 I think the shape of it is the highest exact. This is, you know, the step up and then back to once everything is done. Yes. So we are facing this. I understand that we do have some people who signed up as undecided. We will get them in as well, but we will be alternating so we can get through to everybody. Actually, we will ask people on the list to pick a number or how we have it arranged, but to see which actually goes first. Trying to keep it as mutual as possible in terms of process. I ask people to please turn off your cell phones. I also ask people not to clap or please keep your remarks to yourselves. And please, this is a house where we respect all views, even if we might not share them. And it's a time to listen to each other. The timer is up there. The green is start and the yellow light is 30 seconds left. We are total of 2 minutes. We will stop you right at 2. We realize that everybody might not be able to testify, but you are welcome to hand in comments. Anybody can hand in comments to our committee assistant, Jean Lowell, who is behind me. Or on our committee site, certainly email us and we are posting all comments we receive. The screen names will be called, as well as the two people who are on the deck that we list. So that way people can get up. And really our attention is to hear from as many people as possible in the two hours. What we're going to do is I've got three pieces of paper here. Pro, anti and undecided. And that's going to decide which one. With the orders. A child proof album. Pro is going first. Undecided. The first name I call will be the first to testify. And the other two names will be on the top. The first name will be Abby Earth. Frank Nelson. Paulette. And Kim Vader. From Arlington. I went to the bill allowing home cultivation for personal use. As a user on the medical marijuana registry, I and other individuals in the medical marijuana community would benefit. And that would significantly reduce the cost of our medication, which presently is absorptively expensive. And not covered by health insurance drug claims. Opposition 65 from the state of California. We'll give you all the evidence. I'm a person in the agency of marijuana smoke. Where they have listed marijuana smoke as officially the California EVA as a person in the agency. It will cause direct marijuana smoke. And statistically significant associated with cancer. Plum, head and neck, bladder, brain and testes. And for end of marijuana smoking both for very gestations. And statistically significant associated with cancer. They go on and they will give you a copy of this. They go on to their site to catch all of the cancers. You can Google this online. marijuana smoke, tobacco smoke, shared many characteristics with regard to chemical composition. The top 60 and last block of activity. Macros smoke is a proposition 65 carcinogen. The question is that there's been an impact study in the potential of an Austrian health care apostle smoking pot. Versus bathing or other injustices which might be safer. Because we're talking strictly about the carcinogen of the smoking of marijuana. Does the law in its current form have an impact related to the carcinogen evidence from the state of California? So just in back what we'll have now. And you have GMO which has led to one as well. And it says a suggestion. Investigate the idea of keeping the smoking that we potentially would not be able to get into that. Or instead of criminal penalty, the offenders of the law suffer under criminal penalty. With intense serious application on health consequences. And whether it's on a mandatory long-term community service. Or whether it's performed at a cancer ward or a hospice. But you can watch the test of cancer personally. If kids get caught smoking tobacco. They're under age. The same kind of issue. Thank you. Represent myself and my husband. And 500,000 residents in Vermont who are close to marijuana legalization. We have a great concern for how this will impact our adolescence. There's a lesson to be learned from Collagad. Which now leads in the use of recreational marijuana between the ages of 12 and 17. I also wanted to address this. My husband's associated with IACP. Which is the International Association of Chiefs of Police. They managed the DEC program. Which is the drug evaluation classification. Which oversees the training of the DRB. Which is drug recognition experts. This is only a screening test. It's not evidentiary. There are no national standards. If prospective impaired drivers are stopped. And being impaired. And are sent out to get a blood test. Which is an anagram. There is no way. There's no national standard. Which means any driver can argue the point. And go out to court. Which will now increase legal fees. Court time. Will tie up our law enforcement officers. And put us a strain on them. So you need to consider that. That's something to think about. There are no national standards. DRBs are not the answer right now. Law enforcement work. I will say that. You need to be aware of that. Your case numbers are up next. And then on the back, there will be Amnesty Schenholm and Sara Bowen. I attended many of the senate government operations committee meetings last year on this issue. And I made that comprehensive brand report. So why is it commissioned by the Vermont legislature. Prior to that. I am proud of our senators who thoughtfully and judiciously considered this issue. And I'm pleased to see the House committee members doing the same. At here in class quality Vio, I listened to all of the comments. moved by the young woman, a student at CVU who testified about the risk to teens are current unregulated and illegal market poses. While many of those against legalization raise the alarm that legalizing will put work teams at risk and increase use among them, she testified that as things are now, and I'm trying to say spoiler alert, kids have easy access to marijuana and that this access involves a potentially high risk situation of teens dealing with black market dealers. Legalization done well, as I believe the current legislation under consideration is, would greatly curtail this risk. And in response to those who cite Colorado statistics that teen use has increased since legalization, I would like to point out that while there has been a very slight statistical increase, the results come from a small sample of teens and that very slight increase has been noted by the top doctor at the Colorado Department of Health to not be statistically significant, and specifically that no demonstrable link between legalization and increased teen use exists. It seems clear that the regulation that this world would impose would offer far greater safety to teens than our current situation of turning a blind eye and pretending we are somehow protecting them. Thank you. I was speaking today about the current state of marijuana's relationship to teens as to be found under surveys, and another possibility was to be about a possible change in teen marijuana under some access rules. In this survey, we found that marijuana as it is right now, while not as much in younger high school students, is highly accessible and commonly used among younger high school students. Of the ninth grade viewers that took our survey, 28% of respondents reported to have used marijuana at least once in their life, while a much higher rate of use was found in 11th grade students, with 66% reported that they had used marijuana. The accessibility of marijuana as reported by the student survey was consistent with the amount of use, and that ninth grade students responded saying that they had less access to marijuana, whereas 11th grade students had greater access. When given a one to ten scale, a response of one meaning that marijuana is very difficult for the student to access, and a response of ten meaning that marijuana is very easy for the student to access. Most ninth grade responses were scattered, but 26% of respondents answered one of telling us that for a considerable portion of ninth grade students, marijuana is quite inaccessible as it is right now. For 11th grade students, marijuana is much more useful to access, with 95% of respondents in the eight to ten range when given the same question. Almost all 11th grade students said that marijuana would be very easy to access, even in its current decriminalized state. Currently, as our survey shows, older high school students have very easy access to marijuana, and the majority have used the drug in the past. Even without being fully legalized for their adults, marijuana is very much available and popular with certain groups of minors. Sarah Downs, who protects the vulnerable in Vermont? Our legislature. It's your duty to protect and nurture our citizens. This isn't about prohibition that I've seen on TVA or loss of freedom. It's already decriminalized and it's already, we have medical marijuana. It's about the unintended consequences. Most adults can use it safely. I'm a teacher of almost 40 years, and I'm in the trenches of the high school. So this one girl who spoke from Burlington is very articulate, but I'm dealing with the students on a daily basis, whose lives are ruined within their homes as a result already of something that is illegal. When we make it more available, the data shows use goes up. Ten percent addiction of young teens and an 8-point IQ drop, why are we going to spend money on education when we're looking at that? Who's going to be our increased workforce? When I looked at the polls and said, oh, people are a favor of it, and then you talk to them. They don't know anything about what it does to a teen brain. And this is permanent damage that we're talking about. And UC Davis just came out with a study that people in their middle age have much less success socially and economically. If they've been smoking all along, it scares me to see this happen to our students who are the most vulnerable. Their brains are not developed. They will have access. They don't have much data from the other states, but what we do have is there's an increase with kids, 38% of the kids who were arrested or got signed with high schools. They received their drugs. They're marijuana from someone over 21 who bought it illegally at some place if they could. The other thing I want to say, I met a fourth grade teacher who said in the wintertime the secondhand smoke in the jackets in her classroom creates such an unhealthy environment. It's an unintended consequence that all of her children will be living upon. Thank you. Next up, Tom McCann. Isabel McCann is on that. So my name is Tom McCann. I'm a protest finance board of S241. I'm going to keep my comments short, but I have emailed and comments. I hope you all take a look at those later. McCann has already spent a good deal of time and done a remarkable job considering this issue. And in particular, the finance and intent of S241 lay out the arguments and favor of this legislation really well. Much of the opposition to legalization and S241 involves non-concept introducing marijuana against the marketplace, or making it available to kids and to migrants on the road. The fallacy of this common argument is marijuana is already in the marketplace. It's being actively used by roughly 80,000 personas each month. The ad bill that I just told us that right now it's easier for kids to have legal marijuana to regulate it out on them. And we heard that from student speakers just a moment ago. The current approach simply doesn't work. If the question was should we introduce marijuana, the answer would probably be no. But that's not the question at all. For monitors, we're constituents. Have been using marijuana for decades. And the issue before the legislation now is having a favor for everyone, but raising much of the attachment to be used to reduce the use and impact of more dangerous drugs. I hope your two committees and the House will support national legalization of my S241 rather than clinging to emotional arguments that are opposed to introduction, but are already common argument. In conclusion, I've looked at this issue from a thousand perspectives and I understand why some people oppose legalization. But S241 offers a well-considered and very reasonable approach. As you work through the issue, I urge you to focus on legalizing personal possession first and make crushing black market priority, and use the new tax revenue to address a broader drug problem rather than offset general spending. Thank you all very much for listening, and I hope you have a chance to review my really taxed money later on. I hope you can, and I'm a 9th grade student out to the R.I. School. Recently, I worked with Anders Schoenholm on a project that surveyed 9th and 11th grade students at our