 with just as much or more than high THC in them as would be allowed in the adult use system. You can't allow people to drink a hemp-derived seltzer and unintentionally fail a drug test, lose their CDL, get a DUI or worse. This rule is more restrictive than some states allow, but it's also more permissive than others. At its core, it's a rule that we believe is properly balanced and fairly tailored to address our public health and safety. And while we feel that there is an imminent need for this rule to be in place right now, we also recognize that the public and legislative input is an important part of the rulemaking process. I want to mention a few words about, you know, how we got here and where we're headed. I fully recognize that not everyone has the ability to follow the 200 or so board meetings and advisory committee meetings and Q&A sessions or legislative hearings that we've been a part of since we were first seated in April of 2021. But we have been talking about how to regulate synthetic and intoxicating hemp-derived products and moving in this exact direction since our inception. This was a topic of concern at my very first legislative hearing as chair of this board. We discussed this issue with our advisory committee in October of 2021. We submitted a report to the legislature later that year that laid out the approach that is consistent with what we did in our emergency rule. In 2022, we worked on and published a follow-up report that more specifically defined which hemp-derived products we'd be regulating and how we intended to regulate them. Everything in the emergency rule, including the ban on synthetically produced cannabinoids, it's certain amounts, the 1.5 milligrams of THC per serving, the 10 milligrams per package, the product registration, they were all in that report. Then in January of this year, we issued a bulletin that also contained the basic framework for where we're headed with these products. This is not the public engagement process that's contemplated for non-emergency rules. But I don't think it's fair to say that the public didn't have notice and opportunity to weigh in on the direction both the CCB and the legislature was heading on hemp-derived products. So the emergency rule is a step that allows us to ensure the public is not unknowingly harmed by synthetic or intoxicating products. With that being said, nothing in there is etched in stone. We hear you that the rule puts Vermont hemp producers and retailers in a different position than hemp businesses in other states. My approach as a regulator has always been to be fully transparent about what our objectives are in regulating a product, and then to hear from stakeholders about how to achieve those objectives in the least restrictive way that we can actually also administer. So the next steps in the process, Cary Gagarin and I are going to be reviewing this rule and its applicability at our next Q&A session, which is this Thursday, the 25th at 5 p.m. Again, that's Thursday at 5 p.m. The link to join is on our events calendar. Over the next few weeks, we're reaching out to hemp growers, producers and retailers to hear about the impact of this emergency rule on your business. If you'd like to speak to us or potentially even visit your operation, please reach out to Nellie, ccb.info at vermont.gov and put something like hemp or hemp engagement in the subject line. And the board is also going to be doing a series of engagement events across the state, specifically on hemp and hemp-derived products. We're still nailing down dates and locations, but we're going to try and do four meetings, two in the northern part of the state, two in the southern part of the state, in the last two weeks of June. We'll send out the notices and keep our events calendar up today once we have those nailed down. Julie or Kyle, is there anything you'd like to add on this issue in particular? Just that the intent here is strictly for intoxicating products, not your full spectrum products. We believe that there is a distinction between those products and what this emergency rule does, but as the chair alluded to, if you feel differently, we really want to hear about your specific products. And we interpret this rule affecting your products. Emergency rule is built on presumptions, and with every presumption, they can be overcome. So I'll leave it at that. I don't have anything to add. You both did a great job explaining it. We'll move back to our proposed amendments to rules one, two, and four. I just wanted to remind everyone that the formal public comment period on those ends tonight at midnight. We can consider comments beyond that formal deadline, but at some point we just need to move forward and continue the process. So I would say that we will consider anything that is received by 5pm on Thursday. Please get your comments in on those rules. You can submit them through the public portal on our website. And before we turn to the agenda, I wanted to say a quick word about H270, which is the miscellaneous canis bill that the legislature considered this year. The bill did about 30 different things, some very technical, some more substantive. Bren is going to walk through this later in the meeting, but I wanted to say two things about it before she does that. First, this bill is not yet law. And so there's at least a theoretical possibility that it could get vetoed by the governor. So until it's signed, which I would assume would happen either this week or next week, no one should act if the changes in 270 are law. And then the bill authorizes us to make substantive changes to rule three, which governs the medical program. And it also directs the CCB to work with a number of interested stakeholders to recommend changes to the medical program. So we're just going to keep everyone up to date on when we start holding those meetings to discuss the medical program for the governor. So other than that, we just have to approve the minutes. Our last meeting, which was in April 24th, 2023. And our special meeting from March 29. It's an opportunity to review the yes. All right. Is there a motion? So moved. Seconded. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay. 270. Are you ready to walk us through what you're doing? Yeah. So I am just going to note, as the chair mentioned, there were a number of technical amendments to this bill for technical amendments in the bill. And those are not included in this. And in this summary, I really focused on the substantive proposals. And when you say technical, you mean really non substantive clarifications of what it was. Yes. Right. And. And also I was just going to start with the fact that the house. So this is the house bill age 270 act relating to miscellaneous amendments to the adult and medical use canvas programs. And the house clerk hasn't yet incorporated all of the amendments that too. So I'm going to go back to the final version of the bill as it was passed by the legislature. So it has not gone to the governor's desk yet even so we're not even that far in the process. So you'll note that on these few slides that I have where I've summarized the substantive changes. I'm calling it potential changes, because as the chair noted this issue 70 is not