Okay we're recording. Okay my name is James Pepper I'm the chair of the Ramon Cannabis Control Board. Today is October 29th 2021. It's 11 a.m. and I call this meeting to order. Today we're gonna continue to discuss and make decisions on some of the more granular aspects of our regulations. We will continue to seek public input both at these meetings but also at our monthly after-hours public comment meetings and throughout the rulemaking process. We are working with our consultants to develop a few hybrid in-person and remote town high town hall style meetings around the state. We're gonna narrow in on those dates times and locations and we'll make those details available as soon as possible. Though we're currently thinking Thursday November 18th and Saturday November 20th and honestly if these wind up being valuable and productive I can see us expanding these in the coming months. I don't have anything else so have Kyle and Julie have you had a chance to review the minutes from both October 22nd and October 27th? Yes. Yes. Okay I take a motion to approve those minutes. So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Okay then why don't we just get straight into the agenda for today and Kyle if you wouldn't mind starting with some of the kind of operational requirements that you were assigned. Okay so for today again as as you alluded to we're getting pretty granular but Brenda asked me to take a look at operational requirements or standards for cultivators generally indoor specifically manufacturers retailers including age verification how we want to do that wholesalers visitors and visitors just to cultivation operations some integrated security conversation and then what we're going to do with adulterated cannabis. I reviewed primarily requirements in Colorado Massachusetts California amongst others the sustainability committee helped inform what I'll be talking about on my next slide which is helping to develop a cultivation or a farm plan and also for disposal of adulterated cannabis and just kind of listing some of the primary folks that I have been engaged in discussing with over the last week to help inform my thoughts here. The first cultivator specific operational requirements I kind of view this you know some of this will be included in our application some of it I think it's just good business or farm planning for anybody who looks to seek a cultivation license this is record keeping they'll be really valuable at the end of each season to kind of assess how they're doing how successful they were. Also if something does go wrong how we can make sure that we implement corrective action plans and kind of understand what exactly happened. I don't anticipate this being overly burdensome you know some of the other cultivation or farm plans I've seen in other jurisdictions are about 10 pages or so very very top-line but we I think it's important that we understand exactly how folks intend to operate here so cultivation schedule or description of cultivation activities how they're planning to grow how they're planning to propagate or start mixed-flight cultivation planning schedule if they're going to be doing one irrigation planning schedule if they're going to be using municipal water harvesting drying and trimming what are your efficiency practices I think we're still going to talk about prioritizing folks with a sustainability angle in mind so recognizing that folks want to give us information to help prioritize their application I thought having a baseline understanding of what we need from a efficiency perspective it's important in a plan recognizing that we want folks to go above and beyond that. An employee plan if you're more than a sole proprietor you know who's in charge who's the lead cultivator assistant cultivator seasonal laborers if you need them yeah and again applicable based on scale of operation use in storage of regulated products what are you planning to use as part of your as part of our inform applicators as part of your process so nutrients pesticides fungicides located in a locked storage room locked in labeled containers in accordance with the manufacturer of that pesticide or applicator applicators instructions we'll talk a little bit more about pesticides in a little bit but more or less we're gonna the agency of agriculture does a lot of tests and approved people to be able to handle these types of products and I think it's prudent that we kind of make sure we work side by side with them so that people are doing this safely integrated pest management how are you going to prepare for the unexpected whether that's spider mites or molds recidus anything like that you know I don't think any of us want of course those two impact facilities operation but you need a plan in place in case the unexpected does happen I think you know and I think we've all experienced this in a lot of different ways in our lives if something starts to go wrong you get a little anxious and you start to make decisions that you may otherwise slow down and think a little bit more strategically about and we don't want folks who don't have a plan in place to start using applicators that they might otherwise not use but they're trying to do their best to save a crop that they feel is failing and they might be more inclined to you know use something that's not approved or use something in a miss in a misuse type of way and so I think this is important that we kind of get people thinking about that and what could go wrong at the beginning follow the pesticide role on waste management plan how you're going to dispose of non high THC you know leftover material so on and so forth product management what's your testing plan who you're going to use if you have one a lab that is and you're planning to control inventory before it's transporting before it's transported and then record keeping maintaining records you know again this gets back to best management practices in case something does go wrong that's great and we can you know develop kind of a guide or a checklist and give some examples on what this looks like again I don't anticipate it being overly burdensome it's just kind of I think it's mutually beneficial for us to understand growing practices but also mutually beneficial for folks you know to have their ducks in a row in case information is needed by us okay so pesticide as I mentioned you know the AG of Agriculture has the state wide authority to regulate pesticide use they offer training and certification and licensing and registration for product pesticide applicators and dealers and registers specific products and active ingredients it operates a pesticide program that fully addresses all aspects of pesticides use including mixing storage disposal worker protection standards etc it has a list of allowed ingredients that the CCB should adopt and they have a list that was created while we are still on our well we're still on our hemp pilot program now because I don't believe that plan has been approved by USDA but EPA after hemp became legalized and started to step in and offering approved pesticides so on and so forth for use on hemp crops but this was developed before that I think that kind of helps us thread a needle because EPA is not going to be approving pesticide usage for high THC cannabis because it's so federally illegal so at the I think also like what what may be important is an application report or an afterseason report so the time of harvest or the time this is transported indicate what pesticides you have used as part of your operation it's hard for people to kind of list at the beginning because they might not end up using certain applicators but I think it's important for the public to know what has been included as part of that approved list on your product and so I thought I know we talked about the manifest last time maybe this could be a part of the manifest or something similar that kind of you you include when you go to transport your material to make sure that everybody understands what was specifically used on that product free trace has I think most the CDC I'll have a way to kind of like listening like that and then you have to kind of like the batch has like a file that you kind of maintain as to everything that's been done to that awesome that makes it even easier to include just wanted to make sure we flagged it yeah okay standards for for indoor cultivation so they can propagate cultivate harvest prepare cure package store and label under the license can can transport or license retailer cannot transport cannot transfer excuse me to a consumer cannot consume on premises they can store inventory on premises but it needs to be in a secure secured in a control area interact with sea to sail can only transfer between license holders I'm thinking they can provide samples to a testing facility of course you know what I mean to maintain for testing and research purposes I think we need to start thinking about research in a way that other states are starting to with respect to high thd cannabis and to maintain record of sample amounts of testing indoor cultivators are subject to inspection of its premises by local fire department building inspector enforcement officer to confirm no health or safety concerns are present they may on proposing provide vendor sample of flour to a manufacturer retailer it cannot be consumed on any license premises and you can supply a manufacturer or retailer four grams per strain of flour no more than seven strains of flour in an aggregate calendar month which equates roughly to an ounce of cannabis and that would need to be labeled not for resale and designated as such in sea to sail additionally may provide samples to employees to determine whether or not to make a product available to sell the same rules above what applies in terms of quantity it would need to be labeled quality control and I spelled the word control wrong that's going to need to do fix on my slide that friend sorry about that but it would need need to be designated quality control sample not for resale massachusetts does this and has the same limits i didn't necessarily dig into standards for outdoor cultivation as part of this but i would expect that these same samples would apply for outdoor cannabis cultivation as well kyle can i ask a question about that that is labeling it as quality control sample that's how it would be tracked in their inventory right so when when they're when we go or when somebody goes in and audits their inventory that's how they would signify that this was not something that you know went was diverted in any way but this was this was for quality control sample or it was a vendor sample versus a sample yeah and inventory or sea to sail has this ability other states allow for samples to help an operation itself determine if they want to move a product into the regulated market but also you know a letting a vendor test it to make sure tested in the in the ways that we consume cannabis products um to make sure it's something that they want to sell or they want to use in the manufacturing process okay thank you other other and julie i think you touched on some of this last week and you may even um a little bit today but sanitary requirements you know if folks have open lesions or boils and their job is to handle these plans i think you know it's it's a public health issue and we need to make sure that folks who are handling these plans are doing so with the public health practices in mind hygienic practices while on duty maintaining adequate personal cleanliness washing hands thoroughly in an adequate hand washing area hand washing facilities and restrooms adequate and convenient and making sure litter and waste is properly removed to minimize odor and becoming an attractant for harbourage or breeding um place for pests i know that the hemp program also largely follows a lot of the produce programs safety rules you know cannabis is interesting because it's one of the few examples in ag where it's not really washed from the point of it being grown obviously to the point of it being consumed so there's got to be some good sanitary best management practices in place um from a public health perspective any questions there no that makes sense to me oh that's good thank you okay visitors to cultivation sites um visitors are allowed must be escorted at all times by a person facility employee we've been calling them cannabis licensed agents and sorry that i didn't think to put that right there um unescorted visitors could resolve in the license violation they must be over the age of 21 i'm not recommending a specific number be set on the list the number of visitors at one time i think that could get a little hard for us to regulate especially with small farmers who this is part of their diversified operation who counts as a visitor um when you're looking at other parts of the farm and people coming and going as part of a farm happens day in and day out um i also think you know this will help promote aspects of agritourism you know this isn't an agriculture product per se but i i really want folks to feel comfortable and seek out opportunities to demystify the growing process around cannabis because it takes you can't just have a phd in botany and really grow this effectively it takes a different set of skills and time and and understanding of this specific plant and so to facilitate that kind of education folks want to see where their product is being grown how it's being grown um someone and so forth i think it's it's important for us to let visitors come under the right set of circumstances to be able to view how this is actually grown so visitor identification badge issued by license holder i figured the design should be approved by us and visible at all times that can be returned on exit so you can you know reuse those for every visitor i was unsure if we should require this for craft outdoor cultivators something about wearing a visitor badge at a thousand square foot grow just seemed a little silly to me but if we think it should be necessary i'm willing to and and entertain the conversation i think just overall there should be some kind of diversion prevention plan that's part of the application process just uh i think that's that's generally i think what other states just call it just like diversion prevention plan it's usually tied to retail operations um but uh i think if we're going to allow visitors to cultivation sites there should just that that's and it could include it could you know it could include a badge what doesn't necessarily have to for all all cultivation types okay i'd be i'd be interested in further entertaining and we can explore through the proposed rulemaking process on what a diversion plan you know would look like and a lot of what i have here can be incorporated into this into that what that plan is um but you must be logged in and logged out and made available to us on inspection and i have here a safety protocol must be established before allowing visitors maybe we can attach diversion to the safety protocols but for example you know i come from the ag world disposable shoe covers to protect and increase biosecurity as something that you see when you're going farm to farm to farm all the time eye protection if you're at an indoor facility you know and exposed to horticultural lighting equipment um i don't think it would be overly burdensome to come up with come up with that plan julian questions uh no this uh actually the no limit on on number of visitors at one time this is for outdoor or is it for outdoor and indoor i was thinking either okay so would be no limit on visitors except for whatever the the fire code is right yeah i think that makes sense so we can know we can note that i didn't want us to impose an arbitrary number you know fire safety code isn't an arbitrary number that's that's rooted in yeah