Alright, we'll get started then. My name is James Pepper. I'm the chair of the Ramon Cannabis Control Board. It's 2 p.m. on January 4th, 2022, and I'm going to call this meeting to order. Welcome back, everyone. It's good to see you all again. I hope everyone had a chance to unplug and enjoy the cannabis plant without having to think about regulating it. Today is our first meeting of 2022, and starting next week, we're going to move our regular board meetings, which we've traditionally held on Fridays, to Mondays at 11 a.m. in order to avoid any potential conflicts with legislative testimony, speaking of which Brynn will be testifying, she's scheduled to testify later this week in both the House Appropriations Committee to discuss our budget, our proposed budget, I should say, as well as the House Ways and Means Committee to discuss our proposed fee structure. We're also going to be holding a meeting of our advisory committee, the full committee on Thursday, January 6th, this Thursday, at 1 p.m. to discuss our upcoming reports of the legislature. The physical location for that meeting will be here in our office, 89 Main Street, Immobiliar, and you can attend remotely as well on a link through our website, which is ccb.vermont.gov. I guess that's all the administrative details that I have to discuss. Our rules have been filed, the public comment period is ongoing, and so please take a look at those and provide the board comments on those. Other than that, have you had a chance, Kyle and Julie, to review the minutes from December 21st? Yep. Yep. All right, take a motion to approve the minutes. So moved. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Aye. Okay. Great. Well, today we're going to look at some tweaks to our fee structure, as well as some of the January 15th reporting requirements, and I think, Bren, you're going to help us walk through some of those. Yep. We'll do that. So we're going to start with the January 15th report to the legislature, and I just have a few slides to queue up some of the decision points for you guys to talk about. So in addition to requiring the board to meet with some people and summarize some things, the legislature also required the board to issue recommendations on a few specific matters. So I've just queued those up here for you to discuss. The first one is recommendations to the legislature about whether they should consider adding additional types of cannabis licenses, including crash cooperative license, delivery license, or a special event license. And as the board is aware, the exploratory subcommittee of our advisory committee looked at this question at its last meeting in December and had a conversation about it. And this question of the delivery license has also come up in the context of the social equity subcommittee. So I just flagged on here that you may also want to consider talking about a social equity exclusivity period if you did want to recommend that the legislature adopt another type of license. Do we want to talk about these individually right now, or are there other slides? Yep. So you can go through these one by one, or I can just pop through all three requirements regarding recommendations. If you'd like to do it that way. Any preference? No. Whatever you would like to do here. All right. So why don't you go through the rest? Okay. Yep. So the next slide here is a summary of the other types of potential future licenses that were included in the October 15th report to the legislature. And so this will look very familiar to folks who've been paying attention. These are the co-op cultivation license, limited retail license, which would allow a portion of an existing store like a general store to be secured in order to sell a limited amount of cannabis. A cottage manufacturing license, which would be sort of a smaller scale manufacturing license below the tier two that would allow small amounts of induced products to be produced in a person's home, for example. A delivery license, and different models there for the delivery license. What was discussed in the exploratory committee was primarily a delivery license that would be used for delivery between a retail and a consumer. On-site consumption license, temporary event retail license, and then a reduced rate retail, which is also sometimes referred to as a direct consumer from cultivator retail license. All right. Why don't we pause here? This is, I think, what I thought would be a good way to prompt the conversation. We're required to at least, at a minimum, talk about craft cooperative delivery and special event. That's by statute. The co-op license, to me, is not something that we need to recommend. I don't see why it couldn't form naturally. I don't think there needs to be a license type for a co-op to seek a license, because it's a business structure that meets the kind of definition of a co-op to seek a license. I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense for us to create a license type of co-op unless we want to give it special privileges, but to me, it makes things infinitely more complicated if we try and micromanage what a co-op is in a state that has a long history with knowing the co-op model, knowing how to utilize it, and just to me, I think the thought was that maybe this wasn't allowed, but I think the kind of regulations that we created would actually allow a co-op to form. I agree. Yeah, I agree. I think we've probably all answered questions about co-ops in some way, shape or form from folks that are interested in trying to figure the landscape out. I've thought about this specific license or this ask of us for our recommendation along the lines of special privileges as it relates to social equity or something else, recognizing that we wrote rules, proposed rules in a way where multiple different co-ops should be able to form naturally without much thought. I don't necessarily think we need it. I think from our social equity program and the fact that you can form co-ops without needing a special license type means that it'll be easier for us to manage without micromanaging certain things if it's just available to whoever may be seeking one. I think it's better for the market to develop those things and those relationships to exist between businesses and to let that happen organically as other Vermont co-ops have. Right. I mean we have regulations