law yet. So I'll start with a few potential administrative changes that the bill proposes. And again, these don't include the numerous technical corrections that the bill includes. So the first is that it sunset the cannabis advisory committee. And one note here is that the cannabis advisory committee really spent a lot of time with the board in our initial drafting of the rules. The board is still statutorily required and will continue to collaborate with a number of state agency stakeholders, including the Department of Health, the Agency of Commerce and Community Development, Department of Financial Regulation, Office of Racial Equity, and also the Department of Looker and Lottery because the governor's 10 point safety public safety plan also established that relationship between the cannabis control board and DLL. So there are a number of state partners that we must continue to work with and will continue to work with so that the sunset of the advisory committee doesn't leave the board on an island by any means. The bill also repeals the sunset on the cannabis control board. So we were scheduled, the legislature often imposes a sunset on new boards or commissions that they create that led to some sort of administrative difficulties just from a running an office perspective and hiring people perspective. So the legislature repealed that sunset. The state auditor is going to submit a report to the legislature about whether the board should be reconstituted or restructured sometime before November, I think in November of 2025. And then the last bullet point here is that the legislature authorized a transfer of $500,000 from the Cannabis Regulation Fund to the Cannabis Business Development Fund, and this transfer essentially will sort of refill the Cannabis Business Development Fund to allow the CCCD to continue to provide the technical support that they have been providing to social equity licensees and also to continue to fund those one time beneficiary payments that social equity licensees are entitled to. So that concludes the administrative changes. Then we'll move on to the potential changes to the adult use program. So first it increases the THC per package limit from 50 milligrams to 100 milligrams. It amends the definition. There's a definition of advertising and the in the statutes governing the adult use program. And it changes that definition to essentially just provide an objective standard for making a determination about whether something is actually an advertisement. So under current law, any public statement illustration or depiction is an advertisement. If it is calculated to induce the sale of Cannabis or Cannabis products, and that language really requires the board to sort of establish like the subjective and proposed advertiser. This, the amendment is that any public statement illustration or depiction that is reasonably, reasonably would have the effect of inducing a sale. So essentially it just offers an objective standard for the board to use to make our determination about whether something qualifies as an advertisement and an objective standard is really easier to defend in court if the board would be challenged on an advertisement denial. Moving on to the next bullet, it allows licensees to sell and transfer Cannabis and Cannabis products to other licensees. So that there's a number of sort of statutory changes to achieve this. And essentially what this is going to do is to allow product to really move among the supply chain, sort of back and forth among the supply chain as opposed to only in one direction. And so this is going to remove that restriction that did cause quite a bit of consternation that cultivators could not possess their final products if they sent their raw material to a manufacturer to create Cannabis product. That Cannabis product could not be transferred back to the cultivator because the statute prohibited cultivators from possessing Cannabis products. So it removes that restriction. And in general, allows more freedom of movement movement of Cannabis Cannabis products among the licensees. It doesn't change who is able to sell cannabis or cannabis products to the public, but it does allow a little bit more flexibility in interest supply chain transfers. The next bullet is that it increases the cap on annual sales for Tier 1 manufacturers from $10,000 a year to $50,000 a year by statute. The Tier 1 manufacturer, there's sort of a cap on annual sales that's imposed on that tier of manufacturer that is not imposed on other tiers of manufacturers. So in order to make that a more sort of viable license type for people, that cap was lifted from $10,000 to $50,000. It also expands the requirements for board compliance records so that if an investigation, and this is essentially covering what records are required to be public, but which of the board's records are required to be public. So the records that are associated with the compliance action, this is specific to those. So if an investigation leads to an administrative action against the licensee, then that case record becomes public. But if it doesn't, then what the board has to make public is the complaint and a summary of the board's action with respect to that complaint. So a little bit more clarity in statute about what records the board has to make public. And then lastly, on this slide, it removes the overlapping jurisdiction of the Department of Liquor and Lottery to license and inspect cannabis retailers that are selling paraphernalia, but they are not selling tobacco products. So for example, if a retailer were selling pipes, bongs, rolling papers, but not selling any tobacco or tobacco products, then it sort of removes that overlapping jurisdiction in DLL. So it will just be under the authority of the Cannabis Control Board and they will not be required to get a license with DLL and also undergo DLL inspection. And the following to the next slide, can I bring one form of clarification to the place listening? And that's on the protocol. It increases the THC per package limit to 100 milligrams. What that does not do is change the serving size. So you can't produce 10 milligram, 10, 10 milligram gummies to achieve that 100 milligram package. You can do 25 milligram gummies in order to do so, but it does not change the per certain limit. I just want to make sure the best that we can ensure that folks understand that. Right. It's correct. Everything you see here is accurate. Add anything to this list. This becomes law. We'll update our guidance. Yes. Yes. And to be clear, this is just sort of an initial review that gives an overview of some of the substantive changes that may come into effect. And if the bill passes and becomes law, the board is going to update all of our guidance. Take publicly available, a very clear summary of what the bill does. Okay. Next is another list of potential adult use program changes. And these are, these changes are specific to the outdoor cultivation of cannabis. So under current law, there is a limited set of agricultural sort of benefits that apply to small outdoor growers only. And what the bill does is it expands that set of benefits to all people cultivating outdoors. So it applies to all tiers of outdoor cultivation. And