school to see how the legalization of S241 would affect teens' access to use and abuse of marijuana. After finding data for different usage and accessibility of marijuana among 9th and 11th grade students at Montpellier High School, we looked at the possible change of high school's relation to marijuana if S241 goes to be passed. Despite the difference in access between the age groups, as Anders mentioned, 10% of both 9th and 11th grade students responded saying that they might start using marijuana if S241 passes. Surprisingly, in the 9th grade that reported, 6% of respondents that they would stop consuming marijuana if it were to be legalized. Judging from the results of our survey, S241 does not have the potential to significantly add to the number of current marijuana users in grades 9 and 11, with nearly half of respondents already claiming to use marijuana, another 5% or 6% added to this would be very minor. In fact, only 2% of 9th grade students strongly agree that access to marijuana would be easier if it were to be legalized. While the 11th graders would ask the same thing, 25% said that they strongly agree and 29% were entirely neutral. Overall, leaving the general 11th graders slightly in agreement with the statement that legalization would be easier if marijuana could be easier to access if it was legalized. The conclusions to be made from our data suggest that the majority of high schoolers have used marijuana before and that with age, the usage and accessibility of marijuana increases. Overall, marijuana is relatively easy to access and passing S241 would not significantly increase access or usage of marijuana among our school students. I am Cynthia Leschak from West Townsend, Vermont. I am a current medical marijuana patient. I find marijuana very helpful to control pain and inflammation that I can't manage with regular prescribed medicines because of their side effects. I have never in my life smoked cannabis. To relieve my pain and inflammation, I have created an alcohol-based tincture by mixing raw, organic opioid cannabis with alcohol that I put in my kidney. I feel no intoxicating effects, but I get real relief from my symptoms. So I am here to protest some of the language of the current S241, which alcohol is alcohol-based tinctures and oils. If passed, this law could make me a criminal. I also know a number of sick folks who rely on the commonly called Rickie Singson oil to control their symptoms. They too will be made criminals and deny what they need by this bill. One of the reasons I became interested in cannabis legalization is because of frustration with the dispensaries. So I was able to develop low THC high CBD strains that work on my particular form of inflammation. Of course I know that my cannabis is 100% organic and pesticide free. Under the current medical program I will have only two flowering plants per season. I would like to advocate for personal cultivation in the bill. In its original form S241 allowed every verandah 100 square feet to cultivate their own cannabis. This language was replaced in the Senate Judiciary Committee with a scheme to create a government regulated monopoly that continues the prohibition of cannabis cultivation back by the unprecedented expansion of the police. This is a very bad idea that lays down the foundation for a war against firm owners. I have a lot of other problems with the current bill but only two minutes to speak. So I will finish by asking this committee to turn down S241. Let's start over and get it right, please. And thank you so much. Christa Ma'am, we'll be on. And then we'll have Jennifer Delker and Richard Beach. Yes, I'm Christa Ma'am. A few years ago I reclaimed it and thus nurtured one marijuana plant that was thrown from the spider plant in our small green house mall. This seed had been thrown into the spider plant by a friend of my son. What resulted, once I was reported and found myself in the jaws of the criminal justice system, was an extraordinary ways of public and yes, private resources that ultimately led to a 7-8 court decision and a disposition of a charges dismissed by the justice judgment of the law. Thank goodness that we still have privacy rights in Vermont. What a waste indeed. Deep criminalization legislation is now a force although dealing with the issue of plants was avoided at that time and appears to be headed toward avoidance once again. If that issue is not dealt with head on now, or at least when prohibition is, you're never really lifted in Vermont, and ultimately in the entire nation, it will still remain in Vermont for any citizen of Vermont to raise any number of marijuana plants in their own home or on their own property. Current Vermont statute now states, quote, a person convicted of cultivating marijuana, and that is any amount of marijuana, shall be imprisoned not more than two years or fined, not more than $2,000. Once you get past three plants, the punishment grows up, but two years in jail and a $2,000 fine for one marijuana plant in my own home or on my own property, that is really the law of the land here. And wait a minute, we're talking about making it legal now, believing that aspect of the law unchanged. It just doesn't make sense. In the end, this is a liberty issue, pure and simple. Yes, let us end this failed and costly prohibition. Maintaining a prohibition on growing new plants would be like ending the prohibition of alcohol, believing the personal production of beer, wine, and our alcohol spirits illegally. Doing that would truly define reason and would be the front personal freedom. Jennifer Decker, I have a consensus point to make based on the listening I've been doing to all the citizens of Vermont on this issue. I would like to see the Vermont legislature do the right thing and set the legal age for recreational cannabis at 25 years of age. This will help prevent a number of health risks. First of all, it will be far less likely for legal recreational products to be available on school campuses and this will help create a buffer between legal buyers and young people. Young people ought only to be able to have the product for medical purposes such as autism and epilepsy. Another factor in my suggestion for setting the legal age at 25 is that this is the age at which one's brain becomes fully developed. It's important that our laws reflect biology and be based in science. There is some risk for very small numbers of the population that THC may cause psychotic symptoms. These symptoms are most likely to become evident in the late teen years and early 20s. The legal age at 25 will help to reduce the risk of serious mental health complications. When I went to the forum at the Davis Center at UVM this winter the primary concerns I heard from those opposed to the legislation were concerns about youth access and concerns about negative mental health outcomes. These valid concerns can best be addressed by setting the legal age for cannabis at 25. It would be far easier to lower the age in the future than to increase it. I do think this would be the right thing to do. If Vermont goes ahead with legalization of recreational cannabis in 2016 I would like to see a real commitment on the part of the state to reducing the barriers to medical use for people who need the plant. I would also like to see a significant investment in research and development of products with more subtle helpful effects that are non-psychoactive and that are helpful for sleep and pain and inflammation. I would really like to make sure that the legal age is 25 to protect brain development until adulthood. Thank you. I am Richard Beech of West Townsend, Vermont. I was an early advocate of the original S241 which after eight months of careful detail testimony envisioned a fair approach to cannabis cultivation for all Verminers. I was kind of surprised that of course in a couple weeks the Senate Judiciary Committee completely changed that vision into a state regulated monopoly, including an unprecedented expansion of the state police and a continuation of the failed drug wars against Verminers. I am now a vocal opponent. I believe the Governor and now the Legislature will settle the frauds of our citizens for a sane marijuana legalization policy. For an excellent example of what voters might expect, please take a look to our southern border where Massachusetts citizens have brought forth a ballot initiative that will be voted on in November and if passed, become law in December 2016. This citizen initiative allows for generous homegrown cultivation. It does not create a state regulated monopoly or the ensuing bureaucracy. It does not provide new funding for Massachusetts police. And importantly, it calls for a tax rate that is less than half of what S241 dictates. In other words, marijuana purchased across the border in Massachusetts will be considerably less expensive than that sold in Vermont under S241. We've all seen the economic devastation on our eastern border towns created by bad state tax policy. One hopes that we can learn from those tough lessons. If S241 cannot be amended and passed to include personal cultivation, yes, we do the right thing and vote it down. Let's get it right. All right, next up we will have Andrew Swingforth and then on deck Jennifer Haas Camp and Jim Roy. Good afternoon. My name is Andrew Swingforth. I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity. I speak for the trees. Before marijuana prohibition in the 1920s, cannabis was available in pharmacies around the U.S. as medicine. George Washington once grew hemp at the Mount Vernon as one of his three primary crops. Worldwide, cannabis has a long and strong history. Hemp and hemp seeds have been used to make fuel, oil, plastic, medicine, fabric and much more. It is simply a miracle plant. It's time to take this plant away from the black market and give it back to the people using the profits for treatment, not incarceration. Let our local and state police have the time and funding to fight the war on opiates, a major problem facing our state and the nation. I will continue to use marijuana with or without this bill. We can either give the money to the black market or give it back to Vermont and thus lead the people. This needs to happen now. And remember down the road we can fight for our right to home grow. This bill is a large step in the right direction. Thank you. Hi, my name is Jennifer Haskamp. I am a three-year Montpelier resident and also three-year Vermonter. And the reason I am undecided is because although I'm a personal influencer, my concern is partly the motivation if are we looking more to drive profit or we're just looking to give people access without having to go through a black market, know that they're getting an organic product. And in Vermont I found that that's a really difficult thing to do. And as somebody who's a law abiding citizen who does not condone driving under the influence or anything like that, my other big concern is regional tourism and people from around the region coming in and actually having traffic issues from those causes. And so while I personally would really like to see access of different streams for certain conditions, on the other hand my concern is that if we open the gateway a little bit too much, because it's already fairly open, that we could have some unintended consequences. But again, I would like to see safe access for people who do use it for personal reasons and really it's kind of the in-between between a recreational and a medical. So that's all. My name is James Roy. I'm a native Vermont in a 31-year veteran of Vermont law enforcement and I am one of Vermont's drug recognition experts. I am opposed to the legalization of cannabis in Vermont as it is so put forth in the bill. I have 27 years of working in the area of impaired driving both as a practitioner and as an instructor. Cannabis use and subsequent driving does pose a very real and measurable danger to the citizens and visitors of the state of Vermont. Law enforcement has seen a trend in Vermont's highway fatalities in which drug driving related fatalities are now three to one over alcohol related fatalities. The drug that shows up most commonly in those fatalities is cannabis. I fear that legalization will allow this trend and numbers to increase for the worse. Much like the increase we have seen since we decriminalized marijuana. I feel the current provisions for law enforcement in the bill are not sufficient as they are currently written and I'm not sure that they're attainable. In regards to Vermont's opiate crisis cannabis still shows up more in impaired driving events than does heroin or any of the other opiate products. Thank you. When I'll have Bruce Richards and Ira Allen will be on deck. Hi folks, thanks for hosting. Thanks for your service. My name is Bruce Richards. I'm a retired high school English and history teacher having talked for 35 years in various spots including Blue Mountain and Foxbow. As an old teacher I'm insecure without visual aids so I brought along a picture of my great-grandfather born exactly 100 years before I was. He was Reverend John Wesley Richards and he did a lot of good things around the turn of the century. I'm going to ask my representative to hold it here. This is Fanny, my great-grandmother and the two of them worked for a lot of really good causes quite a while ago. Fanny worked for women's rights, children's rights and Reverend Richards worked for many progressive things but they both worked for temperance as well. She was a founder of the Women Christian Temperance Union and he had his speeches published in Chicago newspapers around the turn of the century so they fought very hard people that I respect enormously but Fanny lived long enough to see their work turn into prohibition, the 18th amendment and prohibition and she also lived long enough to see that it was a disaster. Crime rose, politics was corrupted, tens of thousands of people were sickened, blinded and even died from bad booze but probably the worst of all was that it gave birth to organized crime in America and you can see that I'm not used to having a two minute warning so I'm just going to go right to the end. I think it's time to legalize marijuana, take it away from the criminals, give the revenue to you guys to do good things for our society. In fact I think it's high time to end this prohibition. Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is in fact Ira Allen 7th generation, 8th generation is back there in the bleachers and the 9th generation are all doing their other things this afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and to make that little spale. I'm opposed to the legalization and the eventual sale by the state of Vermont of marijuana. I think that to advocate marijuana sends a very confusing message at this point. I think that we recently have seen the success of an anti-smoking campaign. You don't see a lot of folks on the street with cigarettes in contrast to other states where you might go. There currently is talk about raising the legal age for obtaining tobacco from current 18 to 21 years old. Note that there is currently talk about regulating electronic cigarettes. Now comes the state advocating the sale and the use of marijuana. That's why we ought to think about that whole package of directions and see if that makes sense. Has been a talk here today correctly about the market. I think that should the state get into the business of selling marijuana there would still be left unserved the younger folks and I think that demand would be met as it currently is. I think that the state in competition with the current supply system, I think the state will come out second best in that effort. Thank you. Next is Paul Reese and on deck will be Emily. Hi, I'm Paul Reese from southern Vermont. I drove up here and it's an important issue and I'm kind of a straight shooter. This is not to be disrespectful for any law enforcement officer but I've partied with the best over the years. I had two friends that went on to be police chiefs and they smoked marijuana in high school. I work at a school as a custodian and I know the teachers that smoked marijuana and they turned out some good students. My daughter smoked a little weed and went on to college as a nurse. You know what, she was a class president. My boy had ADHD. Okay, they put him on all these riddled in medicines. They said it didn't work. He comes home from high school party and I see his eyes are glowing. You know what, he started learning and he smoked a little grass and the counselor said it mellowed him out. So I'm just saying, you've spent millions of dollars incarcerating my friends for addictions. Marijuana has been in southern Vermont for 35 years. 80,000 people are smoking it. We've never stopped smoking it in southern Vermont legal or illegal. Some of the best marijuana has come from Potney and Westminster West. It used to sell for $75 a bag. Why work a temporary part time job for $7 an hour when you can sell weed for $75 on the street. If you tax it too high, the market's under the table and it's been going on my friends for 35 years. Many people have turned on to be professionals and it didn't affect them whatsoever. I smoked one joint in high school chose not to. I almost died at 15 from alcohol poisoning when my eyes flipped over my head. So I'm saying governors, lawmakers, I don't want to get sued but I know who has smoked marijuana and it would be quite embarrassing but they need to look in the mirror and be honest with the children that it's okay because they're not going to turn out rotten and soda pop, Mountain Dew, diabetes, cigarettes, alcohol has killed more people than anybody else. Law enforcement told me one time when I sat in a cruiser at 15, if you want to light up a joint in this cruiser go ahead. He says I've got better things to worry about. Thank you. Please no applause. Thank you. I've been watching this build very closely because like many, many small farmers are hopeful that this new legal crop could further diversify my operation and add to the financial viability of my farm. Unfortunately, this bill as it stands right now excludes small farmers from participating in this economy. Both by the limited licenses and the excessive fees we will be shut out. This bill will take a multimillion dollar industry out of the hands of good hard working Vermonters and handed over to select few corporations while putting millions towards enforcement for those other than the chosen few. The effects of this corporatized, monopolized industry goes beyond this one crop. As it stands right now, the grown in Vermont label carries a great deal of respect and value, something I take a lot of pride in, I'm sure you do too. And it's something that I know this emerging industry is poised to capitalize on. That immediate association with high quality artisanal goods was developed over years of hard work by countless small farmers like myself and those who came before me. Not by a few high production agro businesses. We have a wealth of relevant knowledge and experience in the state. A long history of small scale and subsistence farming. To take this one sustainable, highly profitable crop out of the hands of farmers and handed over to a few businesses would guarantee the lessening of quality and diversity of the crop. Lessening the value and respect of the grown in Vermont label. Yes, we should legalize but legalization that is not accessible to all is not legalization at all. There's an expectation of equality under the law. This bill fails that expectation and it fails Vermont farmers. Please vote it down. Our next speaker will be Debbie Ramsdale and Amos Newton will be on deck. Hi, my name is Debbie Ramsdale. I'm from Bristol recently. Used to live in Sherlock. And I'm here mostly because I've been working on this for 20 years. I started back in the late 90s promoting methadone use for people with addictions. My husband had cancer. I moved on to working for medical marijuana. I sort of helped get that through I think. Then we go for medical marijuana. We go to dispensaries. I was on the task force for medical marijuana. Next we go to Decrim dispensaries. And now basically after I've been doing this for 20 years we're up to legalization which is with my goal the whole time. But mostly I'm here because I'm concerned that from the very beginning I feel like we lied to our children about marijuana that we told them it was bad. It was bad for them. Certainly too much of it is bad but in moderation. But I think that we lied to them and so obviously everyone's been saying well it's easy to get and kids can get it easier than alcohol so they've been using it. They see their friends using it. They try it themselves and they say what's wrong with this? It's not so bad. Then in my mind they say well now we'll go on to cocaine and heroin. And then they really are in trouble because those are bad. I mean those are bad for them. So I just, I support legalizing a marijuana, I support this bill and I leave all the details up to all of you because that's what you do and you do a good job of it. So thank you. Thank you. Amos Newton. And up next will be Ellie Harrington. Hello my name is Amos Newton. I'm from Jamaica, Vermont. I've also been watching this bill from for a while here and I've watched it change from something reasonable into what I see as a money monster. This regulation bill will not change the number of cannabis users in Vermont I don't believe. What it will do, if you disallow home grown or small commercial licenses it basically just takes all that money out of small communities and gives it to a very few people. In no way is this going to eliminate the so-called black market it will only serve to criminalize many Vermonters who simply do not have the option to grow legally. It is hardly fair in a so-called free market to put the competition in jail. This will clog the judicial system up and put a lot of honest hard working people in the court system and create hardship especially for low income Vermonters. Vermont, if it legalizes cannabis, needs to do it in a way that encourages small businesses. I also believe that large scale commercially produced cannabis can in no way produce the quality and diversity that Vermont products are famous for. This is not a step in the right direction. It is a step backwards except for a few people that stand to make a lot of money at the very beginning. I'd also like to point out that as far as getting home grown inserted later when the feds did and prohibition of alcohol, it took over 40 years to legalize home brewing. Jimmy Carter finally did that in the 70s. So I don't believe that for a second. Anyway, please vote against this bill. Alright, it's Eli Harrington. And then Kasim Ibrahim will be on deck. Thank you very much. My name is Eli Harrington and I appreciate the chance to be here. Appreciate all you want to say thank you. I don't take this for granted to have this opportunity. People in other states or my other countries would literally die to be able to do this. So this is amazing and to the staff who are spending overtime. Thank you all for having us. I want to talk a little bit about changing the cannabis paradigm. I think S241 is very much an imperfect bill and agree with a lot of the sentiments, especially of home cultivators who can see how this could lead to commercialization and how hard it is to undo some of these things. However, I think that it's time to change the cannabis paradigm generally and this is a very important step. And not thinking about legislating for 2016 or 2017, not thinking about legislating for 1978, also thinking about legislating for 2026 and thinking about 10 years from now where we could be and how far this will evolve in the region. I just wanted to address a few of the key points because I write about this and have been involved in a lot of these conversations for a long time. From a law enforcement standpoint there are marijuana deweys that are being issued now. There was one written in London Dairy on Monday night where an officer without extra training was able to determine somebody was, I believe they got pulled over for a busted tail light, but was issued a citation. Somebody was arrested distributing marijuana in South Royalton High School just yesterday. So I think our law enforcement community is very capable and I trust their abilities to enforce our laws now. They should have more capacity, but this is happening already. I also just generally want to say, you know, talking about changing the paradigm and looking at some examples, this is our state funded quarterly alcohol guide that we have. The Vermont Department of Liquor Control puts this out. So I think when we're talking about substances, let's think about normalizing in the same way that we talk about cannabis is that normalizing cannabis use is having Narcan over the counter normalizing heroin addiction. You know, so again changing the paradigm, thinking about these things on a more equal playing field. Thank you. My name is Kasim Ibrahim. I'm from Brillington. I wrote a little poem. One step at a time so one time my step, I just want the best for the city I rep. One out of threat this could really be a mess. We came a long way, but we went the wrong way. We made the trip a long fall. Minimum wage, we trapped in this cage of life as a book. You're not stuck. You just hook looking and contemplating ways for the next time you could blaze how you're getting through the