 Thank you. Senate government operations, it is Friday, February 26, almost springtime. And we are going to, here today, we are very happy that Dr. Bell has given us some time. So what we're going to do is we're going to hear from Dr. Bell. And that's the only thing we're going to do around the MMA issue because we'll be dealing with that when we come back after crossover and putting it on the OPR bill. But we understand that Dr. Bell has a very busy schedule. And since she's offered to talk to us today and cleared her schedule a little bit to talk to us, we wanted to honor that. So we are the Senate government operations committee. Dr. Bell will just very quickly introduce ourselves and then we'll get going. I'm Jeanette White from Wyndham County. I'm Anthony Polina from Washington County. Brian Collamore from Rutland County. Allison Clarkson, Windsor County District. Keisha Rom-Chittenden County. So thank you very much for being here. And I will remind people that in our committee, we do not use chat except for Gail to send us official messages or post links to documents. So with that, Dr. Bell, we have had some information about MMA, which was kind of a topic new to many of us. And we understand that you would like to talk to us about MMA and children. And first of all, I should say that I was in the Judiciary Committee the other day when you gave your testimony and I was very grateful for that. So thank you. Yeah, of course. Yeah, this is my first time in front of this committee. So thank you all for having me. I think I'm going to speak pretty briefly today. So my role, I am a pediatric ICU doctor at the University of Vermont Children's Hospital and I'm also the president of the Vermont chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics. And I'm really the short version is that I am here really to support OPR's request to further have a little bit more regulatory teeth around how to keep people safe in Vermont around MMA. So that's really that's really my ask. I am not at all an expert in MMA or any martial art. I do work in injury prevention, though. And so I am here to talk just briefly a little bit about this topic. What I've learned, I'm happy to answer any questions that you all might have around injury prevention and that sort of it. But it really like it's really to support OPR's request. And so I got involved in this issue last summer when the Office of Professional Regulations reached out to me in my capacity as working in injury prevention and another colleague of mine who also does this type of work. And they reached out to us about questions around injury or potential injury or risk for injury in children in an MMA fight. And I'm not going to talk specifically at all about the details around that because that's a pending case. But I can talk very generally about what I've learned. And I did watch the testimony from the 16th, which I found really helpful. So I've also already heard what you've heard from Mr. Thompson, which is really, really helpful. So I thought maybe what I could do is spend a little bit of time perhaps translating a little bit about some of the stories that Rex told to you all because I felt like I had to learn a lot of this myself too. So my process was I reached out to the National American Academy of Pediatrics. I'm part of the Council on Injury Prevention and talked to some people who have more knowledge than I do on this topic. And then also, there's a committee, a national committee within the AEP on sports and fitness. And they actually have a policy statement that was really helpful for me on all types of martial arts. I also spoke to folks involved in different types of martial arts in Vermont and a Brazilian jujitsu instructor who was very gracious with his time. So I feel like I have a sense a little bit of this, but coming from a place that I didn't know much about to begin with. So some of the concerns that national AEP have in their policy statement when they talk specifically about MMA, although these types of moves are not necessarily just in MMA, but really two types of things. So first of all, martial arts, there's a ton of benefits that kids derive from doing all types of different martial arts. So there's a lot of positives there. Some of the moves that they worry about in terms of could lead to serious injury are moves where there's a quick deceleration of the head to a head strike, or the head hitting the mat very quickly. And that can cause an injury to the head or the neck. So that's a pretty specific move. The other one is our submission holds. And I'm just going to spend a second describing what that is because I think that helps put into context some of the concerns that Rex talked about in his testimony about why it's so important that we regulate this. And this is true for kids. But also, I want you to think about these in terms of adults too and why it's important that we have good regulation, good medical, and really good and a very objective refs. So a submission hold is one way that a match can end. So one participant could put somebody else in a submission hold. So it could be a joint submission hold. So your limb is in a certain position where you can't move. And then the participant in that hold will tap out. So we'll use our hand to tap out or the verbally tap out. The other type of submission hold is a choke hold. And the same applies. So somebody needs to tap out of that. And so when you think about that mechanism, you require one participant to apply the submission in a way that elicits a submission but then doesn't cause injury. So that requires training, experience, maturity to be able to do that safely. Then the participant who is in the potential choke hold will need to know and recognize and understand their own body and know when to submit. So that also requires a lot of training, experience, and maturity. And you can imagine that this could fail if you've got very competitive athletes participating in this and potentially like a crowd of people and like a heightened environment. So if those things fail, you've got the ref who recognizing potential injury would then call it. And so I wanted to put that in perspective because when Rex was talking about matches that he had witnessed where somebody was saying to the ref, aren't you going to call this? I hope I'm recalling this story correctly. Aren't you going to call this? And the ref's like, no. This is what we're talking about. We're talking about potential for really serious injury here if this isn't recognized as such. And I know Lauren Layman spoke about how important it's going to be for the refs to be objective, impartial, no financial interest. This is why. Like they are like the last line here in terms of preventing a really serious injury. And of course, I think about kids worrying about kids in this. And that's why I'm really grateful that this would include people under 18 not participating in this type of environment. But also, I mean, I am a pediatrician, but I think this applies to adults too. You've got competitive adults. You've got some money on the line. You've got a crowd. You need people who are going to be objective about making sure people are safe. Rex talked about some facial injuries and concerns about that. I can talk at length, and I won't do it, about the two areas that I get concerned about. And that is injuries to the neck, lots of important blood vessels here, the trachea here. Any type of swelling that occurs here can be really serious. And kids have smaller airways, smaller vessels. So the damage can be more serious with a similar type of injury. The cervical spine and the spinal cords in here too. So that's important. And then the other piece, you know, Rex mentioned his 16 year old daughter who it sounds like was in a chokehold and was unconscious. And so, you know, there's some pathophysiology involved in pressure here that can lead to somebody becoming unconscious. And although it's something we sometimes see in like movies and videos, and that is to