so that list is here in the small bullet points. Outdoor cultivation is eligible for enrollment and use value appraisal program. If all of the other eligibility requirements for the program are met, outdoor cultivation, outdoor cannabis cultivation, agricultural inputs would be exempt from the sales tax just like they are for other agricultural activities. The local regulation of outdoor cultivation can't be any more restrictive than it is for other agricultural activities. And for purposes of Act 250 permitting, outdoor cultivators that are in compliance with certain sections of the required agricultural practices must be regulated as farming and not as development. And then Bill also does a couple of new things. And one is that it affords the same protections from nuisance lawsuits to outdoor cultivation as are afforded to other agricultural activities. And in order to be eligible for that benefit cultivators have to be operating in compliance with all relevant law and the required agricultural practices as I mentioned earlier. And also it provides that the board may issue a license to operate to an applicant, even if that applicant does not have local approval from their local control commission. If the board finds that the municipality is regulating in a manner that would have the effect of prohibiting the operation of the cannabis establishment in their borders. If the board makes a determination that the municipality is exceeding the scope of their authority in the manner that they are regulating the board is not bound by the decision of the local control commission. Questions there. So, the bill also proposes a new license type for propagators. So this would be a separate license type standalone license type and what that means is that a cultivator whose license that license cultivator could also have a propagation license so it doesn't it's not a category of cultivation is its own license type. And the license would allow for up to 3500 square feet of canopy to grow vegetative plants. There is no allotment for flowering canopy. So if you want to grow flower then you need to get a cultivator license. These licensees can sell seeds to the public. And they can also sell seeds to other licensees. If they can sell clones to other licensees. So the bill provides the propagator licensees can't sell clones to the public. There's also the license fee associated with this license type is $500. And the bill provides that the license must be available like people should be able to apply and receive a license. And by the summer of 24 and this will give the board time to adopt rules governing this license type, and also make the necessary changes in our online licensing portal to accommodate this license type. And then lastly, we've got the potential medical program changes that the bill proposes. The number of these. The first is that the bill eliminates the requirement that patients with a diagnosis of the qualifying condition of post traumatic stress disorder be receiving counseling in order to receive a medical card. Also increases the plan account limits for patients and caregivers to six mature and 12 and mature plants. The requirement for caregivers to undergo fingerprint supported background checks. And that it eliminates that requirement and essentially substitutes it with a requirement that the applicant get a Vermont three record check. And that the board does a check of the adult vulnerable adult protection registry and the child protection registry. And then it eliminates the annual renewal requirements for all call for patients with all qualifying conditions except for chronic pain. And it changes that annual renewal requirement to a three year renewal requirement. So patients that have the qualifying condition of chronic pain will still need to do an annual medical card renewal. But all other patients will only need to renew their medical card every three years. So we'll reduce the cost associated with the program for those folks and also sort of the administrative burden on submitting their paperwork to the board every year. Also allows the board to create rules to ensure that the medical program has similar requirements for consumer safety and education is the adult use program. There is a provision in law currently that limits the board's ability to craft rules around the medical program and craft requirements. So that section of law was eliminated. So it will free the board up to craft some some more stringent requirements for the medical program. Also allows a single caregiver to serve up to two patients at a time. Currently they may only serve one patient at a time. And it also allows the board to appoint more than two caregivers to a minor patient on a case by case basis. And lastly the tasks of the chair mentioned in his opening remarks asks a stakeholder group including the board with developing a list of recommendations for expanding the list of qualifying conditions or amending the list of qualifying conditions to the medical program. Identifying strains appropriate appropriate for qualifying conditions, identifying dosing dosing and treatment standards and also recommending other improvements to the program. And there you have a high level substantive summary of age 270. As I noted before, if age 270 does become law, staff will ensure that there is a very clear summary of the bill on the website. And we will incorporate these requirements into our guidance document. Great way. That's great. And I just reiterate again, broken record that that is not those are not in the law now. Packaging changes on age see milligrams the agricultural amendment and on the agricultural amendment. Municipal law act 250 and our laws are very complicated and they're at odds with each other at times, you know, I don't think any one of us can give you a straight answer as to what that change is going to mean on the ground and they're subject to interpretation. Reasonable minds disagree about those interpretations. So, meantime, if this bill is to become law, make sure you are consulting attorneys before you just think that you know what those provisions mean. Any questions for Bryn about age 270. No, thank you. Yeah. There's a number of significant changes, but I think changes. Yeah, they can really help you that we want to see happen. Okay. So, now is the time where I did the agenda for us doing executive session and staff recommendations. We're going to be bringing your recommendations and we're not going to take any bullets and make any decisions. They have session where you're merely going to hear staff about those specific cases and ask them questions about them and then fully come to a conclusion. So, I'm very moved to enter. I move that the CCB go into executive session to consider confidential attorney client communications made for the purposes of providing professional legal services to the body. And that executive session is required because premature general public knowledge regarding such communications would clearly place a board of substantial disadvantage. I further move that we invite Susanna Davis and Jay Green from the Office of racial equity into the meeting into executive session. One second. On favor. Hi. Hi. Okay. And it's always a little