walk out with a free pre-roll uh I don't care about competitions I like I don't I think that it's cool if we have a structure in place for a competition to exist um but I do think that providing accessible affordable slash free product to patients should be as much of a priority as making sure competitions can happen um so moving forward I really hope that there is some sort of priority in making sure that patients have free sampling um I understand that there is a structure in place where retailers can sell whatever product they want at whatever price that they set wholesalers and and cultivators and manufacturers can do the same but it is not the same as a patient being able to walk into a store and walk out with a free product that will make a significant difference in their day um so yeah that that's basically just my comment um I think that if we can write out a mechanism for free sampling in a competition setting then we can also focus on writing out that same kind of mechanism for registered medical patients within a retail setting thank you thanks Amelia Dan hey everyone um I don't have the best sell service so I'm not sure if you guys can hear me but yeah I just wanted to chime in on the proposed changes to the social equity um I know there's a lot of folks who were rejected for their social equity applications who felt that they you know deserves to have that status um I noticed that you guys had changed the laws I guess what I would like to say is anybody who has previously rejected you know if you were personally harmed through cannabis prohibition if you were arrested if you've pled guilty to a cannabis crime and felt that you were incarcerated you know I think we should all really speak up and make some public comment about this issue um you know there's just a lot of contradictory uh statements the whole intention of social equity in cannabis is to give back to a community that was harmed by cannabis prohibition and um I feel these new regulations are you know specified to basically prevent certain people um from qualifying based on new kind of arbitrary guidelines so I just wanted to let everyone know in the community if you were rejected for social equity um you know it's a good time now to kind of speak out about what you feel you're entitled to for the harm that you've gone through um for being busted convicted um or anything you've been through uh with canvas prohibition thank you. Thanks Dan. Dave. Thanks Nellie can I uh yield to Martha and come back come back after her please? Yeah Martha. Thanks Dave um hi I'm Martha I own Fog Valley Farm and as Bobby said um I make frozen cookie doughs my entire product line at the moment is frozen and so the amendment to rule 2.24 would be incredibly detrimental to my business um so I just want to not only speak to Bobby's comments that he made I fully support everything he said I'm not going to reiterate it because he said it very eloquently but we are also food professionals we know how to handle food in a safe manner and also in the rules stated right now we currently have to follow all help food safety guidelines put out by the Department of Health and we all do that in our kitchens and they're not super complicated to regulate and inspect I feel I could go into a kitchen and inspect kitchens it's really not that complicated there are guidelines and checklists out there for inspectors um and I also again we're food safety professionals I just finished completing a food safety course in order to keep my kitchen safe that's something I felt was important to me to fully understand the guidelines and so I just want to make it known to the board that we are not just random people out here mixing up whatever in our kitchens we know how to handle food and how to handle them safely and I think the guidelines are in place to keep food safe and protect consumers thank you guys thanks Martha Dave thanks you know you never want to step on your client's toes but Martha said it really well one I want to ask that the changes that you showed on the screen if those could be made available as a document um you know it gave if you can email that to me that would be fine or if you could get it up on on the web that would be fine as well I have to be able to publish them on the web so everybody can see them thank you um I'm gonna add on on rule 2.2.4 which is something that some of us in the industry found out about through the rumor mail uh but I believe this is the first time it's uh was shown publicly um um there's a lot of problem there I get the meat and dairy uh one is your hands are tied there uh you know there's some uh you know some some federal state uh law intertwining there uh that you know makes dairy a big no no uh meat a big no no fine you know you can't control it this time in temperature control as well as the the section on on supplements as you've heard this is a real blow to the industry if this goes through um you know there are a lot of great products just starting to come on to the market uh being put together by folks with experience in the sort of herbalism world um that you are going to be shutting out um and I don't really see why uh you know look I'm not a fan of mixing THC with melatonin uh or THC and CBN and melatonin you know but there's nothing particularly dangerous about it um and you know sleep gummies or sleep gummies and you know just because melatonin is marketed as a sleep aid doesn't change the fact that you know CBN's a sleep aid too um and so you know rather than banning these products uh you have rules on labeling and making statements about curative effects that you can just continue to enforce you don't need to ban ingredients that are safe for consumption because some other products containing those ingredients that don't contain cannabis may make claims as to curative effects and that doesn't help the industry and it doesn't help consumers um with time and time control there's a lot of products that you know there's time I mean like all the gummies have expiration dates this is just retailers have refrigerators we can log the temperatures of those refrigerators pursuant to a rule that you prescribe telling us how often and what temperatures there are better ways of doing this than to shut out entire segments of this industry um and so I'll leave it at that very disappointed also just in the manner in which this was proposed um the manner in which this was proposed sort of on the fly late and uh and not well publicly disclosed um thank you very much thanks Dave uh next we have uh grow uh grow by MJ cultivators I think yep that's me Marie um I'm just kind of curious if there is a way uh first of all Dave if you can get that info up on or not Dave I'm sorry um as David mentioned if we could get that info up online uh that would be awesome because I couldn't get a good view of that myself um what what I do have is a question um that I will put as a comment I guess um I would like to know how we can go about finding out who our licensing agent is specifically to deal with I'm a manufacturing tier two right now I am considering switching my license type and I don't see anything as to how to go about doing that and I would like to talk to somebody directly you know in the privacy of a conversation you know not here on this forum but to discuss that more uh you know in depth so that's just something I don't know if somebody could make a point of reaching out to me letting me know how to find out who to contact that'd be great I don't know if it goes by a license type or geographical location so that's it thank you Tino hi everybody can you hear me okay yep uh so I just want to say I agree with Bobby and Amelia and Dave and um I really hope we can just we can keep figuring out how things can get done and not uh not eliminating all categories of products and to not take the fun out of Vermont's potential I mean we could really we could really be a like the number one global destination for cannabis um but not if we keep taking the fun out of it um that's all thank you everybody bye thanks Tino Jeffrey good afternoon board hope everyone's having a good day um just a couple quick things I want to express gratitude to the agency for deciding to postpone their final vote on the proposed rules changes I thought that was an excellent move thank you um affording the industry another month uh for this step in the process recognizing there's multiple steps still uh I think was final so good move um lastly I just want to express support uh for uh 224 um I would just like to impart on the board um VGA has confidence that uh you will be able to find a solution here Oregon State allows for 10 temperature sensitive products Washington State allows for 10 temperature sensitive products California has a screen okay New York State with their rules that are rolling out um they allow for this as well there is no reason why Vermont home of Ben and Jerry's everybody right uh cannot figure this out as well we have confidence that this agency can clearly uh it is what the industry is asking you to do um that's it I just want to say uh I just want to recognize that James you're down at Canara I have an excellent time uh the National Craft Cannabis uh coalition is down there Vermont Growers Association is a part of that organization and we hope uh some productive conversations ensue everyone have a good day thanks Jeffrey um anyone else to join via phone feel free to raise your virtual hand if you'd like to make a public comment um and um if you join via phone um you can hit star six to unmute yourself if you'd like to make a comment and we'll just jump over to what is it Bernardo yep Bernardo hi everyone um I just want thank you guys for uh H270 I know it's some steps forward uh the ag insertion there had some direct impacts on my licensing um and I appreciate you considering putting forward that um language today I just want to bring up uh I'm just curious about the difference in the variances between flour and uh manufactured uh vaping products and uh why why it's 10 percent for oil but uh 20 percent for flour um I feel like I'm more likely to find like a purple unicorn than a 36 percent flower strain but a 72 percent oil is you know it's like it's prohibitive still right it's uh if the board has the ability to create a variance and has the ability to create that scarps themselves they're just you know would like you to consider increasing that variance from 10 percent to 20 percent for oil