me, a pediatric ICU doctor, like very concerning, especially for kids with a developing brain, but even adults, like we shouldn't be, you know, people shouldn't be unconscious. Lots of consciousness is actually pretty, it's like really serious. And although I care about all of the organ systems in the body, don't tell the other organ systems, but the brain really is like the most important thing for me. So for all those reasons, just sort of understanding this and how important it is to really like create this environment of safety. And I really appreciate Rex and others who are part of this world, who really know this world, who are really calling for safety in this. And I was a little bit, I was very grateful for OPR for reaching out to the pediatricians. And it was a little bit disheartening the way that OPR was so limited last summer and what they were able to really do. And they were able to exert some safety measures because of COVID. And so that's a problem. They should be able to do more than that. They shouldn't have to rely on the COVID restrictions to sort of take control of this situation. So I appreciate their work. I would love for pediatricians to be a part of this process, whether it's myself or one of my colleagues who works in injury prevention. And really we're here, again, not as experts in this field, but just in the injury prevention piece of things. And I think that's really all I have to say. I'm happy since I'm here to chat more about this topic. Yes, Senator Clarkson. Thank you, Dr. Bell. That, nothing surprising in your testimony, but good to hear. I really appreciate it. I have to ask the obvious question because we've just banned chokeholds from the police. Why are we allowing chokeholds at all? And I don't mean this as an... So I guess that's my first question is, we've just banned them in one part of law. Why are we allowing them at all? I will offer, it looks like Rex is interested too, but I will offer that. That was my first thought too, and thinking about how folks who are trained in law enforcement, we know they don't have the ability to do this type of thing safely. And this is something I did reach out nationally about. I will say, and maybe other folks have more expertise in this or know more about this, but this is something that's a little bit hard to regulate. This was actually the topic of my discussion with the Brazilian jujitsu instructor about how you teach this and what kind of environment. It does make me really pretty nervous. And so that's not something that I think we'll really be able to address. Yeah, but we can address it. I mean, that's in our lab. So I'm gonna have Rex just respond to that. Okay, so first of all, a choke home is not as dangerous as people think it is. It's dangerous when somebody tries to use it that's not trained and understand how the work, how the choke actually works. There's two different kinds of chokes. There's a blood choke and there's an air choke and you have to recognize which one of those. We train these all the time. We do flow drills all the time. You have three to five seconds on a blood choke and air choke is much longer. The blood choke. So what you're doing is you're safely shutting down their blood that goes to their head. And what happens is it puts you to sleep. It's like a safety mechanism in your body that puts you to sleep and pumps blood to where it's needed and shuts everything else off. So those chokes though, what the police learn at an academy is a very short, like a two week course or whatnot. They put just so many hours into it. These guys that are getting in the cage are actually training. Most of them have been training since they were young kids. They know these moves. We use these on a daily with zero injury. When my daughter got choked, yeah, it's scary to see if you know nothing about it, but I understand the chokes and I understand it was a head arm guillotine. So what it does is it forces this arm against this side of the carotid artery and then the other arm comes around and cuts this side off and it disables an opponent. And if our police actually used or well versed and did Brazilian jiu-jitsu, they could use those choke holds in such a safe manner to eliminate fights without ever killing anybody, but they're not trained to use that. That's why that's how chokes become dangerous is from untrained people trying to apply them and they don't know how to apply them correctly. I think also if I do where when it's administered by a police officer, it is considered a lethal weapon. I mean, a lethal because it should only be justified if that's the difference in the situation where you would be allowed to use lethal weapons. So the other thing is that in this situation, as I'm listening, just tell me if I'm wrong here, but I think what Dr. Bell was saying and made sense so you have two people and they're both trained and so the the applyer is trained and so is the person to whom it's being applied and they're trained to know when to in a police situation that isn't true. The person that's being held is not trained to know to say, hey, stop now it's time to stop. And there's no referee. So that's the very first thing that you learn is when you especially when you're learning chokes you have to be able to read the person you're choking. They may not. So you may have them in a choke where both of their arms are both of their arms are trapped and they can't tap you or verbally submit. So that's something that you have to know and you feel it the instant somebody goes out. I don't care if you're on top of them or underneath them. This is something that we've practiced like I said all the time. So you instantly know when somebody is out and that's something that somebody trained will know. Right, and there's also a referee which makes a huge difference in the case with a police officer there's no referee to say stop. Well, there should be other police officers but there may not be. But so any more questions for Dr. Bell or concerns or comments? I would just like to say thank you Dr. Bell for actually like researching that stuff. I was a bit nervous but I'm glad you took the time and looked into it. We're really just trying to make it safe for our flighters here in Vermont. Senator Rum. I'm sorry if this came up before in testimony but I keep hearing like kids train for this for a long time. How young are kids who are doing this and what's considered a safe age? I mean, I know we teach kids karate and other martial arts but is there an age at which a chokehold is introduced when they're teaching or something? Okay, could someone? Yes, absolutely. So they're not even allowed to do, it's just positional movements, gaining position, gaining the upper advantage from either a mount or a back mount position, taking them down. So kids up until the age of like 12, according to the IBJJF rules, aren't allowed to do submissions or chokeholds. They don't do any submissions because you need to have that control. Every submission, no submission you have to explode into and make it happen. I can slowly put you into an iron bar. I don't have to spin around. It's all about the control. So your first years of Brazilian jiu-jitsu is about control and getting into those positions. So it's 12 and under, but it's not allowed? Yes, ma'am. When? That's in a regulated situation, right? I was gonna say that's in a regulated situation, right? And so that's why we really want people to be in a regulated license. So when I say that I'm talking about in tournaments around the world, here in New Hampshire, Vermont, everywhere, when you go to an international Brazilian jiu-jitsu federation tournament anywhere, this is the rule set that they have in place. Senator Clarkson? I'm really having difficulty with this. I mean, in so many other areas in our legislative work, we're working to acknowledge that the brain is not fully developed until young people are 25. I mean, this, I'm really having difficulty with, I understand regulating it is better than prohibiting