 On the table, one of us for this afternoon for the next little bit is just getting feedback on the testimony that we took from Michelle Childs and the conversation that we had on the cannabis bill. We had a section that was highlighted that was specific, but there was the, we never, we don't own the bill, it should be off of government offsite. We don't, I mean, there might be a version under Michelle's name, but- I'll just pull it up off their website. So I mean, committee, it's just discussion time. I mean, we need to write a memo to them to, that talked a little bit about what they were talking about, which was, what they highlighted was specifically about the opt-in opt-out part of some of the licensing, and I think, but I think the conversation can go a little bit wider only in the sense of the question as it was explained to us also is not just on that specific language, but on the notion of trying to institute a controlled business out of nothing, out of not being controlled at all. And I think I mentioned this earlier, my mind outlook on how that might happen, and the outlook that I've held for a while has changed because of the explanation of what constitutes a felony and who's responsible for that and how we have to deal with trying to legalize a substance that federally is still illegal and there are consequences to certain choices. So that was very convincing to me, but when I heard that, which you just said, I don't think we have to debate, but yeah, I so agree with what you said, but it can't be, it can't be a controlled thing, the same thing in our, like, proposals. Yeah, I mean, given the exposure, our tweeter in chief is a little erratic, but there's always, he decides to clean down. All right. The opt-in about, tell me, go ahead. Well, I just want to add, our coach, Christy, was on this committee last year, and he and I had been having some conversations on this, and his attitude is, bring it on, federal government. Let's do it like we know how to do it with alcohol, with the federal government. Sorry. What's that? Coach? Coach? If you lose in part, you could just move to another. True. But I thought it's going to make a lot of sense. I'm not necessarily agreeing, but I think that kind of an interesting attitude, you know, we have a system that we know works very well without alcohol, like you, I always thought cannabis was going to fit in there somehow, and that same kind of structure. I agree that it should. Yeah, it should. As a working functioning mechanism, I totally agree with it. But it's annoying that we can't do it because of some bone-headed policy at a higher level. I'm sorry. And editorializing. Yeah. At a higher level. Yes. Why editorialize? Because it's illegal on a federal level. Right. So that definitely is not the view of everyone sitting in this room. Yes. I'm agreeing with that. And I think that's the one thing that shouldn't work. Well, and I think this whole conversation is this conversation about cannabis at any point really is, it's not even on the back burner that there's a federal law that prohibits, and we can agree or disagree about that. I certainly do. I believe that marijuana has medical benefits. I believe there's a lot of things I can say that would say then why is it a schedule one, but the fact remains is that right now it is, and we're being given an opportunity, the federal government has basically given us an opportunity to do things in a way that has to be done in a way that clearly they're not going to allow us to do something that we think is a better way of controlling the substance from seed to sale. No other state, or is there no state that's sort of controlled? Colorado? I'm not aware of a state having done a control of model at this point. Distribution is all within the individual companies. Right. So generally the view on this, so the other thing we run into with that too is federal law preemption. So there's the supremacy clause in the Constitution where the regulation that's been reserved to Congress, you can't have state laws that are in conflict with that. There are powers that are specifically reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment, but in this case the way the controlled substances act is written, I think it's under preemption 903, they've waived all of the preemption except for direct conflict preemption. And so what that means is if you have a state law which is where it's physically impossible to comply with the state law and to comply with the federal law, the federal law prevails and the state law is unconstitutional. So what we've got here is that if, again, with the controlled state model, the other issue is if you're ordering, if you're requiring state employees to take possession of and distribute prohibited drug under the controlled substances act, that's in direct conflict with the controlled substances act. So not only would they be exposing themselves, would they be exposed to a felony charge on an individual basis, not to mention the conspiracy and the temp charges for the commissioner and other state officials. What you'd also run into is that that law would be preempted by federal law. The difference is when you have the model that's being proposed here and the model that's been incorporated in other states, it's not requiring anyone to sell marijuana or distribute. It's simply saying the state's going to permit you to do this and it's up to you. So that law is not preempted and I realize that this is starting to sound like legal hair splitting, but this is the current way things are read. There is some argument on this issue, but right now what we've got is that's not directly in conflict with the controlled substances