chapter. You're not focused on the page. I'm just trying to tell you there's hope to get through this maze. There's always hope. They are the same. We met code, believed there's hope. Oh, it's better for the economy, but we still broke. We can end all this. And so you say you love the city, so defend all this. But if alcohol and tobacco is seen as a threat, you should be worried about what's coming next. John Lang, you're up next. And then on deck, I have two students that would like to go together. How are Adam and back Lisa. I would like to thank you for letting us all speak our minds on this important subject. Prohibition is a terribly failed policy. Our schools are the easiest place in the state to obtain marijuana and most other way more dangerous drugs. By legalization, we may control some of that problem but certainly not all. I feel strongly that legislation will not increase drug or marijuana use. It is already here. It's in our schools with the most valuable vulnerable, excuse me, of our population exposed. Let's all open our mind, forget old prejudice and accept what is slowly becoming normal adult behavior. The consumption of marijuana as is alcohol, which was once demonized, is now considered normal adult behavior in moderation. If this was a voted on decision poll, it would pass. The surveys prove it. I would like to commend the Vermont Senate for their plan to license growers in a tiered system allowing smaller size operations to exist. Though most of their millions spent annually on marijuana is millions that could be spent in our communities to their benefits. My next comment on this subject is public safety, driving. Everyone not familiar thinks that stone drivers will fill our highways, killing hundreds. Nothing could be further from the truth. Obviously, marijuana has been consumed for decades with a minimal accident rate that is directly attributed to only marijuana use, not combined with alcohol. Alcohol tends to be the serious of the two. My comments on law enforcement are most police officers and public safety officials are obviously against this bill, as it is the nature of individuals who aspire to be in those careers who oppose it. I congratulate Wyndham County Sheriff Keith Clark on his support and encourage you to read the interview with Vermont Digger dated January 23rd. If we can legalize marijuana and tax it appropriately to lessen the black market, lessen its impacts on our schools and kids, utilize the millions in revenue it would create by growing this product in our state and reaping the millions in revenue, let's see if we can get it. In our communities and not sending that money to grow operations on the west coast and elsewhere. The production... Next stop will be January is Simpson and Sarah Mason. Potentially call everywhere home. Yes, I'm marijuana who rips the flesh out of your people and then goes directly to their brain to finish the job. And to the youth, well, I'm their personal Harry Potter flying through their every command, entering their souls putting them in eternal darkness. God bless their souls. They are blinded by the fact that I am the killer. They carry anger, depression, attitude on their shoulders as a burden. Classes over, but they refuse to dismiss me. So instead they drop out of school, go on the streets to make what they call bread. These kids come up with excuses claiming it's no big deal. I help them through the day. Smoking weed, grass 420, gang of dope, herb, joint, blunt, cannabis, Mary Jane. Is that the American way? They say that I'm organic that I come from the ground, ignoring the fact that I'm actually turning their life upside down. They assume that they can drive fine when they're stoned, but all I see is the damage of the vehicle they once owned. Becoming a doctor, that dream is gone with a simple puff. This motivational thing they had before, man, that was too tough. But like the rest of the world, these youth don't realize reality. Hi, my name is Vermont. I recalls every solution, pollution. That's what you're allowing to happen with the legalization of marijuana. I'll be putting these objects right in front of them just like the parents have done with alcohol. They see signs telling them come by and say hi. That's H-I-G-H. They see on TV the celebrities they look up to telling them to try some. And when it's not the celebrities, it's their friends. These are our mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, the ones we grew up with. We just want them to live. Hi. Our names are Bulkisa and Hawa. Pins are already dropping out of school losing their potential before Vermont has even legalized marijuana. And if they do make it legal, the drug will mean safe to these children. These children are us, your children, your grandchildren. Is money really worth the battle for you? Because if it is, we will fight until our wounds are visible. We see Colorado has the highest use rates of any state, something that was not true before. Then why do we even consider repeating the mistakes of others? Can we stop repeating history's mistakes? Let's not legalize marijuana. Thank you. Hi. I'm January Simpson and I'm a freshman at Montpellier High School. I believe that S-241 should be passed. In a survey done by students at Montpellier High School, just in the 11th grade alone, there is 66% of students who have smoked marijuana. Marijuana right now is very unsupervised with the teenagers. I know plenty of people who smoke just in my grade. If it is legalized, it will be harder for us to get access, which would be much better. If we have a harder time getting access, then we won't be smoking. Another thing is the in stores such as Spencer's and the University Mall, there are things like bongs being sold. I believe that I'm pretty sure I've seen some of my friends buy them there, so that means they're not IDing people. I believe that if we legalize it, then they have to ID people who are buying these bongs at stores such as Spencer's. If you really want to protect us, the youth, I believe legalizing marijuana would protect us the most because you would be regulating it and stopping us from having easier access. Thank you. I so wish I had a poem. I'm not going to be that exciting. My name is Sarah Mason. I'm coming from Burlington. As a drug and alcohol counselor and psychotherapist as well as a school counselor, what I argue is that marijuana is as damaging to people's lives as heroin. I've never met someone who has nearly lost a limb to cellulitis as a result of their cannabis dependence or who has been brought back from the brink of death from a marijuana overdose. But my own experience in the scientific research agree cannabis is not merely a harmless organic substance. In my 10 years of professional experience in this state I have witnessed the harmful effect of chronic marijuana use. It is often different more quiet than other substances. Chronic use can affect ability to learn to cope effectively with difficulties, to engage fully in life essentially to realize potential. It can exacerbate anxiety, depression it can set off psychosis. All of which when we think about what we want for our kids in Vermont, what I want for my two kids is a very big deal indeed. This substance has sweeping public health impacts, the origins of which can be found at the cellular level in the brains of users. A world-renowned Harvard Psychobiologist was right here in Montpelier as recently as January the most distressing part of her talk was about exposure to THC in adolescence. Now a lot of folks have been saying that it's not that big a deal but in essence her research is suggesting that THC can prime the brain to respond more quickly and strongly to opiates. I encourage you to check out her work the work that she's discussing. This is different than merely calling cannabis a gateway drug as if it's the behavior or the habit that forms the addiction pathway this is about brain chemistry. When we legalize we give kids the message that it is not harmful to use. After legalization Colorado as people have said is now number one in the country for adolescent use. Why would we rush to make this policy decision and why now? Why not wait for evolving brain research to tell us more about the impact of cannabis with THC levels ten times higher than it was in the 60s? Why don't we wait and keep an eye on the states that are currently conducting the social science and public health experiment on their young people. The medical scientific and treatment communities are giving you the message this is not the right move and especially not for kids. Let's not convince ourselves that rolling these dice is progressive. Thank you. We'll now have Matt Horn and Catherine Antley is on deck. Hi my name is Matt Horn and I'd like to thank you for allowing me to speak to you today on Cannabis Bill which my wife and I are very supportive. I have been actively involved in Horticultural Life. I am a Cornell graduate with distinction in Horticultural Landscape Architecture. My wife whom has a teaching degree from Cortland have been operating business in New York for 34 years. We grew commercially ornamental crops, herbs and vegetables only using organic practices. Our industry peers voted us Grow With The Year in 2008 in the USA. Our nursery employed over 100 people whom shared the same values both in growing and customer service. We emphasized education to our customers about the plants that they were buying and we provided the very best quality as growers and retailers. We had built a home in Southern Vermont 15 years ago with our thoughts that one day we would live here full time. Since the sale of our nursery two years ago we happily call Vermont our full time home. I've been the past president of the American Nursery Landscape Association as well as I'm a recognized certified professional Horticulturist by the American Society of Horticultural Sciences. I only mention these because organically grown cannabis is the only way to grow. Our passion of growing organically along with our enthusiasm with the industry we felt that it would be fitting to be involved as pioneers in the new industry advocating the best practices in cultivation while providing the best and purest cannabis for the customer. For the past few years we have been sought after to consult and advise many growers within the cannabis industry throughout the United States. We are advocates of the cannabis industry. Although we are not users we know the benefits of this plant that it can provide. We ask for your support of this bill and we thank you for being so mindful of the rules and regulations. We do hope the lawmakers of our state are the first to make history by passing this bill. What fantastic forward thinking to benefit the state of Vermont. We too look forward to the industry providing both the needed medical benefits of cannabis as well as the economic growth through recreational sales that it will provide to the state and counties of Vermont. On a personal note with the hopeful passing of this bill we look forward to the opportunity of bringing our successful practices of cultivation education and sound employment through the cultivation and sales of cannabis to our own communities. Thank you. Catherine Ampley. Vince Malak will be on deck. Hi my name is Catherine Ampley. I'm a physician from South Burlington. I'm concerned about the effects of marijuana on our youth. I'm going to run through real quickly some of those things but mostly I want to talk about Decrem versus legalization. I don't feel like we've talked enough about decriminalization and what the possibilities are there. Tweaking decriminalization is something that if we find out we're in trouble we can reverse and in fact that's something we've seen in Holland. But legalization is untested territory and I don't think there's any example on the face of the earth that they've done actual legalization which is really commercialization and reversed it. So if we get into trouble it'll be difficult to save the kids basically. In Colorado legalization has been associated recreational THC has been associated with increased marijuana use in all age categories including youth. Marijuana increased use has been associated with increased emergency room visits, increased stroke, heart attack, morbidity and mortality from marijuana induced psychosis and increased suicides. A significant increase in traffic fatalities you're twice as likely to have an accident if you have THC on board. THC lowers the school graduation rates lowers IQ scores, lowers motivation, executive function impairs creative thinking and daily users before the age of 17 are 60% less likely to finish high school. So one thing that concerns me about this whole conversation is that there's a whole