it. I wouldn't, I don't understand, you know. I'm, I'm, I'm, I understand we're regulating it, but, you know, we've invested so much in protecting the brain. We've done this with football and in legislation. We've done this in our corrections and, you know, our job is to protect our young people. And I get that you train them, but I also get that they're not wearing headgear, right? Are they wearing headgear? We're talking about two different things. I mean, it's just, anyway, it just makes me insane to hear about this with young people whose brains are not developed. So let me, let me pull us back here a minute. We, we gave this time to Dr. Bell. So I would like to acknowledge her time here and use her, use her wisely. That sounds very good. But because she has very limited time and is, is very busy in that emergency room where she works and dealing with her, the patients. So I would like to know if there are any other questions for Dr. Bell or some, any issues or concerns that you would like to address to her. Yes, Senator Rom. Mr. Ballard, we're not taking any other testimony today. We're just hearing from Dr. Bell. Thank you. Senator Rom. Well, yeah, I had been, I had been wondering from Dr. Bell if, you know, if you, if there's signs that a, like a young person's been injured that they need to learn, they need to hear in specific language, you know, like, can you see this or does your head hurt or whatever? You know, like, what do you recommend people, young people be trained to look for as symptoms if they have a bigger problem than they realized right after a fight? Yeah, so in part of writing up what some of our concerns were around injuries, there's sort of injuries that can happen in the moment and then injuries that can then happen later. And so, you know, I would almost separate the ones that I'm concerned about are airway related injuries, which, you know, you could have like an acute, what we call laryngospasm with like, if you have like a blunt injury to the airway, but then you could also have, you know, some compression and then later have some swelling. And so that's something that, you know, we worry about that would happen over some hours afterwards. And that's why it's so important to have coaches and medical professionals available. In terms of like say repeated episodes of, you know, lack of like what we would call cerebral hypoperfusion. I mean, I think this is something that, you know, certainly talking to the pediatrician about what would be really important. And I think on our end, Senator Clarkson, to some of your concerns, I do think that what we can do from a chapter standpoint, from a pediatrician chapter standpoint is really educate our members, our pediatricians on some of these different like, you know, moves that where there's again, like a lot of positivity around martial arts. Some people, some young people do really well with it, but understanding what are some of the moves that we really don't recommend young people doing. And those would be like those deceleration forces. And then any type of, for me it would be any type of chokehold. That's what the National American Academy of Pediatrics says that they shouldn't be doing that. And then understanding things like how do we help our families find reputable places? How do they, how should they go about researching this? Like what should they look for? Like what, and these are things that like I'm just kind of learning about. And so I think we can do some of that work on our end to let our members know and be a resource for how to like find really productive places where people can go and understand more about that. And so I'm looking forward to working with people who know more about this so that we can do this kind of in a collaborative way. I do think just because I'm a little bit of a pathophysiology nerd, I do think that for the record, I just, I have, I will just characterize what Mr. Thompson said around the carotid body pressure as not safe. That's not something that I, and I think we'll probably differ on that. But in that case, you're putting pressure on pressure sensors and they think your blood pressure is, your body thinks your blood pressure is high, it drops your heart rate, it vasodilates, and then you can have low blood flow. I will say that to Senator Clarkson, to your point, I was really, this was something I did look into to see if I could find reported, what types, you know, nationally of like reported injuries. And I will say that from my own look and from talking to other folks, really what I was finding is injuries, serious injuries related to the unregulated space and people who've never been trained. So I really felt the same way as you when I started this, like what? And then, you know, there are concerns like, you know, stories of people watch, like totally untrained people, young people like watching an MMA fight or something and trying it at home on each other. Like that has led to badness. But I did really spend a lot of time looking to see if I could find in, I was also just worried about people who may be trained in this, who then use it in another setting. And then that was also something I couldn't find. And I do, in speaking to some of these instructors who are there, they do, you know, again, not something that I would necessarily promote for my patients or my own friends or family, but they, you know, they're like, you have to reach certain milestones before you are taught how to do this. And that there's like a lot of discipline involved and there's a sort of like environment of respect and the culture is sort of cultivated again in a good gym and a good training facility that works on that. So I did have a lot of your concerns and felt more that what we could do is help families find places where this could, these types of things could be done safely or other versions of martial arts could be done. And I look forward to, like, this is not, I mean, I wanna keep working on this with folks who could sort of help us think through this. Thank you, I really appreciate it. Well, I think that just the, I believe about four years ago, we did something around mixed martial arts and I don't remember what it was, but I remember thinking, this is really just brutal, horrible, awful stuff. And even the words we use, like cage, we put them in a cage instead of, I mean, I'm used to thinking of a boxing ring, which sounds much less, much less violent. Less violent. Right, but it actually probably is more violent than being in a cage. And anyway, I don't want us to get into it. Our time is up for this, but did you have one last thing you wanted to say? Yes, I just wanted to clear something up. When I was talking about the kids and stuff like that in the grappling matches, nobody is asking to put kids inside the cage, anybody under the age of 18. What I was talking about was the actual grappling matches and the grappling matches are refereed by high-level black belts and it's a very, very controlled setting. They are allowed to do submissions from 12 to 15 and then once they get to 16, they can go into the adult class and it's a wrestling match with submissions and it's very, very regulated. So nobody's asking to punch kids in the head or anything like that or choke little kids out. We don't do that in our gym. Nobody is asking that whatsoever. I was just referring to the BGP side of it. Yeah, so we will take more testimony on this afterwards. I just wanted to, when we originally set it up, I think our thought was that we would be doing something with it before crossover. And so we needed to get it, get speeded up a little bit, but we're going to take this up. I don't know if you know what crossover is, most of you, but it's March 12th and it's the day that bills that originate in the Senate have to move out of the Senate so they can get to the house so they can work on it and vice versa. So what we're going to do is the house is working on an OPR bill, a general bill. And we will be adding this to that bill. So we don't