act. So we're not preempted and those individuals who are distributing or possessing or selling are taking the risk that at some point the federal government will change its position and they'll be able to be prosecuted for violation of federal law because they're acting in violation of federal law, but right now the federal government has taken the position or Congress has taken the position that the federal government will not prosecute those offenses. They haven't changed the law. They're just saying we're not going to prosecute at this point and that amendment has to be renewed periodically and it's done through the appropriations bill, which is why there's that level of unpredictability here because that's something where it took them about 10 years to get it on to an appropriations bill. Sometimes the reauthorization is only good for a few months. Sometimes it's good for the fiscal year. Our current reauthorization, I think, runs through the end of the fiscal year and then they have to reauthorize this, the Laura Bakker amendment for an additional period of time so that the Department of Justice won't spend money on enforcing marijuana laws in the listed states where we have decriminalized or legalized marijuana either for medicinal or recreational or both. So that's where we stand right now, so we're not preemptive as long as we aren't requiring anyone to take possession. As soon as you move to that control state, you've got that double whammy of exposing state employees and state officials to criminal prosecution and also the question about whether the law is even legal under our constitutional model or whether it's preemptive by the federal government. Lisa. I just want to be perfectly clear because you brought up medical marijuana. This is, we're not talking about medical marijuana in S54. Sorry. S54, we're not talking about medical marijuana. We are talking about recreational. Is that correct? Well, we're talking about taxing and regulating recreational marijuana, which we've legalized. Right, so I didn't understand your reference to medical marijuana earlier before Damien spoke. Did I refer to it? You did. And I didn't understand. I don't know what the context would have been for medical marijuana. I mean, medical marijuana is discussed in the bill only in the sense that right now the Department of Public Safety controls medical marijuana, controls the licensing and the sale. I don't remember using the word medical, so I don't know. Sorry, maybe I'm sorry. I think your reference was to question as to whether it should be a scheduled one drug because it has been determined to have, but there's no purpose. That was the reference. I think you're right. No, right, so that's all. Not the specific. I mean, by approving medical marijuana, we made a policy choice to say that there is a medical benefit to marijuana. But to your other point, there is medical marijuana is only discussed in this in terms of as it's written now, which is different, slightly different than what we have on our wall, which the House version, which would have allowed the medical dispensaries, the existing medical dispensaries to sell prior to anybody else. This does talk about the transition from DPS, Public Safety, controlling medical marijuana. And I'm not sure what else, but the tax, well, it's not being taxed. It won't be taxed as medical marijuana. I did hear a conversation with somebody like, why would the same question we asked? Why would we need medical marijuana if we had it available? And Michelle pointed out you're allowed to hold more. You're allowed to grow more plants. If you do buy dispensary, you do not pay tax on it. That says nothing about the price or quality of which this bill speaks to in terms of a consumer protection piece. So what I've heard just so far is that, and again, I'm trying to collect information to include in a short amount to them. We're not rewriting the bill. We're not suggesting really any language, but just the idea of while we appreciate this state's ability to control alcohol in the way that it does, we also understand that we understand that the Control Substance Act would put us in danger. She highlighted the section that she did the presentation about the bill that was burdened on us. On the local licensing stuff. Yeah, I'm scrolling over to that right now. There you go. It's 63. So Damien, how does this differ from right now with alcohol way back when, I don't know that people can still do it, but way back when a number of Vermont towns were allowed to opt out of, they were allowed to call themselves dry. And there are still some dry towns. No, the last one voted out this past year. Well, hold on a sec. There are two types of dry towns. So there's dry for everything. Right. And then there's dry just for spirits of wet for beer and wine. So I think the burgeoning metropolis of Baltimore is one of those towns. Yeah. Oakland City, New Jersey, dry for everything. Really? Yeah. Rockwood Mass is actually going to be wet for something. For something. So, but... What was the town? Was it Norton or something way up there that had no retail business that just voted Holland? Holland, I think it was. It just didn't have a store? No, they don't have a store. Yeah. Ocean Park Main is right next to Old Orchard Beach, which is definitely wet. Yeah. It's burning. Yeah. So the section you're referring to, if you don't mind not pulling up on your page here, is, so in Vermont's statutes here, or the alcoholic beverage statutes here, sorry, getting mixed up as we start talking about other states. So there's this section, 161. This states all the way back to prohibition. So, basically, what it says is that annual or special meeting