as well um you know a 30 cap on THC is more like an 85 or 90 cap on oil um not a 60 percent so it's just um I know the board's trying and and you know this is going to be a good time moving forward to try and work on the governor and trying to change the THC caps or eliminate them but if the board does have the ability to consider that and make that change I just want to make that recommendation please thank you thanks Bernardo hi yeah I was just hoping that maybe just quickly you could repeat the date in uh August that you have your meeting and when the submission time is we'll get those dates up on the website after the meeting is over for the rest of 2023 okay thank you it was uh July 19th is when we postpone action on these amendments though right July 19th yeah yeah we do have a phone that is unmuted so um phone number ending in um hang on one second sorry 9192 you are unmuted hi this is Chelsea from Moonrise Botanicals and Moonrise Alchemy so I just wanted to comment on what was stated about including other verbal additions to cannabis products so I know melatonin was specifically mentioned I'm curious if this applies to other herbs in general and how to get more information about that because I'm about to enter the market and this is very important to me in terms of what I'm trying to do to understand like if any other herb is being used it could be claimed to have a curative effect potentially and how to just delineate between the substances and yeah just to get a clearer understanding on that feels really important okay thanks Chelsea we will discuss that in our comments for when we review the substance of the rule um any anyone else who joined via phone or via link we will have one more public comment period after this um for general comments but anyone else who would like to make a comment about these proposed rule amendments before the board starts discussing them I'm not seeing anybody pepper okay then I'll close the public comment window um thanks for all those comments um and I think uh I was taking some notes while Gabe was going through and I think we should just start with rule one uh at the beginning because I think we'll address a lot of the comments that were just made um about particularly rule two point was it 2.2.4 um as well as some of the other ones so um Gabe I don't know if it's worth pulling up the rule again yeah I'd be happy to do that um as I as I put it up I should emphasize we're going to reopen uh the opportunity to file written comments in fact we never really closed it but if folks could have comments in by say July 10 we'd be able to guarantee those comments got in the package so um and those can be sent to ccb.info at ramon.gov we'll post that online as well see if I can get sure um number two can we start with rule one is that right let me know the section I'd be happy to jump you to it my first comment was around 1.1.4 um I don't know if anyone had anything before that nope nope so um just this I know he kind of said the applicability of this rule and just correct me if I'm wrong I know we changed it's a person to engage in transfer sale of hemp derived products that contain more than 1.5 milligrams of thc per serving um I guess my comment or my question is a do we have to say delta 9 thc and then b um do we have to uh include the 1 to 20 ratio I had a similar concern to yours about whether or not b you should be a little bit more generic and make sure that we're you know I think the emergency rule say or what used to be the emergency rule can speak to that but we ought to be clear that um the 1.5 is not the limit of the forest jurisdiction okay and and then the the ratio like I know that I mean it's my intention and that we don't get into the uh kind of realm of um adding all of our requirements to you what truly are what we consider non intoxicating products I think the the role of the board is over intoxicating products um and so I wonder if we need to add kind of the rest of the emergency role into this section about the applicability of these rules I guess I help me procedurally what you mean as a reference that we would reference the 2.17 or that we would add the whole piece here well I'm just saying like those in 2.17 right well I mean so let me just so the this is this is pertaining to the applicability of our of the the entirety of rule one right this this 1.1 point four that's accurate yeah and so if someone is is producing a hemter I product that's full spectrum that's one to 20 um does that mean that they I have to comply with all rule one only if rule I as my understanding only if rule one would require that they be licensed so um I don't think the the broad and applicability of the rule doesn't change anything in my understanding about who out there in the world is obligated to have a license from the board before engaging in a business that makes any sense okay it does make sense I just wanted to be clear in my mind that you know if I make a if I use you know hemp to make a full spectrum tincture that's you know we consider non intoxicating that this that these rules don't require a licensure with the board that would be my understanding as well the only time that somebody making an they would only people making intoxicating products that they would want to market through the adult use system would would be required to obtain a license but that was sort of the requirement okay and is that the feeling of Julie and Kyle do you feel the same way about just people that are making full spectrum tinctures using hemp as their source material that meet the 1 to 20 ratio yes yes okay all right um my next comment was on 1.4.5 does anyone have anything before that nope nope so you know I I've been talking for a while now about just removing the cessation of operations escrow and so okay I guess and I was I guess I was looking at it earlier so this does that this this just removes the requirement for cessation of operation escrow counts yep okay great I was following along in a different version I guess okay great next on my list is and maybe this is if you could just go to 1.9 also unless there's I have something for 1.4.9 Mr. Chair okay just two things that we've received public comment on that we could consider I'm not necessarily advocating or not for one of these two things that came up that could go here one is we received comment about the signing of a labor peace agreement being one of these options in 2.4.9 and then the other is um and we received multiple comments from the Vermont Medical Society on this is a plan to make or sell low THC products is another item that could go here if we if that's something we would like to consider um I guess let me take the second one first because anytime you add to this it you know it means that like it's easier to satisfy or there's more options for people which might not be a bad thing but it kind of like will move people away from the things that we thought were important to first go around I mean I don't like do we so it would be a a plan to create low THC products yeah make and sell make and sell or offer access too so in my mind if you're a manufacturer that means making them and it or or if your cultivator needs growing low THC uh cannabis and if you're a retailer that means selling them okay and do they have a definition of what low THC means they do it was um based on milling well so this came their suggestion came from Connecticut and I think it's 1.5 to 2 milligrams is what they consider low THC and shenanigans I agree with you that the more we add to this the more sort of watered down it potentially becomes but it also um you know some of the options here are like for example making a plan to pay level wage so once somebody does that if they've checked off the list if we want to provide more options for people to access additional options in the future that might be one reason to add to it um again throwing it out there is something that we heard okay I I don't know like the way I feel about it is kind of like you know that that's trying to have kind of a heavy hand in just market forces like if someone has a plan to sell these things and they just are not viable on the market um you know or alternatively if you know it turns out that you know Vermonters really want low THC products it's kind of like well the market will supply them they'll find you know I don't know if we want to dilute this section by trying to just dictate from our chairs in Montpelier what the market wants um that that's just my feeling on that and like I'm raising it because it for an effort of transparency right so we're why don't think we have to decide today okay so this is taking language from Connecticut it may say um remind me um best you know it's like your level like uh make your best attempt to sell low it just provides access to low THC or I think their language goes on to say or high CBD products I raise it today for consideration that's all I feel like that's kind of harder to evaluate as far as a plan for positive impact criteria just because that's how can we determine that somebody gave it their best attempt to sell these well that's that's true of a lot of these to be honest um and what was the other one um signing a labor peace agreement thank you remind me what that is it's essentially a organization signs an agreement that says they will take a neutral approach to union organization that will neither uh you know promote it or or prevent it and we don't have that is I mean I thought it was already illegal to interrupt um union negotiations you I think what you're thinking of is more like uh union busting and that's true um I think that there are folks who believe that the signing of a labor peace agreement um makes that employer more labor friendly and neutral towards you know any union activity that might occur there'd be any need to talk to the Department of Labor about that I would guess they don't want to talk no I don't think the Department of Labor would want to I I'm assuming the Department of Labor would not want to lay it's not something that they would weigh in on it thanks I mean I think uh an operator would want to talk to their return their their counsel if they have counsel before doing that but and what all the implications of that might be but again raising it for consideration only I think um I just would want to just dig into that a little bit um more before we decide to add that in um anything before 1.9 not for me nope um yeah again