have to, we're not under time constraints right now. So after March 12th, when we get their bill, we will then take this up again. And make sure that we get the right regulations in with OPR. Perfect. Does that make sense, everybody? Yes, thank you. And you will stay on the list so that the next time we take this up, you'll be notified that we're taking it up and you're welcome to join us anytime. Thank you, I appreciate you all doing this for us. Thank you. And you're certainly welcome to stay and listen to our next conversation if you'd like, but we understand that you all have busy lives. We're taking up our cannabis bill. Thank you. Bye, Lauren. Thank you. All right, so now we're going to go to what is S25 and we don't really have the bill because it's in judiciary. We have is just, we're looking at certain parts of it. I can't even find my S25 folder now. Anyway, we're looking at parts of it and what we're primarily looking at is the part that affects municipalities and the structure of the board because those are really in our purview, but we can give it, if we have time, we can get into other areas. We also have Senator Rahm's amendment. So those are the kind of the three major areas that we're looking at. I do, Gail has posted on the website two things for today. One is the draft of a bill that is being introduced in the house by Representative Chiena and there are some things in here we might want to look at, but since it's a house bill, we won't be dealing with it in total until it comes over to us. And then part of that again may go to us in part to judiciary and part to agriculture. So, and then the other one is a piece that was posted by Gregory and Pizulio. Is that the way you pronounce your name, Greg? It's Jeffrey Pizulio, no problem. Long Italian last name. And that is a piece that he has submitted and they're both on our website. So with that, and oh, I want to, while you're here and we are expecting Mark Hughes to join us, he did say that he would be a little late because he had something else going on and he, but he will join us. But I want you to know before we start that at 2.30, shortly before 2.30, like seconds before, Gail will tell us that it's 2.30 and we will leave our meeting for about 20 minutes. We will come back and I think probably Gail, because it's such a long break, should we all sign out and then sign back in or how is the best way to do that? If you want to, you certainly can, but you could stay on, if not. I will take us off live stream for that period of time though. I don't think he can be in two zooms at one. Isn't it a zoom? Yes, it's a zoom. We're gonna have to leave. Okay. I don't want to get confused. We have to leave together. We have to leave, but other people don't have to leave if they don't want to. Okay, got it. All right, thank you. So with that, let's, is Tucker by any chance with us? Do you know if Gail, if he posted anything or Michelle, maybe Michelle- Michelle is Michelle's with us. Yes, I do see that. I asked Tucker, let's go to on S25, go to the very first thing we dealt with here, which is the section one, the opt-in vote. Michelle, did you get anything from Tucker on that? Okay. I asked, but it may have been late and I know people are really out straight right now. What I, what my suggestion was, was that instead of having this here as it is, is instead to somehow frame it so that if there has been no vote by March of 2023, putting it out because of the, the acknowledgement that we're running late in the towns, many of the towns don't want to vote on it because they don't know what they're voting on. But if there has not been a vote by March 2023 that on the day after that town meeting, it will be considered an opt-in town. I mean, it will be considered a town that allows retailers. That's the way we did it with alcohol. There was a drop dead date. If you didn't vote by that date, you couldn't prohibit after that. Welcome, Mark. And I, Mark, before we go to Gwyn here, I just want to, because you just joined us. I want to tell you also that at 2.30, Gail is going to remind us that it's 2.30. We're, the committee members are going to leave because we have to go to another meeting for about 20 minutes. You're welcome to stay. She's going to take us offline, but we have to leave to go to another Zoom meeting and then we'll come back. I just wanted you to know that. I think, yeah, this hardly ever happens in committee, but the two days that you've been with us, we've done it. Anyway, because yesterday we did it for the joint assembly. So Gwyn, did you want to comment on that? Just a point of clarification. I think moving the date back is great. I think that's much more reasonable. And then it does clarify things too. If you don't have a vote by a certain date, then by default, you would be considered to have opted in. My question would be is after that March 2023 date, would that mean that a town couldn't go back and say no? They could go back and my understanding is they could go back and say no at any time. But if there was a retailer... Well, obviously, if their grandfather and their grandfather didn't, but if they were to change their mind, because even now if a town is, let's say they're not a dry town, there's like very few dry towns left, but there still is the option where they could decide to get dry town. I don't know a lot of times I want to do that, but so they would still have that option. I think that's a much more reasonable. I think that it's not exactly what we wanted, but I think pushing it past next town meeting to that next town meeting, so like we have at least because by next year, hopefully things will be, you know, hope, send me back to normal, then licenses will start going out. The first establishments will, you know, be up and operating by later that year. And then by that beginning of the next year, that'll be the final time where towns will be able to, you know, weigh in. I think that seems to be... I think that's a cleaner way of going about things. And it's, doing it in 2022 next town meeting just is very, very difficult and feels very rushed. But I think by the next year, they'll have much more information to go by. So I think we'll be, I think we'll be much happier with this resolution. And then not telling people how to word it on their ballot. They can word it on their ballot the way it makes most sense in their community. Right. Okay. Yeah, I think by default anyways, really all they're able to vote in on is retail. And then those communities that have dispensaries now that would be, you know, integrated licensees, they're, you know, separate, but they're still gonna have retail in them. So it's like, it just makes sense. The only way they're gonna be able to have any, saying it anyways is retail because the rest of it is just by default, they're allowed. So we appreciate that, those two changes. So thank you very much for your consideration on them. So does anybody have questions about that, that part of it? Or can we just... So we're saying the, the automatic opt-in happens next town meeting. No. If they haven't, if by March, 2023, they have not had a vote, then they are automatically considered a town that will allow retail. Right. Okay. 2023. I don't even know what year it is anymore, but great. Yeah. It's a long time from now. If we put it at 2022, they have to have things on their warning by January. Right. And we don't even have a board set up yet. It's making regulations. So... The governor addressed that briefly in his press conference this afternoon, sort of about 1230. Really? Yeah. Because the press was pressing him on when is he going to have it? When is he going to get his, when is he going to appoint people? Oh, and what did he say? He said he was doing, it would be done by the end of the session. Somebody said, well, how quickly? And he said, well... No. And he said, well, definitely by the end of the session. Somebody said, well, how quickly? And all he said, I believe that's what I heard was by the end of the session. So