in safety you know so this looks good okay adulterated cannabis i think what we need to do really is in our um authorizing legislation allows for remediation of adulterated cannabis if it can be concentrated it turned to something that's useful but i think what we need to draw the line is if someone is adulterating um with an intent to circumvent our program or approve pesticides or doing so willfully if so it needs to be flagged recorded reported must be destroyed and when we talk about the word destroyed it needs to be rendered unrecognizable and unusable as found in our waste disposal recommendations that i discussed last Friday yeah on this it is just i think it's probably inherent in our authority that we can demand sampling and testing of products kind of at our discretion i would imagine right it's something that i have for my i just noted it for my integrated license operational requirements but it seems like if we don't have that inherent authority we should demand we should make sure it's clear as part of our rules that we can that we're going to do that if we suspect adulterated cannabis i think i think we can and i think in the statute it does say that we can destroy its standards designated by the board okay so sure it's something some iteration of that but it does specifically allow for remediation um but i just don't think we we helped decide when something is so or public safety concern where you know it can't be remediated right i accidentally put a double slide in there i apologize for that too many slide decks being created over the last week okay standards for manufacturers a lot of this is just um you know i think we still need to talk about what would be allowed and not allowed from a a solvent or a extraction method perspective right but this is kind of just good business practices for folks that are looking to do manufacturing so maintaining all records of purchase from any manufacturer's supplier of an ingredient additive device component part of other materials obtained by the manufacturer records would be available to us maintain records in the name of business address of the manufacturer of any cartridge battery atomizer coil hardware or other component and vaporized products again made available to us on request for for more edible related um parts of the manufacturing process uh coa for each thickening agent thinning agent or terpene infused or incorporated into a product will be retained by the manufacturer and provided in transactions to a wholesaler or a retailer policies and procedures for ensuring and safety and all processing activities related to the extraction equipment and compliance with vermont fire and building safety code and and similar to the samples available from a cultivator i think it's important that manufacturers are allowed to do something similar and this is the same aggregate amount a month five grams of concentrator extract or 500 milligrams of edibles so long as the sample size doesn't um exceed a certain amount and regulatory potency um this is the same that massachusetts allows as part of their sample program and again just like um in the cultivation context allowing your employees to kind of test to make sure it's a product that you want to hang your hat on and and passing through the supply chain a quality control sample not for resale should be allowed i think as well for these samples um are we thinking that these samples both at the cultivation level and product manufacturing level have been tested um you know for microbials they need our standards prior to them being given out as samples i think that i think yes i think that makes a lot of sense yeah okay yeah this is kind of like your your taste test before you send it up the supply chain recognizing that everything else should kind of be ready to roll yeah the wholesalers you know i think it's a similar field to an indoor cultivation security with a little bit different twist um recognizing that a large quantity of inventory may be present at any given time in a wholesale facility so security alarms and locks on all perimeter doors and windows video surveillance with continuous monitoring during the storage control area inventory needs to be locked and stored um i think there needs to be a system in place to track product and keep separate product from different cultivators or different folks that you're wholesaling on behalf of i think that our seed of sale would maintain that but i think it's just good business practices how our product can be handled and stored you know some folks will look to kind of store and preserve certain potency limits over the course of like the calendar year there's certain humidity levels and temperatures that are used as storing techniques to kind of preserve the quality of something so i think it's important that we understand how folks intend to actually store large quantities of this um a certain size safe depending on quantity bolted to the ground i don't know if that's necessarily something we need to require but i thought it would be a discussion point you know we can kind of look to propose something in rulemaking and kind of hear back if we're being overly burdensome i kind of figure but you know there needs to be special attention paid to wholesalers and in this context recognizing the large inventory that could be present as part of their license kyle for for cash or what is the safe for for product that's what i was primarily thinking of but and cash too i guess maybe if i'm thinking about it i would have to be a pretty big safe depending on certain circumstances so maybe it's more for cash okay the other states have that you know think so yeah um storage under conditions that you know will not degrade the product or the packaging and we would need a list of authorized representatives that are that are able to access this control area where this product is being stored i know that in some jurisdictions this has been problematic the way that certainty to sale companies or vendors work because the owner or the key holder is the only person allowed to enter these certain areas which just creates practical issues depending on if the owner isn't in that space on any given day or on vacation or something like that so i thought if we have a list of authorized representatives instead of just one single person you can access it and that's on file with us and we know and contract who has access that we could still kind of um help this work a little bit more in practice can i ask one more question about wholesalers kyle is there a need for wholesalers to be able to receive or to give samples i'm just trying to think about what their role will be sort of in the supply chain i have a little bit of that on my slides july yeah i mean we can we can save the conversation for your slides unless you had something i didn't include it here um i could be persuaded that they would be allowed i guess the the repackaging stuff kind of or i'll i'll talk i'll talk a little bit about it on my slides okay so retailer operations i've heard a lot about obviously prepackaged materials i'm also going to propose that we allow retailers to do what's can what's referred to as deli style sales and think about this and the ability to open a larger jar allow consumers to look at the product smell the product become familiar with the product as opposed to just behind a glass window um to kind of help inform exactly what they want to buy um and and it's consumer preference and you know we wouldn't be the only jurisdiction in the adult use or medical world that would that is currently allowing this covet has kind of put some parameters around this but with the hope that we might find ourselves in a post-covid world at some point although i feel like i'm beating a dead horse saying that you know i think this ability um is just in line with what consumers want to see when they go to a retail you know facility i mean we all go to the grocery store and we want to look at produce or whatever the case may be and pick pick it based on our preference i think it just this kind of gets into that a little bit more that being said if somebody wants to do deli style they need to develop a standard operating procedure that addresses all aspects of sales so product reception making sure a product is weighed labeled and repackaged appropriately that SOP needs to be approved by us their scale and equipment must adhere to VAFM's weight and measures program they do all of the weights and measures for the entire state whether it's at a gas station or at an agriculture you know processing facility so on and so forth um and again like similar to some of my other slides they can receive vendor samples of flour from manufacturer cultivator and i don't have it on here but i would i would imagine they can receive sample concentrates and edibles as well just like a manufacturer can give those out they can receive them but i ran out of room on the slide and they would just be labeled vendor sample not for resale and then allowing their employees to sample products to make sure it's something that they want to include at their retail operation quality control again i apologize for my misspelling of the word control not for resale um so on the deli style um i guess first do other are there other jurisdictions and all of that yes you know which ones have to top your head i know in the medical world mariland allows it and florida allows it and um just to flesh out a little bit i'm not opposed the idea but to flesh out a little bit are you suggesting that there might be like a jar that someone could look at or would it be like a single like flower that someone could inspect like i'm thinking these would be like big gallon sized mason jars that are behind a glass counter and i think julie's going to talk a little bit more about displays and stuff like that but this jar could be brought to the top of the display counter and somebody could inspect you know you can have those microscope lights and stuff like that that somebody maybe the bud tender could hold on behalf of a of the customer under a certain set of circumstances to inspect it i don't think we would allow customers to kind of put it in their hands that's kind of like a public health issue but under the right set of sanitary circumstances allowing that package to be open and inspected um by the customer before it's bought yeah i mean i conceptually i'm okay with it it's the sanitation aspect the sanitary i think that we would have and again we're gonna in a heightened sanitary world these days with covid um but i think again as long as a standard operating procedure for addressing sanitary conditions is in place i think this is in line with how folks want to buy and inspect a product before they they do so we're in we're in this world where customers want to know what they're buying more so than ever and this kind of lens right into that yeah and again i would like the sanitary aspects and the diversion prevention i mean this like having these larger jars like you know you could see how you know just like some diversion could happen just by the nature they're being large unlike not sealed packages um so so on this slide um not to get ahead of the conversation because if we still want to talk about deli style i can i can go back but i think a retailer would have to have a written operating procedure and in here and just touching there's a lot of stuff in here but touching on what you're talking about policy for immediate dismissal of an employee who has diverted or engaged in unsafe practices i figure if you're going to do deli style you need to really have a robust plan on how you're gonna and all of the security that we're requiring of retailers coupled with their written operating procedures i think we can overcome those those diversion concerns yeah i think so too i just want to make sure that that's part of the conversation that this opens the door to a few i think of the colmamo priorities so i think we need to just have a you know something we can hang our hat on to say that we have a plan we have a plan for that i think we can overcome that burden yeah can i kyle on the deli style it's you're not thinking that it would be like there's a mason jar product that can be inspected and then there's a separate product that's packaged and that's what you get this would be like you would be selecting from that jar or is it um that i guess i'm not sure which which it is or is it both could it be both depending on the retailer i was i was thinking of it in a um in the context of what you see is what you're what you get i think either either way could work and maybe it would even alleviate some of your concerns if like they had like a sample jar that you could look at knowing that it's from the strain same strain harvest batch so on and so forth it's already prepackaged um yeah i think either way could work okay i just was trying to picture it in my mind and i had the same concerns about um just sort of the public health and sanitary aspect but i think that those can be covered in in policy and standard operating procedures and just for everybody bren showing me a photo of um in colorado they have like sniffers so kind of like what you're talking about julie where you've got a certain strain that you can sniff and look at but that's not necessarily the same bud that you would be taking home with you that day yeah but i still think either way it would work i might you know want to say i want this but specifically right so you know um i think it's all in the name of consumer preference yeah but if we're okay with this we can explore through yeah i think conceptually i'm fine with it i think we have enough to go on in your slides to kind of fine tune you know as we get closer to the submission of rules okay great okay so the rest of these written operating procedures they're pretty they're pretty standard if um you can tell i was doing this at 11 p.m last night so i apologize for my spelling errors i will have them fixed before these go up online i think i said where did i say something i forgot the s on strains and it just says trains we're not talking about trains here we're talking about my apologies to everybody listening okay age verification you know some states require these limited access areas where you're kind of waiting in a vestibule or a waiting room and you're kind of shuttled to the back of of the business establishment where the actual um cannabis is being held and i decided to tack away from that this is a little bit how massachusetts does it and other um jurisdictions do um the one i i said previously was like how colorado looks looks at doing this and i think we can move away from and learn from that and i think what we want to do in a retail establishment is kind of you know you have two checkpoints where you need to show your id at the door somebody needs to be approved that you are over the age of 21 then on point of sale somebody will inspect your identification and determine your age um i don't think a retailer can acquire or record more information than somebody's willing to give you know if you have an email list recognizing our advertising rules and you want to sign up for something that's great um but it's not required other than the information that's shown um on your id and your age but but this is kind of aiming at you know you get you enter a retail facility and you have the ability to walk walk around and look at products that are behind you know certain restricted display cases not so that you have to sit in a waiting room to be called back however you know if things are getting too crowded um a retailer has to make a reasonable effort to kind of limit the the amount of folks within a retail establishment as to to make sure that it they can they can do their business safely and um we're not allowed to do um curbside sales if i