challenging to determine how long it's going to take. I anticipate 40 minutes. So, why don't we just say that we will be back at 10 after two. Okay. So we are out of executive session right now it's 220. And we will resume the meeting I think next on the list is the executive director report and all of the staff recommendations for approval and social equity status. You ready. All right. I just reiterate that in executive session we looked at three recommendations from the staff on social equity status. And we did not vote on any of them, but we will vote on them as part of the recommendations. You're regulated market, but there's also a staff. Here is this month's executive director reports. We start out with our public engagement since our last board meeting and the public engagement sessions that we have upcoming. So to the right of the slide are a list of clickable links to the public engagement sessions that we've held so far since the last board meeting. So we had a training on inventory tracking for our cultivation licensees. We had two public hearings on the amendments to rules one, two and four. And we had a guidance and networking session on compliant packaging where we reviewed some updated guidance that we've posted to the website. And then on May 25, which is not hasn't happened yet this Thursday, we will have a Q&A session on the emergency hemp derived product. I only mentioned that because the email that went out earlier said that it was on Thursday at 24. And now this says 6 p.m. So just want to make sure everyone's clear that this hemp emergency rule Q&A is this Thursday at 5 p.m. And the link to join us on our website. Great. Well, get the get that corrected in the version of the report that gets posted to the website. Those are normally held at 6. And the next upcoming public outreach session is a Q&A on changes to the medical program, which will be held on June 1, which is also a Thursday tentatively scheduled for 10 a.m. Those networking sessions, public outreach sessions for the summer are going to be held during working hours. So we have one activity hiring update activity to report. And that's that we've hired a medical program technician. Her name is Priya Holland and she will be onboarded this Wednesday. So a couple more days and she will be here with us and we're very excited about her. One updates, one update to the guidance to our guidance materials this month. And that is our packaging materials guidance, as I mentioned earlier, we went through that new guidance at the networking session earlier this month. And that the changes there specifically incorporate the packaging waiver, the new packaging waiver request process. So what's happening from now on is that anybody who's seeking a waiver of the packaging materials rule has to go through the rule waiver process. So that is all updated in our, in our packaging materials guidance document. And this section on guidance updates is going to grow a lot this summer because all of our guidance documents are currently under review. So legislative update is we already went through that each 270 hasn't yet hit the governor's desk for signature so is not yet law just reiterate that. So now we'll move on to our adult use program data review. So we always start out with our metrics on how rapidly we are processing our applications for cannabis establishment licenses so the first slide shows you how long on average it takes from submission to approval for social equity applicants and first standard applicants. So showing you these numbers over time, just demonstrate how consistent staff are in their prioritization of social equity applications. Average is 44 days now to process a social equity application and 86 days to process a standard application. So this is across all license types. The next slide breaks down the license types and looks at the average days from submission to approval based on what the license type is. And again, with this slide you'll see a lot of consistency over time. I think in the early, you know, months of reporting these numbers, we wanted to make sure that we were looking at it regularly on a month to month basis and we could see if we were really being consistent. And at this point, five months in, I think we can demonstrate that we've got quite a bit of consistency in how long it takes us to process these applications. So now this slide looks at renewals. Nope, doesn't look at renewals looks at new submissions. So just since the last board meeting, which is actually really three weeks, not four weeks, we've had 75 new submissions. So this pie chart breaks it breaks those new submissions down by their status so you can see just about half are standard applicants, and the other half are split between social equity applicants and economic empowerment applicants. So this renewals when we're talking about new submissions. And then as sort of an interesting comparison. This is looking at our renewal submissions for the same timeframe. So we've got about 59, about 60% were standard and about around 23% social equity, 18% economic empowerment. And that is that reflects 100% retention rate of all of our licensees that we initially issued we've met we've kept all of them. So staff is keeping like an issuance list of who has renewed who hasn't. So so far, there is no one who has was up for a scheduled renewal who has not renewed. So we will stop thinking about how to present this data to the board so that we can look over time and our retention rate of certain licensees and economic empowerment. This is new cultivation submissions by type and tier. So this chart shows you the various colors indicate which tier of cultivation these applicants are. So we quite clearly we've got just two new tier five mixed applicants, and one new tier five outdoor applicant, but no indoor tier five applicants. And again as as consistent with the past the vast majority are tier one applicant. So then now we're looking at new submissions broken out by license type so this obviously excludes cultivation that's what we looked at in the prior slide. So for our new submissions in the last three weeks. We've got no wholesale no integrated no labs and just one retail. So really heavily focused on cultivation this last, the last three weeks. And here we're looking at this is kind of a monthly review presents a monthly review of the new submissions. And it gives you a picture of how many new submissions the board has received in the last three weeks as compared to the reporting periods for the first four months of the year. So this is breaking. So this is the first slide broken out by status. Second slide breaks it out by license type and this really clearly shows you that the, the vast majority of new submissions that the board received in the last three weeks were cultivation applications. Any questions about those right now. So this is our breakout of the number of issued licenses by type and tier. So we have issued a total of 424 licenses to date. And I guess the other thing I would point out here is just the numbers of small cultivator small cultivators remain quite high as compared to other tiers cultivation. So this slide gives some data on issued license amendments and employee ID card. This