around co-located co-ops and I think that that would be instructive to people that are looking to kind of share resources and co-locate on a single piece of property. But as far as kind of a co-op that's more distributed, I just don't see why we would want to get in the business of being more prescriptive than what can just happen naturally. So I don't think we need to really recommend this as a distinct license type. So why don't we move on? I think we're in agreement there. Well I should say Bryn, is there anything that you need from us as a board to further clarify those points? I don't. Okay. Okay, why don't we talk about delivery? So delivery came through the, I mean it was discussed at length in the social equity subcommittee as something that could be an exclusive license. I think that the model that was proposed there was more of employing people within a retail I think probably was better for social equity applicants and allows people to stand up their own businesses as an independent delivery license. So if we're going to recommend this, that would be the model that I would hope that we would go with. So did the social equity subcommittee talk about that being exclusive to a third party or could a retailer either contract with a third party? There's a social equity company? Or they could also have an employee that they would be allowed to deliver as well? My recollection is the latter.  I think that there are challenges with that model in terms of employment law. And I don't think it allows someone to stand up their own individual business. And how do we feel about that? That's how I feel about it. So you wanted the deliverer or the transporter to be an employee of a no? No. That's what the social equity subcommittee recommended. I would prefer that it be an independent business so that instead of working for one retailer, you could then pick up from like Shift Shopper or any of those other sort of delivery services where you can pick up from multiple different places and deliver to multiple different places. I would be in favor of that. Yeah, I mean, obviously the benefits to me of just delivery in general outweigh the potential downsides. Certainly, you know, we have a number of towns. The vast majority of towns have not opted in to retail sales at this point. Meaning that those residents don't have access, at least close access to this market. Certainly it's a way to low barrier to entry business that could really benefit social equity applicants that don't have the capital to have a brick and mortar retail store. Yeah, I'm in favor of delivery. I think the real questions that come to my mind around delivery, and maybe we don't have to get this detailed at this time, relate to is the delivery tied to retail, a retail license as in, can you only, can a delivery company only purchase at a retail operation or can they purchase from a wholesaler or a cultivator and deliver that product? And then also just the other question kind of is kind of tied to the whole, is this more like the ice cream truck model or the pizza model, where you're, can you make aggregate, can you take aggregate orders and load up your car with as much cannabis as we allow and make multiple deliveries or do you have to kind of just do them one at a time and go back and forth? I think on that just the way that the landscape of our state fundamentally is, it would be a real challenge to have to do one individual trip per one order. Just because, you know, I know current medical dispensaries are delivering all over the state. And if you had that kind of requirement and somebody's going from here to Newport, here, Brattleboro, you know, that's, it doesn't make financially viable sense for somebody to enter that business as a delivery driver based off of the cost of getting from point A to point B back to point A back to wherever. So I agree with that. But then do we want to be prescriptive about how much product a car can have in it at any one time and for how long that is because then you start to blur the lines between, is this a standalone mobile retailer versus a actual delivery? So I think my answer to your question would be yes, we probably want to have some limitations. But I think we'd probably develop those through rule, right? Yeah. So the basic parameters that we agree on I think are that it's the transporter, the deliverer is the standalone business. There's a social equity exclusivity period and that they have to purchase from retailers, but they can kind of aggregate their deliveries with some limitation on how much they can put in their car and how much they can have at any one time and for how long they can't have products in there for months. We might even say not overnight. I mean it could be this is a day within a 24 hour period you can have this much in your car. Yeah. I think a lot of that we can make up through regulation even recognizing that you probably don't want your car having your business. I don't know, business name on it doesn't need to be an unmarked car and that type of stuff. There's a, we pull up the thread and a lot of it we could look to some of the regulations we proposed around transporting between license types. See what makes sense, what doesn't make sense for the point of being consistent. Okay, anything more on delivery? No. No? Alright. David and Brian, is that sufficient for the report? Yep. Yep. Okay. So next we need to talk about special event licenses. So to me this is a pretty important license type for any number of reasons. One, we are going to be, you know, a very tourist heavy market. Just given the demographics of our state and what kind of our consultants kind of showed us as far as people that are coming to the state and perusing here. To me also we have a booming wetting industry, ski industry. We really need to, and those folks really that are coming here have no legal place to consume. Public air laws, our clean air laws prevent them from, you know, consuming anywhere where tobacco is prohibited, which is pretty much everywhere except outside. And we have, because of the federal illegality or just because of our civil and criminal penalties, it's also prohibited to consume outside. So having a safe place to consume to me is really essential. But this, both the special event and on-site consumption, you know, really implicates some very serious highway safety, roadway safety concerns. And so overcoming those as well as just the idea that, you know, if you're doing on-site consumption or if you're doing event-based consumption, that there's also the ability for younger under 21 people to be exposed. And employees of, you know, an on-site consumption place to the particular matter. So there's public health concerns as well. But I also think that's really critical to standing up an effective market, really taking advantage of the folks that are coming here and stopping by Massachusetts along their way and consuming here. Because they're doing it anyway.  