recall that's right but um we could not that i think that we should but we could encourage folks to have some sort of like online RSVP system or like kind of where you select a window where you're gonna try to attend i mean i of course like the fear is that there's gonna be lines around the block uh you know if you're managing it like a bar that has a max capacity right yeah yeah i mean i i think that's an option i don't know if i want to require something i wouldn't want to like that some folks you know want to just go on a whim and go say i want to do this you know so but i think that's an option if it's not running a foul of our inability to do curbside if you're just indicating to the business what time of day within an hour or half hour you plan on coming making an appointment so to speak for lack of a better word yeah well we can think about that i i think this is fine i mean honestly like and again and i think if we do move in a delivery direction or a curbside option if that ever enters our our market there would need to be more information retained by the the person purchasing than just their yeah okay the last slide i have is on integrated security and i'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here i think if somebody's seeking a business is seeking an integrated license you know they need to follow the security laid out for all other license types um and i thought and this is taking some language i believe from colorado an establishment conducting operations under multiple license types on a single premises may establish limited access areas for each license activity that overlap and shared hallways and access points provided that operations under each license type are segregated and a licensed agent has access only to areas and activities are conducted pursuant to the license or which they are registered all that's saying is we need to see we recognize that a lot of this will happen in the same facility not necessarily though but recognizing that there will be distinct areas between operations and we need to account for those as well yeah i mean one thing i really don't want to have happen is to have a because all the integrated licensees will have a medical license as well a medical retail license you really don't want to see like if those are co-located that the adult wreck retail is crowding out medical patients that are trying to see you know their products so i know most states require separate entrances and maybe a partition between the medical side and the adult wreck side you know i didn't include that in my i didn't either but we can talk about it yeah i think i think i think the from what i understand i think there's even a recommendation in the trade association to that effect that they have these separate entrances so i don't like i don't mind requiring it i don't mind requiring that either and i think it kind of speaks to maintaining adequate supply and and suite of services for the medical patients yeah i think we'll go ahead julie i think there's a patient protection aspect to that as well yeah yeah no absolutely and i was thinking about this more in the operational back end of things so my apologies for not including the retail front focus of the medical and retail no i was fine um and i know all the existing dispensaries currently have a system to like request a time to go they they have one of they they are all they're all by kind of all appointments you can walk into one but you can also do it by invitational currently um okay yeah we can use this language and then add to it and it'll it'll be in our proposed role i think separate entry and partition for the medical side if you're co-locating with your retail location you have a separate entrance and partition for medical you all right with that julie yes sorry again about mine full screen but i can't do the presentation that's all right i think it's good enough right yeah all right um so i'm looking at wholesaler specific operational requirements integrated specific operational requirements and then the priority of licensure system so um just uh just a quick you know from act 164 definition of wholesaler person licensed to purchase process transport sell cannabis products um wholesaler license may purchase from a license cultivator an integrated licensee um and cannabis products from a product manufacturer um and then transport process package sell cannabis cannabis process products to a licensed product manufacturer retailer integrated license and dispensary um so wholesaler specific operational requirements this these top two are just they're the same um as kind of any person who's receiving um a delivery this is from last week's slides just they have to ensure that what they're getting is what's described on the manifest and then they need to update their seed to sale tracking or their inventory tracking system to adjust to account for that intake um and then they will be responsible if there's any discrepancy between the manifest and what they're receiving um to uh document that and notify us so anything additional here um what i did was i really looked at what department of liquor control does for wholesalers um these first two are not part of that but they're pretty obvious i think we would require this for everyone so it's not actually an additional requirement but ensure that all the kind of labeling and packaging requirements are satisfied with what they're kind of passing along the supply chain um have a process for defective products in returns um so you know for retailer says or one of our compliance people is you know pulls something off the shelf at a retail location you know they can trace it back and if it was from the kind of wholesaler they can kind of we can trace it back and have a return or defective product protocol um departmental liquor control has the next i think for as part of their wholesaler requirements just sales and use certificates from department of tax um proof of training um regarding our cannabis laws um copy of lease and proof of ownership of the property that you're occupying um that's being licensed you know again a lot of these i think would be standard requirements for all license types but i'm just good to get them out there and i reviewed some of those security yeah baseline yeah something like that we talked about that yeah just all all requisite insurance um including um general liability product liability and workers comp um and then so the this is you know the wholesaler on the alcohol side is actually it's someone news to me i haven't really like thought about it all that much but um they're actually very highly regulated both at a federal level and um at a state level um because of you know a wholesaler really can put tremendous pressure on retailers um with you know contractual obligations and and essentially bribes um you know there's they call them inducements and exclusions rules um and what they are an inducement is anything that a wholesaler is giving to a retailer to persuade them to have their product prevalent at the exclusion of other products um and so they can you know pay for advertising they can you know gift gift um equipment fixtures signs money services anything of value and then um the exclusion is you know the retailers taking that at the you know at the exclusion of other folks so this is really kind of an anchor on a craft cultivator market you know it really allows larger wholesalers and distributors to dominate the retail market you know i was talking to one of our advisory community members and he was saying analogize this to you know the early days of like the music industry where like you know djs were you know paid under the table to play certain songs and those songs became the hits whereas other songs were you know just kind of never heard um so there's a lot of federal regulation and then state overlays to that state exceptions and kind of further um restrictions um on these inducements and exclusions um and you can see them mostly in uh 27 usc 205 b um is a good kind of like way to get a primer on some of this Skyler Ganes who's the head of enforcement for liquor control um did a hour long kind of public service uh educational uh video i've linked to it here in the slide um so um you know julie kyle anyone who wants to kind of learn more about inducements and exclusions should really watch that video because it's really kind of a wholesaler specific concern and i say wholesaler it's really anyone who can sell to a retailer which in our um in our industry will include cultivators and product manufacturers so this is something that we need to consider i think for those license types as well so um we could just say for wholesalers that they need to be in compliance with kind of alcohol trade practices you know the ones that at least make sense for cannabis um both the federal and the vermont exempt exemptions or exceptions and additional requirements you know when i was talking to savon um you know he he was saying really like you know you could just say something like there needs to be consistency so if a specific wholesaler is saying you buy you know five pounds from me you get the sixth for free or if you buy from me um i'll give you you know a hundred free samples or something like that then um that has to be consistent for every retailer you can't have specific deals um for specific retailers and really try and like you know that was just one kind of really baseline thing that we could require um just kind of have a consistent practice um you know i'm not saying that every wholesaler has to sell at the same price or have the same kind of inducements um but they can't uh tailor them towards the specific retailer because that kind of crosses a little bit of a boundary um pepper i think we included pricing strategy in our baseline application yeah require so i wonder if that helped and that will have sort of a big picture market view of what type of pricing strategy wholesalers might be coming up with yeah and i think that should be yeah i think that's a good way to kind of deal with the kind of consistency issue to make sure that um they're not cutting side deals and kind of pushing out small craft products from retail stores i think that makes sense okay so we're not going to do i'm going to bring you when you look through this eliminate the compliance with alcohol trade practices and leave kind of um the consistent yeah consistency um and i you know this uh it is new to me i was learning about it yesterday and today so i think that we should leave this conversation open for further refinement um if we need to and i asked david and brend to kind of do some some research on this and see see see what we need to do if we need to go beyond this so moving on to integrated specific operational requirements i've got some that are dedicated to the application phase and the renewal phase so some of these are just specific to act 164 and act 62 um i'm sure you remember that um well the plan to provide reduced cost or free cannabis to patients with documented verified financial hardships it's my understanding that that the current medical dispensaries try to do this to the extent they can have sliding sliding scales and fees they are kind of limited um and what they're allowed to produce so in some ways i i think you know it can be difficult for them but in this new world we're moving into i think there should be they should be required to at least provide a plan for kind of increasing accessibility for people that can't afford to use the dispensaries um plan to ensure 25 percent of cannabis flower sold between august 1st and october 1st is obtained from small licensed cultivators that's a requirement of act 62 those dates are the dates that they use in act 62 and i have no problem with trying to push this to having a plan you know that's an ongoing plan but that those are the dates that are from the legislation any comment on on that one is there yeah an ongoing plan i think that would be a good idea me too yeah okay so why don't brand if you could just eliminate those dates yep um list of products purchased in the prior year um and i'm i guess i should specify that this is on the medical side um because i really um want to ensure the continuity of products and services for vermont patients and i say vermont patients there because there's been a recommendation from the medical subcommittee to allow reciprocity for others with other state patients and um which i'm fine with allowing reciprocity but i do want to make sure that vermont patients are are held harmless by increasing the number of patients that have access to the medically specific cannabis i don't want you know because all of a sudden we have you know 3 000 patients from other states coming in that the shelves are empty for vermont patients so i want to know what products they're purchasing from the prior year and make sure that those products are on the shelf for the next year um any any comment on that requirement i think we need to ensure that vermont patients choose to use the dispensary get the products that they want to get regardless of the other medical state patients are coming in um the plan um this is kind of a first year plan because it's a one-time contribution but plan to contribute fifty thousand dollars to the cannabis business development fund by october 1st 2022 which is when the payment is due and then i think you remember uh one in the seven vsa 903 that's the criteria for priority of licensure review that the first one a one was a medical dispensary in good standing so i think we need to develop some good standing criteria i don't know what that looks like quite yet but i think that we need to have medical dispensaries in their license show that they are in good standing and that can be that they've you know address product recalls adequately that they met testing standards that they you know are responsive to patient complaints etc i don't know exactly what that criteria will be but i think um you know we if you know if the dispensaries are getting benefits that they should have certain minimum standards at their meeting absolutely the um contribution to the cannabis business development fund is that something that can be ongoing as well we talked about that in terms of the flower bullet right but i don't know if we have the authority to make that an ongoing contribution but we we could recommend it okay that's why i brought it up obviously right like that's um because what's the life of that program after year one if there's no more contributions to it maybe i'm just right i think the idea i mean i know it says fund grants and loans so i think the idea is it's a revolving loan fund but not on the grant side of things of course so i will potentially diminish over time okay so testing of course is kind of a big piece of you know the complaints that we've heard about the medical program largely um come at accessibility and quality and the quality side um is on testing so i think you know again like this this first bullet point comes i think from colorado or messachusetts i can't quite remember but and i think we have this inherent authority for all license types i just wanted to make sure that it's clear here is that we can demand a testing sample testing samples um and then test them on on demand essentially maintain copies of any testing that's been done maintain copies records of all complaints which might include reports about quality or adverse reactions have recall and corrective action procedures and then this last one came out of either colorado messachusetts just have policies in place to ensure that there are no actual or perceived conflicts of interest that undermine public's confidence you know these are integrated licenses i think it's pretty clear that they're not going to be allowed to test their own products because that seems to be an