 Good afternoon and welcome to town meeting television. It's our favorite time of the year. It's town meeting 2021 and today we are having a look at Burlington ballot question number six authorizing retail cannabis sales. The city of Burlington permit the operation of cannabis retailers that are licensed by the state of Vermont beginning in October 2022. And we have gotten a request to talk about this from the con standpoint. Dr Catherine Antley is very well known to us here at town meeting television she produces a series of programs on prevention and the benefits or the non benefits of marijuana, and she is the leader of physicians families and friends for a better Vermont welcome Dr Catherine Antley. And Jim Dumont is a lawyer with that. We've got coalitions here at town meeting television. And Mariah Flynn Sanderson is the director of the Burlington partnership for healthy communities. Welcome Mariah so glad you could be with us. Thanks for having me. So, Jim, why don't you give us the legal view on your opinion about whether Burlington voters should support ballot item number six authorizing retail cannabis sales. The message is not yet. It's too soon. Let me tell you why marijuana sales have only recently been legalized in a few other states. The medical evidence on the effects of marijuana sales in those states is just now beginning to come in. There's a lot we're learning. The general United States has issued a warning that marijuana use during pregnancy can harm the developing fetus, including harm to the fetal brain. And that smoking or eating marijuana with higher levels of THC causes increased incidence of anxiety paranoia and psychosis among adults, but there's a lot we don't know because legalization is so new. Unfortunately, the new Vermont law has a major glitch in it. Under that new Vermont law, once a community votes yes. And a marijuana retailer sets up shop that retailer can continue to sell marijuana in your community forever. Let me explain that. The evidence that if the community finds this was a bad decision, because of the public health effects in that city or town, or because of medical evidence from other states. The community can vote to change its mind, but not for any retailer already in business under the new statute, the community is locked in forever that marijuana retailer. If the marijuana retailer breaks the law in any way, that would be different. But so long as the marijuana retailer follows the law, even if the town or city votes to repeal its approval of marijuana sales, that retailer can sell marijuana in your city or town forever. The legislature, the legislature needs to change the statute. We've written to the governor we've written to leaders of both houses, asking them to make that change. Until that happens, voters should be cautious about committing their communities to marijuana sales in perpetuity. So can I just ask just a couple follow up questions. Do cities, does the city of Burlington have to make a zoning change in order to permit. I mean in terms of the follow up to this. Does the city have to create some permitted areas for these these people to operate cannabis retailers or no. No, I just was looking at the Burlington zoning a few minutes ago. Marijuana sales would be considered retail. And so it's already permitted by local zoning. That doesn't mean the zoning should stay the way it is. That's another reason it would make sense to wait. If you, as a land use attorneys done a lot of zoning cases probably too many zoning cases. You should have the zoning in place first before people set up shop, because if you don't want, if you want marijuana sales but you don't want them in certain locations. You've got to decide that before people get their license from the state and set up shop, because once they set up shop in a location the city says is not a good idea. Right. The horses are out of the barn you can't force them to move. And then my, my second question has to do with this perpetual condition that your, that your license. Is it that your state license could go on forever there's no end to it and is that the same thing as say retailers who sell liquor in the state of Vermont is that is, is that where they took the language from. It's a great question. I'm pretty sure that language is unique to this statute, this statute is long, complicated, and unique in many ways. And I've never seen anything before which says the town votes to our city votes to prove of a certain use, and then they changed their mind. They continue that use forever. So you mentioned zoning in zoning that's not true in zoning there's grandfathering, but under state law grandfathering is not forever grandfathering means under our state law, unlike other states but in Vermont. If you're a grandfather or grandmother use. You can continue but not indefinitely. The city or town has the right to force you to phase out your use. It's not true under the new statute. Thank you. Dr Catherine antley. I know you have some very deep and informed views on this question. Please tell us if you would support or oppose this ballot question. It's important for Vermonters to know can you hear me okay. Yes, loud and clear. I think it's, I think it's important for Vermonters to know that their pediatrician their child's pediatrician would advise them to vote no on this ballot question. There are a number of applicable reasons for that. A number of medical societies also in the United States have, you know, past resolutions in the same saying the same thing, or similar from a similar standpoint, and I think there are a number of reasons for that. One thing before we delve into the medical side