 Welcome back committee. That was a quick two minute break. And amazingly enough, we are right on schedule here this morning. We only have a few minutes this morning with with Kendall Smith. So I want to dive right into the next topic. In the last biennium, this committee spent a lot of time working on the details of cannabis for retail cannabis bill. And so I thought it would be helpful for us to take a review of the timelines that were set forward into statute with that bill. And since we only have miss Smith for a few minutes this morning, I wanted to give her an opportunity to update us on on where we are in the timeline of board. And then we'll go back to the control board applications and and getting those to the nominating committee and then we'll go back for an overview of the timeline and the bill as it passed with our legislative council. So Kendall, thank you for being with us this morning. Yes, good morning everybody. My name is Kendall Smith. I'm the governor's director of policy development and legislative affairs. I'm here for the invitation to join you for a few minutes this morning around the status of the cannabis control board and getting that off the ground. So again, I know Michelle from Ledge Council will probably walk you through the bill again in a few minutes, but how the cannabis control board is to get up and running is that basically the governor needs to send a list of names to a nominating committee, which I believe Vice Chair Gannon is on. And then the nominating committee, that's the names that we send and sends the people that they feel are well qualified back to the governor for ultimate appointment. And I believe the statute is no less than five names per seat. And it's pretty broad in terms of what would make somebody well qualified or the cannabis control board members having to have any certain background. So as I said, we posted a job application and announcement online for the cannabis control board because these are full time state jobs that application period close the end of December. We also had to take some time to do some diligence forwarding that link and that information around to the many different stakeholder groups that were interested in this bill as it was being crafted and moving forward through the legislature. So with this morning, I'd say roughly between 80 and 90 applications are people that reached out and said they were interested in being considered. We have been going through those names and the governor plans to send a list of names to the nominating committee this week. And then one of the governor's appointees on that committee, his name is Nick Lopez. He works for the Department of Human Resources, he may have testified actually in your committee over the past couple years. He is one of our appointees and he either has or is about to send a note to the rest of the members of the nominating committee to meet next week and go through those names to then send individuals back to the governor. So that's, that's where we are. We're hoping to get this moving as you all are as well. With that I can take any questions but that's a pretty good summary about the status. Thank you candle I I appreciate the update on on where we are in that process. So is it your expectation that that the administration appointees to the nominating committee are are going to help facilitate some of the administration of the document. So at the outset, again once the committee organizes itself can kind of figure out some of those nuances but to at least get it off the ground. Yeah we asked again Nick Lopez from DHR to try to convene everybody and just so our three appointees for folks awareness to the nominating committee from the governor's side are Nick Lopez from Human Resources. Sabina Haskell, she serves on the board of liquor and lottery and is a former lottery commission chair and secretary and some tablets from the agency of agriculture. Thank you, John Gannon. Thanks. Hello, Kendall. Thank you for coming today. Are we just getting a list of names or are we going to get actually the applications and or residents. That's a great question, I would assume and I will confirm this wrap again and that we would send you the, like the resumes or whatever information they provided us with the names. And just another thing, there's been a lot of trouble scheduling a meeting, because I'm not sure some of the administration members of the nominating committee understand how difficult it is for the legislative members to meet from Tuesday to Friday. Monday is an ideal day because we don't the legislature is not in session. And that has caused. I think a lot of challenge in trying to schedule a meeting. I can reiterate that point with the administration members. Thank you. You're welcome. And I should just add that the, the legislative members as Kendall pointed out, I'm a member. The other House member is Janet Ansell chair of House ways of means. The two Senate members are Jeanette White, Senator Jeanette White, who's chair of house gobops and Senator Chris Pearson. Other questions from committee members. I have a very quiet bunch this morning. Thank you Kendall for being with us and giving us that update. I look forward to hearing that there is a meeting of the nominating committee scheduled so that they can review the application materials. Sounds good. Thank you everybody. Thank you. All right, so we will shift gears now and help to orient those of you who didn't sit through the last two years of work that we did on this bill. We have asked Michelle Childs, who is our legislative council attorney who, who helped craft this bill to come and share with us. Sort of a timeline of how we build the cannabis control board and what the steps are along the way, and give folks an opportunity to understand a little bit of the details about the way the bill was crafted so that in the event that we get back to any issues within the cannabis realm and the standing up of the board that this committee will at least have an initial overview of how the bill was crafted. So, thank you Michelle for being with us this morning I understand you