inherent conflict but i think that they should probably go beyond that and just make sure that they don't have any apparent or actual conflicts of interest just being an integrated license holder so i think third party testing just to sum up is actually already required but i think you know we can use this language too just for all potential conflicts around testing agreed so um this next i've copied a portion of act 164 um it's i forget where exactly it is section 8 i think but it says that the cannabis plant um cannabis product usable cannabis possession limits for a registered dispensary shall no longer apply after february 1st 2022 a dispensary shall be permitted to cultivate cannabis and manufacture cannabis products for the purpose of transferring or selling such products to an integrated license on or after april 1st 2022 and so the way that i read this um is that you know the current medical dispensaries have plant limits they're um they're allowed to grow i think it's too mature seven immature plants per patient that's been designated to them because all the patients have to designate a dispensary so all of their kind of canopy limits their plant limits are based on patient counts and so they're saying in here that after february 1st all of those plant counts go away they essentially are being given unlimited canopy um and they're giving the authority to transfer that canopy to the adult rec side their integrated license side freely after april 1st so um you know you to me there's two kind of fundamental priorities of act 162 that this kind of cuts against i think the first of all i guess i think the reason that this exists is because you know they get the integrated licenses get to open their doors um before everyone else has even put plants in the ground so the thinking i think from the legislature and i wasn't part of the debate on this section is that there's going to be a huge demand and essentially no legitimate licensed product to sell other than from the dispensaries so this is meant to meet the initial demands before we have our own before the kind of small cultivators other licensed cultivators are able to produce but again the two kind of priorities that i see this cutting against are one that there's no there's no commitment in this language that there's going to be sufficient supply for the medical patients you know they're allowed to freely transfer as much as they want under this um and you know they could transfer all of their canopy for instance or all of their plants leaving nothing left for the medical patients so there's the fear there and then the second one is you know we heard over and over and over again that we're supposed to be prioritizing small cultivators and a craft cultivation the kind of vermont scale that we're not supposed to i mean i think senator sears his words were to having big weed take over vermont and so this kind of cuts against what we've been trying to do on our market structure which is really focus on smaller cultivators to supply the demand in vermont so this is kind of you know three three kind of companies with they have the ability they have the economies of scale they have the infrastructure in place to kind of really dominate early and then kind of continue to dominate so um what i was thinking just these are three kind of points here one that we in order to kind of deal with this those concerns one we need to keep inventory records that ensure the continuity of products for vermont patients again you know if we have reciprocity we have out of state patients you know i don't mind pushing those patients to the adult rec market i think that they should be allowed to use the medical product but i want to keep vermont patients whole as a priority and so just ensuring inventory records that are tied to the prior years kind of product lists that we talked about is one of the records that they need to maintain one thing that colorado requires is having a separate kind of seed to sale tracking from the outset between adult use and medical use the medicinal subcommittee recommended not doing that that they wanted to have that the dispensary should be able to have kind of one canopy and as they start moving the plants to the kind of various production side that they that they designate at that point not beforehand and i actually am fine with that i don't really see why having separate inventories so long as we're ensuring that the vermont patients have access i don't really see what benefit we get from having just too distinct from the time of seed or clone having to designate at that point whether this plant is eventually going to be a retail or medical so i'm actually okay with eliminating that second bullet point so you're saying they could commingle their growing operations right does that have any impact on the 25 percent that they're supposed to purchase from small growers they need to have a plan to um they need they well i think they have to ensure that 25 percent of their flower on the adult rec rec side is from small cultivators if available so there's a little bit of wiggle room there but um i don't think that that you know i think it's tied to the adult rec side so i don't think that this would i don't think that this would change that requirement one way or the other yeah i haven't thought through it i just don't want to create some sort of loop hole right whereby it's very inventory then there's some confusion about what what that 25 percent is so i'm just trying to take in well if you want to answer that question no i just i think that we would i think we have a responsibility as a board to ensure compliance with that 25 percent um i don't think it uh i don't think i don't think having separate inventories would create a loop hole i so i'm just trying to conceptualize this so like our retail license right now we have a 25 000 tier and a 15 000 tier so if an integrated license holder and they don't need to keep their growing operations separate may have a tiering structure or a canopy size that's higher than our retail right tier but depending on our conversation that's going to come up on the transfer they could only operate a certain square footage of that tier into the retail market besides transfer and a certain percentage of that can't total canopy into the medical market and cdcel tracking could help us keep track from an inventory perspective on what's being grown for what purpose i i think that's right i mean essentially the last question is about the transfer and how we're going to keep track um so i think that what we need to decide is um i think there's a legitimate concern the reason the genesis of this language i think is to address the concern that there is going to be the demand is going to far exceed supply in the initial outlay of licenses when the when the doors open there's only going to be um these integrated licenses that are able to kind of supply the market i i understand and i i recognize the potential need to kind of kickstart things on on day one i don't necessarily like the optics of an integrated license holder having i'm throwing numbers out there a 75 000 square foot total canopy when nobody else can have at this point time of 15 000 square foot total canopy the optics of that even if we have indoor inventory tracking that will keep the retail from the medical separate i just don't necessarily like the way that that looks well i i feel like see the like it says that a dispensary show permitted to cultivate cannabis for the purpose of transferring i think that gives us the authority we need to have regulations around what that transfer looks like and so um you know i don't like whether it is having a segregated amount of plants you know it's canopy space that's certainly one way to do it um i think the other way to do it would be to just think about that transfer that they have to transfer the plant to the adult rec market and they can do that through seed to sail tracking and the amount of plants that they could transfer would be the equivalent of whatever our highest tier of license is at that time would it would it make sense for us to come back to this in a second and talk about the transfer aspect of this because that might help kind of bring things into a clearer vision on how it would look from an integrated perspective on whether or not we can commando or separate growing operations between a retail market and a medical market yeah so the transfer i mean i just laid out a few options for discussion here you know we could allow free just free transfer the transfers can happen at any time any amount we could have a capped transfer which would be more in line with kind of what we're talking about which is just and maybe only a designated intervals are only as approved by the board that would ensure that whatever that transfer is it would be the equivalent of it wouldn't be over whatever our highest tiered licenses at that time and i say at that time because we might never open up the 25,000 foot license and so if our highest license was a 15,000 then they would be capped at transferring only the equivalent of 15,000 square feet of plants to the adult use side so i think you know in this language can be read anyone of a number of ways you know and i think that's why there's a lot of questions and thoughts and concerns about what this actually indicates i think generally i recognize the need for a potential transfer to happen on on day one because nobody will be licensed and being able to propagate cultivate harvest everything else product to meet the statutory requirement of april first and i think we should maintain some control over when transfers happen thereafter because we might find ourselves in a situation where our current supply cannot meet demand right but i think having free transfer at any given time is a non-starter for me i think um i think all transfers would need required approval by us but i think we should maintain control over when those transfers happen by doing so at designated intervals that are determined by us and allowed by us so transfers require approval and they can happen at designated intervals i mean i'm fine with that recommendation of course you know it was one of my suggestions here but yeah i think that's what i honestly think that's the direction we should go but i recognize that people do need to make some sort of business decisions on these things so um i uh i would say we make that our recommendation and take all the comment on it to see how see what the response is yeah i mean i just i would agree there i just i'm i'm anxious about how the integrated license is get every advantage that we have been trying to level the playing field and this this on free transfer or not maintaining control of that transfer is not something i'm in favor of i would like to hear public comment on it at some point um but you know it kind of gets back to the optics of this and keeping inventory separate and i i'm okay with i guess co-mingling those that grow operation and not requiring them to be a separate physical location but i need guarantees that the inventory or cdc l tracking can help us keep track that nothing is being diverted from the medical program working around what we're trying to accomplish with these transfer caps into the recreational market by the integrated license holders yeah i think i think we're all julius do you want to comment uh i'm in agreement with that line of thinking i go back and forth about the inventories for adult use and medical use only because i mean um i'm wondering if there are like for medical patients is are there more restrictions on the way that something is grown you know are the are the sanitary restrictions a little bit higher than than the adult use when you know that it could be going to a patient that's immunocompromised so i i guess that's the only or the applications that are used in growing it yeah or what what is something that you're putting out i just wonder about the difference in how something's grown for adult use versus medical use and i don't know that it's hugely different but i think there are there's possibly some difference the other pieces in terms of the capping the transfer or um you know having designated i'm in line with that thinking i'm not comfortable with freely transferring but i i think having some controls um is a good recommendation so to give kind of these dispensaries or these integrated license holders some um you know uh predictability do we want to have a capped transfer so they know what the maximum is and have designated intervals so they know when they can do the transfer and then they further would require board approval yes i've become comfortable with that so then just remove the freely transfer and with that capped transfer what are we capping it at is that something to be determined or is it we're starting at 15 000 as our highest indoor retail limit so when we start there i i my only concern is we don't know what demand is going to be on day one so capping it could be a double edged sword you know what i mean right and i don't necessarily have a better i know in colorado they allowed you to do a one-time free transfer of everything you wanted added added to the section and then you couldn't do any transfers after that i don't necessarily like that model but how can we just ensure that we can meet demand and what's the appropriate cap i guess is my question is there a best of both worlds where it's capped except for a request well we could have a cap and then we could have a request to like exceed the cap right i don't know if we need a cap then that's why i was thinking just designated intervals determined by us and required approval by us which gives us the most control i get that it's harder to make a business decision but i'm i'm most concerned with integrated operators playing at the same level feel it as our other indoor cultivators yeah and then when do we want this provision to kick in because i do think that the again that the the fear that this was a designed to address is a real one i do think that there will be demand shock or whatever we want to call it initially that that the integrated licenses are able to accommodate in noting that they will be getting 25 of their flower from cultivators small cultivators so when would they be able to do the transfer so i think they're kind of like colorado you said they're allowed a one-time transfer but then we're going to limit it for further transfers when and do we want to do a one-time transfer initially and then limit it like kick have these other provisions that we have to approve the transfers or should we just have us approve the transfers the whole time if you allow one time transfer could they could they transfer all their inventory and shut down their medical side i mean i think and maybe i've missed a piece of what you said well i think i don't they i think under this first provision would have to keep records to ensure the continuity of products so are you proposing that they could do an unlimited transfer this spring and then after that it would only have been determined by us is that what you're saying i mean or we could just be in charge of all of them i mean we could just require our approval for all of them i think i guess my my thought is i'd rather and i know that this makes it more difficult on the integrated license holder but that's not at the top of my priority list when it comes to me having my own concerns i'd like for them to give us information on as to what why they need to transfer a certain total canopy size amount into the regulated market to meet anticipated demand on day one so then what i would say in response to that is that we could require approval of all transfers but at this initial stage and we don't know how long that initial stage is going to be it's not going to be at designated intervals so they