I was just looking at I think an earlier version so I think uh that's fine with me um I was I was looking at sub either that was all I had for rule one is there anything anyone wants to any other parts of rule one oh I think the crux of conversational will occur in rule two at least for me I think we're good okay so my first was on 2.2.4 is there anything before that not from not for me nope so Gabe can you remind me um you know I think we heard a couple comments that um the some of this was was new that they're only that most people are seeing it um kind of late in the game and I know you know you weren't our general counsel when this when this original amendment was sent to iCar approved and sent to iCar but do you um have or maybe Bryn have a sense of kind of a response to that as in like when when did some of this show up and and is it is it new did people have appropriate um ability to comment um thank you I um I guess there was always that paradox where if you receive information and comment and then make a change in response to that as one would probably hope you would you've then created something new that other people might not have noticed of and that is one of the reasons I think it'd be really wise to kick this over for a month so that people can digest and comment on things they might not have seen at this point the original filing with the legislative committee on administrative rules did contain a blanket prohibition on meat and dairy um and then we received feedback from some of our uh stakeholders with experience in food safety regulation to the effect that you know a little bit more nuance might be called for especially with regard to water activity and ph significant factors used in that world to determine um whether something is kind of shelf stable and safe um similarly the idea that the definition of dairy product already exists and ought to be embraced uh was a late at that came in late um similarly the uh the recommendation that uh refrigerated products or temperature control products um really aren't within our ability to oversee um was really an expansion of that idea about meat and dairy so um it is accurate that this section has changed significantly uh there was however an original plan published to restrict meat and dairy really just a question of the vehicles by way of then degree of nuance in which um you might want to do it but I think folks saying a lot of this is new to have a point and that's why it makes a lot of sense to open comment on it and take it to next month to make sure that folks who are seeing this new who have some time okay and uh how do julian kyle how do we feel about meat and dairy I mean I've got my opinion about it um which I'm happy to start with yeah go for it I mean I think that there's a difference between high risk and low risk um foods I'm not sure if there's a little bit of perhaps confusion as to what we're trying to do here um and what would be considered a high risk food and what would be considered a low risk food I think there's some that are easy um to figure out what we're trying to accomplish and others you know would fall into that low risk category but why don't you start pepper sure um yeah I mean so I think uh I think getting kind of having a prohibition on these types of potentially hazardous foods which you know have strict temperature controls and um you know we have all these kind of very specific rules about homogenization and um you know safe handling you know I I know that some commenters pointed us to other states that that allow ice creams and raw cookie dough and things like that I've got some real concerns about um those products given that um we do not have the support of kind of our traditional state agencies that inspect commercial kitchens um you know I'm I am down here at Canra and we just got a little bit of an overview of some of the other states in the size of their compliance staff um you know I was just Oklahoma grew to about 170 people you know like you know that's a relatively new board you know these agencies are in the realm of hundreds of people um we of course have I think eight compliance agents that have to be um experts in every aspect of the supply chain and I just don't think that we in kind of with less than one year under our belts of adult use sales are ready to kind of just you know go down the path of allowing every type of product um that people can come up with you know our manufacturing tiers are tailored towards the types of extraction methods that people can use they're not tailored towards um the types of products that people can create and the kind of accompanying regulations that should go along with the creation of those products and I think maybe that's a direction that we could move in um but I don't feel comfortable sure you know absent where we stand today that we can ensure that every single one of our manufacturing facilities is capable of meeting the very rigorous regulations that the Department of Health has with respect to you know proper storage handling temperature controls and all the other issues um that kind of commercial kitchens deal with um you know we do have a very expert you know veteran from the Department of Health public health former public health inspection manager on our staff um and I think that we can get there especially with the support potentially across training from the Department of Health but I think that with respect to you know meat and dairy um and we should say that this is kind of like uncooked meat uncooked dairy products that I feel comfortable with that portion of 2.2.4 yeah I mean just very generally I mean I generally agree I think I'm a little concerned that people put or perceived to put food safety in the backseat in the name of creativity I think we even heard from a commentator that food safety expertise is really not that big of a deal it's not that hard it's easy to do and I think that that undermines you know a lot of how food safety experts keep us safe from foodborne illnesses not just in the cannabis space but across you know where and how we purchase food products you know it's important to remember that you know a lot of these products would need um sell by dates that would be evaluated by a food safety expert um non-cannabis food manufacturers are required to have products evaluated by third party food processing authorities those are often across state lines we can't ship products across state lines so you know we don't have the bandwidth to be FDA here in the Department of Health and I know that frustrates some people um you know it's not our intent to stifle creativity but you know one major foodborne illness outbreak from the cannabis space reflects poorly on all of us I think there's a lot of good actors that we've heard from today that would take every step you know but checklists and guidelines are checklist and guidelines um nothing more nothing less and it only takes one bad actor um you know when ice cream and taking baked stuff you would be could be you know appealing to children you know I think that's a forgotten separate issue um and a lot of this I mean I know that's a general statement that I just made and I'm not trying to um rile people back up with that statement um but I think you know given the support and how we're off on an island um I don't see it as a unwise step to kind of take this approach now considering um you know the support that we need in order to feel comfortable here agreed so this has been a concern of mine for a while this is what my formal or partially what my formal education is in um and the meat and dairy products are definitely concerned I think I need to think more about the pH and water activity and what that actually looks like but um you know the safe handling of food products to your point um it can be incredibly dangerous and it you know it uh there are checklists and there are guidelines but there's someone that is part of a state agency that is a third party that oversees making sure that those checklists and guidelines are followed and we don't have the resources to do that yeah and we talk about you know high-risk products we're talking about obviously ice cream pie cakes that require refrigeration cheese cakes you know butter cheese yogurt you know I think it's important um to point out that what we're not talking about is breads cookies muffins cakes cooked fruit pies fruit jam and jellies confections and sweets dry herbs herb mixtures dip and soup mixes popcorn granola chocolate covered pretzels marshmallows graham crackers cereal bars I don't want folks to get the wrong and that list is not exhaustive I think you know and even you know with additional processing salad dressings beverages like kombucha tea and apple cider barbecue sauces hot sauces ketchup mustards those could all find a path into the marketplace and these again these lists are not exhaustive but I I want folks to understand you know that this isn't an existential threat on the entire edible market it's just high-risk ones where we don't have the expertise to um you know in in agency to really feel comfortable putting our stamp of approval on these products and it's not things that are refrigerated for particular taste right so like some chocolate right but like to the point about beer not all beers they don't have to necessarily be refrigerated right I had one question about the meat and dairy that I think is probably important to talk about does dairy include plant-based milk if it's a substitute for milk um I would have to we've because we've gone and attached ourselves to the title six definition I suspect not however because of the parameters around water activity and pH it's quite probable that doesn't be problematic anyway because that room temperature flora could be afraid of the freedom thank you and then I guess the other piece of this is about the nutritional supplement drug product additive I mean what we're saying is that this is this is an area where there's just so little science here like uh you know I just we don't know what these interactions are going to be it's tough for us to kind of put a stamp of approval that something is safe uh you know if we just don't if we I mean we just can't say that it's it's safe is that kind of the rationale here and it seems like a decent rationale to me it is according to my understanding from the commentary I've received from people that I've spoken with in trying to develop this um the concerns