have some documents that have been sent to our committee. Thank you. And sorry, I'm still a little new with the whole sharing thing so. So, but I'm so there's a few you have a few new folks on here so I'll just introduce myself because there's a couple faces I don't recognize or I know the names but that's about it so my name is Michelle Childs. I'm the head of the Office of Legislative Council, and I typically staff the judiciary issues and cannabis really now that it's been legalized is not so much in the judiciary committees any longer, but I'm still continuing to work on it because I've been here since I've been here and I've been in the office for about 22 years so no sense giving it up now. So I'm going to take you through a little bit on Act 164 just a really broad overview of what's there. I know a lot of you like you know I look and see Representative Anthony, he knows it from ways and means right but then other folks who might have been on other committees or if you're a freshman. You know you may only have a little basic knowledge and, and anybody who wants some information more in greater detail feel free to email me and we can have a chat on the phone or anything like that I'm happy, happy to help with that. I'm going to share, I have a little just PowerPoint just to kind of hit the highlights of the act. And so here I go I'm going to try to share the screen. So Michelle, I think what we are trying to work towards and I'm sorry that we didn't have a chance to talk about this before you came in. We all have a second device that we can use to follow along with the document. And so what we'll do is we'll call the document up from our site and then we can still see each other as we. So that is good to know because that's always what I do, but then a lot of the other committees don't do that and so I, because I usually have my zoom on my iPad and then so I can use my laptop which I right we're we're working to establish what our, what our norms are based on the technology that we have access to so we'll try following along. Well now I have to figure out how I can look at it now. I'm stuck because it's all on the same screen now. Well, you can certainly minimize your zoom screen. If you have it called up already on your, on your computer, and you won't see us but I will interrupt you if I see people raising hands. Okay, alright or if you see my cats or my dogs, we can have it in the back or things like that you just let me know if there's a problem. It's like fun. Okay. Alright, so I'm going to start with the little slide presentation starts Green Mountain State so just a brief overview of 164. So, initially you're talking about the cannabis control board and what's going on right now so at 164 established a new independent commission within the executive branch that is going to be tasked with running the cannabis program the adult use and will also be managing the medical program which is currently regulated by the Department of Public Safety but in 20 in the spring of 2022 that's going to move over under the board and so they will be regulating both the adult use market and the medical use The board is comprised of a chair and two members their full time exempt employees so this isn't there's lots of different models for different kinds of boards out there this is a kind of a full time job for these three folks who are on the board. They are starting out with two staffers with an executive director who is required to be an attorney. So it's kind of a combination of an ED and a general counsel position, and then there's also administrative assistant. So that's just to get the ball rolling with the with the board. There's also the cannabis control board nominating committee and what you were just talking about with Kendall and so this nominating committee is made up of four legislators and three administrative employees. And, and it is their job to be vetting candidates that the governor selects for consideration and so this is a model that's looking at that it's already used in a couple other places and state law. The governor advertises for the position collects name sends those names to the nominating board and then it's the job of the nominating board to kind of vet those candidates and then they will select the candidates who they think are well qualified for the position and send those names back to the governor and then the governor is to select the three positions from that list that the nominating board sends back to them. So timeline after we go through these slides I'm going to walk you through the timeline the timeline is it's we're two months in and it's already blown so I'll just be honest about that. There's a lot on there just to note that under the act and sorry I had for I keep inverting the four and the six so sometimes you might see 146 I don't know why I do that but so Act 164 sets forth a timeline and that and they're supposed to the board members are actually supposed to be seated and start their their terms. And so I think something that the legislature is going to have to look at this year is how do you readjust the timeline and what does that mean for a lot of the things that you've kind of got stacked up on one another. One of the important issues around the timeline being off is that the board is required to report to the legislature. This April, April 1 on a number of things and that's because there were some things that the legislature wanted the board to look at more in depth and then report back to the legislature for the legislature to be able to take action. So the first thing is the resources necessary for implementation for FY 22 and 23, including positions and funding because right now what they're going to be doing when the board starts out is they're going to be looking at adopting all the rules for the adult use market and the medical market and but once they start accepting applications once they start having to do site visits and things like that they're going to need to expand to have enough staffing and so they're just becoming in in April and kind of doing that build out for the second and third year of the