the session at the moment is ending mid-May, but if the session is extended... Even if it's mid-May, that puts us two years behind the schedule. Exactly. And that's ridiculous. Okay. Well, we need to, but I'll tell you who needs to put the pressure on him is not us. The people that need to put the pressure on him are the advocates in the community, the agricultural community, the... Yeah, absolutely. So first of all, they should clarify what he said today because he had to address it and just clarify what he said, but I believe I heard by the end of the session. Okay. All right. So... Madam Chair. Yes. You'd asked if there was any questions on what had been covered. And at the expense of potentially taking a little bit more time, I'm just gonna do it. That little thing that I called over-prescriptive, I think Gwen was, and hi, Gwen, it's good to see you. I think you were saying you had a problem with that last time I was here and it sounds like that that language has been removed in terms of the specifics of the ballot question itself. Is that correct? All that would say here is that if a town has not voted, had a vote by March 2023, they would be considered a town that allowed retail. It would say nothing about what they had to put on their ballot or anything else. Or that they even have to have a vote. All right, thank you. We'll get that very specific language from Michelle or Tucker. But that's the intent is to just take that, those lines 15 through 18 out and replace them with a drop dead date. Does that make sense? Thank you. Okay. So are we done with that committee? Any more comments or questions on that? Okay. Moving right along. What I'm gonna do, I think is, I don't know, Mark, if you were here when I said that really in our jurisdiction is the board and the responsibilities and makeup of the board. But we'll, so we'll address that first and then given any time constraints, we'll, oh no, and the third thing is Senator Rahm's amendment. So we'll address those two things and then given time, we can go into other things just for conversation. But those are the two things that we really need to address today and make sure we settle on. And we also are going to have this on the, if we don't get things completely settled today, we will have this on the agenda again next Tuesday that we can take it up. Okay. Does that make sense everybody? Okay. So let's go then to the board. And the way the board is structured right now is that there are three board members and executive director and an administrative assistant. But the three board members have certain responsibilities are all appointed by the governor and can only be root, a member can only be removed for cause by the other two members of the board. A board member cannot be removed by the governor. And that's in the statute. So that's the makeup of the board and they have a lot of responsibilities. I know that in Gregory's on his page, numbered, but his section three addresses the regulatory body. So great. Jeffrey, Jeffrey, would you like to... Far where are you finding that? Where can we find that? Cause I'm looking at S25 is drafted. It's on our document. Gail posted, put it on our page. Is it the cannabis social equity piece? It is. Is that what it's all? I don't see it. I just have Michelle Childs in cannabis social equity. It is the social equity one. I'm not allowed to post something as a bill unless it's actually... No, no, that's not the one. Oh, that's the one that Peggy gave me, Senator. She only gave you one? Yes. Oh, cause... This is Brian Chinas' bill. Yeah, yes. That's all I have on some. Jeffrey has a two, a three or four pager here that I thought actually... If I may, I can drag files to the chat. I don't know if technically it's appropriate or not, but I do... We don't use chat. Okay. So if you could email it to us, that would be good. We could see it in email. And then call me Jeffrey and I'll post it. And you can also just... There's only three bullet points under it. So... So just talk, yeah, just tell them to us. In S25, there isn't anything about the board. So it's not part of S25. This is just something that's a proposal by a witness. So... Yeah. Thanks. This is a proposal to add this, to make other changes to S25. I'm happy to read it. I'm sorry. Yeah. Just the regulatory body part. You have only three bullet points under that. So why don't you just tell them to us? I will read it. And just so you know, Gail, I did email Q just as background. Okay. So section three that we have... Sorry. If you'd be kind of to introduce yourself for the records. Oh, I apologize. Lots of hearings and I apologize for the record. My name is Jeffrey Pizzatello. I'm the co-founder and executive director of Vermont Growers Association. I'm also a professional cannabis grower. And we represent, we're a C4, Mutual Welfare Organization. And we represent the cannabis professionals in the state as their trade association. Think of us similar to the Vermont Growers Association back in the 1990s with Greg Noonan. And when they were seeking the craft beer marketplace that we enjoyed today. So that's awesome. And so can I just clarify that a little bit because that came up after the meeting yesterday about, but there really aren't any professional growers legally, right? We're trying to bring them into the legal market. Yes and no. I don't wanna waste your time with that, but professionally in terms of income, no, that would be illegal, but there's more to simply growing than making a living off of it in terms of expertise and skill set. That sort of thing. I've been doing this for over two decades, but that's one of the taboo, I wanna say, right natures of this emerging marketplaces we're dealing with illicit actors who are trying to come out of the shadows. And that's very difficult for me personally as an activist. So this is not easy. So thank you for underscoring that. Yeah. And I know when we were first dealing with this, we heard a lot of people who wouldn't come forward at all because they were admitting that they were involved in an illegal activity. So, okay, but thank you. Thank you. So go ahead. I'm sorry. No problem. And happy to expand on my personal background and the future if need be as well. So getting back to what we're calling the ag and economic equality points for S25 and referring to section three, which I believe is on the third page. If you guys do have the document in front of you, section three regulatory body, point one, create a process with which members of the cannabis control board may be removed either through the advisory committee or the executive and legislative branches. Point two, the advisory committee to the CCB must be seated and active prior to the CCB providing its recommendations to the legislator. So if we recall, currently under Act 164, the advisory board is seated after, for instance, the CCB introduces or delivers sweeping reforms to the legislative body. You guys. And finally, the third point under section three, the advisory committee to the CCB will have a two thirds majority enabled veto power to override decisions made by the CCB. So those are their three brief bullet points in our proposed language. So committee, does anybody have any technical questions right now about to clarify that? I guess we understand what you're saying here. So can we have a little bit of conversation about these? Take the first. Can we, I just still don't see them anywhere. Look at it. Gail, did you email them to us? I'm sorry, I'm just trying to be a good doobie and read them. Because for those of us who don't serve on judiciary, we're less familiar with all of this. I mean, for example, how many members are on the advisory council? I forgot. So that's actually I just posted it and I can forward that. Oh, right. You're wonderful. Thank you, Gail. But I don't believe that's in here anyway, because that isn't. Jeanette, would it be helpful if I just reviewed what the current law is? Yeah. Yes. And I. And then we can all be good doobies. Yeah. Well, I'm