is the work that the, that the staff is doing kind of behind the scenes in addition to also preparing the recommendations for licensure and for renewal. We are able to process application amendments and employee ID cards without board approval. I don't always like to keep you up to date to how many are happening behind the scenes. Here is our canopy capacity change slide. So you can see, I think over time this will become more and more interesting, but it kind of demonstrates that the total licensed canopy, like the shift in total license canopy. And from the last report, we had one, we actually have a reduction in the amount of total licensed canopy in the state. We've got an increase of 1500 square feet of indoor canopy and an outdoor decrease of 20 about 25,000 square feet of canopy. So that results in an overall decrease in licensed canopy since April. And that decrease in outdoor canopy was the result of a tier change. So a tier five drop to a tier four, and that can have a pretty substantial impact on your amount of licensed canopy. So this is going to be, you know, we will track this with our renewal to dated picture of our license canopy for months to month. Any questions there? All right, so we're moving on. And I realized that I didn't title this slide very well, but this is product registration. So total submissions, product registration submissions that were received. Oh, no, this is total. Sorry, total total submissions altogether. My date is inaccurate, but I'll fix that. So we've got 92 licensing applications in 25 calendar days. And that includes new submissions and renewal submissions. And then we've got 246 product registration submissions and 117 employee ID card applications. This is the slide that gives us sort of a picture of what's coming in months to month. Okay, retail locations. This is our map of retailers. This is true every month. The blue pins are our licensed retail cannabis establishments and those indicate precise locations. And the red pins are proposed or like in the queue retail applications, and they do not indicate precise location. So it's just a general picture of what exists now and what's to come across the state. And this next slide does a zoom in about your area of density, which is the Burlington area. So this slide shows you on the left, you've got the full map of Burlington and the distribution of the license to set for this only indicates license establishments not any in the queue. So this map shows you the full Burlington area and how those licensees are distributed. And then this, the picture on the right shows you just downtown Burlington and how those licensees are distributed in downtown Burlington. Thank you. No. Although that is my plan for this summer, but I asked for this because we talk about or hear about density a lot. And, and I think you've said this pepper and legislature for as long as we have often we're going to have this sort of like concentration. But, you know, you have the concentration of where commerce happens in Burlington, right? And then you have, you know, down there in the south end, which probably serves Shelburne south, part of South Burlington. And the same is true with the North end that's probably serving culture. So I think that's an important when we see that number nine of Burlington, like we need to think about the geography of Burlington, what that actually looks like. So thank you for including it. And so this is your little breakout of where you do have areas of density within the state. And there is no change to this chart from the April board meeting. We've got that one new retailer submission and it is not in any of these municipalities. So now we are in product registration. We've got a total of 2644 registration applications that have been submitted to date. And 1575 of those are registered. And around, you know, 250 of them are awaiting review and are incomplete. So this represents a little bit of a reduction in the amount of weekly submissions that we're getting. So over the last three weeks, we've gotten about 76 missions per week, which is definitely less than we have been getting so far in 2023. And there is some thought that that's due to our amended bulk flower guidance which provided. We should know what doesn't. This is looking at the same numbers just in a pie chart and providing some more detail on the status of where all these applications are. So you can see the majority of the product submissions have resulted in a registration. And then we've got about 10% in in completes the 11% and then complete status 10% and submitted status. And nine have withdrawn. 8% of other is really folks who are we are either awaiting payment from them, or we're awaiting some sort of data validation. That's the breakdown on the statuses for product registration. And here you have the types of products that are in all statuses of product registration. So the bulk of the products that are registered and unregistered continues to be flower. But the other product types are growing, as you can see, and we can do a little comparison over time if the board would like. The category of products that's growing, the most quickly are concentrates. And just as a reminder that includes vaping products and extracts. The other product type includes things like topicals and transdermal patches and clones. And move on. So going into our compliance data now. This slide represents cumulative data about our advertising reviews. We continue to get about a handful of advertising submissions every week. So rather than breaking them out week by month by month, I'm just offering you cumulative data because I think that's probably more. Helpful as you think about what, what, how we're making our determinations about what is denied that's accepted. So approved about 46 of our 96 submissions denied 35 five have been withdrawn. That reflects a little bit of an improvement. I think in the last board meeting it was around half and half that had been denied and approved. So I think people are catching on to the requirements. So reasons for the denial, the, the largest reason remains that the proposed advertiser failed to meet that 15% threshold for the use audience composition. And then 12 failed to include health warnings. And then we go from there for other efficiencies or things that were in contradiction with the advertising law. So breakout on our inspections. So in the last three weeks. The compliance staff conducted inspections, the majority of those were at cultivation sites. Next was manufacturing and then retail. The next slide summarizes the investigations that have occurred over the last three weeks. So there's a total of 24 new investigations and the sort of category of complaint that elicited those investigations are summarized there. Advertising labeling deficiencies diversion or inversion on site consumption and product registration. Are the categories that those new investigations fall into. We received 20 new complaints in the last three weeks and we've issued one letter of warning. That's for advertising. The complaints that we investigations are complaints that we receive either from the public through the web form or from licensees directly. Or based on information received from staff