board. Another thing is state fees to be charged and collected in accordance with the board's authority so there's authorization in the act for all sorts of fees from an application fee to license fees. And they are not set an act 164 that that is the board is directed to kind of come up with a tiering system for all the different types of licenses and to recommend fees to the legislature but as you well know the legislature is the one that sets the fees and so the legislature has to act this year, while you are in session to pass a fee schedule so that when the board starts taking applications for licenses in 2022, you've got the fees established that's not something that would be left to the administration that's the legislature's job. I'm also supposed to look at whether money is expected to be generated by state fees are sufficient to support the statutory duties of the board and whether any portion of the tax money should go towards that. I'll walk you through the money stuff in a minute but essentially the fees support the regulatory structure and the tax money goes elsewhere so tax money is not used to support the regulation. So there's also there's also supposed to be reporting back on local fees to be charged and collected in accordance with the board's authority. There to report on specific criteria under state and federal law with regard to environmental and land use, as well as energy efficiency requirements. So a lot of work for this board to do that doesn't exist yet. I just mentioned the money so the cannabis regulation fund that is comprised of all the fees collected by the board. There was an initial appropriation in 164 $650,000. If the fund could get up and running, it's made in anticipation of receipts so because so it's going to be kind of running in the red for a while. If there's a negative balance in the fund at the close of FY 22, then tax revenues that come in will be used to backfill that but the goal of the initial legislation was to have the fees support the regulatory structure but there's, you know, based on JFO modeling and stuff like that it's not entirely clear that the fees alone without any tax revenue would be able to to sustain the work of the board over time. Cannabis taxes, there's a 14% excise tax for retail sales on cannabis so there's two groups that can sell its integrated licensees and retailers so when they're selling to the public there's a 14% tax. 30% of that tax is dedicated to substance misuse prevention programming with an animal annual cap of 10 million. And then there's a six or 6% sales and use tax, but it's dedicated to a grant fund to start or expand after school or summer learning programs. So it's, so it's your mark specifically for that. There are several types of licenses or six types of licenses that someone can obtain. If they qualify their cultivator licenses. There are wholesaler licenses so wholesalers would be doing transport they might be buying from farms and and then processing them and then selling to product manufacturers. So the product manufacturers are folks who would be creating edibles maybe they're creating creams or tinctures things like that. There's also testing labs, all of the licenses are required to go and have third party testing so they'll be these independently licensed labs, and then there's the retailers, the six type of license is only available to existing dispensaries. There are currently five licenses in Vermont for the medical dispensaries, and they are vertically integrated under one license means they can do everything from cultivate to point of sale. So that's different from what you have under the adult use market, but they would be allowed to obtain this special license. So it's only this five it wouldn't be open to all the like in the future if people apply for a medical that they could then qualify for the integrated so it's only for these five people doing it for several years and they would be able to get an integrated that would allow them to do what they're doing now but do it for the for the adult use market. You can only get one type of each license. This was something I think it's a, it's an important point, which is the legislature was very concerned about making sure they didn't want to have, you know, big monopolies of the market. So, if you are someone who's looking to go into the market you can get one cultivator license, you could get a cultivator license and a retail license you can get any combination but you can have more than any than one of each type of license. You can make the sure that you can have lots of point price points where people can enter the market the board is going to develop tiers within the licensing categories are required to do it for cultivators and for retailers. So you might somebody might want to be like a small craft cultivator and have a very small plot and then maybe say well I'm just gonna, I'm not going to sell flour I want to just grow that and then I want to turn it into my creams and then I want to be able to sell it to consumers so maybe they would get like the lowest tier for each one of those three types of licenses things like that and that's what the board's going to report back to the legislature on in April. There's a list of priorities in licensing and the board's supposed to adopt the rules that's going to build that out this isn't an exhaustive list of priorities but I did want to mention them. Not applicants has have an existing medical dispensary license and good standing, whether the applicants would foster social justice and equity in the industry by being minority or women owned business, whether the applicants propose specific plans to recruit higher and implement a development ladder for minorities women or individuals who have historically been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition. They're to look at whether applicants propose specific plans to pay a living wage and offer benefits to their employees. They're to look at whether the project incorporates principles of environmental resiliency and sustainability including in our energy efficiency. And they're to look at the