 I'm going to get started then. My name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Vermont Cannabis Control Board. Today is Friday, December 17th. It's 11 a.m. and I'll call this meeting to order. So we prefiled our rules one and two, the first two or five rules with ICAR and they were approved by ICAR that's kind of a very initial first step in that process. We filed them with the Secretary of State today and next Tuesday. We're going to be reviewing and voting on our remaining three rules. And we hope that that means that we can prefile them before the new year. And that again kind of puts us on a track towards meeting our statutory deadlines that are in Act 164. Again the risk is sounding like a broken record. Please read these rules, give us feedback, or just don't read them and give us feedback. We just need feedback. Every state that is legalized has made mistakes, they've left things out, they've done things that they wish they didn't, that don't make sense. And we really here in Vermont are trying to create a regulatory structure that allows the Vermont ethos to survive and thrive. And the only way that we can do that is to hear from the people that have built that ethos and are going to be most directly impacted by these regulations. So we're going to be meeting again next Tuesday, that'll be a slightly longer meeting when we kind of review and finalize rules three, four, and five. The board will again hold its after hours meeting from six to seven on December 28th. And that'll be live streamed, you can join via kind of a link on our website. We don't have a physical location quite yet, but it'll most likely be here in Montpelier, 89 Main Street. And then that's really it for December, we're going to, we have plans to convene our advisory committee the first week of January to discuss our January 15th reporting requirements. And with that, I would ask, have you guys had a chance to review the minutes from the 15th? Yes. Yes. All right. Is there a motion to approve? So moved. All in favor? Aye. Aye. And I will just move on to the rest of the agenda today. Again, we're going to be discussing rules three and four, kind of at a high level overview. Rule three is really around the medical program and the specifics there. Again, the medical program rules are set to expire in March. And we need to kind of create additional rules or kind of refile rules around the medical program. Again, trying to align it with the adult recreational market and ensure that nothing, no rule that we enact is more restrictive than the current Department of Public Safety rules that are in effect. Rule four is really around enforcement of our regulations, you know, what do violations look like? How do we provide notice to licensees? What does the grievance process look like? And, and then rule five is around board removal, board member removal. So, Brandon, if you're ready, I'll turn things over to you. Yep. Okay. So thank you for that introduction. So the board is going to do today is to review some kind of remaining outstanding issues on rules three and four, the rules governing the medical program and the compliance and enforcement rule. And then after that, we'll move on to rule five, which you reviewed in some detail on Wednesday. And there's one small change to rule five, you have one remaining issue to discuss. And then the hope was that you could vote on that one if you're ready. So then next Tuesday, you just have to go through rules three and four, the actual text of rules three and four and vote on those on Tuesday. Okay. So rule three, the remaining issues that are kind of outstanding to discuss are one issue that Julie raised when we reviewed the, when we reviewed kind of the bulk of that rule initially, which was in the portion governing the requirements for dispensary applications, whether or not there should be a requirement that the dispensaries submit a plan for training or education of its staff. And the board had some conversation about whether making that requirement since it is not required in the DPS rule would be in conflict with that statutory provision, 7VSA 956, which provides the no rule being maybe more restrictive than the DPS rule. But I'm taking that back to the board for your continued conversation on that point. Any conversation around that? I mean, I think I've already said how I feel about this. I really do think that the dispensaries should have a requirement to submit a plan for training for their staff. I would agree. I think it wouldn't even be to cause for conversation if it wasn't for that no more restrictive language, I think, at least from my perspective, I don't know how you feel. And just so you all know, I did do a statutory review and also talked a little bit with the current medical program staff, but do you think that it's defensible to add that type of language on the basis of requirements that are currently in statute and that operate in conjunction, obviously, with the current rules? All right, yeah, let's definitely do it then. I mean, we'll just, you know, again, like the what's going to happen is if we included in our rules, Elkar is really the avenue where they're going to look at the rule. They're going to go to the lead sponsors and all the committees that created those this specific statutory requirement, and they're going to ask if this is within the legislative intent. And so it's really going to be their ultimate decision, but I think we should include it. I agree. Thank you. Thank you. Great. So the next issue for your discussion is so when we're again, we're talking about rule three, talking about the requirements for patients. Should that health care professional verification form be required with each annual renewal, or would you like to make that seminal renewal so it happens every other year? So that's the form that's required where the health care professional signs off the person has a qualifying condition. And are we treating chronic pain differently than the other qualifying conditions? With respect to this? With respect to just renewals, generally. Not waiving the annual renewal for incurable diseases. There is, that's a statutory requirement, and we do have had some conversations about whether that should be a requirement and statute or not, but it's not. I'm fine with every two years. Me too. Me too. Moving right along. Well, it's true. I'm just thinking more on how we're going to get it forward, those