We really have to kind of acknowledge that that is happening currently. So I'm very much in favor of both on-site consumption and special event licensing. How we get there is going to be challenging. How we address the public safety, public health concerns is going to be really challenging. We could start with special event, right, and allow retailers potentially to be the ones who add on a special event so that they have some product, knowledge, access, or it could be an independent license and they own a special event company. And we could potentially limit it to places where we know people are staying overnight. I mean, I'm assuming like with a liquor variance, right, like people do for events, there would be some improvement process. Right, I mean, the way that I envisioned special event really was very similar to alcohol.  So that's just huge and, you know, has extreme kind of transportation considerations. But, you know, if you just think about it in terms of a wedding, yes, you have a company that's all they do is go to weddings and set up, you know, a bar. They are trained to spot overconsumption. They're trained to spot intoxication. They usually weddings have some sort of busing or overnight venue. Most people have, you know, you could have a designated driver sign up sheet, you know, on your way into a consumption site. And they're usually in a wedding kind of outdoors, which is also, I think, important. And, you know, they're usually in a venue where you can kind of put them around a corner and tuck them away from, you know, just spoke in public view so that, you know, you're not exposing, you know, people under 21 to consumption. I actually see it a little differently. Like it might be better to start with professional conventions. So if there are cannabis conventions or gatherings of cannabis professionals, because they will have experience with consumption, they're more likely to. Because at weddings, people tend to, I don't know, they let loose in the course of five hours because they're having a good time, right? So there may be less experienced consumers and I think we might actually run into more problems. But, I mean, I would be fine with starting with a cannabis convention allowing an on-site consumption starting there and expanding it from there. Yeah, and I'm not actually opposed to that. I'm just trying to, you know, people understand a cash bar or an open bar at a wedding and this would be kind of taking that model and tweaking it and kind of adding some additional safety rails, safety guardrails around it. But, yeah, I wouldn't say that if we did this, it would be limited to wedding venues or wedding events. I just, I think it's easier for me to kind of grasp the concept if I tie it to an event in my head. Yeah, I agree with both of you. I think we have a place for on-site consumption here and special event licenses. I kind of like, you know, a lot of what you both said. I think I recognize that there is some of those types of events in Vermont and New England that those people will be well inclined to be able to do something like this. I actually like the idea of not limiting it to retail establishments but they're going to have to understand a lot of those security impacts just like, you know, for selling at retail versus hosting and on-site consumption. So I like that as an option. I'm not in favor of strictly limiting it to folks with a retail license. I'm also wondering if we can do anything in the social equity context to give folks an opportunity to host on-site consumption temporary permits from a social equity applicant perspective. I'm throwing ideas out there. We could do an exclusivity period just like the delivery. Right. I'm in favor of, I want, I understand starting, as you said, with those professionals that understand the industry, but it might be harder for other folks to learn if we're starting just there. So I want, you know, we've got to take some, I don't want to say chances, that's the wrong way to describe it, but I want folks to have an opportunity to learn how to do this the right way. And so I think just understanding an application that comes back to us might be the best place to start and not limiting it to any certain business or license type or concept. But I do agree with the transportation plan or people have to be staying overnight or something like that. Yeah. And people are going to have to work with us recognizing that no matter how you feel about this or if you've experienced or not experienced problems recognizing these events are going on around the state you know, a false step here could really knock us back from more widespread consumption. You know, I think so. Yeah, I'm picturing, and I may have already mentioned it, but just kind of a two-step process here, which would be you have to get licensed through the CCB as a special event operator. And that would just ensure for our purposes that you've got the kind of requisite training around serving and serving sizes and highway safety information that you're going to share with your consumers and overconsumption, intoxication, etc. And then special event operator licensees would then apply for a local permit, a local special event permit tied to the specific event that they're planning. You know, the local law enforcement, local select boards would have the approval process to say, okay, well this means you have a highway safety plan, you have a screening plan, you know, a public view screening plan. You have kind of your gated ID check, you know, plan in order for this specific site, for this specific event. And so, you know, the local folks would have the ability to just know what's going on, just like they do for alcohol events. So would then that limit these licenses and only areas that have opted in? Well, I would assume that this is a retail license, you know, you are doing retail, so yeah, I think it would. Just ask him. I think it needs to be. I wish that wasn't the case. It might encourage some towns that are heavy in events if it's a popular thing. It might be encouraged to opt in. Bryn, did that give you enough to kind of... I think so. Make a recommendation to the legislature. I think we all kind of agree that there are any outstanding issues for this to be in cover. Nope, I think that's good. You've got more to go through, so. Should we do on-site consumption?  