are several one is that that these products in particular are provocative of federal intervention in a way that others aren't um another is the the appearance of the state through the registration system the appearance that the state has evaluated these things for more safety by didn't register I think there's inferences made by consumers that the state does certain things before it endorses for sale of particular product and we don't have the capacity to evaluate potential drug interactions of of cannabis products and other drugs and supplements um and so although you know anybody can take with one hand the supplement that was found take with the other hand the cannabis product something different for the government to say this is endorsed as a combination product um and also a lot of concern that really the one and only reason that those products would be combined would be to imply a curative effect in the statutory prohibition on exactly that um suggestion as a market matter so um for all those reasons there's there's a lot of downside risk to that particular kind of product I think all the way from provoking unwanted federal the federal intervention to simple consumer how particularly of safety that an analysis that has gone into the product thank you FDA has said as much correct yes they have to a degree yes they have okay um and then how about subsection M I mean I like where this is headed I personally don't want to see just given the risks of being a tier three manufacturer I don't think I and frankly maybe this is my own like limitation I did not expect any tier three manufacturer to be in a building um that was not subject to the commercial building codes I mean we're talking about um highly explosive uh solvents um that people are allowed to use and you think about the the building codes around I mean you go to any tier three manufacturer you see how in depth their operations are um it never dawned on me that we would see a tier three manufacturer at a homestead a non-public building um and I just want to make sure that this goes the full gamut of saying that um you know all of the kind of commercial building codes it would be applicable to a tier three manufacturer in a commercial building would be applicable to one that's based out of a home yeah agreed yeah you want to do hydrocarbon extraction in your garage I want to see a fire safety stamp of approval there yeah I agree one of the reasons why we talked about the tier one manufacturing was because we assumed that that is the type of manufacturer that would be in someone's home not not a tier three I agree so I I don't know like just Gabe I don't know if this gets there and I don't want to play you know if we would just want to say like a tier three manufacturer can't be home-based you know as fine and what I don't want to say is you know you need a certificate of occupancy from fire safety in order to be a tier three manufacturer out of your home because there's not going to go to someone's home you know they they'll just they don't have the jurisdiction so that's just like I just feel like do do you think this does it or do you think uh um we should just be more explicit we could be more explicit in rule one and just say in the section concerning tier three manufacturers and what that license does no hydrocarbon extraction that's very awesome if you think this is too wishy-washy are we certain that that's correct well I guess it's because there are other businesses that operate out of folks homes those are all open to the public though typically right there are a section of someone's home that is open to the public if um there is hairdresser or a like snowflake shop you know like those places if somebody were to do that so open the place up for the general public to come and go right or if somebody were to employ more than two people they become by dint of doing that a public building under DFS jurisdiction um so all of those you know the home uh hair cutter yeah uh DFS does have and can assert jurisdiction over that um where everybody's nervous the place the camp because it's not open to the general public so Mr. Chair I could make a note to consider making a corresponding amendment to not to title water to section or rule one I should say um if you think that might be more cleaner I I think you should and have that that one be the one that's published because you know we can always make it we can always take it out if we get the comments that you know this is bad you know there's other ways to do it but I'd rather people have the ability to see it um you know for what for what we publish uh between now and you know July 19th anything else on 2.2.4 no I mean I you know I get how in the secretary of state filing is like a moment in time and we have you know based on commentary from a host of different folks have worked to make that more specific I get how that makes it sound or feel to folks like this kind of caught them off guard and I think you know providing another until July 10th I think is what you said gave an opportunity to come in um provide us you know quantitative information I I want to be clear that you know we understand where people want to go but we need to see you know the reasoning to go certain places um get us that feedback and we'll look to reconsider that I know this is a big part of the rule update so I just wanted to say you know get us that information and we'll look to see how the dynamics are changed at the end of July okay um can we go to unless someone has something beforehand 2.2.10 so um on the health warning really um you know my concerns around changing the health warning are purely procedural I should say um which really are um you know I should clarify that you know I don't think that there's any science to suggest that one kind of series of statements about the health impacts of cannabis is significantly better or worse with respect to kind of public health outcomes than any other kind of grouping of statements around this but um I do am particularly concerned about just how many times it says in law that we were required to collaborate with the Department of Health on this warning um and I know that at least the last time I asked they have not had an opportunity to provide feedback on this warrant or they they've had the opportunity they have not provided feedback on this. May I interrupt Mr. Chair I mean I we uh we have a whole almost month to continue to collaborate with the Department of Health now that we have kicked this to our next meeting um there is one uh edit here that was unintentional and that the individuals of 21 years of age was taken out that was unintentional so we'll need to add that probably should be first um but we we have the opportunity to continue to attempt to collaborate between now and the time that we actually would vote on this so I just wanted to to remind you of that and throw that out there as we had this conversation. Okay and um um I would say just also that I think um Julie if I'm correct that the motivation behind this change is to um try and adopt a more standard uh label as kind of using the ASTM guidance. Correct so the ASTM um has a collaboration with Canra as you know um and this is essentially taken from their their final standards. Okay so I looked at that document and even I agree that this moves in that direction but there's still things in there in their guidance that are not in this and though I really don't want to be in a position of changing this again um you know because there's you know as we heard there's a transition cost and then there's a runway um where we allow when there's two warning labels out there and I don't want to get to the position where there might be three or four um and so um you know there's there's a few things in the ASTM guidance that I don't see in here and I'm wondering if they needed to be added in here. You know as we continue to collaborate with the with the VDH we can certainly have that conversation with them. Okay I know uh one that stuck out to me was a like a terpene warning we don't require terpene testing so that for example would not apply to the state of Vermont. Well the the two that I saw in particular which they said um they're pretty specific about and I know that they have kind of in their preamble that you need to have this or something substantially similar um but they say um that you're supposed to say um consume at your own risk which I think you know whether we agree with that or not is in the ASTM standard and then also do not consume during pregnancy or while breastfeeding and I know that we have something that there may be maybe harmful especially if but it's not an explicit statement saying do not do these these things and again I don't really care about what the warning says um in particular I just think that if we if the goal is to move to an ASTM standard um we should just do the full ASTM standard so that we don't have to change it again. Yeah I couldn't agree more between uh the time that we originally published this and now they have published their final standard so the first one we had access to as a draft through camera they have published the final standard since then with exactly those types of tweaks so instead of saying I've forgotten what the original phrasing was it said consume at your own risk instead of you know something else it was it was uh uh there were wording changes but yeah I couldn't agree more with just adopting that standard makes the most sense other states are looking at that it's a in some places the voluntary standard in some places they're considering adopting it be a rule the more states that come online the more standards are going to be necessary for this type of thing. And then um is there any um I mean in this this kind of takes things in a in a slightly different direction is there any utility in us just using wholesale one of our neighboring states are just trying to work with our um kind of fellow regulators in New England to just create one standard uh New England label just because you know it seems to me like de-scheduling or rescheduling cannabis is it you know is a 10-year process um however we may see um interstate commerce much quicker much more quickly and it seems to me like uh like having a unique label you know might be an impediment to interstate commerce. So I would I don't know about New England I think labels are more about the consumer than they are about the business quite frankly so