narrative that has nothing to do with reality. There's two things that's happening. One thing is a lot of people have a reality of marijuana 30 years ago or 40 years ago and the THC level is through the roof so the rates of psychosis are six times what they would be if you had one or two percent THC. So the conversation and the reality of marijuana is not being communicated effectively to the average and I think that's a problem and I think that it's difficult it's a problem for us to jump into an irreversible situation such as legalization before we've really thought about what we can do with recriminalization. I'm not finished but I'll stop, thank you. Stuart Savelle's on deck. Hello, my name is Vince Mulack, I live in Jericho, Vermont. I've been on a marijuana registry as a caregiver since 2006 and in 2006 the patient that I have was in nursing home and they wouldn't allow him to use his medical medicine at the nursing home but they would however load his MS-ravaged body into a van drive him 25 miles to my house, unload his ravaged body into my house, let him use his marijuana and then load him back into a van and drive him back 25 miles back to the nursing home. Unfortunately, shit. His pathway this is 241 has to pass and it's baby steps as medical program evolved day by year by year I was here when governor signed the dispensary bill into law so it's baby steps. They say that today's marijuana is much stronger than what the marijuana was in the 60s. Well, have you been into a grocery store and looked in the beer cooler lately? Today's beer is not your day, that's Genesee. It's 9, 10% alcohol. The money that this would bring in is if the Rand report said that there's 33 to 55 thousand pounds used a year, that's 720,000 ounces. That being taxed and then not only that, the tax on the lighting systems, electricians, garden supply houses, it's all, it would just bring much revenue into this state, much revenue, needed revenue. Thank you very much. Kimberly Cheney's on deck. I'm Stuart Sable. I would like to thank you for taking testimony today. Everybody comes to a conversation with some assumptions. I'm going to mention four assumptions that I have and then explain each one. One is that any law that's created in Vermont should apply equally to all Vermonters. Two, as we all learned very early on, the basis of our system is a separation of powers. We have checks and balances. The third assumption is that marijuana is here and the money is here. It's not new. We're not creating anything new. We're just approaching it in a different way. And the fourth assumption is the prohibition has failed. To the first assumption, equality under the law, any law that we pass, every adult Vermonter should have equal access to anything that we do. To allow the money after two years to go to 54 different or maybe the same entities is not allowing over 600,000 Vermonters access to have the dispensaries be the only ones to obtain three licenses. One for growing, one for retail, and one for testing. I was trying to think of a word for that. The only word I can think of is cronyism. It really doesn't work. The money will be taken out of our communities and it will go to a select group of people. The applications in the existing bill, the fees are non-refundable. The second one I'd like to say is a separation of powers. I think that it's a bad idea to have the Department of Public Safety both create the rules and enforce them and in fact increase their budget with the taxes. So the more they enforce them, the more they make and they are making the rules. The people who enforce the law should not be the ones to make the rules. Everybody says that it's going to change the paradigm. The paradigm's already changed. We're here. Jean Keywell's on deck. Good evening. I'm Kim Cine. I'm a speaker for LEAP, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. That organization is composed of thousands of members, police officers, judges, lawyers, attorneys general, like myself. What this group advocates is to end the war on drugs. It has been a complete failure. Worse, it has actually increased the supply of drugs, increased the availability, and led to more addiction and use. And the reason for that is because it has put the money in the hands of people who don't care. This organization has fought to end prohibition because it has exactly the same effect on drugs as it did on alcohol. You are now considering legislation that can control who can sell, who can buy, who can distribute, who can earn taxable income, arising out of the use of marijuana by over 80,000 Vermonters. I would so much rather have you doing this than have the narcos doing it. What are the people now who decide, do we sell to 12-year-olds or do we sell to 14-year-olds? Unless you take control away from those folks, charitably used name, and take it yourself, it's only going to get worse. Finally, can any of you think of one good outcome that's come out of our present policy? It's not. So it's time for a change. It's time to think creatively and not think the fantasy that if something's illegal, we don't have to worry about it. Thank you. Bill Coleman's on deck. My name is Jean Kewell. I'm an attorney in Brattleboro, Vermont. I'm a 1979 graduate of Vermont law school and I've been in practice in Vermont since 1980. First at Vermont Legal Aid and then in private practice. I've represented a number of Vermonters who have cultivated marijuana. The majority of them were low income folks. One of my mentors was an older farmer lawyer. He was representing farmers who grew marijuana in their fields and orchards to supplement their income in the 80s when I was clerking for him. I recall two cases in particular. One was a young mother growing a few plants to supplement her income. The other was a native Vermonter who got busted at fall harvest time with a trailer camper full of curing plants. I don't remember how many, but it was a lot. The trailer was on his property in the woods. He was going to sell the product to get through the winter. Wyndham County juries acquitted both of these folks in a process that could be a rafely called jury nullification I believe of an unjust law. And ever since that, around the time that case was the jury acquitted, that farmer, that Vermonter, law enforcement in Wyndham County seemed to be less frequent against cultivators. Now if you healed well individuals and corporations, want to take limit Vermonter's ability to legally grow marijuana and keep the money generated for themselves, I think S241 is unfair and it needs to be completely reworked and that you should not approve this bill at this time. Thank you. Thank you. George Drew is on deck. My name is Bill Coleman. I've lived in Vermont since the mid-1970s. I work as mental health counselor and this also includes work in the field of addictions. I have personal knowledge of addictions as well, being in recovery from very heavy daily alcohol and marijuana use that entirely ceased over 23 years ago. Since that time I've earned two master's degrees so I believe that any notions of permanent brain cell death are completely erroneous. I've worked in the field of traumatic brain injury for eight years. Brain cells are constantly dying and also being regenerated. There's actually considerable evidence that marijuana is a neuro-protectant. When widely agreed upon data pertaining to death rates from legal alcohol and tobacco and currently illegal marijuana are examined there's an oddly inverse relationship that becomes very noticeable. It's illegally available drugs, alcohol and tobacco, that every year inflict massive fatalities. 100,000 Americans die from alcohol, 400,000 die from tobacco. Yet we're in this chamber not discussing how to crack down on tobacco or alcohol but to decide whether to legalize marijuana. A drug that's non-toxic and kills almost no one. When working with young people or other clients over the years this peculiar and inconsistent discrepancy between our laws and lethality is something that it again and again becomes obvious that they are very well aware of. It's a huge impediment to successful prevention of addiction through drug education for young people to experience what seems to many like a glaringly dishonest bias in favor of deadly alcohol and tobacco while they must break the law if they decide to use marijuana. We need to face the fact that drug education must have an air of truthfulness to it in order for our young people to accept it as accurate. We must also reluctantly accept that whether or not marijuana or other drugs are illegal does not usually result in these seeing young people not to try something like marijuana if they see their friends using it. The adverse effects of youthful marijuana use may not be evident to them for many years if they choose to continue to use it. By then they may very likely have decided that they were being lied to about marijuana and that drug education about heroin is probably dishonestly claiming that it's more dangerous than it really is as well. David Sandelman is on deck. George Drew born and brought up in Lindenville, Vermont. School teacher for around 40 years. Nursing home administrative for over 10 years. Was in the Army for a couple of years. Worked as sawmill, worked on a farm. Thank you. I appreciate being in with honorable House members and honorable citizens. I respect all of you for what your thoughts are. But I ask the legislators to listen carefully. If you would recommend recreational marijuana to your children or your loved ones, I can understand why you would vote to allow recreational marijuana. Thank you very much. Roger Pormiston is on deck. Hi, I'm David Sandelman from Martha's Field, Vermont. One side note, I would be one of those statistics that was a heavy consumer of cannabis in high school. I currently have 14 U.S. patents with two pending as a side note. Everyone came here today and had a risk of whatever form of transportation crossing the street or traveling in a vehicle. There was some calculated risks there. So everything we do in life, you need to weigh those risks and put them in perspective. One thing that comes to mind are the soap tablets that over 1,000 calls are put into poison control nationally of small children who are ingesting these soap tablets which are a highly caustic chemical that can cause severe damage. Yet I think we spend far more time talking about edible cannabis, which is nowhere near as harmful physically as these soap tablets that children are consuming. The sooner that 241 is past, the sooner the tens of thousands of Vermonters who currently consume and will continue to consume, whether they are adolescent or adults. Once it's past, we will then be able to control the access to the minors and we will also be able to ensure that the adults are receiving a product that is not potentially laced with chemicals, pesticides or other drugs. Thank you. Jason Grigdon is on deck. Walk softly, carry a big stick. I'll be shorter than Abraham Lincoln. When I was in the military, I said to my partner, we better move because a car came around swearing and he says, don't worry about it. About half a mile away, well, Hittis head on. I was in a military hospital for a year. The person in Hittis was a marijuana. Being in a hospital, a good military hospital, I had to learn to walk again. I had one tough ass colonel who helped me do that. This is not from that accident. I'm against the law. It's no fun being in a hospital for a year. When I got out, that day I went to work for the 709th Military Police Battalion in Frankfurt, New York. I'm in Frankfurt, Germany. And my statement. Susan Connerty is on deck. Jason Grigdon, Mr. Vermont. My biggest reason for supporting this bill is education and breaking the stigma. Many people I've spoken with just know about marijuana as a generic entity. When I tell them about visits I've made to dispensaries in both Colorado and Oregon, I can see their minds open up. I explained how these visits provided me with a non-stigmatized legal opportunity to learn about the different strains, effects, and benefits of marijuana. There is a wide range. With nearly half of U.S. states having programs for medicinal marijuana, the fact that it is still listed as a federal Schedule 1 drug is difficult to comprehend. Hopefully the U.S. Senate Care Act will change this, but Vermont has an opportunity to help tip the conversation toward removing federal restrictions, which will increase education on the national level. Passing this bill will be another example of how Vermont can influence the national conversation while supporting its citizens. As the Rand study commissioned by Vermont pointed out, a small but sizable percentage of our population already use marijuana. Instead of