geographic distribution of cannabis establishments based on population and market needs. That's going to be hemmed a little by whether which towns decide to allow retail sales. So you have to kind of layer that on top of that but the goal is that you wouldn't have all of the licensees just clustered in one part in the state but that they would be distributed throughout the state so that people would have access to buying cannabis legally. There is not a requirement that it's be the licensees be Vermonters, but there is a benefit to being a Vermonter in this market and the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, working with ag is directed to provide business and technical assistance to Vermont applicants to look at you know how they start their businesses. The local control issue I'm guessing you'll probably spend a little time on that one this year. The way that this works is towns have to opt in to allow retail sales of cannabis. All the other types of licensees are would be permitted anywhere in the state provided they meet all the requirements, but in terms of sales to the public a town has to take a vote either at their annual meeting or at a special meeting and they would have to affirmatively put it to the voters not city council select or river to say yes we want retail sales in our town and I think I just heard this morning that sounds like Montpelier is the first one to agree to be getting it on the ballot so so towns and I've heard a lot of been hearing from a lot of legislators about towns that are discussing that right now whether to put it on the March ballot. Towns do have the ability under their existing inherent authority to regulate businesses. And so whether if they have zoning things like that they can do that they can't pass an ordinance banning essentially cannabis establishments. They can't work that way but they can regulate under their inherent authority. They can also establish a local cannabis control commission similar to what they do for liquor right now and they can issue permits and have conditions under those. We have a hand raised so Tonya go ahead. Thank you madam chair I'm wondering if there's been any prioritization given to people who have been harmed by the criminalization of cannabis in the past for licensing. This is up on the priorities right there so if you look at the third are you talking about the actual applicants. I'm talking about people who have been have gone to jail or who have been charged and and harmed by the fact that in the past cannabis has been criminalized. So if you look at number three there one of the things and priorities is that if an applicant is going to include in their proposal plans to recruit hire and implement development letters for minorities, women or individuals who have been harmed by the war on drugs. Thank you. That's a that's one of the priorities for for licensing. So you get extra points for that when when you're in the queue. So related to that I wanted to point out some of the social equity provisions because I know that that is a big issue and a lot of folks are talking about that and that may be something that people want to build on in this legislative session. So what's in there now is, as we just talked about establishes licensing priority. It also requires the board to adopt policies and procedures for conducting outreach and promoting participation in the regulated market by a diverse group of individuals, including those who have been disproportionately harmed by cannabis prohibition. It creates small cultivator licenses which lowers the barriers to entry creating opportunities for minorities who have historically had less access to capital to start businesses and requires prioritization. There are small cultivators in the initial roll out. So if you so the first tier of like the first accepting of applications includes those small cultivators. It also prohibits prior nonviolent drug offenses from automatically disqualifying a person as a licensee or an employee of a cannabis business. So criminal background checks is standard in the industry, despite, you know, how Vermont treats cannabis, it is still a schedule one drug at a federal level and, you know, so there's always a kind of forget that and you have to think about how that fits in with what we do with the state level and so there are background checks it's done currently for people who either own or work in dispensaries and that would be the same thing in the adult use market. This is new because there's nothing like this in the current medical regulations for dispensaries but this specifically says if you have a nonviolent drug offense that doesn't that doesn't automatically disqualify you they might like factor it in with a bunch of other things but that's one of the things that the board is to look at developing by rule is how they decide on a basis when does buddies criminal history record essentially disqualify them from either owning or working in a business. At this moment, Peter Anthony has a question. Yeah, thanks very much. I think since you mentioned it Michelle, for the sake of our new folks. It was a worry and it continues to be a worry I think, because of the federal imprimatur against sort of treating cannabis cannabis like mayonnaise or milk. The worry is financing, because obviously, if a person is starting up and is not able to self finance they're going to have to go borrow. And that's still, I think, yet to be discovered as to whether or not the normal fluidity of. I would just say venture capital would be available given the fact that it's illegal at the federal level. Thanks. Sure. Thank you. So the act also mandates that the board work with Department of Labor, a CCD and corrections, as well as the director of racial equity to develop outreach training and employment programs focused on providing economic opportunities individuals who have been disproportionately engaged by cannabis prohibition. So they're going to be doing some outreach and some training to try to bring new folks into the market and also to bring people from the underground illegal market into the regulated