I think what we would be looking for is uniformity among many states because the consumer may travel from I don't know South Carolina South Dakota California to Vermont um I think that's why Canra is collaborating with the ASTM but we can certainly look at either of those options. I just mean like I think the the most the path of least resistance for interstate commerce if a judge all of a sudden you know a federal judge or someone just decides hey listen the dormant commerce clause applies to this um but we should allow it for states that are abutting that are legal states um that we would want to make sure that we have some sort of standard for at least New York and Massachusetts um for kind of our if I recall I think New York is looking at at least the symbol I don't recall if they're looking at the same warning have to go look but um again I think that the label is more about the consumer than the than the product moving from state to state so if you go from if you go across the country maybe products can't go across the country but individuals certainly can and they will purchase products in different states and therefore the the warning being similar across states is why you would want that uniformity so I just want to be clear yeah go ahead no no right I mean yeah I just want to be clear on where we are because this is more from a process conversation and a collaborative or consulting or whatever the language is in 164 and we have not received any anything from the health department with repeated um for many different people in our office you know asking for to get their eyes on this to uh hey should we wait to do this at all until we talk to other states whether it's in our region or or things kind of move in a certain direction with many different states whether it's in New England or or not so I just want to know you know I just want to make sure I'm keeping track of where we are and what what we're what we're attempting to convey to each other here because I'm getting a little lost right and I to to that point I think procedurally this has been sitting out there since November so I just want to be conscious of the fact that this is what we warned the public that six eight months ago um without any other like we the only comment we've received on it really is please give us a run out for this label right yeah um other than getting comment actually from the ASTM saying this is great we want you to use this so the um I just want to point out procedurally in case it informs anybody's judgment of how fast to push I think there's sort of this perception that all rule updates have to be top-to-bottom rule updates and that we're gonna have to we're gonna have to wait a long time it is quite possible if um you know there's a desire to move fast on the rule or on the labeling once it's settled if we want to reconcile things either with the full ASTM boat or with the Department of Health or with New England neighbors um it's quite possible to say okay just don't do anything to 210 today or this update nothing prevents you reopening to 210 only um as soon as everybody knows I do have to say I get a little nervous for the same reasons the chair is talking about we're supposed to really have a sort of express collaboration with VDH um they were distracted by a small public health event and so I'm forgiving of their um their narrow bandwidth but um I just wanted to point out that it's not a forever thing or it wouldn't mean waiting forever if you were to choose to defer action on 210 and it has been a significant source of public comment from industry just saying whatever you do don't do it twice I know and I get that and I'm with Pepper I'm with you I'm just trying to figure out where we're all going I honestly didn't think this would be that big of a deal uh you know I think uh yeah we have more time we have have I've had at least one conversation with the Department of Health we should I have provided them a a veritable boatload of paper to read I think we should at least give them time to digest what we've given them and provide us and I think one of those ASTM standards is 85 pages long you know I didn't interrupt you Pepper I just I just want to make sure I kind of get where we're anticipating going if um and maybe we don't know that yet um with this 2.2.10 as we look to you know July yeah and Julie like the the only thing I'm talking about having a regional standard it's not you know I mean I'm saying if we say that any product sold in Vermont has to have this label then um you know it it it will it may benefit I mean who knows but it may benefit us to have the exact same label as the sending states um people that are sending our products or vice versa if we're trying to send products into New York and they say you have to have our health warning label you know it'll benefit us if we already require that by rule yeah so I sit on the or I attend the labeling and packaging subcommittee of Canada and I'd be happy to figure out or ask that group how many of those states are adopting what and where they are I hadn't thought about it in terms of regionally only thought about it in terms of nationally so we can certainly get more information okay and I looked them up they're all I looked up in New York Massachusetts and Maine and they're all relatively similar except um there's just you know unique features of each and it feels like you know if we could move over the course of five years or two years or one you know however long towards having a unified standard I think that would be helpful um you know in case you know a judge decides like hey listen interstate commerce is fine um it's actually unconstitutional not to have interstate commerce um but uh I think the same to me question applies to the the um the symbol the THC symbol is that I don't I don't that's not part of our rule amendment is uh using the ASTM one right um I think we got feedback from ASTM on changing the symbol because in the November meeting and that we went over these um initially uh Mr. Chair I think you suggested that we talk to the VDH about the symbol as well as the label well I I did even because the ASTM voted on their symbol when our lat when our first when the rules were still open you know last March or whenever and and they they did not want to do it then um just because they had to reopen their process if they were going to try and improve something new so yeah I mean I think the same would apply to the to the to the label so I think as you're continue to have discussions with VDH to the extent those discussions actually happen I try I'd offer that you put the symbol on the table as well I think this is a good example of why we ask people not to start printing those that rule label update because I didn't anticipate talking about this part of the rule update today but yeah although that happened the first time too we had several iterations in the in the subcommittee that people were or even like we accidentally took out 21 and yeah under right so um we had two symbols at one point initially we decided against that yeah best to wait before you print anything we should keep going this we can talk about this in July yes um my next comment was 2.2.19 so um under A there um is this the I can't quite remember in rule four but I wonder where a failure to notify the board um on something like this would fall and I know like all those tiers in rule four they're not you know set in stone you know we can look at the severity of the action and the surrounding circumstances aggravating mitigating circumstances but is this like a minor um violation or would this be a major violation as the rule is written I think it probably be a category two presumptive meaning it has potential to jeopardize public health and safety but we may not have done it um that but because of the nature of the reporting it'd be highly highly context specific so if you had you know known carcinogen was the contaminant and that's what adulterated the thing uh that would easily be a category one issue if it were a highly technical failure to report something that bumped up against the action limit um but without without a real potential hurt anybody you could be in the much less severe categories like moisture content that's over 13 percent up to 15 percent okay great um anything else on this section anyone nope uh I had 2.3.9 about the contests I mean this that I mean the bonafide contests for sampling is that a uh is that is that defined anywhere I mean do we care about defining this somewhere is this like is this an area where people could um manipulate or kind of is this a loophole that people could exploit yes I think um that part of leaving bonafide undefined would mean that the board would retain discretion to shake its head at things that appear to be you know simple efforts to give away cannabis to uh and samples in ways that aren't actually related to competition so you might apply common sense questions like you know is it advertised anywhere as a competition is there a panel of independent judges that kind of thing um but yes I it certainly does open the possibility that somebody would invent dates and having competition because they wanted to give samples that wouldn't replace you yeah okay okay obviously there obviously there was a competition the last couple months I'm assuming part of this is a response to how to figure out how to maneuver through that without killing the event essentially that's exactly it I think the cannabis cup came up and everybody said well we must have ruled about that okay um my next one is 2.6.3 any anyone have anything before that I guess I should quickly say that we did hear a comment I think on samples for medical patients at recreational dispensaries not sure how I feel about that off the cuff and might require some thought that feels like something we could potentially address in rule three when we look at that right yeah I don't I don't know I'm just bringing it up because I'm trying to remember all the comments we heard and there was commentary that has been passed around suggesting that the employee sample limit is too low people said too high and too low okay um but I remember someone saying it's too low we compared a little bit behind the scenes to what other states have done I think ours is high relatively I remember writing that portion and I tried to follow what Massachusetts would be like if I think if I think about it correctly okay just recalling yeah