upon a petition, you would have this question of shell licenses for the sale of beer and wine, be granted, or shell licenses for spirits and fortified wines to be sold. So there are these two questions. So you could be dry for spirits and fortified wines, not for beer and wine. Yeah. So you could be dry for both. Up until from 1934 until 1968, every single year Vermont Towns voted on this town meeting. This was 1968. So in this bill, 1967, number 271. So that was Act 271 in 1968. So it's the 1967-68 session. They changed that, which is why you have this funny language here that says licenses and permits shall be issued in accordance with the vote at the annual town meeting held in March 1969 until the town votes otherwise. So the state kind of finally said there after 35 years, hey, why don't we just settle it once and for all and then we can come back if we change our minds down the road. And so that's where things stand now. So most towns in Vermont have gone wet for some towns. I guess the last time that was dry for both is gone, but I don't know the list. This is the last few years ago. This says from 29, from time meeting that Holland voted to become wet. The town was only one of four dry towns in Vermont, which is different. But again, it's made stone Baltimore and Athens or Athens or however you want to pronounce it. Right. So we're down to a handful of towns there. If you look at Department of Liquor and Lottery's information, there's a slightly larger group of towns where they don't allow hard alcohol to be sold, but they sell beer and wine. So that's this one here. So it's been described variously as opt in or opt out, but it was really, I think somewhere in the middle, because it was annual sort of an annual vote to see where we're at until 1969 when towns basically decided are we in or out. So I think the current bill here is a little bit different because what it's proposing is basically you're in unless you opt out. And so what this says here is you can prohibit the operation of a cannabis establishment or a specific type of cannabis establishment within the municipality at your annual or special meeting. And this would not apply to a cannabis establishment that's operating within the municipality at the time of the vote. So basically what it says is you can have a town meeting to say we don't want to have grow operations in our town because of the various concerns about those, but we're willing to have a dispensary or a retail operation. And so you could basically say that our town here is going to be, dry is not the right word, but we're going to prohibit grow operations but will permit retail operations. Now will that have to be done at an inch town meeting? No, so this would be, only if you want to stop. So it remains in effect until ascended by a majority vote of those persons who have another meeting warrant for that purpose. So once you decide to opt out, you're out until you decide to opt back in. And that's by special meeting? Right, so that's your standard sort of town meeting. So you can either do it at your annual town meeting or at a special meeting that you warrant for that purpose. Let me just skip ahead here. So there are five types of establishments. It's cultivator, wholesaler, manufacturer, product manufacturer, retailer, and testing laboratory. So towns might want to permit testing laboratories, but none of the others. Or they might say we don't want cultivators and we don't want wholesalers, but we don't mind if you're manufacturing products and we don't mind if you have retail sales. Or they might say we don't want retail but we're fine with everything else. So there is a lot of flexibility here. So towns are not just simply wet or dry. So that's one big difference. The other big difference is that this isn't the sort of we're going to vote whether we're in or out. It's you're in unless you vote to come out. So that's, it's a pure opt-out model. Nothing about distribution in five. So, well the wholesaler would be distribution. Yup. So wholesaler is going to be warehousing distribution. And so retail, Tom, you had a question there? Oh yeah. And this is purely theoretical. If the town chooses not to hold that vote, they just don't do it. And there's no way at then it's like a pot rush in your community of different licensees coming in. There's nothing to control that. So, yeah, if you haven't held the meeting, their licensees can come in. So the subsection B though kind of addresses that a little bit. So this is allows municipality that's got a cannabis establishment to establish a cannabis control commission. Okay, yeah. And this is like in the alcoholic beverages law where you have a local control commission. There are some differences here. So under the liquor laws, the control commissioners are your select board of your city council. Under this it says they may be members of the municipal legislative body, which to me means that you could have a separate body that's your cannabis control commission. So that sounds like a local control option to me. And then the cannabis control commission may administer municipal permits under this subsection. And they may condition the issuance of municipal permit upon compliance with any bylaw or ordinances regulating signs or public nuisances. And that's similar to the relevant alcohol provisions. So if I switch back over to the alcohol law. And I would assume they could also consider zoning. So your zoning permit is a different permitting process. So you can't build a commercial or manufacturing facility in something that's zone residential. But that's a different control process, which continues to be reserved to municipalities is my understanding. Again, I