market. And it also creates a position on the cannabis control advisory committee for a person who has specific expertise in minority and women owned businesses and another for a person who has expertise in criminal justice reform. The board, which is just the three members but there's also an advisory board that is established and that is has a bunch of folks from who have varied backgrounds that relate to or can relate to the cannabis industry so you have folks who have health experience, ag experience, social justice experience, things like that and that advisory committee would be doing just that they would be advising the board on policy. So there are two folks on that with regard to social equity positions. I think I mentioned earlier, the, the cannabis registry is going to move from DPS to the board, March 1 on 2022. And when they're doing rulemaking, for the adult use they'll do it also for the medical so that when it shifts over, there's a new statutory scheme that drops down on March 1, and then also they would plug into the new rules that were adopted by the board for that. So we would assume that probably for the next fiscal year budget, there would be something in there that would have the three positions at DPS as well as the money in that fund that regular that they use to run the program would also switch over to the board. So there's still going to be a medical dispensary program that was something that was important to a lot of legislators that they thought, you know, you can have an adult use system but medical dispensary still provide a unique service to a lot of people available to those for monitor so I just have a little list here of the ways in which there it's different it will be different continue to be different from the adult use. So right now, medical cannabis is not taxed and that will continue to not be taxed so if you are buying from a retail facility, you're paying that 20% tax if you're buying from a medical dispensary there is no tax on the products you're purchasing. They can also allow to deliver cannabis and cannabis products and they can also do I think in Brattleboro they have either like a drive in or a drive up something like that because a lot of folks who are are utilizing the dispensaries might have mobility issues. This allows them to come out of the dispensary and deliver it outside to the patient. They can also produce and sell cannabis and cannabis products that have a higher THC content. So this is permitted for adult use the adult use program has certain limits on the amount of THC and you can't sell certain products like shatter wax things like that that have a higher concentrate but those are permitted currently for medical patients and those will continue to be allowed under the program. They're allowed to sell larger quantities of cannabis and cannabis products than is permitted under the adult use so in the adult use it's a maximum of an ounce at a time because that's how much every adult in Vermont's 21 and over is allowed to have as their kind of personal stash aside from any plants that they have and anything that they've cultivated from that plant that they keep with the plants, but for medical patients they can have a little more they're allowed to have up to two ounces and they have a little higher plant count and so that will continue for the for the medical patients. There's some highway safety stuff in there and you know this committee typically hasn't really worked much with that but just to you know, mention it. It does allow for evidentiary saliva tests. It has to be done with a warrant just like if there was going to be a request for a blood draw to determine whether or not someone was is impaired it's tricky and controversial because unlike with alcohol alcohol testing you can correlate the blood alcohol level with impairment and that's in the science just isn't quite there yet for cannabis. So they are really detecting presence of cannabis rather than have saying, you know, you have this much cannabis in your system and this means you're this this impaired so it's still developing in there and there is legislation in there that says that as soon as there is a device that that does determine that and we can adopt that then DPS is to report the legislature and we're start to suppose to start on the path of using those devices to detect drug driving and skip that 167 just so you know there. But there was expungement legislation that passed but it wasn't in 164 but just so you know it's out there so there is a plan to be expunging cannabis convictions for misdemeanors. I just wanted to mention the issues for 2021 that might come up that you may be seeing in this committee. First one is reexamination of the timeline so I'm going to go through the timeline in just a minute with you then there's the build out for the for the second and third fiscal years. There's the opt in opt out ballot language there's a bill that either was just introduced in the Senate or will be soon that tweaks that. There's a lot of discussion still around around that I think it seems as though just my sense is that there's a lot of towns that are confused we're getting a lot of calls in in our office but it's not. You know, once a law passes it's not a really appropriate for us to be advising towns on how they do this or what their rights are things like that and so I think maybe I think Senate government operations is going to have some kind of opt in opt out next week. Social equity issues, specifically around reduced fees for BIPOC applicants and either no or low interest loans for BIPOC applicants. You're also going to have to see what they come up with regard to the land use environmental and energy standards and whether or not you take any action there. The legislature is going to need to adopt a licensing fee schedule this year. And then the final thing I think big thing is advertising so advertising was a very controversial issue last year with regard to this bill and and their house government operations committee worked for a long time those of you who are there with for a really long time on coming up with