best renewals, the let's run the medical program will be moving forward, because people will just say it isn't worth it, you know. So the last remaining issue for the medical program rule is, has to do with the background checks for caregivers. And the proposal is if there's a caregiver, if the caregiver is a family member, should the board grant a temporary registration for that caregiver, pending the outcome of the background check. So this has come up in situations where a person has been diagnosed with terminal illness, they need access to medication immediately, should a family member caregiver be given a temporary registration while the board conducts the background check. Seems like a pretty easy one. Yeah. Yeah. And we asked in our last meeting if there'd ever been an issue with a caregiver, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. All right. Yes. I should allow this temporary registration. So that completes the outstanding issues on rule three. So the board will review the full text of that rule on Tuesday. Okay. So we're going to move on to rule four. And we talked, I can't remember what day that was, maybe last Friday about the, about rule four of the Plants and Enforcement Rule. And I showed, we went through some slides, primarily on the categories of violations and what the potential outcomes could be. So just a few more slides to review the process that out in rule four. And I'm just starting with this last, this last slide that you review that kind of sets out the notice, how the notice process works. Notice of violations can be issued with or without an immediate effect depending on whether or not the violation poses an immediate threat to public health or safety. So we're going to go through what that process looks like for starting out with the notice of violations. So notice of violations, the contents are listed here on the left and service on the right. So a notice will contain a concise statement of the nature of the violation and then the factual basis for it. The penalty or penalties to be imposed, any associated health and safety orders, if the violation poses a threat to public health or safety, and information to the licensee about how to contest the violation and how to pay a waiver penalty if the licensee wishes to do so, and also submit a corrective action plan if that's part of the violation. And we'll talk about the waiver a little bit more on the next slide. And then service, sufficient service shall be certified mail to the business address on the licensee's application and also by email. And then there's also a provision that the licensee can opt in to receiving notice only by email. So moving through the process here, a licensee can waive their right to contest a violation and pay a waiver penalty instead. So the amount that's provided for on the notice shall be the waiver penalty amount. And if the licensee chooses to do that, they can pay the waiver penalty and that will constitute kind of an acceptance of the board's penalty. Or the licensee can choose to deny the violation and contest it in writing or request a hearing depending on what type of penalty they face. And we'll talk about that in the next couple of slides. And depending on the outcome, the fine assessed, the waiver penalty can be the same as what the fine assessed ultimately is or the ultimate fine can be lower based on the board's final decision. All right, so we'll go through the process if the violation poses no immediate threat to public health or safety. This kind of sets out the timelines that the board has to abide by. So within 15 days of receiving a notice of violation, the licensee can contest by filing a written response to the board. And that written response has to contain each issue in fact in dispute, the rationale behind the licensee's position and any pertinent facts to be determined by the board. If the licensee fails to contest the violation within 15 days, that constitutes an admission and an acceptance of the penalty. If the licensee does respond, the board has to consider that response and issue a final decision in writing within 15 days of receiving the licensee's response. And if the violation penalty, if the associated penalty is a suspension or a revocation, then the licensee can request a hearing before the board. And the hearing has to take place within 20 days of the board receiving that request, unless the licensee waives that 20-day timeline. Evidence can be introduced to that hearing in accordance with the statutory rules of evidence for contested administrative cases and the statute that will be cited in the rule. And the board can issue a final decision either on the record of the hearing or in writing within 15 days after the hearing is complete. And the board, the final decision of the board, either after the hearing or just in writing in response to the licensee's response, can be to either uphold its original violation notice or to revise the penalty to be less severe or it can dismiss the notice altogether or the violation altogether. And then a person who wants to appeal, that final decision can do so in accordance with statute. And that 7VSA 847 is the same appeal process that you reviewed on Wednesday with respect to the board removal rule. So we can look at that again if you'd like. So the provision that a person has to appeal within 30 days of the decision to the executive director who assigns the case to an appellate officer. And an appeal from there goes to the Supreme Court. So just a reminder that this tracks almost identically with the process that the Agency of Agriculture uses for violations of the people that they license. There's a few, you know, statutory changes in our statutes around time frames, but they do 15 and they do 30 days. But other than that, it's almost identical, which I think is a benefit to the people that are used to that sort of process that have been living with it already. It won't seem new or out of place for most of the kind of people we hope will be participating. Yeah, and if our hearing shall take place within 20 days versus 30 days at Ag, recognizing that this is folks livelihood. And if there's an issue and they need to stop or close their doors or whatever, I think it makes sense that we work as expeditiously as we can to come to some type of resolution. Okay, so one more. And this is just if the violation does pose an immediate threat to public health or safety