simply purchasing a bag of weed on the black market, legalization would give users access to regulated sources of a variety of options tailored to their needs. Additionally, the tax revenue generated can be used for a variety of beneficial programs. Given the uncertainty of the next session, please pass this bill now and use the time before it goes into effect to address any outlying issues, such as enabling citizens to grow their own under restriction, much like existing rules around home brewing beer. Speaking of which, we've already seen the large impact Vermont has had on the beer world. It would be great to see Vermont make an intelligent impact on this new industry as well. Thank you. Molly Markowitz is on deck. I'm Susie Connerty. I also am a descendant of the Allen family. I'm here today to tell you of a conversation I had with my friends in Colorado that are here with the U-14 hockey tournament in Burlington. My friend went to UVM on a full hockey scholarship. She now works in Colorado. And so they brought up, hey, what's going on with Vermont with the marijuana bill? And I said, well, the question is how is it for you in Colorado? And this is what they said. Well, my rent went from $900 a month for an apartment with one bathroom and one bedroom on the outskirts of Denver to $1,400 because of all the people that are moving into the state for legalized marijuana. Her mother pipes up and said, yeah, and my rent went from $600 to $900. And they're working people. We have a housing, low income housing problem in our state. That's one intended consequence. And then the other thing they're saying and where's the money going? The money is going to Aspen, the city schools are falling apart. Evidently the money has been designated for education in Colorado. And I just feel this is so complicated. There's so many unintended consequences that I would say, as my mother says, just because everyone is doing it, it doesn't mean it's right. So take your time. I'm against it. Kimberly Blake is on deck. Good evening. My name is Molly Markowitz and I'm from when you see Vermont. And I am a second year medical student at the University of Vermont and I'm here representing my own opinions. My goal is to be a pediatrician and I'm opposed to legalization. One of the jobs you have as a pediatrician is you advocate for families. You work to ensure the health and well-being of the families that you're seeing. And we already faced so many challenges today. When we talk with families, we talk about smoking tobacco, alcohol, fast food, things like that. And I can't imagine adding another thing to the list having to talk about marijuana. States that have legalized marijuana have seen an increase in use in teens and young adults. And I believe that this if we were to legalize marijuana in Vermont, I believe this would send a message to youth and young people that it's okay to smoke it. And I believe we would also see an increased use. And as a future physician, I find that really worrisome and concerning. And I hope that as you move forward to making your decision, you take time to kind of consider all the facts. And how this might impact families and children in Vermont. Thank you. Thank you. Bonnie Scott, please. And we have Kimberly Blake on deck. I'm Kimberly Blake and I'm sorry I'm not a public speaker. I'm an OBGYN. I'm from South Burlington. I practice in Burlington and I have been in practice for over 20 years. I'm against the legalization of marijuana. I am concerned that we don't have enough research on the effects of unborn children as well as the effects that are pregnant women. I witness that many women who are pregnant feel that marijuana is safe to use. They use it as an alternative to smoking tobacco. Unfortunately, our research shows that it has been a similar effects to tobacco on an unborn baby in terms of growth restriction. Women who use marijuana have double the risk of stillbirth of someone who does not use marijuana. I'm also very concerned about the research in animals that show that chronic marijuana use may indeed change the responsiveness to opiates. I've witnessed over the last many years many people succumb to opiate addiction and I can tell you talking to my patients that they all start with marijuana. I feel that legalization of marijuana will give the message to our young adults that it's safe and I don't think that we have that data. I'd like us to slow down and get some more information. When I hear some of the pro-arguments, I'm struck by the thought of the movie you may have seen, Thank You for Smoking. I don't want us to be seduced by the idea of profits and money for our state at the potential cost of our vulnerable populations. Thank you. Bonnie Scott and Lance Fournier on deck. Hello. Thank you for allowing this opportunity for me to speak. I'm Bonnie Scott from Grand Isle. I'm vice chair of the Vermont Libertarian Party as well as the founder of Vermonters for Ibogaine Research. I've been advocating for harm reduction for 20 years. Legalizing marijuana promotes harm reduction by separating it from the markets for harder drugs. Not only will legal cannabis sellers be checking the age of their customers, but they won't be offering orders in the same place. Prohibition is the real gateway, allowing these markets to mix so freely. Those against legalization will cite the increased percentage of cannabis-involved traffic incidents, but we can also look at the bigger picture. The data coming in from states who have already legalized show lower total traffic fatalities. These big picture numbers are what we should look for because there will be a substitution effect once cannabis is legal. It is a safer substance than alcohol or tobacco that so many are using now. I'm here to urge the house to rebalance the economics of S241 by adding home-growing back into the bill. A home-growing provision is the best way to reduce the black market and allow of Vermonters to use this plant in ways healthier than smoking. If someone wants to make tinctures or edibles at home or to juice their cannabis, they need quantities of raw plant material that just won't be affordable under the current S241. Home-growing will also address the legal limbo between the passage of the bill and when legal supplies actually become available in 2018. I would prefer the committee add back in the original S241 growing allowances, but would at least like to see the S95 allowances put back in. This bill does need to pass this year. We all paid attention to the public forum on legalization last year talking about how it would be done in the Vermont way. The Vermont way requires home-growing, not just commercialized products from preferred vendors. Thank you. Scott Sweeney is on deck. Lance Faunier, Ferrisburg, Vermont. I can't really speak to all the facts and so forth. I can speak to my own experience though. That's what I'd like to do. I've been in business for 32 plus years. Approximately four years ago we started drug testing, employees, and there's been an incredible difference. Production is up. Accidents are way down. Tardiness is all but gone. Just an amazing difference. The young men and women that have been with me for those four years now, if somebody comes in and they find out they are using, they immediately ask to either have them removed or something to have. It's that big a difference. Let's see. I also have two young men that when we started testing came to me and they weren't able to pass. So I told them I'd give them a chance and they cleaned up their act and it's been incredible to watch. They're going to night school. They're both. It's an amazing difference. I'm trying to be as brief as I can. So I just finally when you go through a lot of rural towns the speed limit is pretty low and for a reason to protect the children and people in those towns and if there's a lot of people not obeying that speed limit, we don't raise the speed limit. We try to find ways to get them to slow down and I guess I would ask you to consider that and to slow down. First of all, I think this is moving pretty fast. I spent a lot of my own money and time trying to create a safe environment for the people to work for me and if you legalize this, I'm a little nervous about what will happen to that whole thing that I've developed. Thanks very much. Joe Pimentel is on deck. Hi my name is Scott Sweeney. Thank you very much for having me here. I'm here for my most passionate part of my life for my kids and for future generations. I believe that S241 should be passed. There are problems in the state, there are problems with other drugs that are the real problems that are separating our families, destroying our families. Cannabis, I could go through the lists I really enjoyed and sided with many of the talks that were had and go through the list of stuff I had and I'm going to go right to the bottom. Facts, the Nebraska Oklahoma sued Colorado and went all the way to the Supreme Court. They sued Colorado because of one reason that is the increase of crime. I do not want my kids growing up in a state that has an increasing crime rate and if we wait on S241 if we wait on S241 that is what we are going to be. We are going to be that state that is bordering New York or New Hampshire. Thank you very much. Chris Condon is on deck. Good evening. Joe Pimentel, Stockbridge Vermont. I own two businesses. One in Stockbridge, we have a 204 acre organic farm and in Pittsfield we have a 45 acre organic farm. We are the head of Dairy Goats. We have grown produce on about 15 acres, 350 layer chickens. We have gotten into this because our passion is to help the food system in America and the health crisis in America. We are in support of S241 because it is a lucrative crop that would help us enable us to fund our efforts and we are doing it by pretty much every day. We have been doing it for 10 years. We have 200 CSA members now. We are producing value added items but there is nothing that is really pushing us over the edge. Although this bill is not perfect I do think it is a good gateway into moving forward with ending cannabis prohibition and I really hope in my heart that you all will do it with your farms close in mind because that is truly the Vermont way. It is really what our culture is here in Vermont and it can really help push the food movement forward in my eyes. Thank you very much. Johnny Adlers on deck. Hello, I am Chris Condon. I live in Chittenden, Vermont S241. I am going to be brief because I am sure I don't have anything to say that we have already heard tonight. I ask of really two things. Keep in mind the bigger picture. There is pros and cons to everything that we think about and we do every day. There is no doubt about it. You folks here have a very tough job and there is a lot of information and data and facts and it can get overwhelming. I look back every now and then and look at the big picture as Joe said. It can help other industries throughout the state. There are financial benefits that can be used towards education, towards police enforcement and issues that are bigger than just marijuana or cannabis. The food and agricultural industry is we fight a machine day in, day out. The agribusiness is a tough machine to fight for the small local farms and a crop or supplement like cannabis that can allow farmers to build another greenhouse, buy a tractor, add more poultry to their existing flock. Again, it is not only good for that farmer to help the fellow Vermonters, but it is good for all of us as consumers. I ask that you keep that in mind and the other thing is nothing is perfect the first time around. S41 I think is a great stab at it and we need to keep moving forward. If we wait for things to be perfect in my opinion they'll never happen. Again, take a step back, know that things aren't perfect from the start. We'll continue to evolve and let's be pioneers of this revolution. Thank you. Hi, I'm Johnny Adler. I'm the owner of the Skinny Pancake, father of one, stepfather of three teenage kids. I'm going to jump right into it here. I want to go to the first thing first on the idea that this can wait. It cannot wait. I would like you to tell a beloved school teacher from Burlington whose career was needlessly ruined because it got caught with a small amount of marijuana that it can wait. Tell the parents of those kids who lost that teacher that it can wait. Imagine if such a penalty came from being caught because you were drinking a beer. So many careers, doctors are needlessly compromised having to live secret lives because of cannabis prohibition. It's a professional catastrophe and that's the first thing. Tell African-Americans to make up 70% of marijuana convicts even though whites smoke it more, that it can wait. It's a criminal