I just wanted to call out those public comments because there have been comments on I think coming down yeah and I can appreciate how the medical program samples might be advantageous for certain medical patients at retail establishments I'm trying to think of a way to address that maybe you know whether it's suggestions to the legislature on the medical program that will do with these medical round tables or updating the medical program itself might mean that that isn't truly unnecessary sampling to put out in rule two but I'm just thinking out loud and I'll have some more thoughts on that I guess before July 19th or whatever date that is I just didn't want to forget about that comment I'm uh gave you go up a little bit I was a 2.6.3 so if I'm reading B if I'm reading sub B correctly yeah the ones you just highlighted these are more warning labels that go on specific products yes okay um are in Julia these are from ASDM yes like I said before these are from the draft I think the final had different words which we can absolutely change to no problem with that at all I I didn't even think that suggestion was an option at that point this point so I didn't make it okay I'm trying to think about how I feel about the solid concentrate language I mean that cap is there to do what this warning label I feel like is attempting to accomplish and it's kind of what would we rather do have this in here now to show the legislature maybe we'll get public comment on this and hit if uh this language is in here now we can tell the legislature hey we've already primed ourselves for that cap to be lifted right that's an argument for putting this language in now the other flip side of it is I don't want to do anything with making solid concentrates harder to sell on this market than they already are because of the cap and it's an additional warning label necessary um well again this was a this is something that came from the ASDM draft and it's something similar is in there final I believe and also addresses a comment from the VMS that we've gotten regularly about I just see it yeah I just see it on from two different perspectives on whether or not yeah it's helpful right now right I I agree if it's in there then absolutely when when we start having a conversation with the legislature about lifting a cap if we do that again and we can say of course we already are you know ensuring that the public is understands that these products are more potent um and then there's no delay right they don't have to wait for us to write an extra rule it's already there um if the legislature chooses to lift the cap but I agree with you it can go either way do we have a recommended serving size for concentrates in our pamphlet there is a recommended well it's yes there is a suggested way to start with concentrates and I think it's like the tip of a pen no that like Colorado blew up a period they like they did yeah yeah I don't I don't think we Nellie would know I don't recall if we did that but we did we did describe what a first dose would look like so I have a feeling that if the cap on solid concentrates gets lifted that there is going to be a requirement that we develop a either a point of sale fire or a warning specific to concentrates for concentrate packaging and so I would I would not again just want to have one warning label that people are printing you know thousands of times and then have to change it potentially as soon as next year um yeah I mean that's kind of in the middle of what I was referring to I guess because that's assuming that the legislature would be comfortable with whatever language is currently in rule yeah I would admit well I don't know I have a feeling that they would not be just you know it just in my experience like I think that what they're going to want to see is that because the effects of consuming a high THC solid concentrate may differ from the effects of eating an edible I think they're going to want to see a specific warning label for high THC solid concentrates especially because Colorado which initially allowed IT or still does but there is a bill to almost get rid of them and it got turned into we'll make a specific warning label for them so I think I think my inclination would be to wait for this directive so that we don't have people print you know however many of these and then have to change it but we can you know happy to continue to receive comment on this and see how we feel about this in July and I feel the same way about the the vape the vape additional instruction I mean I agree anything anything more anyone want to talk about this anymore Julie no I'm good okay so 2.6 point 2.6.4 I just wanted to read that one more time sorry I think I think that's good I think it's you know I was just looking at that part C there um that's almost identical to the language in New Jersey um you know I like you said Gabe I know that you know we've been there's been conversation about limiting that to 5% but I think you know I think 10% is probably sufficient to protect the kind of you know potential adverse effects that have been noted by some some of the experts in this but um yeah okay 2.17.1 does anyone have anything before that nope no so this goes of course directly to our hemp tour and we got a lot of comment about hemp drive products during our administrative rules hearings um you know I think one thing that we've we're asked by a number of hemp producers is that you know just because something might be intoxicating by a Vermont standard it's not intoxicating by you know a main like Maine or you know Texas or something is there a way that we can still continue to produce these that they're not illegal to produce in Vermont not illegal to possess but can be shipped out of state and I don't know how people in the board feel about this is that Gabe I don't see that length like a safe harbor provision in this oh there has not been the safe harbor provision added to the draft at this point but I have heard discussion and suggestions that adding the safe harbor provision similar to what was done in Colorado legislatively um would be a solution or could be a potential solution for manufacturers who wish you should not a state be protected right now this language prohibits that yeah you know I think one of the things that we have heard with with you know infrequent we heard frequently from a lot of the hemp producers around the state is how much of their sales are from e-commerce and shipping to a number of different states you know we're responsible for the products that are sold and bought in Vermont by Vermonters and those visiting state of Vermont if if a different state has different as we heard a definition of what an intoxicating cannabis product is you know I think a safe harbor provision you know makes sense and I think one of the questions that I've asked folks is I think it's quite clear that FDA is going to act over the next couple years once they get the authority to do so through this farm bill on a lot of these hemp-derived THC products um you folks want to rip the band-aid off now and not be able to sell because I think FDA when when they get the authority to regulate this they're gonna they're gonna do so restrictively I think it's gonna either be you but we have presented or even more restrictive so the fear of out of state competition for a state that maybe has a 1.75 milligram of THC you know limit and a 15 to 1 ratio eventually those folks are gonna have to abide by what FDA is telling them to do which is probably more in line with what we're telling them to do they can have a couple years of runway to kind of make that change themselves and have to save our provision or rip the band-aid off and not do it now and folks said that they wanted the couple years to figure it out so I think that I think that makes sense Julie how do you feel about that I agree with that yep okay so so Gabe I don't think a safe harbor provision would be that challenging to draft I think a number of other states have them for these types of products are you are you willing to take a crack at that for the kind of publication of this yeah I'd be happy to I guess I can take that as an instruction from the board to add what would probably could be done concisely as a two one seven three deep that would you know essentially define the protected activities in the same way that Colorado has I realize some listeners might not know what we're talking about if you can Google pretty easily Colorado safe harbor or something and you'll see that what that state and a few others did to address this issue is to say okay you can't sell in in our state but you may export to you may manufacture an export to states where they decided that that sale should be awful so I'd be happy to give that a try and probably just in the form of a new sub d to two one seven three and bring that to you actually we could publish that that would mean that we wouldn't be able to put our update on the web for about 24 hours but that's probably I yeah I think I think it's better to get to wait to I mean I think it's better to publish a little bit delayed but have that provision in there so people have a chance to see it because again I think a lot of the controversy we heard over this emergency rule ended up not being about the substance but about the kind of the actual language and knew that it was confusing to people so I think getting it out there and not having it kind of sprung on people on the 19th would be helpful and I also don't think and Julia kind of happy to be overruled on this that we should have a safe harbor for delta 8 and delta 10 and the kind of synthetics I think are semi-synthetics I really wanted to find them I think it really should be related to products that maybe don't meet these presumptions the 1.5 per serving the 20 to 1 ratio yep that's how I'm thinking about it and I think you know one of the things I talked with Gabe about this and just to fill you two in while we're all here I think we heard from at least one person that has a retail store specific to hemp products you know the way these safe harbor provisions often work is the producer can sell in the other states and this retailer has a lot of e-commerce in this area you know if we just did a safe harbor from a producer relationship out of state you know they wouldn't be captured by the safe harbor and I think Colorado has a safe harbor provision for a retailer too yes they saw the same problem and they created