through inventory tracking product registration or site visits. And also one other thing to notice that that new total new investigations tripled from the last reporting period. So we've got a busy compliance team. Licensing team is busy compliance team is busy. So lastly, we have our medical program data. And I always start with the big slide that shows the big picture. And then our close up of the patient caregiver numbers over the last 15 months. So since the April reporting period, we have another pretty significant drop in the number of registered patients. I think that represents a drop of 202 patients and a drop of 15 caregivers. Okay. That note, I'll move to our adult use staff recommendations if everyone's ready for that. Okay. So social equity status. We've got two submissions that staff is recommending a denial of social equity status for submission number 2605 and 3744 staff is recommending denial for these applicants as they don't meet the criteria for social equity applicant. As defined in board rule. And the board has a number of recommendations for approval of social equity status. I can't remember how many of this is one, two, three, four. Guys, I just want to say, like, drugs is wrong. So we've got 10 applicants that staff is recommending approval of social equity status for all of these applicants do meet the criteria for social equity business applicant or individual applicant. As those terms are defined in board rule. So we've got submission number 3866 submission number 3594 submission number 1304 submission number 1278 submission number 3782 submission 3979 submission 4005 submission 3769 submission 3926 1036 are all recommended by staff for approval of social equity status. And then, okay, we've got a few slides of that recommendations for licensure. And all of these applicants that appear on the next slide have demonstrated all compliance with all the requirements for their license and board rules and in statute. So we have 49 approvals this month, which is incredible because it's only been three weeks really, since our last board meeting. So I think given the number that we have this week, I'm just going to present the slides for you for review. Rather than reading the names of all of them, but I'll have a moment of silence on each page so that you can read them and what's the first the first one. Looks like a mixed tier one cultivation business called MMM deliveries. But it's a cultivator. Okay, they are not proposing to deliver. So if everyone's on board with that I'm going to just look through our slides here that we've got so many this month that it would just keep us here for so long if I were to go through them all. Are some of these renewals? No, they're on the last page. So the first three slides here are new applicants for a license. And then this page is our staff recommendations for a license renewal. So I think that we've got 11 of these 49 new and 11 renewal or 38 and 1411 a ladder. Okay. In total 49. We're a licensing team. Yeah. So that is the executive directors for this month. As always, I would like to thank everybody who helped that together. There was a lot of a lot of. A lot of people involved in making that getting that ready for you. Thank you. I did prefer when you read the mail out, but I guess. You tried. I guess there's a lot this week. All right. Well, um, Is there a motion to approve the staff recommendations? I move that the board accept each of the recommendations as presented to us by staff in this meeting. Okay. Discussion about any of those? I think so. Okay. Congrats everybody who got a license today. All in favor. Hi. Hi. Okay. The last thing on our list as always is a public comment. And well, you will do public comment the same way we always do. We'll start with the people that joined by the link. You did join by the link plea and would like a comment, please raise your virtual hand. We'll do our best to call on you in the order that you raised your hand. We will move to people that joined by a phone. And I would just know what I saw a couple of hands go up at various points during the meeting. We don't answer questions at this event. You know, this is really about people sharing their thoughts and concerns with the board. We do hold, I guess, bi weekly or potentially one more Q and a sessions and that's a, you know, so please save your questions for those. And you can always email us at ccb.info romand.gov with specific questions. We're in contact with your compliance or licensing agent. So, Nellie, can you help us with the order? Absolutely. First up we have headwaters cannabis co. Hey, how's it going? I have two comments. They're on the heady side so I don't know if we're going to have time for everything but my first, which is more of an urgent issue is regarding cross pollination buffer zones with hemp and fiber seed crops. I've already talked had a great conversation with Kyle about this and it's something that I don't think we're all going to be able to act on this year but it currently is the case that if you live within a 60 mile radius of West Brookfield and unregistered hobby hemp fiber and seed plot of about 600 square feet, which threatens outdoor cultivators throughout the White River Valley. So that is something that is about 600 yards away downwind or upwind from my field so I'm downwind from it. And unless I weed out thousands of male hemp plants with my neighbor, which I am planning on doing, I run the risk of losing everything to the tune of like 80% possibility. So I think the CCB should follow other states like California and Colorado and creating cross pollination buffer zones of upwards of 70 miles. So if you could maybe look into the science of this that would be helpful for all of the outdoor cultivators in this area and I promise that there are other plots similar to this unregistered all over the state right now. One request is that the state consider a waiver for cultivators operating on private property to make the decision themselves whether or not they want to have surveillance all over their property. I know it's just where cannabis is but I have guests, renting tents here I have employees and I'm personally a big fan of the Constitution of the United States and I don't believe that the CCB has jurisdiction at my private property to require me to videotape myself. And that is a much more complicated issue but there is Supreme Court precedent in Vermont that states that privacy is the individual's right to be left alone and I think that there needs to be a much more robust conversation about privacy and trust in the context of cannabis in the state. So those are just my two comments and I'll take my answers off the air. Thanks for the comments. Caleb. I hear me. Yep. Yep. Thank you for having me on. The first comment I want to make is that this proposed bill would maybe give another 500,000 to the cannabis to business development fund to allow the CC a CCD to continue to provide technical support to social equity businesses which is what I believe it said on the slide. And, you know, the last, the last consulting firm hired through the ACCD contained a member of the CIA was a former CIA member and a lot of people were upset about that. They weren't really clear