do need to emphasize that I'm coming to this bill from the outside and not the person in our office who's the expert on it. But just like with liquor establishments, I mean, in the same way that I forget what zoning I'm in, like medium density residential or something here in town, there's no provision for me to run a bar out of my garage even if it's the greatest proposal ever, which I don't think it would be if you've seen my garage. Only to the 14-year-olds. Right. Well, it is a finished garage. It was an art studio at some point in history. But yeah, I still wouldn't... Yeah, anyway. I'm on video here, so I should just stop them on my head. There are 27 people on YouTube who are going to watch this video. I might be one of them. So, but anyway, so the control commissioners under our liquor laws can also administer the rules here. And then they have this authority to contissue the issuance of licenses upon compliance with any arguments, regulating entertainment or public nuisances. So they're slightly different. It's actually slightly broader authority under the marijuana bill here, S54. Under that one, you'll see that what you're looking at is that they can condition it on a by-law adopted pursuant to the by-law ordinance and ordinance regulating signs or public nuisances. And generally, just for reference, even though the sign language isn't in the local control thing piece here, liquor establishments are required to comply with sign laws. That's just in a different part of Title VII. So under here, you can suspend or revoke a local control permit for a violation of a condition placed upon the issuance. That's the same as under the liquor laws currently. Although it's suspension for the local authority and then revocation, they can, a local authority can conditionally revoke a permit, but it has to be approved by the liquor control board. So typically what happens is the local authority suspends it and asks the board of liquor and lottery to revoke the license. The other option for the local authorities is they may just not renew your license the next year. So they're not required to approve it. So what's happened, for example, in some municipalities that have had a problem with an establishment and they've gone through the suspension process a few times, is that the next time that establishment comes in to renew the license, they don't approve the renewal and then the establishment closes. So on the licenses again, we heard from Michelle that under current law of medical dispensaries merely have one license. That was all that was developed and they were allowed to have a vertical integration to grow into package and to make getibles and to sell. This contemplates something completely different, which I think is right, that there's multiple licenses. But I haven't heard clearly about retail establishments or retail licenses. In our state, we can sell cigarettes, wine, beer in every single mom and pop or convenience store or gas station or many supermarkets. There's liquor that's only available in 80 locations because it's controlled. Where does this make, does this legislation, as it stand, make any recommendations about limiting the amount of licenses that will be given for retail purposes? I don't know. So that's a question that's better for Michelle. I asked that question. There's no cap right now. CBB infused brownies and things are in many restaurants now. So I could see a year from now there could be, right? Well, I think the watch over, I heard a question about, THC and butter. You know, infused products. And I would assume that that would be a rulemaking situation that might fit under a rulemaking situation as people started to, when hemp was legalized, my memory of hemp being legalized was, oh, look at how many textiles we'll make. And by the time the industry got up and going, the seeds were hard to come by, if not illegal to buy at first. All of a sudden, hemp was about CBD oil. And not about textiles or not about rope or the conventional things that you would think about, that you would connect to hemp. So I would imagine that under these circumstances that the commission would be able to start, they'd start hearing about, I mean, all you got to do is go to any website and find out how many products are available, what restaurants where it's been legalized. But to your point, though, you can buy alcohol only in 80 stores and then sell it in your restaurant. And I think if this doesn't speak to that, then I wonder if that's something that we want, not necessarily to demand of them, but just to say, you know, pay attention to the fact that we may not be big fans of seeing marijuana available at every gas station. We're so angry at that. Four animals in every restaurant. And we're angry at that. Right, without a roof. Well, fine. Go ahead, John. For me, these five separate licenses make it even more complicated because sometimes you could say they don't want the crop to grow. And we're not saying you can't grow corn, you can't grow soy, you can't grow hay on your land. And so if it's legal in our state, it's not likely to be like what? But it's vertically integrated, like in any medical marijuana dispensers. I can see where it's opt-out. And then, you know, there's all these other stores that are all these five different licenses, and it seems overly politically correct to me to make it just like the scary marijuana's here. And so let's, and it's like, well, we already, we already, we'll be on that now. We legalized it, we're now trying to regulate and tax it. And so I just can't see if we're not being able to grow marijuana if it's in our state. I see what you're talking about more like hemp falls on that