sorry. I couldn't resist that. I couldn't resist. It's still not on our page, though. It's still not on our page. I don't know where. Yeah. It takes a couple of minutes to update. Sometimes I just did it. It was OK. There seemed to be a lag in me receiving it. So it should be up there shortly. OK, look, what we're going to do is we're going to have Michelle tell us what the current law around the cannabis control board is not their duties, but just how they're constituted and then who the members of the advisory committee are. Right. OK. Great. OK, Michelle. Sure. So there are three members, as Senator already mentioned, there are three members of the board. And that's the process that's playing out right now where the governor has the names from the nominating committee and he is to select three members for the board. There is also an advisory committee and there are 12 members on the advisory committee. They are state employees the way that the board members are. They are they receive a per diem and expenses and they're from a variety of backgrounds. And I can see about pulling up the would you like me to pull up the membership? Would that be helpful? Sure. Is that already set? The advisory board is set. It's not the individuals, but who, like from which types of expertise and who is the appointing authority, all those kinds of things. Let me see if I can real quick. And while she's pulling that up, I will say that the cannabis control board was support the members were supposed to have been confirmed on January 15th. So they were then supposed to have seat been seated and started their work on January 19th. Clearly we're behind that. And if the governor doesn't appoint them until the end of the session, we're going to be really behind the advice. Then there were a number of reports that they were supposed to bring to the legislature for action, a number of action items. And the advisory board is not seated until May. So that's the. And I can show you the timeline too. Yeah. So you should have co-host abilities. Great. Okay. How's that? Can you see that? Perfect. Perfect. Okay. All right. So here's the advisory committee. And so when Senator White was talking about the timeline, it's critical in thinking about how this all rolls out because you have to have the board in place and they have to hire their staff before you start to bring in the advisory board. So it's all kind of stacked on one another. So with the delay in appointment of the board members, it's obviously delaying everything. And we do have this issue of the board is supposed to report to the general assembly on April 1st this year on a number of issues that are really in your purview to be deciding instead of the board, things such as fees for licenses. So we've got a little bit of a crunch here. And that was one of the things I was gonna ask the chairs, would you guys be looking at the timeline and figuring out whether or not you need to adjust that as opposed to if judiciary? So I just. We could. We could. So for the advisory committee, you can see it's 12 members. So you see in subsection H, subdivision one, and you see the folks there. So a member with an expertise in public health appointed by the governor, it's the secretary of agriculture, food and markets, someone with experience in laboratory science or toxicology appointed by the governor, someone with expertise in systemic social justice and equity issues appointed by the speaker, a member with expertise in women and minority owned business ownership appointed by the speaker. There's a member with expertise in substance use prevention appointed by the Senate committee on committees, a member with expertise in cannabis industry appointed by the committee on committees, someone with expertise in business management or regulatory compliance appointed by the treasurer, someone with expertise in municipal issues appointed by the treasurer, someone with expertise in public safety appointed by the AG, someone with expertise in criminal justice reform appointed by the AG, and then also the secretary of natural resources. So those are the 12 folks on the advisory committee. And you'll see here that the appointments to the advisory committee are supposed to be made on or before May 1st. The board can establish subcommittees within the advisory committee if they want to do that. And then here's the business about reimbursement. I'm gonna stop sharing that if that's okay. And then I'm gonna go to the timeline. Just wait, let me just ask if people have any, if people have, can you take that down for one second, Michelle? So I can see people, thanks. Do people have any questions about the advisory, the makeup of the advisory? Senator Rahm. I just wondered the committee's intent around having the treasurer appoint the municipal expertise person. You mean just a question? Why is it the treasurer? Yeah. The treasurer like appoints a lot of people that just seems kinda strange. I think, so my recollection is that from initially, so the board initially was created, came out of Senate Judiciary and it had five members. And you had appointments by speaker, Senate committee on committees, the governor, the treasurer and the attorney general. And so that got scaled back in appropriations to only three members. There was not yet an advisory committee. It went to the house and then in house GovOps, they put it back to five members, and then Appropes put it back down to three. So you see a pattern here. And there was concern among folks about wanting to have certain perspectives reflected in the board's decision making, but because the board is so small, they were concerned, they say, well, we don't wanna, if there's only three board members, we don't wanna require, we don't know who the applicants will be. We wanna have the best applicants. And if we say one board member absolutely must have experience in agriculture, then well, maybe there's, somebody else would be a fabulous candidate and then they're kind of stuck. And so what house government operations decided to do was the creation of this advisory board. And so tried to bring in issues around social justice and substance misuse and law enforcement reform, things like that. And to reflect that in the advisory board, rather than just trying to cram it all into the three members of the actual, of the board. So Treasurer, I think was just a relic from before where Treasurer had a pointing authority. I don't remember there being a whole lot of discussion. I think they were just looking for, like a constitutional office, somebody who could, who might have some fiscal experience and would look at those particular issues. There's, I mean, we can suggest changes. Yeah, I would think you just say, I mean, I'm not trying to look at Gwen, but you just say somebody from VLCT. I don't know why we'd like have the Treasurer do that. Right. I can't remember the last. I think Michelle is right. Yeah. Gwen? We never provided testimony on this when the government operations committee chose to add the Treasurer's name. We never objected it. We never objected to it either. Nine times out of 10, when there is a constitutional officer position or even, you know, secretary, like if the, you know, speaker at the house or Senate pro tem is charged with finding a municipal person. What they generally do is reach out to the league anyways. And if it's not an employee of VLCT, they'll ask us, you know, are there city managers or select members or whomever that would be appropriate. So, you know, I think we're okay with the Treasurer. It's kind of hard to find a constitution. It's kind of hard someone at the state level that has that, you know, connection to municipal government except for the legislature. So I think we're okay with it because I think Beth Pierce would be, you know, if she would most likely call VLCT as the first person. Okay. Okay. Yeah. I would say that there are a lot of changes to be made here that we want to make. And I, okay. Any other committee have Allison and then I'll call on you. No, no, I was just going to say, we reviewed this last year. No. Well, yes, both the board things I thought we weighed in on. We weighed in on the cannabis control board but the, my, I don't think that we really weighed in on the advisory committee because that was such a last minute thing and it was part of the negotiations going back and forth and back and forth. Okay. But whether we did it on one of them. Okay. Senator Plena or Kalmar, did you have any questions or concerns about this of who's here and what they are? Okay. So the first suggestion here is create a process by which they may be removed. Right now, the only way they can be removed is by the two other members for just cause removing them. The legislature, the administration and the advisory board have no role in the removal. Do we want to address that? Yes, Senator Kalmar. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just trying to figure out why somebody would be removed. If we spend so much time and energy picking the right people, what would a situation become that they would need to be removed? I'm just trying to repeat. I think you might find that maybe somebody is setting up the regulations, the licensing in such a way, is promoting it in such a way that their friends are more likely to get licenses than others or that they themselves have decided to, like insider trading, that they know what's coming up and so they're likely to, those are the things I can think of. That certainly explains it for me, thank you. And what are their terms? Are their terms three years? So I can pull that up. Is it okay to share the screen? Yeah, or if you just want to tell us. But we're talking about the cannabis control board now. Yes. I just can't remember what the length of terms and how many terms they can repeat. So you'll see here subdivision C2, all board members serve a term of three years or until a successor is appointed. And then, so you have the process for vacancy and then here on subdivision four is the provision that Senator White was talking about. So when the board was, you'll recall that when you originally created the board, it was important to you to have an independent entity that was not going to be directly answering to the governor. You wanted it to kind of be somewhat insulated from the political shifts from term to term. And so it's an independent entity. And originally that's why you had the appointing authority. You didn't have the governor appointing like he is doing now. That's something that happened in the house where the house government operations had supported the Senate's position and wanted it to be independent and wanted independent appointments, but the governor was very opposed to that. And so the house made a concession trying to collaborate with the administration and came up with this process that you wound up with in Act 164 where you basically have the nominating committee and then the governor does all the appointments to, but they chose to keep this particular provision that it wasn't the governor that removes people. It's the other two members on the board and it's only for cause. So committee, where are we here? So there is a way to remove people. It's just not the way Gregory is proposing. Jeffrey. I mean, Jeffrey, sorry. That's okay, I started that. I'm sorry about that. No problem. Can I just clarify, the cause has to be, it's for an illegal, so if you're removal for cause, it's they violated the law, they violated the regulations. There are provisions in the statute around conflicts and things like that. So if somebody was, did have a relative who had cannabis business who was applying for a licensing, that those are in violation of the statute. So it's those types of things. So then Madam Chair, I guess my question to Jeffrey is why are these provisions inadequate? Yes, would you like to address it? Michelle, do you want to take that down? Sure. Thanks. Certainly. Well, outside of that characterization, what I can share is what we have observed in other states. So over the years, studying other state law, we brought up Michigan recently, Massachusetts is another state that Senator Bryan, I know you brought up the issue of, what are some of these real world concerns that play out in these scenarios? What we saw in Massachusetts was there were, and this is a risk in a lot of states that have a centralized agency for regulating the adult use marketplace. And that is the risk of either individuals with undisclosed close ties that are removed through family members and whatnot. And that exists serving as regulators that once were in the industry in whatever capacity. And without going down hypotheticals, we can look at other states where they either were forced to reform their regulatory agency or remove members or otherwise deal with issues that come up from lack of responsiveness, not meeting milestones in formation and implementation rollout. And mind you, we're seeing that now in this state. So a lot of this really is the intent to make sure that we're hitting our milestones. We're arriving at a viable and successful marketplace. And most importantly, one that's inclusive and equitable. But so that's how I would respond to that. So if other board members theoretically can remove one of themselves, does that pose any issue? Would those two other members for whatever reason not follow through with that accountability? I don't know, those are things for you guys to explore. What we see in other states is that's not always the case. I think we do not want the executive branch to be able to remove because then that removes the independence. So we do not want that. And I'm not sure that we want the legislature. The legislature can impeach people, but I don't think we can remove, I don't think we have the ability to remove board members. We have the ability to, we have to confirm them, but I don't know that we have the ability to remove them once they're confirmed. I don't... Just to follow up on the Michigan anecdote, Senator White, since we talked about it yesterday, I looked into that more and the reason why they dissolved that entire agency was because of what we're talking about now. That was their only outcome. The governor was dissolved that agency to deal with a regulator who was in effect dragging his feet in terms of issuing the licenses to Michigan residents, as opposed to the dispensaries who were their pre-existing actors, similar to our state. Other committee members, Senator Polina. Yeah, I just had a basic question, maybe for Michelle. Just wondering how usual or unusual this is to say that the only to be removed by the other board members. Is this common practice? It's elsewhere in law. I'd have to check with maybe Amron, just to see. But it's not totally unusual or anything. No, no, not at all. Okay. I think that my feeling here is that we don't even have the board appointed yet. And the reason we're not making deadlines has nothing to do with the board. So if one of the reasons were to make sure we were meeting our deadlines, when we interviewed board members, they were all very concerned about that and knew that they were gonna be working, whoever was appointed was gonna be working probably 40 hour days for the next few months to get us back on track. So my, I don't know about other committee members. Mark, do you wanna weigh in on this particular issue? Or do you have no people? I was just getting ready to go get more coffee. So there is a part of it that I do wanna weigh in on, but I don't know that this is the right time. I think my concern is really twofold. Part of it has to do with the process itself, the appointment process and the challenges presented to perpetuate the structural racism within the system itself. Whereas with the appointment start from the governor, the governor puts those three folks in, those three folks, so I mean, and it's kinda like, and I'm reading actually the report, the social equity caucuses report on this and Susanna Davis and those folks, well, there's