could say we need to transfer the equivalent of 25,000 square feet of canopy to meet our initial demand and then in three months if that's not at a designated interval time they might need to come back to us and say we need to transfer a little bit more and then they have to have some justification for it and we'll have seed to sail tracking so we'll know in point of sail tracking so we'll know whether they're kind of if there is a discrepancy between what they're asking yeah i'm cool with that and the designated interval thing seems a little arbitrary because we don't necessarily know i just like that system that we're saying okay this is when you can submit a request for a transfer more so than us determining right now every three months you can request one or something along those lines you know what i mean so uncomfortable with that so do we want to leave out designated intervals all together or is that um i don't know what's a better way to kind of talk the companies all require approval by the ccv my sort of next question is though is do we want that forever or just for the first three years or do we want to have to revisit this at some i mean i've seen more revisit most of these in future years i don't think we put a time stamp on it right now okay yeah i don't think we do time stamp it for now i want to maintain control of this just to so we can maintain continuity for medical patients and just know that there's not these free overly aggressive transfers going on i want to know the reasoning as to why a transfer is being requested and you know some some business information to back up why it needs to happen okay so brinn did you catch that you know i'm not sure i think i think i think if we're going to do all transfers approve require approval then you can eliminate separate inventories and you can eliminate freely transfer cap transfer and designated interval transfer all right do we need to further discuss at all the separate inventory i mean we can we are going to get a recommendation from the medical committee but i can tell you that that's on there so we can talk about it now the recommendation was to allow co-mingling no you designate whether where it's going at a much later point in the supply chain not at the growth not when you're growing i think my concerns kind of lie with what julie kind of said is you know recognizing medical patients are doing this for a different purpose than just recreational use and the inputs it could be used for rec versus medical and and you know every everything else i'm just i'm curious how other states have kind of grappled with this maybe i'm just not as familiar with the software we're going to be using to have a hundred percent trust in it but in my mind i'm thinking i'd be more comfortable with two separate grow operations it could be in the same building but to have two separate square square footage you know total canopy tiers one for medical and one so the medical side could be unlimited though right by statute yeah the plan council removed but they would only be able to to transfer that product to the recreational market front that was grown from that medical canopy at our at our approval right yeah i don't know why they would need to do that necessarily if we're saying you're capped at this amount you know like you're capped at 25 thousand square feet let's just say if we have that license type open why are they further why are we giving them some advantage to further transfer medical product to the that's an advantage no one else would have that kind i i mean i think i'm agreeing with you and i think we're just kind of getting lost in the different options that are on the table i'm just saying like if the market isn't let's say that we're not getting buy-in from small cultivators that we hope to to get and so we have that 25 000 capped recognizing that we have all these other outdoor cultivation tiers and lower indoor cultivator tiers that we're hoping are satisfying the market so like let's say we need more total canopy and even if we have that highest 25 000 square foot canopy we can't meet demand and then they could potentially at that point i'm just i'm doomsday scenarioing it right now but you know i just don't think if we require a totally separate inventory for medical use that they're going to grow well above their capacity for the patients you know so there's not going to be this like stockpile or reserve medical canopy that's that they're going to then be able to transfer freely to meet the adult use demand no i understand that in the practicality i'm just i'm i could be persuaded to have inventories grown the same if we can guarantee that the seed to sell tracking will not divert any medical to the recreational market without us knowing i'm just i'm just concerned that they i want to make sure that they're playing by the retail i would say a part of the transfer approval process would be this kind of continuity of products like that there's sufficient supply for brahman patients uh before we approve any transfer can you um ever which group made the that recommendation the yeah it was a medicinal sub subcommittee it was supported by i mean the only two people in the room were i think jim and uh meg and then matt meyers from the department of health that you know that does me for dr levine i guess i'd like to i'd like to hear a public comment on that piece particularly from patients okay yeah i'm fine with that i think one of the benefits that they discussed and you know i'm not i i think it makes sense for them to be able to commingle but one of the things that they said is you know they're going to be growing a variety of strains for the adult use market whereas currently for the medical market because the patient count are so low they really only grow like one indica one sativa and that's pretty much it and so like this by commingling you know the medical patients also will have a much larger variety you know because it's servicing the adult use market it makes sense it just i just want safeguards in place that nothing's transferred without our informed understanding and approval you know i'm thinking through ways in my head to give myself and hopefully the rest of us the most sense of security yeah well i would suggest that we take it out believe it on for discussion because you know we can always add but if we have vote on leaving it in for now then it seems to me that we're voting to have that be part of the discussion i think it's easier to add something later than it is to remove something but maybe i'm wrong i'll understand so please part of weeks i'm sorry i've gotten a loss which part are we talking about removing and just this just the separate inventories okay yes i think that's fine i think what we will hear or should hear public comment on it and i agree with you we could add it back later we hear that that's not helpful to patients yeah um all right i'm gonna power through because we have a break in 1245 and i don't really have a lot to say about merit-based scoring so just once again putting up the criteria for a review on what we need to be considering for priority i had a long conversation with Jen Flanagan from Massachusetts she strongly opposes merit-based scoring systems that she said that they immediately invite litigation and you know once one person is disadvantaged over another person because of some score that it turns into just endless amounts of justification on our end as to why we made decisions the way we did public records requests kind of looking at everything every little kind of aspect of why we gave a point here not a point there etc she also suggested that after our initial outlay of licenses that the priority system has very little value you know they weren't receiving new applications it's such a like steady clip that the that the priority system had any value after their kind of initial round of licensing i think i voice that concern yeah already right um she looked i showed her this list and she said it's a good list you know and these are the things that we should be considering she just doesn't think we should have a specific point system for for these things we should have essentially minimum standards for each and if you don't meet the minimum standards then we we don't reject the application but we send it back to the applicant and ask for more information on some of these criteria and again if the application is not if they're kind of request for more information is not responded to in a timely manner then that application then moves down the queue so massachusetts just did not move the queue they had you know a time stamp on every application as to when it was complete and submitted and they did not move anyone in priority except in three circumstances so they always moved they had a bucket at the top of the at the top of the queue for social equity applicants and so those got moved to the top in the order that they were received but they were those those were always the the first priority the second priority is they had a category of economic empowerment candidates i think this would be more akin to our dei candidates that we're considering but that was kind of the next bucket down in priority and those were you know if an economic empowerment applicant came through application came through that those got moved to the kind of second tier of priority in the order that they were received so you know you think if you know on you know october 1st we have a social equity or an economic empowerment or dei application that comes in then on an october 2nd we have a social equity applicant that comes in you know that social equity would be in front of the economic empowerment or dei one but then the dei one would come in next over the rest of the general applications that we have um and then they did make some considerations jen had a few examples or at least one example of when they had to really think about the demands of the market and move people in priority based upon or move people around in the queue based upon the needs of the market so you know she was talking about they did not have any testing labs that they had licensed and they had already licensed you know a number of cultivators so they had to move some testing facilities i think that's going to be important for us as well to have a um a way to evaluate maybe just the the overall supply chain you know if we've had 50 cultivators that are licensed and no testing facilities product manufacturers or retail outlets then where is that product going to go once it's harvested um so consider the needs of the supply chain have some consideration of geographic need i think would be important you know i i just think that um if we don't have access at all points of the supply chain all around the state that there that could present additional problems as well um and then to me i think i can't remember the exact language but i think we are also we should potentially have some ability to move the queue for small cultivators that you know if a small cultivator application comes in you know um that it gets some sort of priority as well but again i i don't i don't i'm not not fully i haven't fully thought through whether that's essential to to our review process i agree with the only essential part but i would like for us to figure out a way to make that accommodation for small cultivators if we can they're going they're going to go first i should say you know by statute they're going to go first but um i'm just thinking like you know six months down the line if we have you know a hundred general applications and then a small cultivator comes in do we want to move that small cultivator to the top behind the social equity and if we do dei anyway it's just a topic conversation i don't think this is of course an area where we will receive i think a lot of public comment and it's the area where we open ourselves up towards kind of a wave of litigation slash public records act request so i think we shouldn't jump the gun on uh approving anything right now but i think we should really think about think through how we want to do this um i do have just a few i just included a few examples from um massachusetts about they're part of their application you have to have a plan to positively impact disproportionately harm people and this is what they required there and then they had a as part of their application process you had to have a diversity plan as well and you know jen said you know they would reject people for not being specific enough on this um you know she had a number of things that she would reject people for but um uh and i when i say reject she'd send the application back because they wouldn't deny based upon not having one of these but they would send back for more information um did did she say how this worked out the the percentages sometimes um programs like this where it's percentage based is can be more harmful than helpful yeah so i did ask her about um i didn't ask her that specific question um so i i'd be curious and maybe julie you want to follow up with her um i did ask about compliance though because this is of course an application and you know people can make all promises they want and we're granting them their license based upon those promises and you know they might not actually ever fulfill them and she said that was happening and sometimes through no intention of the applicant but some you know some organizations some nonprofits they had this kind of like you have to donate a certain amount of money um to certain organizations certain nonprofits and the nonprofits were not accepting money from cannabis outlets so they were not filling some of their promises um and uh so they started requiring like letters pre like pre-approval from nonprofits that you're going to donate to um to ensure that they wouldn't run into those issues but you know that's kind of non intentional non-compliance you know the intentional non-compliance are kind of what i am more concerned with um and so i talked to her about that as well you know we can impose fines we're allowed to impose fines on organizations we can kind of suspend licenses it's pretty extreme but um i do think that we should if we're going to require things like this we should really think about the enforcement of them as well um the only other kind of decision or discussion point that i wanted to bring up today on the licensing review because i think again we need to have a deeper conversation about how we're going to do this is this number this first criteria whether the applicants have an existing medical cannabis dispensary license in good standing and um the question that came up and of course when this was being drafted we you know no one knew if we're going to have residency requirements or anything like that for applicants you know the question that i want to pose to you julie and kyle is whether having an existing medical dispensary in another state should have any bearing on our criteria here or if this really is just vermont based dispensaries that we're talking about do we have the ability to to limit out-of-state dispensaries we've had a lot of conversations about interstate commerce well i think there's a difference between not letting them submit an application and giving them a priority right and i know i didn't read this with any thought related to that i was thinking about the current vermont medical right and but at the same time what's the point if they're all going to pursue an integrated license anyways right so i was struggling to kind of see the value in number one maybe there will be a medical dispensary that doesn't go for an integrated license so don't think that's what i've heard but so are you are you saying that's kind of not understanding the residency requirements at the time it was drafted is that kind of what you think was the intent here i i