a structure for advertising that was pretty comprehensive and you know I would say probably if not the strictest one of the strictest in the country but but when it went to the floor the there was an amendment on the floor that passed that us that banned all advertising. And when it went back to the Senate, and then went to conference. Senate was very concerned about the constitutional potential constitutional implications of a straight up ban. There's really there's no dispositive case law on this yet there's no other state that has a regulated market that straight up bands all advertising. It is commercial speech but commercial speech does is afforded some protections clearly. And it is illegal federally, and if it was illegal everywhere then it, you know it wouldn't be an issue but because it's legal at the state level. So the question is about, you know whether or not you could just do a straight up ban. And so the legislature is a compromise in the conference committee asked the Attorney General's office to look at the issue, and then to report back to the General Assembly so you all could take some action on the advertising piece this year. I need to have a question. I did but it was answered. Okay. All right. Is it okay to move on to the, to the timeline. Absolutely. And I will welcome committee members to raise a hand if you have questions along the way. And then when we get done with timeline we can have a little committee discussion if there's any context that folks who were on the committee last year would like to add to the discussion. So thank you. We're going to walk through the timeline and so the first challenge with the timeline was, you know, generally, you would turn in May sometime right and then we kind of structure it like okay now here, all you folks who are not in the legislature. We can have from June to December to do all the stuff the legislature would like for you to do and come back and let us know so we can have new information to make decisions on these other issues with the extended session. You know, and this bill, you know, it passed the Senate, you know, in 2019, and then it didn't pass and then it didn't pass the house until actually the end of September of 2020 with the extended session and then the governor once the governor received it the governor did not sign it and so it then took effect so it kind of had a waiting period there so it actually took effect on October 7. There were a lot of specific dates in the bill with regard to kind of when things have to be happening to kind of keep things moving along so you can meet some target dates so it was supposed to be that the members were supposed to be appointed to the nominee committee honor before November 1 with the governor sending names of the candidates to the nominee committee by November 4. And then you'll see the kind of the process there the important thing is, you know, if you look at, you know, you're I think you're probably running two months behind. But who really knows, you know, with 80 to 90 names. I, you know, how long is it going to take for the nominating committee to be able to go through all of those. What were the process be, how many are they going to choose to interview and all the other kind of stuff so we'll have to see but I would say it's pretty safe bet that you're probably running two months behind here and so Don Gannon has his hand up. So let me just explain what happened. So I believe I'm pretty confident that all the legislative appointees the nominating committee were made by November 1 of 2020. The governor was supposed to send not names by November 4. However, the application was held open until December 30 of 2020. And that was the first problem was that instead of having the application process during November, it stretched out to the end of December. We're now in January. And the nominating committee as of today has yet to receive a single name of a person who applied even though as we heard from Kendall Smith earlier this morning. There's about 80 people who have applied. I'm willing to schedule a date for the nominate nominating committee to meet because it appears the administration doesn't understand that the legislature has a pretty packed schedule from Tuesday through Friday. All all the legislative members were willing to meet this Monday. However, none of the administrative members. Administration members were willing to do that. So that's why I prompted Kendall to understand that it's very difficult for a member of the legislature to meet during from Tuesday to Friday. I don't know about other people. My, my day usually starts at least a date in the morning and stretches to four or five at night, if not later. I'm also select board members. So this week, I have had select board meetings every night. So hopefully Kendall will take that message back and we can work on Mondays where we, you know, have a lot more time to sit down and work through this. You know, unfortunately, I think, you know, for a lucky you will have an organizational meeting for the nominating committee next week. But that's just like appointing a chair, figuring out how we're going to review the applicants. And so it's, it's going to take some time to get through this process. But I think we need to try to work quickly. And hopefully schedule meetings on Monday where we can meet for more than one hour. Because I think in order to be successful with this process and review applicants. It's going to take more than one hour meetings. Thanks, John. Right. So, um, so that means so if let's let's say, them starting their term, and then they would once they had governor appoints the members then Senate confirms, which will, you know, would be in short with they would probably just have the three candidates come in front of, and then do interviews and then they would do confirmation. So then you just have the three board members but then they have to advertise interview and hire for the ED and the administrative assistant. So that's going to take a little bit of time. All the while they're supposed to be so let's say that if the board gets seated like middle of