on giving me an answer as to why they would hire a CIA agent to help with cannabis businesses. A lot of people were concerned with that and so am I. I'd also like to comment on some of these licensing deals that allow people like Ben Cohen to start these nonprofits where they don't grow cannabis at all, and they can start a business and make money off the cannabis industry without doing any sort of background check. I believe if I'm not mistaken, if I am, please correct me. You got my emails, but I think some of these licensing deals are BS, man, and everybody else has to go through these rigorous background checks with fingerprints. And you basically got to tell me your whole life story. And for the financiers of some of these companies, they just get to walk into the industry and not really tell anyone about it, especially if you own less than 10% of a license. You don't even have to put your name on it if I'm not mistaken again. And if I am, please correct me, but I think those licensing deals are ridiculous, man. I think everyone should have to go to the same process to enter this industry. And the last comment I want to make is, Julie, you mentioned something about the geography in Burlington and maybe sort of oversaturating the market there. And I really believe that's something that you guys should have already thought about a long time ago. That was obviously going to be the busiest spot in Vermont. And, you know, one of the best points I've heard made was by a man named Tom Lowson. And I don't want to give Tom too much credit because sometimes he can be kind of a dick. But one of the points he made was that you never see two liquor stores right next to each other in a town. I'm not for limited licensing at all, except maybe when it comes to the retail end, if you just put 10 retail stores right next to each other in the same town, especially in a small market like this in Vermont in Burlington, I think you're obviously asking for problems there. A bunch of people are going to go out of business. It's just not going to work. And that's all I have to say. Thank you guys. Thanks Caleb. Dave. I want to sincerely thank the board for shepherding H270 through the legislature. This is, it was a very difficult process this year. You know, we kind of, the senator who was supposed to be leading through the process went into the hospital three weeks early and it was kind of difficult to push things through. And I think the board did a really, really great job demonstrating sort of the art of the possible here. We didn't get everything we wanted. Nobody does. But, you know, we got a lot of great stuff in 270 and I hope it gets signed. So thank you. Your leadership was truly important and necessary to get that done. In the summary, one important thing that didn't get mentioned was that the bill also works to clarify that electronic devices sold by cannabis retailers that do not contain tobacco are not to be subjected to the 92% wholesale tax on tobacco substitutes. I think that's really important for people to know. And in that vein, I want to shout out to Tito Bern for being the first person to raise that as an issue. I don't think any of us had that on our radar until Tito brought it up seven or eight times. So good job, Tito. And I'd also like to shout out to the Cannabis Retailers Association of Vermont for their work in pushing that through at the end and making sure that it was addressed in the Senate successfully. So good job, crowd team. And that's it. Thank you. Thanks for the comment, Dave. And just to reiterate one more time that that's not law yet. So people should continue to operate as if that change has not happened until that bill goes into effect, which is on passage. So as soon as the inks dry on the signature, that will be law. But it might get vetoed. Thank you. Yeah. Just joined with the letter S. Yep. Can you guys hear me? I apologize for any background noise. I'm actually boarding a plane. My name is Sam. I'm the managing director of our last tier two intercultivator and a prospective tier two. Unfortunately, just a quick comment for whatever reason. I guess screwed up in the licensing process where we actually paid for this tier two manufacturing license and some unable to get resolution. The license itself has not been resubmitted for consideration. This is now the second board meeting that I sat on where we were hoping to see you through and no indication that we'll be moving forward despite having already paid for the license itself. So that's the comment there. Thank you. As can you remind us of your name? And we can have someone reach out to you. Yeah, for sure. My name is Sam Neil. And the company is TALLAB's LTD Co. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Thanks. I appreciate it. Thanks. Ben. Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Hey, my name is Ben Wilcox. I'm licensed tier one outdoor cultivator off piece farm. And I just my comment is I just wanted to thank the. The board and the staff for all the work in testimony and trying and getting age 270. I think that's going to pass the legislature. I think that's going to be. There's a lot of positive things there that's going to help everyone. It's great. A lot of steps in the right direction. And so thanks for that. And also wanted to quickly plug anyone listening who also supports the bill should call the governor and tell them to vote yes or sign it. Let's get the sucker pass. Thank you. Thanks Ben. Robert. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Hi. Thank you again all for the good work and that you guys are doing. I know there's a lot in your plate. I wanted to suggest that, you know, it would be helpful to know I didn't hear anything today about the progress you're making on the trend on the transition to the new inventory tracking system. Which obviously was a big change for a lot of people. And also I'm not. It'd be helpful to know where people can go to get additional help for people having lots of problems. With the tracking system, where they're running into glitches, they can't get back into, you know, certain process lots and harvest lots and things like that. Because nobody wants to be at a compliance. But if you're stuck in a certain place, you're kind of at a compliance, which is not where anybody wants to be. I can't hear that. Robert, what's your license name? What's your business name? I'm a consultant, so I work for a couple of different licensees. So how can I best reach out to somebody to get some help? So go to our website under contacts. There's a there's email addresses for all aspects of our various team members like licensing compliance and enforcement. For this, I'd reach out to compliance. Okay, I sent one to inventory tracking last week and I haven't heard back yet. Okay, all right, well, I'll try compliance. Yep. Thank you very much. And with that, I do appreciate the work. I know it's a big lift. I know this is a big, you know, transition for everybody to go from all the simple Microsoft, Microsoft or Google forms, whatever they were to this much more advanced system. Yep. We'll make sure we get back to you. Thanks. Thanks very much. Well, CCB, how are you today? And nice to see you after 30 days of not seeing you. It's