of the timelines. This is very much the same, but the timelines are a little different. So if the violation does pose a threat to public health or safety, the notice of violation that the board submits to the licensee has to plainly state that the penalty will take effect immediately. And then the board has to confirm the violation notice and penalty within seven days of the licensee. So for these types of violations, suspensions, revocations or health and safety orders take effect immediately. They're accompanied by a written finding that they're the violation posed an immediate threat to public health, safety or welfare. However, any associated fines or corrective action plan requirements will not take effect until the conclusion of the process. So then again, we move into the same kind of process here. 15 days of receipt. The licensee has 15 days to contest by filing a response to the board and writing and that response has to include the same information that was provided on the former slide about facts supporting their position. Failure to contest within 15 days again constitutes an admission of the violation and an acceptance of the penalty. And then the board has 10 days to respond to the licensee's response with a final decision. And if the penalty associated with the violation is a revocation or a suspension, once again, licensee can request a hearing as opposed to just a written response. And that hearing has to be within 10 days of the board receiving the request for the hearing. That's opposed to 20 days for the, for, yep, 20 days. Again, evidence has to be in accordance with the statutory rules of evidence for contested cases under the Mentioning Procedure Act. And then the board can either issue its final decision on the hearing or in writing within 10 days after the hearing is complete. So 10 days as opposed to 15 days if a violation doesn't pose a threat to public health or safety. And again, same thing, the board's final decision, either after the hearing or just in response to the licensee's response to the violation notice, can either revise the penalty to be less severe or it can be the same penalty as imposed in the original notice of violation or the board can dismiss the violation altogether. And the appeal process is the same. That's it for Rule 4. I have just one question about the hearing shall be within 10 days unless waived by the licensee. What's the effect of it not happening in 10 days if not waived? Is it default against the state? You don't provide for that. That's right. The rule does not provide for that. I mean, yeah, you could add something if you wanted. Well, I just, you know, I'm trying to think of just the worst case scenario. These are the worst case scenarios, right? And, you know, I think about just like, I don't like to really go down that path necessarily. But like, you know, there was a quarantine of all vape products during the Evoli scare in Massachusetts. And so that was in order, I think it's not, it didn't come from the cannabis commission and it came from the governor. But I wonder if we did something like that to all retailers in the state, you know, having to do all of them within 10 days might be difficult. So, you know, I just wonder if there's some like for good cause extension or something along those lines that might allow the board to extend to a reasonable amount of time for cause for a good cause. We can have something like that. Does that take us out of line with the APA or anything else? I mean, Not really. This is only, this is our own process. The APA only fully applies once you get down to the appeal in accordance with the statute. Yeah. So I think we'd have flexibility to add some language about the consequence that the board doesn't meet those deadlines or, you know, where, how much flexibility there might be. Okay. Does that make sense? I mean, do we, do we care? I mean, I'm trying to, like I don't, I hate to be like the doom and gloom kind of like worst case scenario, but I think it's prudent to at least acknowledge that that is a set of facts that could play out at some point in the future, whether we wanted to or not. Better to explore it now. And I think yes, there should be some sort of second option or, or pause. If there's something major like that. Okay. And just thinking, thinking about the appeals process and three VSA 840 or sorry, seven VSA 847. I do think the consequence of the board not meeting that 10 day deadline could be that the appellate, not the appellate, the administrative judge could throw out the boards. Yeah. I mean, it's unique because we didn't follow our own process. Yeah. I mean, and it's unique that's not necessarily that scenario wasn't really hinting at a bad actor in respect to a licensed holder, but more so product issues. Industry wide. Right. God forbid, but. Well, when I read that initially, I just thought that there might be some good cause that the board might show that, you know, licensee might not agree to my, you know, to waive that deadline, but there's a good cause. There's a good reason for it as long as we're moving as quickly as possible. It could also provide for consolidated hearings. The same issue is affecting multiple licensees. They don't all have to be, they don't have to be separate hearings necessarily if it's one issue. Right. It's true. Yeah. Okay. Is that, is that right? We leave it there and you need more discussion. That's good. Okay. That's fine. It's the only thing I didn't notice. I think everything else looks great. Great. Okay. So that completes your discussion on rule four. Do you have anything else? So we'll move to rule five and take a final look. So this is the rule that you walked through on Wednesday. I wanted to flag that in response to the boards, one of the issues that Julie raised, there has been one amendment to the language of rule five. And that is here under the initial inquiry section in subsection B. So this, the change provides that legal counsel. Once he or she has been directed to institute an inquiry, they have to provide notice to the chair and the participating member of their initial written findings. So this is the issue about notifying. Oops. No, this is the participating member. So this, I mean the subject, the subject, right? Oops. So that should just say. I made the same profit. I mean, same mistake. Do we want to put it in? I'm sorry. If I'm just not seeing this language, do we want to add any language