think the intent really was about vermont medical dispensaries getting a leg up in priority review but i i don't know i mean i think it's an open question but if we're not going to move the queue around at all then i'm not sure whether you know if we're not going to move the queue around at all if unless you failed to meet minimum standards that we create for these things then i'm not sure that number one matters whether it's an in-state or out-of-state i think you're right pepper that this is a much more in-depth conversation that we need to kind of keep returning to yep i agree sorry about that all right well why don't we um what do you all want to do is should we pause for public comment now should we pause for a break julie slowly has to present her slides oh sorry julie oh my god um yeah do you well is the public comment on the agenda for now no we we have it uh for two o'clock so i'm happy to go through my slides now or i'm for the break um i don't have the agenda i say we muscle okay is there one out of that david brensbaum steve all right we'll we'll we'll muscle through okay yourself so um i'm gonna keep talking about packaging and labeling to start with i've just included you know as i always do the pieces of the mission i think um are relevant and then i also included for the folks at home the kind of baseline recommendations that we went over on the 27th and then um so to to make the considerations around packaging i reviewed the hemp rules um thinking about some of the the things that are required in labeling specifically um a lot of this came from conversation and the public health subcommittee and with the members of the public health subcommittee certainly the requirements that we have in statute um a review of guidelines in other states and then you know ongoing conversations with um bren and david ncb and then just a reminder that some of the things that are proposed will need to um also go to the department of health for their consideration as well um so i've included the the uh the statute related to cultivator packaging because it says packaging shall i didn't repeat any of of these shall shall do items when i um sort of listed the additional things that we would ask cultivators to do so these are the things that we already know they must include in their packaging um and when it's sold to a whole sailor or a product manufacturer or to another cultivator in addition to those um shall include items packaging should also include um you know all of those appropriate baseline packaging recommended recommendations that we talked about um and harvest date so the um statute requires i think produced on um which is defined as you know when the the finished product is is done um and i think the harvest date should be on there as well in case there's a delay between or to show the delay between harvest and um finished production um and i think you know kind of a discussion point that we should have is should there be um any kind of testing results on that packaging or access to the testing results i think when product goes from a cultivator to anywhere else you know that any kind of testing results would go with it as a file at least but should it be um signified somewhere on the packaging is the discussion point i think that we should have um and then when it's sold to a finished uh a retailer as a finished product all of the appropriate baseline packaging of course and then all of the retail packaging requirements that we'll talk about in a moment moving on to manufacturer packaging again i just include the statute just for reference um for consumables um a finished product from a manufacturer should have all of those baseline packaging requirements and should not um you know include the use of toys or inflatables all of the same sort of language that we used in advertising um i've specifically spelled out here shouldn't appeal to to minors under the age of 21 should have a used by or best by date which um i have some information from NACB on this and i need to get a little bit more before i'm comfortable making any kind of recommendations related to that um they also need to include the number of servings in the package not to exceed five milligrams the strain variety and THC content the total number of of servings within the package and a note that that tells the consumer how long it could take for for the consumption of it to take effect and then of course again some sort of access to the test results whether it's a qr code or a web address and we have a requirement that manufacturers and retailers and cultivators have those on their websites that's something we can discuss down the road for things that are not consumable so i'm in this regard i thought of things that are generally topical um you know we'd want to have all of those baseline requirements again and then anything used in production sense additives common irritants things like keep away from eyes um and a notice that the product is not for consumption for retail packaging um there's already some shalls so i did not and i did not you know reiterate those in my recommendations we already know that those are things that are required so for retail packaging they must follow the baseline requirements we talked about on the 27th um and all of the finished products requirements that we've just talked about for the manufacturer and um then exit packaging and a retailer must be sealed or stapled and must not appeal to miners so any kind of exit bag or packaging can't have um you know anything that appeals to under 21 has to follow those same sort of uh advertising recommendations that we've talked about before and then of course integrated packaging should follow all of the appropriate packaging for whatever license type we're talking about manufacturers would have to follow the manufacturing piece and so on and so forth so under general retail operations um you know for the rules related to general retail operations for product placement in a retail store um products that contain THC and meet the definition of cannabis have to be displayed behind a locking barrier that barrier can certainly be transparent um packaging can be on display so if a retailer wanted to have um you know a nice looking display in their store they could do that so long as the packaging doesn't contain any product any actual product would have to be behind a barrier of some kind um and you know considering the deli style conversation that we had earlier i think that's still accomplishable behind a barrier could also be behind well i think i've included here a locking barrier but it still could be behind a counter locking barrier that's glass um and could be seen through and i think you could still accomplish kyle the same thing that we talked about earlier yeah it's like if you go to like a jewelry store and you're like i want to see that one and they unlock it and right that's what i was thinking um and then products that contain THC and meet the definition cannabis can be sold in the same location um as products that meet the definition of hemp or non-hemp products so uh t-shirts, stickers, things like that but they have to be displayed separately um and then we've already had the conversation about the locking barrier and being able to remove it for and and inspect prior to purchase i think if we're going to talk about the difference between if we're going to talk about deli style packaging the other thing we may want to consider talking about is you know if we if we don't do that or even if we do can a product be opened and like a prepackage product be opened and then resealed i have some public health concerns about that um i don't know that we want to allow you know sealed packages to be opened inspected and then resealed i think i'd prefer the deli style conversation that we had earlier you mean where somebody has like a sample jar that they can look at but still receive like that same strain and that same harvest allotment so on and so forth yes yep or selecting from that kind of bulk section you know large mason jar whatever it is and selecting something for purchase i'm okay with that too i'm thinking you know if you have something that's um prepackaged i'm not as comfortable with opening that prepackaged item inspecting the prepackaged item putting it back in the package and then having it still be for sale if someone chooses not to buy it so you're thinking maybe more so in the edible or concentrate world where you're kind of opening the pop top and looking at your gummies and then saying that i don't want this yeah i i'm not as comfortable with that and it could be even with flour flour is prepackaged in some way um if a retailer decides not to do that deli style packaging but does prepackaged flour you know i would prefer that deli style that we were talking about over opening a package and then resealing it so if you're looking at just a package of an eighth for example um i think it's better to have that deli style packaging that you were talking about kyle than being able to open up that eighth look at it and buy it but i could be wrong i think um and and some of this is my own personal um you know coming from a food background and thinking about you know how we handle food and whether or not we want food handled by others before we serve it um you know i certainly we can have a conversation about whether or not the packaging could be opened and resealed i think that makes sense i mean it's all about you know my perspective is all about preference some folks might feel a little differently regarding deli style or pre opening a prepackaged product and then others would some might be comfortable with just saying hey i like this i want it regardless of whether or not somebody else has opened it you know other folks might err more on the side of how you you think but i think you know i agree with that and i think the deli style um would be the way for us to move this this kind of aspect forward okay i agree um and then i'll talk a little bit about the pos flyer so every retailer should have this point of sale flyer that will create and offer it to every customer and then we're supposed to have it on our website as well um so it should be in multiple languages it should be online there should be a qr code for accessibility there should be a text to speech option um you know an easy to understand language um when i looked at the versions of this in other states the best ones had some sort of graphic uh infographic style format so that um it was really easy to find a particular piece of information on the on the on the flyer that you were looking for whether it was time for consumption or uh effects or something like that so and we should offer a visually appealing version that's poster size if people want to have that in their in their retail locations i could definitely foresee someone walking into a location and seeing that and and being able to look at it uh versus just having it as a as a flyer that's handed out um and so it needs to contain the methods for consuming cannabis safely and responsibly avoiding birds and other safety hazards proper storage proper disposal how to avoid over consumption the potential health risks signs of impairment resources for mental health general health and substance abuse you know what to do if you feel that you've over consumed or if you're um if you're feeling the effects of cannabis and it's not what you've expected it and how to avoid or talk to how to avoid um having it move to youth in the home and then also you know how how to talk to youth or resources on how to talk to youth and it should be um created with the assumption that the person receiving this flyer has already chosen to consume cannabis so when we get to the point of actually looking at or drafting language um however that happens it should be done with the assumption that somebody's already chosen to consume and that we're not trying to guilt them now that they've already made that choice um and so the last piece i'll talk about is additives um we have some legislation around additives um and what can be added to cannabis so what i am proposing is that chemicals other than those allowed in the processing of cannabis and cannabis products would not be added so no additional psychoactive materials or anything that's not naturally occurring um and then no characterizing flavors which is actually part of the the legislation anyway and then or or adding sweeteners and i've added except for those for sale for to medical patients and the reason i added that is what i understand is that there are folks who are in some type of palliative care or children who have severe um seizures that are um given medical cannabis and then but are only able to consume it when there's an added flavor because they're they have a hard time with the taste of cannabis alone um maybe some of those things can be added to edibles for those folks but maybe they can't and so i left in a piece about uh for medical patients only because um i think in those cases the the illness is severe enough um that an characterizing flavor is probably not going to be the thing that causes any further health impairment to the person but i would like to hear a public comment on that um and this is all to say that not and i added this little note just for clarity it's not to say that you can't add cannabis to something that's sweet it's that you can't add a sweetener to the cannabis um and i think that that as quickly as i can are all of my slides for today i did wonder if there are specific chemicals or toxins or sweeteners that we needed to identify i don't think so um but i would certainly take your your thoughts on that and i know that there are additives that are i mean they're not additives necessarily but there are sweeteners that are used in cultivation i also don't think we need to specifically call that out because i think in this particular case we're talking about like finished products yeah i don't think we need to prescribe at this point yeah i did have i did have uh just circling back to some of your discussion points julia i just want to make sure i understand the qr code thing um and should we prescribe that a qr code needs to be on packaging um was that in staring at myself in multiple ways right now julia you're still sharing your screen thank you it was distracting to stare at myself in a couple different screens um were you suggesting that and i know you left it as the discussion points i don't think you were suggesting anything but just for the sake of making sure i understand in addition to a relevant information on a label also putting on a qr code or putting on a qr code in place of a full suite of information that i'm going to refer to it as you know not all the information but but more information be found on the qr code or i just i'm trying to tease out what you were thinking so um are you talking about for the cultivator packaging or i think i saw it i think i saw it in a couple different um parts of your presentation i just want to make sure i understand what you're thinking so my thought on having a qr code for multiple different things is that if you lose the piece of paper or there is some question it there's there's always a qr code on the packaging that can be scanned and and send you to the information so if the if the label gets destroyed in some way or if part of the label gets destroyed in some way or if we wanted to have testing information be available certainly you can't put that on the whole package um but you could have a qr code that sends you to the testing information and that could be for any product and anywhere in the supply chain so there are some retail products that i saw samples of that had the qr code and it would send you to a website with the testing and you know where it was grown and for more information than you could include on