a pleasure. Thank you for your legislative advocating. I appreciate that, especially in the medical department. I have a couple questions. I have a legislative model from Americans for Safe Access that I would like to send you that you could help rewrite rule three here in Vermont when you guys decide to do that if when the governor either signs this or let it pass into legislation without a signature. I have a quick question. If you are over the age of 21 and you are a medical patient as well, how many plants can you actually have? Can I grow medical and can I grow adult youth or homegrown youth, I should say, at the same time? Is that permitted in Vermont because I've never heard anything but say I couldn't or could not? And especially if the plant goes to six and 12 and the home is what, two and four? Am I allowed to have that many plants on my premises or not? Or anybody's premises? Because I've never seen any ruling on that from the rules anywhere in statute or rules. And I would also like to know if the 270 passes in the medical department, how are you going to choose the people to help write your rules, seeing there will be no advisory board anymore? And who will you choose? And how is that process going to be vetted? For who has the knowledge to have the best recommendations? Or will you just choose it maybe by people that advocate like myself and like Jesse Lin and probably some other medical patients here in Vermont? And other people like that because we've been putting our hard work into changing the medical bills here in Vermont. And I spoke with Julie, I've gotten a response from Mr. Pepper. And I'd like to know how you guys are going to vet that so we can craft rule three to meet the needs of the Vermont medical cannabis people here. And that would be something I'd like to see how you're going to vet that when, if it went to 70 passes. That's either by Governor signature or by he just wants it passed at this point. So nothing is in set in place. I'm fully aware. I'm currently working with one of my representatives down here in Southern Vermont, because they've been able to work with me, which is Miss Kathleen James. And I've been unable to work with Mr. Senator Sears at the moment because he's been busy. And I would like to work with him because he works on the judiciary committee as well. They're very aware of my knowledge of the cannabis situations for medical. And I've seen some things that that could help rule three that would be there. And also just like to make a quick suggestion, if you get a chance, go to the YouTube channel and watch the young jerks and see what's going on in Massachusetts, because they're having a big problem with licensees down there. And they are probably going to have an in maybe have a small influx of people coming up here to Vermont, because people down there are not getting their licenses. If you could just check out the young jerks, they're on YouTube. And I miss if you reach out to me and let me know possibly how you might that I have some really good books. I also have a recommendation for a professional doctor that serves over 20,000 patients between Maine and Massachusetts. He is a scientific cannabis scientist and doctor. Dr. Dustin just Dr. Dustin Sulak, he integrated health out of Flemeth Maine. He's very well known in the science of cannabis community. So I'm just wondering how you guys are going to please set out if this does pass. I will be able to rewrite rule three for the medical patients here in Vermont. And I know that's at one of your forefronts here. So I thank you again for your hard work for the h270 what you've done. I appreciate it very much. I appreciate your time for hearing me today. And I look forward to seeing some of some improvements when we get to that point when this bill passes. Thank you. Thanks, Keith Tito. Hi, everybody. Can you hear me? Okay. Yep. All right. So thanks for the shout out Dave and thanks to everybody who's been working on that. I know it's not there yet. But certainly that would be a great victory to get those those flower vapes removed from the vape tax. And also great job. Congratulations on having jurisdiction taken away from the DLL on paraphernalia. I mean, that's just awesome. Excellent. I did just want to bring up one problem that we're seeing and that is having to do with product registration. And specifically when we get bulk flower, for example, or any product that's not registered. But specifically bulk flower. We register the product in many cases and no doubt there must be other retailers registering the exact same product at the exact same time. So I'd like to see a refund in that case just so that we're not multiply paying for the same item. And, and I guess, you know, whoever you whoever whichever payment you get first would be the one that gets accepted. But it would be nice to get refunded if we are the second third or later than that. Thank you all so much. Hopefully having a great day. I see though. Nate. Oh yeah. Hey, can you guys hear me? Yes. Well, yeah, this is Nate with pressure lab. I don't really have a question. I just wanted to thank you guys for all your hard work. I grew up in a very prohibitive state Birmingham, Alabama, moved here when I was 18 to go to college. I'm 43. I've lived in Colorado, Oregon, Humboldt County, California. I've been chasing the stream for 20 years and we just got approved today. So I just wanted to thank you guys and all the hard work and it's kind of crazy to go from, you know, doing 10 years and different penitentiaries for all drug charges to being a license cultivator. So I just thank you guys for all your hard work and, you know, for giving normal people a chance. That's it. Thank you. Congrats. Anyone else who joined by the link, feel free to raise your virtual hand and if you joined by the phone and would like to make a comment. Please hit star six to unmute yourself. The phone number that has ended in 7034 has unmuted themselves. Yes, good afternoon. Can you hear me? Ken. Oh, great. Thank you. So I had my compliance inspection Monday last week and being that I restricted to the phone and you had an entire list of applications that you were approving. How were we going to be able to see that that approval happened for sure? Thank you. Yeah, we'll post the executive director report that includes that list to our website by the end of the day. You can also if you'd like to say your name and our licensing director is just hiding off camera right now. But otherwise, we'll post by the end of the day. Anyone else who joined by a phone or video would like to make a public comment. Okay, so 3034 has unmuted themselves again. Oh, sorry. I thought I had muted. No, are you seeing anyone? I am not seeing anybody else currently. All right. I'll close the public comment window. If you have any comments on our proposed rule amendments one, two or four, please submit those. Again, technically inside at midnight, but if you, you know, think of something tomorrow anytime before Thursday, close the business, feel free to just shoot it over to us. And then we will consider them at our next open meeting. Julia, Kyle, anything? Anything else? Not today. Thank you, everybody. Thank you all. And I'll adjourn the meeting.