March. They have their ED, you know, maybe mid April. But all what they're supposed to be doing actually right now you're starting right now is this list that you have here around January to March, the board developing all those things kind of that I talked about earlier on the slides. So there's a requirements in there around DPS making recommendations around DREs round drug recognition experts and geographic distribution that's supposed to happen on or before March 1. And then April 1 is that date where there's the board supposed to come back to the legislature and report on all these issues and so the question is going to be. Does that need to kind of be rejiggered or does it or do you do it informally because the goal was to get that information while you're still clearly in session it's pretty late to get that information in a general legislative year usually you know you're sort of discussing fees, you know, starting the discussion of fees in April but so so folks are going to have to kind of figure out what this means for it, and whether or not there's any way to maintain legislative control over what you need to maintain legislative control over, and whether there's other ways for some things to be done, either administratively or something like that. So those two appoint make all the appointments to the advisory committee on or before May 1. And then on before June 1, the board is to begin formal rulemaking for the, for both programs. July 1 the new fees would take effect. There won't be any collection of fees for, you know, for several months after that but it starts with the new fiscal year in September. The board is to be working on developing the program with DOL and ACCD, DOC and Director of Racial Equity on the outreach and training and employment programs focused on those folks who have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs. On or before November 15 and each subsequent November 15. A agency of education has to submit to the General Assembly a plan to fund the grant programs and start the after school or summer learning program so with regard to the use of that 6% sales tax how is that going to be used once it starts getting collected which will be an FY 22 like but just more in the spring. January 15, 2022. The board is to report to the General Assembly on the outreach training and employment programs that I just mentioned. February 1, the cannabis limits that are in current law for dispensaries are going to be lifted and they can start cultivating cannabis and manufacturing products for either transfer or sell to an integrated licensee so right now under the medical program dispensaries can't grow as much cannabis and they don't get to decide how much cannabis they want to grow essentially is that there's a formula for how much they can grow that's going to add to the number of patients who have specifically designated that particular dispensary as their dispensary, but those limits would let would lift and the idea is to try to get the market rolling before you have before you go through an issue all the permits and all the other states that have a regulated adult use they have had the existing medical dispensaries go first into the market because they're already set up and they can easily you know more easily roll that out. The goal is to do that so that you get some revenue coming in because remember up until you start collecting some tax money and some fees, you're just running in the red, you know, everything has been fronted to kind of to get the program running so so the the limitations on the amount cultivated are lifted February 1 of 2022. Board is supposed to have finally adopted the rules by March 1 2022. At that time that's when the medical program moves over, and then they start doing applications on April 1. It's tiered so that you don't have everybody kind of swarming the small board at once we kind of got that recommendation from Washington State which is one of the first states to do this and they said, tier it because there's, you don't have to issue a license to a retailer at the same time a cultivator because the retailer has nothing to sell until you get the cultivators going so kind of think about the whole roll out and how that works and first tier are the small cultivators and the integrated industries and the testing labs. Yeah, there's also language in there that says that as soon as the small cultivators have some product that they've grown under new license if you can't bring your own illegally grown cannabis into your licensed business and then sell it to dispensaries under your new license, you can sell dispensaries and dispensaries can start selling to the public and so that will be in the spring. So the first one is those three groups, then after that you expand it to all cultivators. Then it goes to product manufacturers and wholesalers and then lastly on there are the retailers and so you would see you're going to see sales to the public I mean I don't know now with these delays but according to this is that you would start seeing sales to the public probably in March of 22 by those any integrated licensees dispensaries that decide to enter the market and then you'll see a lot more come on in the fall when you have licensed retailers around the state. We have a hand raised right now. Sam LaFave. Thank you. I was just clarifying that when we say talk about tax that we're talking about the tax that is generated from the from people purchasing the product at retailers. Correct. It's not like. Okay, so we so from what I'm hearing that tax would start being accumulated in March 22. Correct. Yeah. Okay, thank you. Yeah. And then just one thing I wanted to end with is it so there's some literature that said well this initial board setup is okay now but once the program is really often running. The same structure still make the best sense. Is it most efficient or should we move to a different structure where we've built out a lot more employees within the board, and then we take our, our actual board members and move to a different model or part time board members and they're really focused on the