category of corn, right? When you're talking about something that has an integrating level of THC in it, I see that more as somebody who is a brewery or a distilled, that's a different type of license and that's a different type of indoor control. People who are going to be growing height, you know, THC level and integrating marijuana products are going to be doing it like under a roof in a controlled environment with security just because of the nature of the product. Where the hemp industry, I see compartmentalize different as an agricultural dynamic. And even that I think is, I mean, even though it falls within that same vein as CBD, they're two kind of like different strains at the same point. And we're getting just like even a classification. Yeah, I would also point out that possession of, possession and homegrown is what's legal. Commercial crops are not legal. Disability will be, all right. If they're licensed. Right, so I hear what you're saying but I also think if that's the case it'll be 10, 15, 30 years down the line when if it becomes legal it becomes fully a part of our full culture. I think the concern for, you call it politically correct, I would call it controlled where in Massachusetts I guess there's been a problem where there might be a unified license and the concern is quote unquote big business coming in. Big companies coming in from out of state that are. Now, I think there's a reality just because of the way the world works that big money will be here if the federal government ever legalizes marijuana. We will probably set up a system like what we have now for beer and wine which is if you want to sell, there's this thing called the Grand Home Decision which is about selling alcohol across state lines which says that if you want to sell, if I want to sell my marijuana in Michigan I need to let Michigan sell wine or whatever in this state. So, but I appreciate the separation of the licensing to sort of put the brakes on this vertical and like I don't think that I think if anybody has medical marijuana they might say and I've heard this from a couple people is that you don't have a choice. People can buy better pot on the street for about the same price if not better and there's no control over the quality of the marijuana in the medical dispensaries. You know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So this at least tries to set up a system that everybody should have an interest in making the best product, safest product possible. It's not the same, I mean it would be similar if we had a control model like we talked about we'd just be cutting out the wholesalers license because it would then come to the state. But anyway, those are just thoughts to keep in mind. Just to get to the issue of some of the controls in here, so to keep in mind think back to the walkthrough that Michelle did. The way this bill is set up, it's on a long timeline. So we're looking at enactment this year and then there's rulemaking going on from November of this year through September of next year and then in January of next year they're presenting some fee recommendations and coming back to legislature. And then the first applications start right after the rulemaking finishes. We were talking about a one-year rulemaking period and the rulemaking list in here goes on for a couple of pages about the things that they need to establish for cannabis establishments. So reform and content of applications, qualifications for licensure, oversight requirements, inspection requirements, record keeping, employment and training requirements, security requirements, restrictions on advertising, marketing and signage, health and safety, and a lot of these things have guidelines in the bill where the legislature is establishing sort of the roadmap of we want you to stay within these boundaries and then they're similar to other things. We're leaving it up to the board to fill in a lot of the details. Health and safety requirements, regulation of additives, procedures for seed-to-sale traceability, regulation of the storage and transportation, sanitation requirements, procedures for license renewal, procedures for suspension and revocation, requirements for banking and financial transactions, and policies and procedures for outreach and promoting participation in the regulated cannabis market by various groups of individuals. And then if you look down, cultivators and manufacturers and just go to retailers since that's what we were talking about, so proper age verification, regulations on storing cannabis behind the counter or other barrier to prevent direct access to the product, requirements that the hemp products be clearly labeled and displayed separately, and various facility inspection requirements and procedures. So a lot of this gets to the law enforcement type activities that we currently see with liquor and tobacco without getting into the specifics here in this bill. So, but that's, I think one thing to keep in mind is that there is some control here. It doesn't speak to a limit on the number of establishments. So it doesn't, it doesn't speak to some of those other questions around, you know, for example, we have hard alcohol where it's limited establishments, but alcohol below 16%, there's no limit on the number of establishments. The only limitation is whether the town is dry or wet and then the financial limitation that the market places on it. So those are just some things. I mean, it's tough because these aren't apples to apples. Right. And alcohol deals with a whole federal regulatory system that is not in place for cannabis. So just FYI, so the towns of Athens, Baltimore, now Mace, then Wave Ridge had banned all of them. What's