there? It's. I'm not sure if we want to add anything to that. You know. Unless it gives an opportunity for the subject member to become too close to the investigation or. Yes. Something along those lines. Wait a second. This is the same. I think. Yeah. For some reason, the sections aren't showing up and what you have up there, which is. Confusing. have a different looking at. So just I think you had you had mentioned that like they should receive notice that there's a complaint being investigated against them unless the nature of the complaint and the nature of the subject number itself or his or herself in a situation actively doing something nefarious with relation to that. In terms of like doom and gloom like the way I have seen that going this play out is that it gives an opportunity for whoever's investigating or other two people yes to like build a case that is unfair. The irony of drafting this rule is we have to ever have to use it. Our future boards will never have to use it. And that's unique with respect to what we're doing except for parts of rule four. Hope we never have to do some of those scenarios or what you want to call it but operate version now. So the new language is here in five three two sub b that's notifies the subject number of their complaint and left notification would compromise the initial inquiry by the legal counsel. Thank you. So that's the only change to the text of it as we went through it on Wednesday. There the board did have some conversation about whether or not the process should be confidential. So yeah I raised the issue that you know maybe these proceedings should be confidential. I had wrongfully assumed that they were confidential in other contexts. David and appointed me to the judicial ethics bureau board. And this pretty well tracks what you know is happens in other kind of disciplinary actions. So I'm fine with the not the formal proceedings not being confidential. Same subject to of course like all the records laws or whatever. Right. And there's the carve out for the personnel. That's already in there. Right. So are you ready to vote out rule five Yeah I think so. I would take a motion to approve rule five as drafted as we see here. Seconded. All in favor. So I don't know if we have anything else on our agenda for today other than public comment. I know that next Tuesday we are planning on having a probably more of a marathon meeting just to review the actual text line by line of four rules three and four. So why don't we just move towards public comment for today. We're a little ahead of schedule. But if you we have some folks in the room start with them public comment. Anyone who joined via the link please raise your virtual hand if you'd like to make a comment first up we have Jesse Lynn. Hello how are you all doing today. Thanks so much for having us all and taking public comment. I just wanted to reiterate my request for you guys to address reset why can't I say it reciprocity today. So if you guys could you know I mentioned before I think reciprocity is really important for patients who are moving to Vermont from out of state who are coming visiting on vacation who have second home so if you guys could please consider looking at readdressing reciprocity I think that's an important part of the program we're missing also wanted to mention having that second sign off for the PTSD verification. We haven't had much discussion or chat around that I would love to see if that's something you guys could recommend to remove that second needed signature because that is definitely a barrier and roadblock for patients to get their card. And lastly I just wanted to thank you and agree that I strongly believe we need educated medical staff or medical professionals or at least the medical dispensary staff having a stronger education and background and in my opinion I really like I said I appreciate you guys pushing for that and if the dispensaries or legislators are trying to work against that that's a larger concern from this systemic kind of sense. So so again just hoping you guys can look at the PTSD and the reciprocity as we move forward and include that while you're making some of this rulemaking change. Thank you. Thanks Jesse Lynn. Next is Tita Byrne. Hi guys just a quick thought about the current rule for caregivers going forward I think we really need to see some clarity on a caregiver who is also a patient you know so the way the rule reads right now it says they can have two mature seven immature and two ounces in between them and that the way it's written right now that indicates to me in a vehicle because clearly in your home you're allowed to have as much cannabis as you want so it's just it's unclear there and I think obviously a caregiver who's a patient obviously has to grow their two plants for themselves and obviously they have to grow their two plants for the person they're caregiving for so it would just be nice to see protections in there for caregivers so that they can grow their plants and the plants for their caregivers or for their patients rather in the same place. Thank you. Thank you Tita. Anyone else who joined by the link? Do you have anyone that joined by phone? One person on the phone. So if you joined by phone and you'd like to comment please just hit star six to unmute yourself. Jesse Lynn raised her hand again. Jesse Lynn we try not to do repeat comments during these meetings. We will be meeting again next Tuesday and have probably at least two public comment periods then and I know you know how to reach us all so if you would like to comment please just either submit it through the web portal or email us or come back to us on Tuesday. We had old growth organics just raised their hand. Well growth. Hi I figured since this is such a quick meeting now might be the time to do this but there's actually a shout out to Amelia. I just want to ask if you want to be my friend. I always really respect what you have to say but I don't know how to get a hold of you and I'm moving to Vermont soon. So old growth organics on Instagram is spelled out just like in the participant here with underscore between the words. Thank you guys so much for your time and for all the work you're doing. Thank you. Anyone else? Okay well just a reminder we do have our another meeting on Tuesday at 11 and we'll be reviewing rules 3 and 4 in greater detail then so other than that I will adjourn the meeting. Thank you.