a on a label yeah i mean i think i think that's information that at least a certain segment of our consumers would like to see and have my only question is how i'm not one that's really developed my own qr codes um even given the state of the world these days i don't know how overly burdensome it is to develop a qr code that links to that specific information on a on a per product basis so it could just be a web address right and you can see your main page or something like that yeah i think that makes that makes sense and i'm sure folks can easily figure out i'm just not familiar with that world of how you would get back to your specific kind of like coa or whatever um would be provided on all the full panel testing that's been done and you know so on and so forth um i don't know how overly burdensome that is for for folks to produce yeah i had a question about it as well you know certain products are going to be tested at multiple points along the supply chain and you certainly don't want to have multiple qr codes on there i don't think maybe we do um but you know what i think that this to make it less burdensome for the potential licensee i think we should tie this discussion into our see to sail tracking slash um you know that conversation with our the kind of people that have responded to our rfi to see if this is a possibility where we you know because we're gonna have all the testing records so this could be a link link to our site where you could then enter kind of maybe the product number or whatever you're holding and see the testing records through our portal potentially i like i like that my goal is access i don't have a particular prescriptive idea about how that access happens so long as it's accessible but i do think that the other um health warnings and all the rest of that should be available on demand to just like you said at the label or you lose the point of sail flyer like we should be able to have a link to that as well or maybe if we have one link or one qr code it could bring it up both yeah sounds good all right well julia are you all right with a half hour break yes i am thank you everyone else here okay with that all right so um it's one o'clock let's come back at 130 so uh this is janis petper chair of the cannabis control board it's 131 p.m um on the 29th of october and we're gonna get going again next on the agenda is to review and discuss julia are you with us sorry let me give julie just a minute sure yeah you need to vote on your recommendations today too yeah i was gonna do there's julie november 1st so community review public comment then vote is that all right yeah okay um so next on our list on the agenda is to review and discuss our november 1st report just by a way of background the legislature asked us to make recommendations on a few topics our exploratory subcommittee met to discuss those topics they made recommendations to us we've sent them to the full advisory committee to review and provide comments and we're going to take a look at the kind of report now and then hopefully we can vote on this and our just general recommendations from our conversation earlier after a public comment period so brin i'll turn things over to you if you want to help us okay so um this report is the third in a series of reports um that the legislature gave to us assigned to us for the fall um and it's about we're making three separate recommendations here so i'm just gonna pop through these first slides that talk about our process so you can see our recommendations are regarding the solid concentrate products that are above 60 percent thc concentration the conversion of hemp or cbd to delta nine thc and then some recommendations regarding the advisory entity for our medical cannabis program so these slides will look familiar this is some background on on the process here is our 14 member advisory committee created to assist in the board's mission to safely equitably and effectively implement the laws enabling adult medical campuses here are subcommittees from the advisory committee and there's just a note here that the two subcommittees that participated in the development of this report of the recommendations that are in this report are the medicinal cannabis subcommittee and the exploratory subcommittee a little name drop of our consultants here um and then here are some fun facts about how much work we've been doing there's uh has been 23 full board meetings since um the end of may three full advisory committee meetings and over 65 subcommittee meetings and a note that we reserve time for public comment at all of these meetings um and we also have a process set up to receive public comment through our website and we've received received more than 125 substantive public comments to date and a note that we emphasize that um we emphasize receiving input and feedback from both our advisory committee and the public and the development of our recommendations so here are um the the requirements that are set forth in act 62 um that are the genesis of this report so you can just see the language here the first is whether certain licensees to be permitted to produce solid concentrate products with greater than 60 chc for purposes of incorporation into other cannabis products that otherwise comply with the prohibited product statute and secondly recommendations that the board developed a consultation with the agency of agriculture as to whether the board should permit hemp or cdb to be converted to delta 9 and then the third directive that we respond to in this report is regarding updating the structure and mission of the advisory entity that oversees the medical program in vermont so that's the those are the pieces of language from act 62 so next we i've we've defined a few terms here um because we use these terms um throughout the recommendation so we use the definitions of cannabinoid delta 9thc distillate and isolates that come from the vermont hemp program rules to help our readers understand the recommendations so i'm going to jump now into the first recommendation which is regarding the solid concentrate so the board is recommending that cannabis licensees be permitted to produce extractions with a concentration of 60 percent or greater thc for purposes of incorporation into other cannabis products that otherwise comply with a prohibited product statute and our rationale for this recommendation is set forth here from a consumer safety perspective and a financial perspective so um as we know when thc is extracted from cannabis the resulting concentrate is by nature above 60 thc and using a full concentration extraction allows the product manufacturers to more precisely calibrate how much thc is actually going into a product so if these um if these products if these uh concentrates above 60 are prohibited at any point in the supply chain then producers are producers are going to need to adulterate them to dilute the thc content before the extraction can be added to a cannabis product and as a result you know cutting a natural concentrate with an additive could make the end product more dangerous as these adulterants can be potentially harmful to consumers and then second the financial impact is um that you know licensees there's going to be increased costs to licensees in the form of additional testing and formulation requirements that could be imposed for any adulterants that are used to dilute the concentration of the extraction and the board talked about this a little bit today at the end of Julie's presentation about additives and how um a little we know about them at the moment i'm just going to keep powering through unless i get unless no please go ahead so the second um recommendation is uh is uh also about these high concentration products so in accordance with uh existing law 7 dsa 904 a subsection a which specifically provides that it's the intent of the general assembly to move as much of the illegal cannabis market as possible into the regulated market for the purposes of consumer protection and public safety the board is making a recommendation that these solid concentrates with the thc concentration of 60 percent or above should be removed from the prohibited products list so that the board can regulate the manufacturer and sale of these products our rationale set forth here um these products are used right now they're widely available and out of state markets so um not regulating them is going to allow the unregulated market for them to thrive so leaving them outside of the ccb's control could be dangerous or harmful for both the manufacturers and the users some of these concentrates um on unregulated market are made with different kinds of solvents and some of those solvents can pose health risks if they're either used improperly or if they're consumed at high levels consumers um using them from the unregulated market might be unaware of the potential risks involved in consuming high concentrate thc and also unregulated market facilities that aren't inspected or permitted are operating at an increased risk including including by potential posing potential harm for first responders so if they were brought under the board's authority the manufacturer and sale of these products would be subject to standards um an array of standards including facility inspection fire and building safety code standards regarding solvent usage and extraction standards regarding the presence of any residual solvents in the resulting products consumer education additional health warning all of these um would come into play if these are regulated product which would result in a safer process for manufacturers and ultimately cleaner and safer products for users so i suggest that we um go through the entire report and save our discussion for after okay so i'll move on to the third recommendation which is regarding the conversion of hemp or cbd to delta nine so um our recommendation here that we have developed in consultation with our partners that the agency of agriculture is that um our the ccb's cannabis program encompass the regulation of the manufacturer and sale of products that contain delta eight delta nine other deltas and any future um synthetic cannabinoids with similar properties whether they're derived from hemp or from high thc cannabis and our rationale here is that like any product with intoxicating properties these substances should be subject to regulatory control to ensure that they're only sold to people who are authorized to purchase them and that they're properly labeled tested packaged and they are safe for consumers and patients so again i just we're saying that we should the ccb should be regulating the synthesis of delta nine or any other cannabinoid with similar properties and in regulating them we would the board is proposing to create a license category for hemp producers who intend to synthesize these products and create a product registration process so that prior to the release of any new product that contains an intoxicating cannabinoid that's been synthesized from hemp the board would first review the packaging label ingredients test results and then either approve or deny the release of that product and then moving into our final recommendation about the medical cannabis advisory entity um this is the recommendation regarding the membership of the entity so the recommendation that is that it be comprised of 12 members six registered patients chosen by the board from a list of volunteers from the from the patient registry and the criteria should include geographical location socioeconomic status and medical need although the board could consider other factors as well three registered caregivers chosen by the board with the intent to create an inclusive and diverse advisory entity and again this the board would choose from a list of volunteers from the registry and again the criteria should include geographical locations socioeconomic status and medical needs to license healthcare professionals with knowledge regarding using cannabis for symptom relief again appointed by the board from a list provided by the board of medical practice for lists provided by both the board of medical practice and the office of professional regulation and then lastly one licensed cultivator with expertise in medical strains that's appointed by the board from a list that's provided by an advocacy organization regarding Vermont cannabis cultivation and then there's a recommendation that the board members this advisory entity the members serve a three-year term not to exceed two consecutive terms and that vacancies are filled in the same manner as the original appointment for the unexpired portion of the vacated term and then the recommendations with respect to the advisory entity's duties are that they meet at least six times a year for the purpose of evaluating public input and making recommendations to the board regarding the ability of patients and caregivers to obtain timely affordable and safe access to cannabis the effectiveness of the registry and the licensed dispensaries in serving the needs qualifying patients and caregivers and then recommendations to the board on any best practices in administering the medical cannabis program then lastly they would also be responsible for in connection with the board identifying how best to use any carryover funds from licensing fees or another appropriation to improve the services and products provided or to reduce the costs to registered patients great so i want me to keep it open you might as well keep it open and if you go back one slide because i think we have a few deviations from the recommendation here that i'd like to note so with respect to this this recommendation came to us from the marijuana for symptom relief oversight committee and it represents a tremendous amount of work both from the committee members there but also from members of the public current patients and caregivers that regularly attend those meetings i think this is you know when they're when act 25 or s25 passed you know the the board the medical for symptom relief oversight committee really only met once or twice a year and they had to meet um i can't even i can't even remember how many times to come up with this and i think it achieves a lot of what i had asked them and what i think is important um which is that when we receive recommendations from this advisory board this advisory entity you know i think it's important for the board to know that all interested stakeholder groups are represented you know and we can't have perfect representation of course but at least we have six patients that are going to that we're going to try to achieve kind of a variety of interests including geography accessibility to the dispensaries to the program socioeconomic status and medical need because not every patient has the same needs there's terminal patients that are on the registry there's people with chronic pain there's people with incurable diseases and not everyone's needs are going to be the exact same so i think that first point was really important the caregivers is of course a huge component to the medical program and we have the same kind of interests represented there you know the same diversity of interests that that are represented there um one point of diversion from what the recommendation was um to us from the marijuana first syndrome relief oversight committee relates to point c up here which is who provides the lists i think the original recommendation was that it be some sort of health care advisory board um i talked to the vermont medical society about what that really means i think it was appropriate health advisory boards or something along those lines they suggested that these two boards encompass a tremendous amount of knowledge on all of the various entities that can be that are bona fide health care professionals under the law so if we just