policy rather than doing the day to day work of running the agency which is really what they're going to have to do at the beginning until they until they get the program built out. So there's a requirement that the order of accounts, look at all of that and then report to the General Assembly in November of 2023, and then to house appropriations added a sunset in there for the board so the board will disappear on July 2024 unless the legislature goes back and revisits the issue house appropriations was concerned that well that maybe their auditor's report comes out and then everybody just sticks it up, you know, under their desk with all the other reports, and doesn't really do anything with it and so they put a sunset in there. Thanks Michelle. I got. So, for committee members, returning or new members. If you have any questions, comments. Observations. Now that we've had a year to reflect on on the way the bill has come together. How. I have a question for john. You mentioned that the application process was extended to the end of December. And obviously putting it a couple of months behind now, any sense of why that was done. No. Okay, thank you. Not at all. I mean, it's frustrating. I mean, given that we had a specific timeline that I think was clear to anyone who looked at the legislation. Thank you. Bob Hooper. Thank you. John actually following up on house question did we generally as a state coven based extend any other sort of just make a general proclamation that timelines were being extended or is this specifically sort of a sandbag. I'm not aware of any executive order that just extended all deadlines. So I mean, I don't know what happened. I just know that the administrative administration made the decision to hold applications open to December 30. I did hear that they felt that the process is rushed. And I will acknowledge that working with Michelle, we knew that this was a very tight timeline. So, secondly, thank you. Michelle the language that that I'm not going to go back and look for it but it basically says anybody that's impacted by prior prosecution, etc. might have a leg up on this seems really vague and broad if you're talking about somebody that's got a tax aversion federal charge or, you know, God knows what else. There's no guidance that goes with what qualifies what disqualifies that seems like a very narrow focus committee could exclude an awful lot of people based on that, if they chose to. There's no guidance in the legislation with regard to that. The board through its rulemaking is going to look at that and kind of build out around kind of how to you know what are the things there that guide them in those decisions and that is through rulemaking so it is a public process where people can have the ability to comment on it. However, you know, again, the racial equity stuff has kind of come center, you know, in the late of late and so if there is, I think maybe if people take up that issue in general, maybe we would look at that. So the legislature want to work on that and look at it, you know, if there are programs like that and other states, oftentimes, they are in somewhat like location based around certain communities that have been clearly impacted by cannabis prohibition things like that what it means for Vermont may not be what it means for in Chicago, right and so I think I think it's a good point. And but I think people are going to be talking about it and seeing it can maybe provide some further guidance and that will either happen through the legislative process or if not they're definitely at the board, board level and through rulemaking. I'm glad you mentioned there are other areas that have that sort of caveat. Have any of them successfully been challenged on the hey why should that person get a better shot than I grounds. No, I haven't. It's not something I looked at. You know, I mean oftentimes when you're talking about, you know, licensing and you guys probably work with licensing more than much more than I do. You know, there can, there's a can be in terms of a list of things, you know, I don't know how the boards, but they're going to come up with it to determine how to issue the permits but, you know, some states use a point system. And they say, you know, they say, well you get extra points for this you could extra points for that and things like that so it's just about the strength of the application. And, and there are some things and I think that Vermont has clearly said it is important to the legislature that certain things like, including people of color and including women including people who have been harmed by the war and are given some extra and opportunities to be able to participate in the regulated market. Thank you. Rob LeClaire. Thank you madam chair I guess I have to step up and defend the administration just a little bit here it does seem fair to think that they've been a little busy for the last 10 months and when I hear terms like sandbagging I'm not quite sure that I would have to agree with that and I do understand the member from Wilmington's frustration I get that but we also were quite clear if I remember right that this was a tight timeline. And when you have all the different obstacles that came into place from being busy to people working remotely. I think that the administration deserves a little slack here on, maybe not being quite timely, but thank you. Well, being members of the legislature it is always our job to, to protect the timeline that allows the legislature to weigh in on the next steps in the process so we do need to build a work together to, to meet the timeline so that the legislature in 2021 can take the next steps. So we can hope that there's an opportunity to make up lost ground. Any other questions from committee members. All right, I see how and Rob with hands up but I think that was from previous questions so Michelle thank you so much for for giving us a speed through of the cannabis bill and the timeline and we look forward to seeing what continuing conversations evolve about how to strengthen the plan that we've set in place. Thanks so much for having me in.