kind of safe harbor for related entities that would be in the chain to also deal yeah and again just recognizing how how much e-commerce in the hemp products spaces is quite prevalent as folks look for Vermont craft CBD product or I should say hemp product great and you know again these presumptions don't apply to the presumptions in 2.17.2 don't apply to smokable hemp flowers is that right just to be clear that was a question that we got a few times when we're out on our tour I think they do in the sense that the smokable hemp flower to which concentrated THC would have been officially applied no yes I think people were confused with and it's again they they're not typically subject to our regulations how we define cannabis and we define cannabis product so cannabis product to them meant smokable flower not not smokable flower that had been sprayed back on with Delta 9 THC or anything like that just just straight straight flower and I just said look we define cannabis product and we define cannabis this is about cannabis products not about the flower so I think that was again just getting used to how we define things that the ccb world versus how maybe the age to have agriculture to find things before us yes I think that I think that's accurate but to be clear campus flower hemp flower to which artificial THC concentrate was reapplied with the product yes yep okay yep just without that aspect it wouldn't be subject to this thank you I think that's exactly right all right um that's that's the last on this one and I don't have anything for rule four anyone else have anything on on either two one two or four just to clarify on 2.17 these are the rules for hemp products that fall into adult use we haven't written any and or forthcoming our rules around other hemp products is that right that's a good point there's the the meta hemp rule is out there for the next okay um so again deferring action on these until next meeting which means I think we can continue down our agenda I'm sorry to everyone watching does anyone want to take a break um by the way brand are you okay okay I'm going to just rock and roll Dave do you need a mental health break a leg stretch break I might but you don't have to hold up on my account I can I can go stretch and come you're free now do you want to take a vote on rule four that's an excellent question did you want there there is consensus I believe on rule four and there's no notice issue on rule four nothing much has changed about it did you want as a body to approve rule four for submission to out there right now and then we'll be down to one and two you know I I think that there's a good reason to do that other than I don't I didn't make that clarification when I announced it just like uh you know before we started this process that we were going to do something different for rule four so I just given that I don't think anything is going to change except you know like does it so it'll make it onto the el car calendar for next month as opposed to the month after and there's probably a good reason that we have that in place sooner rather than later it would give us if it would codify our appellate process in a way that isn't done right now okay well then I'm fine with doing it I mean and we haven't received we didn't receive any substantive comments on it today um or I don't think throughout the process frankly um so um I'm fine with that Julie and Kyle you're comfortable with that yep yep all right does someone have a motion to approve um rule four for submission el car uh I move to approve the amendments to cannabis cannabis control board administrative rule four as presented to us in this meeting that's nice I will second all in favor hi hi great okay great um so looking down the agenda for today I think we're up to the recommendations um executive director report and staff recommendations yep so I'm gonna start with the executive director report and as the chair mentioned um and his opening comments I think that we will take a pause at the end of the report on the data um to go into executive session to discuss staff recommendations on um social equity status oh uh oh hold on okay so I'll try and scoot through these a little bit since we've been at this for a long time um it's actually a little bit of a shorter update than usual um just given where we are in the year so it shouldn't take quite as long as it normally does um so I'll start with our public engagement updates um since our last board meeting um as noted uh there was quite a bit of um public engagement on the hemp emergency rule and the language that you just reviewed in rule two governing hemp derived products so that made up the bulk of our public engagement in the last month the hemp listening tour between July 13 or June 13th and June 19th we also had a Q&A session on that uh emergency rule and we also did a Q&A session early in the month on the medical program so what will be coming up uh in the next couple of months is the medical program stakeholder group meeting and as um we have we we are compiling a list of uh stakeholders that have reached out to us that would like to participate in this effort um and if you haven't reached out to us to indicate that you'd like to participate you can email um ccb.med at vermont.gov as the chair indicated in the opening remarks so those meetings haven't been scheduled yet they will be scheduled fairly soon um the schedule will be posted to the website with links to join um but if you would specifically like to hear about them uh send an email and we will include you as a part of the stakeholder group so as I do every month I'm updating the public and the board on what guidance documents have been amended and updated and posted to the website so in the last since the last board meeting we've um we've put through updates to our fencing guidance um our mapping and GPS coordinate coordinate guidance and also the local control commission guidance um so those are all new and updated to the website so check them out so we'll move to our licensing data for the adult use program um starting out with our uh our chart that demonstrates our average number of days from submission to approval based on license type um this chart over time just demonstrates that we're pretty consistently um taking around 90 days to review cultivation applications um and less than that for every other license type employee ID cards are hovering around 58 days right now so still real consistent data here this is our new submission slide so um all of the new cannabis establishment applications that we've gotten um in the month of June are here um and you can see they're broken out by by status so in the last month we've gotten um the majority of our new submissions have been from social equity applicants eight of them uh six of them are from standard applicants and three from economic empowerment um and this obviously represents a significant decline um since May and that is due to the closure of our outdoor application outdoor and mixed application windows so you can see May there was a huge um increase in the number of new applications that we got and that was um due to again the the fact that the board is closed the outdoor and mixed um cultivation application window so um these numbers are only active of new application new license applications not renewals um and so this is a summary of our renewal submissions it's got 27 renewals that were submitted um in the since the last board meeting um the majority of them 75 percent are standard applicants um about 11 percent are social equity applicants and 15 percent are economic empowerment applicants and the licensing team is working on developing some comparison data um to demonstrate how many of our social equity applicants we and all other status of applicants we are retaining okay and this is the just this is just a summary of our new submissions by type of license um so we've got you know about six cultivation five retail four manufacturer and one wholesale application new as of this month here's our slide um demonstrating the total number of issued licenses so we are still around 56 percent of our issued licenses are to small cultivators um we're up to 58 retail licenses that we've issued at this point um and this seems like a good place to note that I the I haven't included for this month um the total license canopy slide that I normally provide to you we're going to hold um that information to the later summer meetings when we have a more accurate assessment of um how much space our license cultivators are utilizing this growth season um the slide shows our renewals um since last month so we've got nine renewals in total that have been done about half of them are cultivator renewals um and the other half I think are wholesalers and manufacturers that renewed off cycle um this is a summary of what else the licensing team is doing um that's sort of happening outside of these board meetings so we've gotten 24 amendments to issued licenses um and so far we've issued over 550 employee ID cards um and that includes renewals so we've got 11 renewals that we've processed so far for the employee um another synopsis of what licensing is doing outside of the board meetings we've gotten um around 450 new submissions um in the last month since the last board meeting so those are all things that the licensing team is processing here's our retail map of retail locations in the state um looks pretty similar to how it did last month um you can see this is the zoom in on your area of density which is Burlington um and we've got the full Burlington map on the left and the downtown map on your right shows um how these issued retail licenses um are dispersed in that area um as for other areas of density this is your sort of chart that describes um where else in the state you're seeing uh density of retail establishments um there's only the change from last month is just a reduction so um there was there's one fewer um there's one less retail application in the queue for Burlington um because we did have a withdrawal there so no no upward um trends this month so moving on to product registration um this is just the status of our product registration submissions um by the numbers so we've gotten just under 2300 total product registration applications in the door um the majority of them just under 2000 have been registered we've got 267 that are currently in submitted status so those are awaiting review 16 are