Susanna's report too, but they have some pretty significant recommendations surrounding these areas. And I was wondering had the committee reviewed this report? I have, I did not, I don't remember seeing anything about the cannabis control board. All removal, because right now we're just trying to, I think focus on the removal process. I think your point is well taken, which is why I started the conversation with, I didn't know whether this was the right time for me to do this, but when we're talking about the, it's almost skull-duggery, because in a way what we're doing is we're talking about a process that exists. We've already passed the point in which we should have had this particular conversation because first we should be talking about how to get the folks in there in the first place, okay? So again, it sucks to be me because I gotta be this guy who comes into these conversations and throws the monkey wrench in here, but I'm willing to park this part of the conversation and revisit it at a later time, okay? Yeah, I think that that's why, because we do have a process in place right now and the process has started. It isn't moving very quickly, but it has started. And I think to upend that process right now means we're at least three years behind and not two. So- Yeah, but there is one question that I did have, and I wanna delineate the racial equity task force report which you may have reviewed from the social equity caucus workgroup report, which is what I'm looking at. So I just parked that there and no, don't wanna upend the process, but would be curious to hearing in light of the fact that the process is significantly delayed. And I'm already hearing that there will be some legislative action to elongate that process, to be able to stretch it out legislatively instead of waiting for a judiciary action on it. Then would this not be the time to talk about how we might be able to integrate more of these recommendations in terms of process in addressing structural racism that's embedded within this at that point. I understand your concern. I'm not sure that I see how it fits with the three recommendations that are being made here about the advice about the cannabis control board. Because- Right, it doesn't. Yeah, what we're talking about now is just the cannabis control board. Do we wanna set up a different process for removal? Committee members. Madam Chair- Anybody? Yes. No, committee members, just committee members. Yeah, I'd be willing to have some discussion about it. Yes. Okay, what would you like to do? Well, I think you raise a good point, Madam Chair, by not including either the executive or legislative branches for the reasons you noted. So that's left us with the advisory committee. And I guess I could see a way to have that happen. To have the advisory committee have the ability to remove a member? Yeah. Okay, other people? Other committee members? Senator Pauline and Senator Clarkson. Well, I was just gonna say, I'm not really sure, to tell you the honest truth. But I think it's worth talking about some more, but I feel like we have limited options. So at this point in time, I really can't say whether I would support keeping it the way it is or not without hearing what the other options might be. Senator Clarkson? Yeah, I agree with Anthony. It's either three people, the two people move to house one or 15 people. I mean, I in some ways like to have an either or or all. I mean, it would be great to involve the advisory, but also I'd like to hear about other boards where they have the responsibility and opportunity to oust, to remove a member. So I think it's the first time I thought about it. So I would be loathe to make a decision today. In either case, I think it would have to be for just cause. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely for just cause. It's just, who is it does, do we give the opportunity to one or the other or both? To me. Senator Rom. What states did this committee or did the committees of jurisdiction consider as a best practice or a model when the bill was being crafted? We, well, we looked at, we took tons and tons of testimony from many, many states. And there's many different models out there. I will say that the Senate had a five person cannabis control board that was appointed by the government, one by the governor with certain expertise, one by the speaker with certain expertise, one by the speaker with expertise, one by the treasurer and one by the AG, all with very specific backgrounds or expertise. And that was our position. So this is not the Senate's position, but this is what we agreed to. So this is where we are. And I can't tell you what other states the House looked at when they came up with this. I don't know. I mean, my thought with this and probably other questions that will come up is we have the opportunity to learn from other states that are further along than us. And now we've had even more time to see, was there some kind of drama that erupted in another state around a member? How did they handle it? Did that go well or not? I just think we have the benefit of not being first and I would hope we take advantage of that somehow with other states that... As long as we can do it by Tuesday. Well, that's why I was like, should I Google stuff? Like I'm just curious what the news has been on other states lately. Well, I mean, Jeffrey did bring up the Michigan and all they did was they couldn't figure out how to get rid of the one person who was being bad. So they dissolved the whole thing. I mean, I think that we can do better than that. Right. So Senator Callemore. Thank you, Madam Chair. My thought on just allowing the other two members of the control board to do it is one might agree and one might not. And then where are you? You've got to tie and in essence, you haven't done anything because you're, you know, so I think there has to sort of be an odd number. Now 15 people, maybe that's too many. Maybe you should have a subgroup of that 15 member advisory council that's charged only with removal and make it a five person. I don't know what the right answer is, but I do know that you're going to have a one one tie in a lot of cases and that doesn't work. Yeah. It's, I mentioned 15 because it's three and 12. It's 12 on the advisory board, I think. So it's an even number also on the advisory board. Oh, I thought it was 15, I'm sorry. I mean, you could have some 15 because you have the option of either or and if you include it all 15 of them weighing in on it, but obviously one of them wouldn't be weighing in because one of them was being removed. You could have the either a core majority or two thirds of the advisory board could take action which would give you a separate a section. Second, oh, it's 230, I believe. Oh, it's almost 230. It's very close. It's very close. So let's think about that and come back with that. The perhaps having and the advisory board is set up to be specific experts in areas. They're not just general appointees. They are there because they have a background in lab science and toxology or in systemic racism or in public health. So they are there for very specific reasons, but you could do something like two thirds of them which is an option. Madam Chair, can I make a note before we take our break? And that is that I've been in touch with Tucker and he's gonna try to join us this afternoon. Oh, great. Thank you. All right, so we will see you, Jeffrey, Mark, Quinn, Michelle, we'll see you later. I'm not available after three. So I was like, maybe it might work out if Tucker can join you then. And then also, Anthea knows that you might be discussing the 2% local office. Option, and so if you decide to do that, you can just email her. She can pop out of house transportation. Okay, and we might not get to that till Tuesday. Okay, so we'll see you. Have a great weekend, folks. Thanks, Michelle. You're not coming back to us. I'm not gonna be able to come back this afternoon. I appreciate the invitation. And I hope everyone has a great weekend.