did the board of medical practice it wouldn't encompass i think naturopaths and some of the other people that can make recommendation or that can approve people for the registry and so the office of perfect professional regulation um you know fills in the gaps where the the medical practice might not have knowledge of certain types of health care professionals so we got a little bit more specific i'm happy to convert it back but i think this is the recommendation from the medical society i think it makes sense the other divergence is in point d i think it's very important to have a cultivator with experience expertise in medical strains the recommendation from the advisory committee specifically called out the vermont growers association to make the list and while i would expect that they would provide us a list under this language as well i don't think it's smart to call out a specific organization in statute that potentially you know by not exist in 10 years not i'm not saying anything about them but it's just you know if they don't exist then this person can't get appointed so um or if they change their name you know so we did we change that or i i suggest we change that to cannabis cultivation advocacy organization so essentially any cannabis cultivation advocacy organization could submit a list that we would then get to pick from and i would again very much assume that the growers association would be one of them i think your reasoning there makes makes sense okay so are we okay generally with this recommendation and then we can move to some of the others can i just ask one quick question was there any consideration about mental health and substance abuse adding someone from that field to this that was that part of their discussion you know i think it was part of their discussion currently the only kind of mental health qualification um that qualifies you for the registry is post-traumatic stress disorder um so they ptsd patient could be part of one of the six patients but there and of course you know the mental health care or the licensed health care professionals could include um people with medical expertise in those fields as well so i think somewhat encompassed in this not explicitly called out though if the list of um medical conditions changes would this be like if there were more mental health or if substance abuse was added to the list of conditions sometime down the road would this could the composition of this group change um i think the three-year terms you know you you're kind of entitled to your three-year term um and so this this initial board we could recommend that there be some staggering of appointments so that there's no you know so there's no like kind of quorum issues and at that time we would know maybe in a year from now whether the qualifying list would change um i think that's something we might want to consider okay so maybe just you know this is i i agree maybe we can just have just that there's going to be the initial appointments will be staggered so that there's never more than one a couple vacancies at the time um and that will allow kind of at least the initial board to kind of evolve as the program evolves in in the first couple years and then yeah i think that makes sense yeah i think it all makes sense and back to point d i think it's it's it's wise to not call specific organizations i think there was one called out in our advisory committee and folks felt a certain way about it right to kind of keep things a little bit open that makes sense to me yeah okay how about recommendation three so um on this one um i'm very comfortable with this um i think this is pretty much in line it's not entirely in line but it's fairly much in line with what the vermont medical society recommended to the board um you know essentially what it is is these kind of high delta um concentrates or isolates um exist in a legal gray area right now and they are they are impairing um and they should have some consumer protection and regulation tied to them and i think it's important to have someone um be in charge of the of that regulation and compliance the agency of agriculture currently does not um do it they've said that this is not under the hemp it's not authorized under your hemp license to create these things or to sell them so um i think we should do it and then whether or not we ultimately allow them we could decide during the product registration process yeah i think i think it makes sense you know this has been interpreted differently across across the country on what's legal and what's not and i think it gets back to the word hemp derivative in the farm bill um and whether or not synthetic derivatives are derivatives of the natural you know whether the word synthetic there changes its legality but um this is all it takes a lot of work and work specifically in a laboratory setting to really manufacture these products and that being said i think it makes sense if they're going to exist they need to come under our oversight great i'm comfortable with that too okay so um maybe we can start with the first part of or i guess recommendation one so i think we all know the kind of uh parameters of this dynamic um essentially because constant solid concentrates greater than 60 thc are per se prohibited that they can't exist at any point in the supply chain even if they're being used as an ingredient edit for a product that ultimately is um under 60 percent a solid concentrate that's under 60 um you know i think our justification kind of spells out why that's probably not the wisest thing to do you know this is concentrated thc is essentially an ingredient um and it should be you should know what you're putting into another product that makes just measuring the amount of thc in the final product easier um and more accurate and it doesn't include adding some unknown substance to the mix so i think this one i don't have any problem with this recommendation likewise yeah same so this next one um this is kind of the subcommittee decided the exploratory subcommittee went above and beyond kind of the charge and said and by the way solid concentrates um you know above 60 percent should also be allowed period um and i think the rationale is laid out in our um in our slides uh i would say that you know that the medical society um dr anley prevention works um i think they've all kind of been on the record saying that the they do not want these products in the vermont market i um have total respect for that opinion and i you know i fully understand some of the arguments that they made including the normalization of high thc products um and the negative health impacts particularly on adolescent and um developing brains you know we have a different charge than that goes beyond just public health we have a specific requirement to move as much of the illegal cannabis market into the regulated space and so we can't kind of put our heads in the sand that these things don't exist on the regulated market on the unregulated market right now and that they're being used with incredible frequency in vermont and both the production of them is dangerous um just the the the way that they're being produced and you know the fact that it's an untested product that has um questionable origins is also not within kind of what we're what we're trying to do with the you know high thc cannabis market so we really need to think if these products exist and they're being used they should be regulated um from a consumer protection angle um i want to just say that uh in my conversations with the medical society and the department of health and um and some other folks like i i have read these reports that they've sent us and really appreciate the thoughtfulness of their comments and i only feel i agree with a lot of what they're saying and there's science to back it up so i honestly only feel comfortable with this if we put a further prohibition on this that solid concentrates um could only be sold to people who are 25 and older so there's a 21 year old restriction for thc in act 164 i would say that if you're purchasing a concentrate solid concentrate above 60 percent you know you'd have to be 25 or older which i think is mostly consistent with the brain science and the primary concern which is what i'm hearing about the kind of developing brain in the adolescent brain and the long-term potential health impacts does that pepper in your mind still meet the goal of moving it out of the um elicit market i don't have a sense of i don't know that we have any data on how many people between the ages of 21 and 25 use these products versus those above 25 would anytime we prohibit anything including the 21 age limit there's going to be a black market for those products i think what the 25 does is it signals to youth and others that these are very dangerous for certain segments of our population um and we're trying to acknowledge that you know we're never going to have perfect compliance but i do think that having the increased age for these is one more indication that this is these products are dangerous for for folks they may have long-term health consequences for you if you're under that limit or under that age so i'm i'm comfortable with that i just um that was the first question that came to mind that and ensuring that there's you know a fair amount of public education on the products as well which is included in the recommendation yeah and i can i can appreciate how we're or attempting to thread like a proverbial needle here um right i will say that i would imagine college age kids or those over the age of 21 you know i know that you know they're they're moving away from using flower as their primary source of cannabis as it relates to cannabis products um you know that being said i think i would agree that typically the articles that we have been sent focus on that age of 25 and it it might make sense there i'm also i'm a little wary now we've all been teenagers when something's prohibited it makes you makes you want to seek out that product for um in certain ways so that's my only reservation but i think right now um i don't know and i don't want to ask you to speculate but this is a recommendation to the legislature considering they they're going to have to do their own contemplation of our recommendations do you feel like taking this off the prohibitive product list might um make folks a little bit more comfortable across the street if we were to raise that age to 25 well i wouldn't want to speculate on that i i wasn't in the room when this when this was first created as a prohibitive product or added to the prohibitive product list you know i think i asked dave silerman that question when he uh when he was walking when he did a presentation for the board a few months back um i think it's important um i think it's an i think it's an important piece and it's consistent with our charge to take this off the prohibitive product list and i think it's equally as important to make sure that we're recognizing some of the concerns that have been brought before us and the kind of the reports that we've seen um from the medical medical society and others so yeah i'm comfortable with it just want to make sure where cognizant that that 21 to 25 year old age group might be a substantial user of these these products and they're probably going to figure out ways to get them whether or not we regulate it yeah but i'm i'm okay with it all right um a careful balance of moving you know the illicit market but also public health and team and youth prevention so i think it's a good suggestion to thread that you know i think one you know one other piece of this is you know pace vermont you know dr valantis project um is tracking how public policy influences decision making amongst this exact age cohort um and so i think if this were to kind of pass um through the legislature we would see what the impacts would be and i fully recognize that kids are using these products right now you know i think it's important to make that a distinction they're just not regulated products they're under they're illicit market products so um all right any further discussion on the november 1st report should we just approve it now then it's got to go out tomorrow or the next day one day um great so i would take a motion to approve the november first report with the one um additional uh caveat of the 25 for 60 concentrates also the staggered terms for and staggered terms yeah um so moved second all in favor hi hi okay um next on our list is just a very brief review of the subcommittee um subcommittees um i forget which one's meant i think sustainability and social equity yep julie do you want to just uh go first um second to i can go quickly while julie's finding her and i can be very brief you know the sustainability committee met um yesterday we didn't have a quorum billie coster was not able to attend so jake up stefanie tom and jena and i had a very good overview conversation we didn't arrive at any consensus or agreement on any remaining outstanding items work what we're going to do is jake up's planning to um get our get the subcommittees report out the subcommittee members by next friday and because we don't have any more standing meetings we're going to just work through edits in a word document format um to that report and i'm the majority of the meeting yesterday as i presented in one of my slides was talking about operational farm plans and how that makes sense from a cultivation perspective and what what makes sense to be required and then on on um disposal of of adulterated cannabis so that's that's i'm very thankful for all the subcommittees uh sustainability committees where we covered a lot of ground and a very short amount of time um let's talk about social equity yeah so they met i think for the last time for a while they finished their discussion on the dei programs acknowledging that we did not include um like a socioeconomic status in the social equity application eligibility they included it in the dei programs and they set some income limits uh are recommended setting some income limits at 135 percent i think it was at the federal poverty level and then they talked about the incentives and benefits of that program so you know continued educational programs certifications of value they talked about recommending um or our recommending priority processing and then also recommended reducing the application fee for people in the dei program as well so that wrapped their work for now and then i think as you talked about earlier pepper the next stage for social equity is um is the town hall or town halls on the 18th and the 20th great all right well why don't we pause for a public comment um and uh after that is done why don't we um vote on our uh earlier slides okay so if you've joined via the link it looks like everyone's joined by the link please just raise your virtual hand and nelly could you call them in order first is dave silverman thanks nelly um regarding the november one report realizing you've just voted on it um first uh i really appreciate um you're going beyond the uh the remit a little bit on the solid concentrates and and uh and fighting that fight um with that you know the legislature has uh kind of i think made a mistake in in uh in banning those products um and i think you know because you're already going beyond the remit it would be asking too much to ask you to go further beyond the remit and focus a little bit on subsection three of 868 prohibited products um but i'd like to maybe just plant the seed um so subsection three prohibits oil products except uh ones that are prepackaged for vaping you know back in the house health committee um the the concern at the time since 2019 2020 you remember the holy valley scare was going on um and there was and and amalgamated within that was the whole concern about youth vaping that was