currently under review we've got 42 that have been resubmitted so those are also awaiting our review and then 340 are incomplete and um need additional information from the licensee to in order to register those um here's the breakdown of product registration by the status therein it's just a different way of looking at the same thing um and then here we've got a breakdown of the product type um for product registration and this includes all um of the products that have been submitted so they are registered these this includes registered products and products that are still um in other statuses so you can see the the about 75 percent is still flour um we've got 10 percent each for extracts and edibles and then those smaller um slivers of the pie are tinctures and topicals I think we're at 2 percent for topicals right now 3 percent for tinctures so um little little micro changes um in this chart over over the months okay I'll move on to our compliance data now um so starting with advertising um again this is the slide shows a summary of uh our advertising submissions and the staff decisions on advertising since we started reviewing these submissions last November um you can see the so at the top the top bullet there we've gotten 113 submissions um so far and our approval and denial rate in the last few months has been about half and half so that's improving over time we've approved 57 now denied 42 um and again the reasons for denial the the the majority of the time we are denying because there's a failure on the part of the licensee to meet that um requirement that they demonstrate a 15 threshold for the use the audience composition um and second to that is a failure to include the health warnings and then we've got other reasons that fall below um so moving on to our inspections um so we've got six compliance agents that are out in the fields um just a brief correction there um something that was stated earlier um there's six of them and they've done 97 total inspections per month and there's the breakdown of license type and investigations we've in the last uh since the last board meeting we've undertaken 30 new investigations and those investigations are about um the list that you see there 18 new complaints have been received since May 18th um and we've issued two notices of violation um since the last board meeting one uh for reasons of on-site consumption and another for a violation of the emergency rule uh requirements i'm gonna chug along i'm sure everyone will anyone will interrupt me if there's any questions um so for the medical program um this is the initial slide that shows the sort of dramatic decrease over time i did for this meeting include the data on 2023 even though we're only halfway through um so this reflects um the the significant drop just um since 2022 over the last six months um in the since 2022 we've had almost a 600 uh patient drop um and over 100 caregivers have dropped from the program just since um the data that was collected in 2022 and you can see that here um just a little dropping a little bit uh every month um so you know perfect perfect timing for the board to undertake um the medical stakeholder program work to think about ways to improve access to the program okay so with that um i before i move on to the staff recommendations it's my suggestion that we um take a pause for executive session to discuss um an applicant that um has applied for social equity status okay thanks for that brain it's really i know that that's a lot of work to put that together every month and it's a lot of work it represents a lot of work too done by the staff so thank you to the staff as well for everything you're doing um why don't we take a break i have a feeling um this one's gonna require a little bit just having read the recommendation a little bit of time i hate to say but um why don't we say 25 minutes um and we'll shoot for 4 30 and who knows maybe we'll get done sooner um but why don't we know if you're still there i don't know if you had to run pick up your child i'm still here i made arrangements okay thank you okay um could you say 4 30 and um you know again we we may get done sooner i can't say for sure um but uh we'll shoot for 4 30 okay that sounds good get that up ever should we move uh sorry suggesting that we move into executive session or take a break i'm sorry i'm confused uh could i have a motion to move into executive session i move that the ccb go into executive session to consider confidential attorney client communications made for the purposes of providing professional legal services to the body and the executive session is required because premature general public knowledge regarding such communications would clearly place the board into substantial disadvantage i further move that the board invites susana davis executive director and j green racial equity research and policy analysts from the office of racial equity associate of vermont into executive session i second all in favor hi hi all right i'm going hand the reins over to ray and um we are still recording okay um so we're out of executive session um just for the record it's uh 4 42 p.m on uh oh i'm in june 26 2023 and um we i think um are ready to look at the staff recommendations yep okay so um we've got here is our list for this month on staff recommendations for social equity status um so we've got five uh recommendations for social equity status approval this month submission number three six four three submission number oh this looks like an incorrect submission number um i'm going to guess that it's submission number one three four five um and we will get that corrected um submission number three three five one submission number four four five two submission number three eight eight one we will get a correction on that second submission number which looks just one digit too long um so that is our list of applicants that have met the criteria for social equity business applicant or social individual applicant as required by board rule for um access to the social equity program um and i've just gotten confirmation that it's one three four five um the second submission number is one three four five not two one three four five thank you ray um okay and then the next set of recommendations is uh staff recommendations for licensure so the businesses on the following pages have all demonstrated compliance with the requirements for their license that are contained in board rule and in statute and i'm not um going to read the list to you because it is long um and i don't even remember exactly how long it is but it's it's three pages long so here's your lists one two three pages of businesses that have demonstrated um their appropriateness for licensure that is the list we will have it published on the website um this evening and the last page is our staff recommendations for license renewal and um that's another long one so i'm not going to read those either but um given that it's the end of a very long board meeting i don't think anyone will mind but i'm not really i'm mind besides you you're the only one of mine all right i'm just kidding um okay all right um so these for those who join by the phone will be posted uh to our website um i think brent said hopefully this evening if not tomorrow so you will be able to see everyone that got approved and is there a motion to approve the staff recommendations for social equity and licensure i move to approve the staff recommendations made to us in this meeting second any discussion nope nope right all in favor hi hi hi great thank you for that brent thanks gabe for your help thanks to the whole licensing team and compliance team and why don't we move to public comment so um i know it's a long it's been a long day but if you'd like to uh make a public comment you join by the link please raise your virtual hand i can call on you in the order that you um that you raise them and um then we'll shift to folks that joined by the phone bobby burge i'm gonna unmute you in a second here we go hi i'll spare you all more on the 2.24 talk as you'll be getting uh some written uh thoughts on that soon enough uh i just wanted to briefly make a suggestion for product registration and that is to uh allow licensees to update them while they are in submission i understand that you know uh applications are considered in the order they're approved i think it would probably be pretty easy to automate a system so that would you know re queue anything that's edited so it doesn't like jump queue or anything um just i mean i'm personally in a situation right now where i've had a pending uh registration for like four months i think and i noticed something wrong with it on the resubmission and i can't edit the uh resubmitted thing until it is reviewed so you know by the time this product gets to the shelves it's gonna be like six seven months you know uh anyways figured that might streamline things thanks a bunch thanks bobby tito hey can you hear me okay yeah so thank you so much to everybody who worked on that wave tax uh it's so incredible actually that actually happened so thank you and uh quickly um definitely would love to see the removal of the cessation of operations escrow and uh also agree with pepper about not dictating low thc products or guidance or however that was working um thank you hope you have a good day bye thanks tito anyone else who joined via the link um just raise your virtual hand and if you join by phone and would like to comment uh you can hit star six to unmute your phone just give it one last minute here i don't see anybody coming off mute that's on the phone pepper but okay one maybe uh phone number ending in this 7141 if you if you join via phone and your number ends in 7141 we just saw that you unmuted if you'd like to make a comment now's the time uh no i was we were watching online and i just we lost everything and i was trying to figure out how the votes went oh okay yeah we approved all of the licenses that were up um for right they were recommended to us thank you very much yep thank you and i know there's a number of people that joined via the phone we'll make it make sure that list is posted um so you all can see who was approved thank you anyone else going once twice all right i'll close the public comment window and um just want to thank everyone for sticking it out both on the ccb side and on the kind of participant side we'll see you again july 19th and i'll adjourn the meeting thank you all