of it. So, getting back to sort of the specifics of the law. So the law also says this Vermont law that first first people in line are going to be the medical marijuana shops, and the medical marijuana shops are vertically oriented integrated rather, which is more likely to be able to be monopolistic and control the market. And so, and in Vermont, I think it's important for Vermonters and Berlin Tonians to know that those shops right now, the majority of those shops in other words I just heard four out of six are owned by large, very large out of state companies. So that sort of sets you up for a situation where a large out of state for profit corporation would be moving in and possibly could move into Burlington and set up shops that then we we were out of control we could bring them back again. So there are a number of reasons why we couldn't bring them back one is the law, which says they're in perpetuity. But the other problem is, you know, there's there's right and then there's might and and if they have unlimited funds to fight in court. That's also a problem. And these are huge huge corporations will why you know why does that matter. Marijuana is an addictive substance we all know that marijuana is harmful. We all know that we heard the Surgeon General's warning it's associated with problems during pregnancy but also psychosis anxiety. Poor concentration IQ there are lots of harmful issues associated with marijuana use. So what happens when it's commercialized when it's commercialized these companies are interested in creating addiction and we've talked about this so often on this on this on this channel. They do not make $1 profit unless they create addiction in your community how do they create addiction and the reason for that is, is that 80% of the product or more see what we're seeing in in the marijuana sector of the economy is that even more than 80% of the product is consumed by less than 20% of the consumers of the users. So the bottom line is that we're seeing over and over again, is they don't make $1 profit not $1 profit until they are able to create addiction how do they create addiction. Well, we know completely how we create addiction. They get them while they're young they appeal to children with sugary candies that the gummy bears and whatnot. And then the other thing they do is they they produce really concentrated THC. So we saw this, you know, we saw this with the candy cigarettes with the taking tobacco one spraying it with free race nicotine. We have extremely high concentrations of THC that are getting in the hands of the children. I have, we have a website that we set up to put some of these articles these articles up for people to look on their own, but there are a couple of new ones that have just come out. One says that in the commercialized states. The kids are getting are getting this high potency THC more much more than kids in non non commercialized states. And they're getting it even more than their parents. So it's so they're getting it illegally because nowhere is it legal for kids to get it, even in commercialized states, and they're getting the super high concentrated stuff which is particularly dangerous for the psychosis anxiety depression suicidality all the really scary mental health issues that we're seeing, you know more of anyway. The other thing that there's another study that came out that goes along with that that shows that the more marijuana shops in your neighborhood the more likely your child is to use, and to become addicted so the perception of harm goes and availability is there so they, they're more likely, they're more likely to use the last study I wanted to talk about is the one out of Ireland so in Ireland, a few years ago they closed the shops, they closed head shops, and the admission rate for psychosis into the ERs marijuana associates say goes down by 20%. So, so that's a really clear study if we if we allow shops in Burlington, these are out of state shops they're going to have a lot of money to advertise in the newspapers to, and what we've seen in places where they've tried to put limits on advertising is that they they publish their own magazines. So it's going to, they're going to want to sell their product, and the way they're going to do it is to create is to increase addiction. So, so I just wanted to be really clear. The message that the messaging is has not been very good in Vermont. You know, we've, the medical community, some psycho child psychiatrists have called healthcare reporters in our area, explain to them that there's risks of anxiety, suicidality, mental illness and this is really settled science, you know, coming. And they, you know, we're not, we're not seeing those reported when in the newspaper and it's outrageous it's really outrageous because people are not that creates this huge gap between what, what, what the science is and what people's perception of harm of this drug is. The last thing that I just, well there's two other things I guess one is, there's a poll that was done in Vermont about a year ago, and it gave the Vermonters four questions for choices. Medical marijuana legal, illegal, and as it is in other words commercial or as it is only 30% of Vermonters said they wanted pot shops. And so, so it's not, you know something inevitable, and a lot of people if you talk to them they're not, they're not interested in having a commercial, giving corporate personhood to a corporation that's out of state that has this monopolistic organization. And that now somehow has gotten written into the law that they're going to be first in line and if they get a license they won't be able to be pushed out. I have