that? Wave Ridge. That's what it says here. And while the towns of Addison, Albany, Corinth, Granby, Grotton, Lincoln, Marshfield, Lungton, Palmford, Rupert, Pumbridge, Burshire, Walden, Waterfall, Wells, Wolcott, and Worcester are wet for beer. That wine? This beer? I guess it's the same wine. It's the same wine. This report was from VLCT and it is that those towns have opted to ban sale of all liquor but have not banned the sale of malt beverages. Not Venus, huh? Could be one. Or it just could be a misinterpretation of the law. I'll check it with one other. No, it's the same. Where malt and vines go together. So, committee guy. Venus would be the... That's a great part, right? It's okay. Mary? And let's go about law enforcement and testing. It's an integration area. So there is, but again, it's not part of the bill I'm focused on. So I've been looking at the stuff that we're dealing with. So that's a better question for Michelle. I can run you through that later. I got respect. That's a very active component of this conversation. So from our perspective, though, I think this covers pretty much what we were asked to look at. So would it be fair if I wrote a draft that we shared, either if I finished it before Tuesday, but certainly by Tuesday, that touched on... And this, if I will make clear that this is kind of a committee, this is a discussion not of committee support for the overall bill because there is an universal support for the overall bill, but that based on our subject matter, that we would ask the committee to continue looking at the way to licensing for retail, I think is the most important thing to us. The opt-out provision we support by nature, the opt-out... I mean, it sounded to me like we don't have any problem with the opt-out portion of it because it matches the alcohol. And generally, that would really... I can't think of anything else right this minute, but that would be... Or I would also talk about acknowledging the fact that under the Control Substances Act, we can't do a control system as we have for alcohol, which we still believe is a better way... We believe it's a... I won't say it's better, but it's workable. I'll find somewhere that it's something that we can use, but does that sound reasonable if I touch on those subjects and then share the text with everybody and we can vote on it on Tuesday? Yes. Okay. Michelle just joined us right on time. Awesome. But we did have a couple of questions that Damien Perry simply because he was in the subject... No, thank you so much for covering. I appreciate it. So, does anybody have those questions for Michelle while she's here? Mary, well, I was concerned about law enforcement and the roadside testing. So, for the record, Michelle Childs, Civil Legislative Council, House Judiciary also got a letter and they are working on the issue of roadside testing and oral fluid testing, and they're going to be taking testimony on that and making a proposal next week. And Representative Hashim is going to actually... who's on Judiciary, and it's a DRE, is going to be testifying in house government operations next week on walking them through the process of the road for what they do and all that kind of stuff. So, we're particularly interested that maybe you all can walk across the hall and catch some of that testimony. Thank you. Sure. So, what we were just finishing up the discussion is that our letter back based on what we think is our purview or subject matter expertise is we'll get a letter back and talk a little bit about supporting the... I've always considered the control model for alcohol as being a model for marijuana. Oh, we need a new warehouse, so let's save a space for marijuana and Damien shared with us some of the felonious nature of the state undertaking that on. And so, having heard that, we're just going to address that a little bit, supporting the notion that the process that's in the bill seems sufficient as far as it goes for control. Right. We did have questions about... and we'll raise these questions about will the licensing of retail establishments be closer to the way we sell beer and wine and cigarettes, which could be on every street corner, or is it going to be an alcohol where there's going to be a licensing provision that's a little bit more stringent and based on something different than just any establishment? I mean, whether or not there'll be limitations on the number of retail facilities and location and things like that, right? And that's something that the board's going to be working on. Right. But that's it. We'll just think as a focus point and then supporting the opt-out notion of the licensing. Did Damien share with you our discussion of the other day about the opt-in opt-out? Yeah, I'd share with them the history of that section. Yeah, Damien got out his dusty 1930s alcohol. You skip like that. Well, and as I mentioned, the notion of having said, oh, it should just be like alcohol. I mean, that's just been ingrained in my head for 10 years. Right. And to have it disabused so quickly and thoroughly was useful. Randall had a question though the other day, and this stuck with me as the locations. And I think he had a question of could it be a food truck or in my youth, the ice cream truck. Right. And they don't think it's not contemplated or addressed specifically in there. So whether or not, I guess maybe they would be up to the board about whether or not a retail facility. I mean, I think it's not, I think it's not contemplated by the current draft because it's talking about the opt-in opt-out. I don't know really how that would work if you're rotating the truck that as soon as they opt it out, you just move your truck. Right.