justice issue. Tell the talented artists and growers of marijuana who should be celebrated like micro brewers that it can wait. Tell them that we can lose the competitive advantage to nearby states and let those states make the rules and standards instead of doing it the Vermont way. Tell taxpayers that it can wait. They can find their revenue out of their pocket in other ways. The assumption that it can wait suggests that maintaining prohibition is somehow conservative and responsible. Maintaining prohibition is a rush to judgment. It's an active choice that the status quo is better than what we want to change it to. Nothing is perfect but legalization is clearly the better of those two choices. Some other points I'd make is to separate the idea that legalizing and regulating how the pot is controlling it is condoning it while continuing prohibition is preventing it. It's being smoked now. Legalization isn't going to change habits enough to unleash disaster in childbirth or in driving or in anything else. Tying marijuana to opiates is totally anti-science. It's false both chemically and practically. My stepson's drug education in Stowe High School told him that weed is as bad as heroin. When it's not chemically addictive there's no lethal dose and its effects are gentler and less effective than alcohol or cigarettes. When kids inevitably discover this inaccuracy, they don't know what to believe from their drug education and they're more likely to dismiss the warnings they should hear around opiates. If you want to reduce teenage drug use, start by making drug education factually accurate, not by perpetuating cannabis prohibition. Again, separate legalizing and condoning. Thank you. Timothy Fair is on deck. Hi. I'm a tax paying registered Vermont voter in Wilson. I thank you for your time and most appreciative. I want to convey strong support for the Cannabis Legalization Bill S241 now in the Judiciary Committee. I've already had positive communications with both my local state representatives as well as Speaker Smith on this topic personally. I'm here actually also representing and advocating for those who are too afraid for many personal reasons who fear to directly contact their state representatives. Cannabis legalization is necessary for a myriad of multitude of economic and societal reasons. One is with a plus thousand Vermont adults responding saying that they had consumed and purchased cannabis regularly in the last year. I presume that number is actually greater as many folks surveyed maybe too afraid to give info on cannabis consumption for fear of prosecution and persecution, let alone the many who are too afraid to personally appeal to you and their local representatives for the same reason. Cannabis is a lifestyle choice, I believe, for millions of Americans. That said, many of us are relegated to the shadows afraid to readily admit to family, coworkers, supervisors, bosses, neighbors, and peers alike, et cetera, that they've been safely consuming cannabis for years without the proposed purported social repercussions as stated by anti-legalization opponents, while simultaneously being mature members of our society and communities at large living largely successful lives and careers. Legal cannabis will also likely greatly reduce the state's chronic and now epidemic narcotic painkiller and heroin problem that we obviously see. The Warren Drugs for the past 45 years has pigeonholed cannabis users as useless addicts, many lawyers, doctors, elected officials who have and do use cannabis and as you have seen many now vouch for and endorse willing legalized cannabis in Vermont. I for one am unable to consume any alcohol. Legal cannabis should be a right for all adult Vermonters to freely choose to consume without having to move to Colorado, Washington State, Oregon, or Alaska where thanks to regulations safely produced cannabis and not garbage unclean, unsafe cannabis will be derived from illicit markets. So I ask you to take Vermont forward as with the GMO labeling. Jeffrey Laughlin is on deck. I want to thank the committee today for taking public testimony. My name is Timothy Thera. I'm a criminal defense attorney from Burlington. I'm here today to advocate for the passage of SB 291. I've had the opportunity to see first hand the damage that prohibition can do. We've listened here for testimony for an hour and 45 minutes. So I could talk about the collateral consequences of prohibition. I could talk about the racial profiling. I could talk about the ill effects of marijuana prohibition in particular. Instead I'm going to focus in on the inevitability of what we are all looking at with this revolution. In 2015, $1.4 billion was generated from legal marijuana. Pandora's box is open. Like it or not, this is happening. We are opposed as a state to take advantage by being the first state which legislatively legalizes cannabis. This is not a valid initiative, but this is being done by the legislature, by you who have been elected by the people of this state. We have an opportunity to do it right. We have an opportunity to be leaders. It is going to be passed if we pass this, who will be able to set the tone of the industry moving into the next decade. We will be able to set up the business associations. We will have the small scale Vermont feel to the industry. Right now Massachusetts is looking at a valid initiative with 62% likelihood of passing the money from Boston, big industry. We don't want to give them the opportunity to set the ground rules. We want it to stay in Vermont, for Vermont, with Vermont. And the way to do that is to pass this through the legislature to take the next year and a half to make it right. To be able to keep it in a Vermont way. We don't want Massachusetts, we don't want Boston setting the rules in this industry. We want to keep this a Vermont industry for Vermont. It is going to happen. Let's do it right and let's pass this bill. Thank you very much. Adam Warch is on deck. Hello, my name is Dan. I'm 37 years old. I live in Barry City. I'm a father of three. I'm a graduate from Vermont Technical College with a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. I strongly support legalization and I strongly support this bill. I do think it could use a few improvements. I would like to see home grow added to the bill. I don't think that people should be required to purchase their cannabis from a government monopoly. I think that the home possession limit needs to be increased. I don't really believe the state has a legitimate interest in exactly how much cannabis a person has in their home for personal use. I certainly think that homemade edibles should be legal. Consuming marijuana by eating it is certainly healthier than smoking it. Similarly I think that homemade extraction using safe methods such as CO2 or alcohol tinctures should also be permitted. Again it's much safer to vaporize an extract than it is to smoke cannabis. Which leads me to the next point which I think that extract production should be permitted. Again because it is safer and more healthier than smoking it's also easier to bake into edibles and flowers are. So I do believe that should be allowed commercially. With regards to commercial production I'm concerned that the current bill seems to take the approach of new to the existing market kick everybody out and usher in a completely new market. Really like to see a path to legalization for existing producers. I know some of these people personally and yeah it's about the money but you know what they use the money to feed their kids. So I think it's important to keep cannabis production small and local and also a free market. I also think that we should in the spirit of ban the box I really think we should reconsider whether or not we want to prohibit anybody with any kind of drug related crime from ever participating in the industry. I think it's pretty unfair that an activity we're about to legalize. You're not going to be allowed in it if you've already done it. I think highway safety is a non-issue. I think the latest and best data from the 2014 Romano study shows that cannabis was not found to contribute to cash crash risk. I do support a roadside test if we can come up with one that is accurately measures impairment. I think we all know that the blood test is a very bad idea because you get negatives 30 days after use. I just want to say in my final seconds here I think alcohol and opiates are the real problem in the state. I have multiple friends and family who nearly died from alcohol poisoning. I don't know anybody who's almost died from marijuana poisoning. Thank you. Next on deck is Maria D. Hain. Hello my name is Adam Warch. I'm a disabled veteran who has served my nation honorably. 12 years ago I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. VA doctors have tried over a dozen different drugs on me with pharmaceutical medicines including opiate painkillers. For seven years I took opiate painkillers. A year ago I realized came to conclusion that this was not a long term treatment for my MS. It wasn't going to be cured my MS. I decided to finally and reluctantly try marijuana. I've always been a conservative person who's obeyed the law and served my nation. Within a week I realized that this is something that gives me 100% more improvement than opiate painkillers but has no negative side effects. My wife and I decided we needed to move to a state that had medical marijuana. We moved here. I'm unable to get access to medical marijuana because there must be a six month relationship. My VA doctors cannot sign off on it even though I've been diagnosed for 12 years with it. I have to wait a minimum of six months to get it. But tomorrow I can go back to the VA and they'd be happy to prescribe me all the opiate pain medication I wanted. I hope that you guys take this into consideration. Realize that not just our medical marijuana laws are failing. That our medical marijuana laws are failing the people that they were designed to help. How many others have been started on opiate pain medication where if they were started from the beginning or given the opportunity they would never have had to go on to it. The idea of it being a gateway drug, I was on opiate painkillers for seven years. It took six months until trade off. I have no desire to go back. I have no problem with marijuana. I don't use it every day. I use it at night when I need it. I hope that you listen to my story and understand the importance of legalized marijuana. Thank you. Dave Silverman is on deck. I'm a clinical social worker in Barry. I'm also a member of the Vermont alcohol and drug council. There's been a growing body of research that talks about the importance of legalization to fight the opiate epidemic. I'm here to advocate for my clients who are opiate addicted. There's a harm reduction when you legalize marijuana and have it available, broader access to cannabis where opiates are decreased. They see a harm reduction in decrease in deaths by opiates, a harm reduction in a decrease of opiate addiction. There's not enough education on the endo-cabinoid system. We need to get the education out there. People need to start using cannabis. Cannabis users, my clients who use cannabis, don't lose their kids. The clients who are opiate addicts lose their children. They are dying to get their life back. I am here for them. Thank you. Bruce Kimball is on deck. My name is Dave Silverman. I'm an attorney in Middlebury. We've heard countless times from prohibitionists that marijuana is not a risk-free proposition. But what the prohibitionists never tell you is that these risks already exist and are neither created nor exacerbated by legalization. Because let's face it, Vermonter is going to keep on using marijuana whether it's legal or not. But by keeping marijuana illegal, the legislature would be turning a blind eye to the public health impacts instead of actually trying to address them and strengthening organized crime instead of our communities. As a father of two school-aged children, I look at the current state of marijuana in Vermont and Shutter. Our own Department of Health tells us that 75% of our high school seniors report that marijuana is quote-unquote easy to get. And that nearly 30% of our 12th graders use marijuana at least once a month. Members, this is the current state of affairs. After nearly a century of vilifying marijuana and locking users up in jail for nonviolent victimless offenses, marijuana is ubiquitously available to kids. More easily available to kids, in fact, than to adults. You have a choice, however. You can get rid of today's shady underground dealers who have no compunction about selling to kids or replacing reputable licensed retailers who check ID and