a lot more to say, but maybe, you know, we can put up the website and people can. Yeah I think we'll put up the website and why don't we let Mariah chime in and then if we have a little time we could wrap up with you again doctor. Thank you Mariah Anderson of Burlington partnership for healthy communities. Thank you for joining us. Yeah, thanks for having me so I run the substance misuse prevention coalition that serves Burlington. So our organ here representing the organization and the partners that are involved in that and we aren't taking a position on the ballot item in specifically. But one of the things that's kind of my job is to do what kept Dr. Antley was talking about which is the science around cannabis and marijuana at this point has come a long way we know a lot more than we did even when I started this job about 10 years ago. Where I started 13 years ago but about in the last 10 years we've learned a lot of information, but the public understanding of this substance hasn't really caught up with the science and the research yet. So my job is to help people to lessen that gap and to help it be more understandable and people in Burlington kind of know what they're voting on understand I think one of the challenges that I see with even just the ballot item is using the word cannabis a lot of people still don't really know what that means what's the difference between cannabis and marijuana what's the difference between these words we keep throwing around it's very confusing. When I talk with my community members here in Burlington, people are still just don't, they, when we ask, you know, are you for retail cannabis they think we already have that because they make that they confuse it with CBD. I think that's the challenge as a community to understand what it is that you're voting on and if you don't feel like you have a clear understanding that maybe now is not the right time. And, and one of the things that I kind of wanted to hone in again on that Dr. Antley was talking about and that what you're doing what kind of alluded to is this idea that there's still so much about this law that's very confusing. And I think we'll get worked out in Vermont in the courts or I think there's just at this point we don't communities don't really know what they're voting on when they're voting for this. And one of the things that we talk about a lot in my work is what can local communities do with policy to help protect health, help support a healthy vibrant community. I, we, I think we all want that we all want a healthy community we all want it to be easy for people to make healthy choices and large corporations for whom addiction is their bottom line for where they're trying to get people to use substances. We need to focus on vulnerable populations are disadvantaged communities are youth, because that's where they make the most profit. And so as a community we need to think about how are we protecting our youth how are we protecting our poor lower income areas which right now have most of our tobacco retailers are in our poor areas of Burlington, they're close to the school. So, these are things to think about do we need to do some additional work around policy to ensure that we're creating a space that can help everybody thrive. Thank you, Mariah. Dr. Anthony, you have a minute closing comment, would you like to use that up. Let's have your mute unmute yourself. Yeah, the classics pandemic age. Yeah, just, I just, I think it's important to reiterate that physicians are concerned. Your pediatrician would advise you your child's pediatrician would advise you to vote no to pot shops in your town or in your neighborhood. So I think we didn't touch on the fact that there's people do say that this is going to regulate it. We haven't seen regulation work in any, any town or rather any state where it's been in Oregon only 3% of the material that's not for sale and there was a study not too long ago in Denver, 70 some percent of the marijuana there had mold in it, even in Vermont, our medical marijuana had a scandal where they discovered a lot of mold and the employees were not allowed to talk about it. And then that article which was in the digger, they found an authority who said, you know, 20 to 30% of the, of the marijuana that sold has, has mold in it so this is the black market hasn't gone away I just saw a statistic where you know 60% of the marijuana in in California, a significant percentage is still sold in the black market. We've, we've seen Colorado has seen a jump in organized crime from 31 cases to 119 cases between 2012 and 2017. You know the organized crime is dangerous it's very powerful Vermont is little, and we don't have you know the wherewithal to fight to fight these or to, to keep all these issues in line. And it's, you know, I would urge a no vote. It's, I think it's, it's clear. Anybody is concerned about their community, about the vulnerable sectors of the community about their own children. Now is the time to, to vote no. Thank you very much. Catherine Antley, who is the leader of physicians families and friends for better Vermont and do not who is a, an Esquire or legal advisor to that group and Mariah Flynn Sanderson of the Burlington partnership for healthy communities. Thank you so much we've been talking about Burlington ballot question number six, authorizing retail cannabis sales, which is also on the ballot in winters key and enrichment in our viewing area. Thank you so much for joining us we really appreciate your time. And thanks for watching town meeting town meeting television. It is going to be an election day on Tuesday, the second of March so don't forget to vote.