get inspected. And you can finally separate the sale of marijuana from the sale of much more harmful, highly addictive substances, which form our real drug problem. We've seen how smart public health initiatives have drastically reduced teen cigarette smoking rates over the past 20 years, and we can do the same with marijuana if we make a real effort. Moreover, with a kind of moderate phasing approach laid out in S241, you can make mid-course corrections to address any unintended consequences as they arise. It's your choice. You can listen to the clear majority of Vermonters who, like me, want you to address these public health risks head-on, or you can choose to do nothing and hope that these risks will go away on their own if we just stop talking about it. I urge you to fix S241 and pass it. Thank you. Jerry Kilkors is on deck. Hi, my name is Bruce Kimball. I'm a native Vermonter currently living in Essex Junction and I support S241. First of all, thanks for your time in giving the people the opportunity to share their views on this bill. Secondly, I don't enjoy public speaking, so the fact that I'm here speaks volumes to the importance I place on this issue. I wanted to make sure that those of us who have been hiding in the shadows through the prohibition years are represented here tonight. I was talking with my 25-year-old son about me speaking out tonight and he displayed his usual wisdom and said I'd be the perfect candidate. I'm a 53-year-old educated, employed, tax-paying homeowner. I have two beautiful college educated children. My wife and I will be celebrating our 30th wedding anniversary this summer. In short, I'm a pretty normal, non-psychotic guy. Due to the deep social stigma surrounding POT, it's hard for law-abiding citizens to stand up and support for it. There's the illegality of it, but there's also fear surrounding employment. If a company drug tests for POT, a well-qualified candidate may even get the chance for employment. Same scenario if a job applicant has a criminal record from a POT offense. I work at the University of Vermont and in conformity with federal laws, they follow the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1990, which prohibits the possession or use of controlled substances, both on and off campus. Violation of this policy may result in termination of employment. I'd like to see POT remove from this list of controlled substances. I consider myself a law-abiding citizen, but my use of POT over the years has made me an outlaw. Do I like that? No. Have I enjoyed going to shady back-alley drug dealers and putting myself in potentially unsafe situations all these years? No. What I would like is the option to purchase POT from a safe, regulated, well-maintained dispensary. A dispensary that only sells POT. I also want that for my friends, family, loved ones, and fellow Vermonters. Please give them and myself a safe place to purchase POT, a place where we don't have to worry about being arrested, a place where harder, addictive, potentially lethal drugs aren't available for sale also, a place that only sells to people 21 or over. Moving out of the black market will make it substantially more difficult for miners to obtain. Thanks again for your time and consideration. Nick Karabellis is on deck. Makes me wonder. Good evening, everybody. My name is Jerry Kilkors. I live in Montpelier. I've lived in Vermont since 1971. I support S-241. I wish it included homegrown. I think that should be included. As far as, a lot of the testimony here is centered on children and what kind of message we're sending them by having legalized cannabis. I think the real message here is the hypocrisy that everybody has seen between tobacco and alcohol versus marijuana. I mean, kids aren't stupid. They go down the street. They see a number of restaurants here in Montpelier. They all have liquor licenses. They see adults in there enjoying a cocktail. Yet, we talk about marijuana as if somehow there's a difference. And we celebrate craft beers. I go up to Stowe. You can go to the Heddy Topper Brewery enormous building just off the mountain road. It's a tourist attraction. There's other craft beers at a tourist attraction in the state. And yet, we're treating marijuana like it's almost similar to heroin, which it isn't. And, of course, the federal classification as a schedule one is absolutely ridiculous. So in any case, I support S-241 and I hope you do too. Thank you. G. Haber-Beal is on deck. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for having us here. It's really important that we've been able to have this discussion. My name is Nick Caravellis. I'm an entrepreneur, former Burlington business owner. I'm a registered patient in the state of Vermont's Medical Marijuana Program and I'm an organic home grower. As a business owner with relatively deep enough pockets, eligible for a license and interested in seeking one, I'm a huge proponent of the way this bill has been written. As a patient, as a tax-paying citizen, as a humanitarian who's interested in ending jail sentences for marijuana offenses, I have some grave concerns about the languages in this law. Specifically as they relate to the prohibition of home-growing and the allocation of marijuana excise taxes towards enforcing this now illicit and illegal act. An annually renewable permit for home cultivation should be available to any Vermont resident in good standing with the law and for a reasonable fee, much as we currently do for patients in the Medical Marijuana Registry. Permits should allow the holder to grow a small number of plants for their own non-commercial use. Bottom line, as you well know we in Vermont pride ourselves on a do-it-yourself ethos, progressive thinking, self-reliance, and sustainability. Vermonters who want or need to grow less than a dozen plants indoors or out should have the right to do so. Vermonters should have the right to cultivate, possess, and use this plant, and should be protected from having to deal with purchases from black market and or legally authorized big marijuana operators if they so choose. Post-legalization spending even one dollar of these resources enforcing laws will be unbelievable if it's going to go to the marijuana enforcement. We have a major heroin epidemic here. Consider the fact that that dollar spent on enforcing these marijuana laws, people growing a plant that's now legal everywhere else in their backyard, could have been spent on somebody who's trafficking heroin into this state. I think we have a big problem. I urge you to pass the bill and I urge you to amend it to allow small scale home grow. Thank you very much for your time. Mark Cole is on deck. Greetings. My name is G. Harper Beale. I've lived in Hyde Park for 18 years. I'm a non-smoker. In all of my adult years I have no interest in smoking but I do support this bill or at least some version of it. I'd like to call your attention to the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009. It was brought forward by Ron Paul and Barney Frank to the House of Representatives and they want to delineate between what we call marijuana which has THC levels of THC and industrial hemp which has very low levels of THC. And industrial hemp is not smokable. It will make the smoker ill immediately. The plant grows from 8 to 12 feet tall and it has very long fibers in its outer husk that are perfect for the textile industry. And then the inner core can be pulverized and it's a perfect cellulose material for all forms of paper. You could make beautiful stationery or dollar bills could be printed on it. And it's a material that was actually used readily in the 1700s and 1800s and even before it has Yep. Okay. So anyway China is a leader in this industry. Followed by Canada who is producing food seed from hemp seed. It has a nut like flavor. It's very, very nutritional and it has negligible levels of THC. So I would ask that a provision be made for industrial farming in Vermont for industrial hemp. Thank you. Thank you. Michael Albright is on deck. Thanks for having me. I'm Mark Cole. I live in South Burlington. I'm a retired attorney. I practiced health care and tax law for 20 years. There are a lot of faces here today and clearly just as many interests and I'm happy to see so many ages represented although I'm not happy that my wife and I fall into the middle age category. We have three children in the public school system in South Burlington and we try pretty much at every turn to give back to those schools into our community. And that said we are keenly aware of how legalization has benefited the public schools in the form of tax revenues in the states that have legalized cannabis. And I think the thread that connects almost every person who's advocating for legalization here is the hope for the creation of a framework, a set of rules for something that's now firmly in the hands of the black market. A market that doesn't do testing, check ID or taxes, the hope for the creation of a structure that would keep cannabis out of the hands of our kids, create hundreds if not thousands of jobs and pump millions of dollars into the state's economy. And for those who are leaning toward a wait and see approach just a couple of things. We have been waiting waiting for something that has a huge upside and something that's supported by the overwhelming number of schools. Second, Vermont isn't the only state and we've heard this in New England that's considering legalization and if you ask any economist or businessman, maybe not any businessman. Nine times out of ten the first generally in is the one that takes the lead. We're currently operating under a structure that says for at least small quantities it's okay to have it, to use it, but you're on your own in terms of obtaining it. That makes no sense and it needs change. David Bingham is on deck. How's it going tonight? I am Michael Albright. I am a marijuana patient in the state. I am for legalization but against the current bill I think that home growers craft growers not just a select few people who have money should be able to partake in this. We live in a state where it's easier to get heroin than it is to get pop. Maybe take some of that money. Try to get rid of the heroin problem. I think we should I mean as a human being be able to grow a few plants in your backyard without worrying about the helicopter and swat coming and kicking your door in. I mean it's a plant. What are we really doing? So that's kind of my views on the whole situation and hopefully you guys will make the right choice and bring us the right direction and maybe switch it up a little bit so everybody gets a chance to do it. So thanks. David that's it. Hi thank you. My name is Tavid Bingham and I'm here representing the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Vermont or NAMI Vermont where I'm the Communications Director. Thank you for this opportunity and for offering this to the public. My organization neither supports nor condemns marijuana legalization. We're reluctant to take a pro or cons stance on the bill as it stands right now because of a substantial lack of elucidation and detail really as to how revenues generated will be used to treat and prevent substance abuse and provide mental health services around the state. That lack in the bill as it stands now and was delivered by the Senate is your opportunity. Currently Vermont's mental health system is over demanded and under funded and we ask that you committee members and the assembly as a whole consider the financial and structural impacts of marijuana legalization. As passed by the Senate, S241 does not include the words mental health, not once. The bill reflects an inherent lack of understanding on the links between mental health and substance abuse services in the state. NAMI Vermont asks that you consider these impacts as you finalize this bill. It is not enough to say that a quarter will be spent on prevention, a quarter will be spent on law enforcement, and a quarter will be spent on treatment. Rather than offer more detail as to how marijuana revenues will be allocated, the Senate outstripped revenue sources that potentially could have provided more funds for these services. If Senator Sears and his cohorts are worried about home growers possessing more than legal limits, then regulate your home growers and make them pay licensing fees and give that money to our chronically underfunded mental health system of care. Thank you. Thank you very much. That concludes our hearing and also we did complete our list of witnesses. I want to thank everybody for coming. I also want to thank our Sergeant at Arms and our legislative council and other committee staff for making this happen as well as you and Orca and others. Thank you. Maybe.