So again, on-site consumption, you know, for all the reasons I think special event per ring is important. I think on-site consumption is equally as important. Obviously, as we mentioned, there's no legal place for anyone but homeowners in Vermont to consume. You know, your landlord could restrict it and your lease. If you're kind of in federally subsidized housing, it's illegal. If you're in any place of public accommodation, it's illegal. And, you know, we're essentially saying come to Vermont, purchase our cannabis, and don't consume it. So, I think it's unrealistic to not have on-site consumption. I think New York built it into their law. They haven't done it yet. I think a number of other states have built it into their law. I know that private on-site consumption lounges exist around this country, where you kind of pay an admission fee or a membership fee and you can go in and consume. They're unregulated, of course, but this one, I think, needs a lot more thought only because of the kind of health implications to the employees of these on-site consumption being exposed to smoke continuously as part of your job, a particular matter in the year. There's obviously ways around that, but I think this one, while I agree philosophically with it, really needs us to demonstrate some modicum of success with special event licensing before we've really full-throated, say, we're ready for on-site consumption lounges. So, in New York, you can consume wherever a cigarette can be smoked. Right. So, that's like everywhere. That's not what we have here. No. So, it's very different. But I agree with the kind of demonstrated experience with event licenses and then moving to on-site consumption. I think I'd like to see on-site consumption, when we do move it forward, be exclusive to social equity applicants to start with. But I do see a reason to kind of move it down a little. I agree. So, do we want to make a recommendation on this? We're not required to by statute. However, we could just say that we think that this is a good idea for these reasons. We could just leave it there. We think it's a good idea for these reasons. And if the legislature wants to do it, then we'll figure out how to do it. I mean, I think if we're picking priorities, I would put event licenses and the other things that we've talked about first, delivery first, and then say this is great, we don't need to do it now, though. Yeah. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think there's so many outstanding questions, whether it's in the public or the legislature, on what this is all going to look like. And if we make these incremental steps to try to, like I keep saying, unlock the fear of what this is and what we're about and what this is about, it's only going to help us down the road. But you present anybody too much, too fast, and you don't know how they're going to react. Okay. Brandon, those are the ones that we're required to talk about. Do you want to get through the rest and come back to these other license types? Sure. Is that better? I'd like to talk about cottage licensing at some point. Yeah, we can talk about all of them now. I just don't want to neglect the things that we have to do. But I'm happy to talk about these now. What should we do? We can start with cottage manufacturing. So I think this is a nice low barrier for manufacturing, particularly with Edible's small kitchen. I think it actually pairs nicely with the event license, so if somebody wants to have small treats, Edible treats, but they're only going to make them during wedding season, for example, or for a particular convention or a particular event, I think we could probably follow the rules that we have now for the non-professional home kitchen production, which is, I think, under $10,000, a production before it has to go to a professional kitchen. I think this is a good low barrier way to enter the market. So I would like to do this. I'd like to recommend it. So for me, when I think about all of our license types, I think it's really important just for my sake, and I say it for my sake, really, because if we create a license type, one, it has to be feasible. I think it has to be a feasible business. And two, we need to know how to regulate it, how much to regulate it, how often to regulate, how often we want to stop by. And so it needs to have a really clear distinction in mind. I need to have a really clear distinction in my mind between what the very, the differences between the various tiers are. Obviously, cultivator, it's easy because it's all based on canopy size. But to me, I'm having a hard time picturing what the difference between this and our tier, whatever the non-combustible tier two product manufacturing is. I see the license cost, $2,500 is potentially being a barrier for someone who wants to do small batch production. Right, that's the proposed... Yep, so to be clear, the proposal B, which is what we put forward to the legislature, was $1,500 for the tier two manufacturing. The updated proposal that we're going to look at today has been upped up to $2,500 for that tier. So if we had a cottage tier of manufacturing and it was aligned with the small cultivator, it would be a little less expensive in terms of entering the market. And it might be more feasible for someone to do in their home. I think to add on to that, because I'm understanding what you're getting at, I think we've heard, or at least I've heard from potential manufacturers that want to do it on a small scale of all of the potential requirements they could seek down the road from fire safety and others, and how do we find ways to ensure that there's clarity for very small batch producers that are not looking to use the crazy, more expensive, more dangerous methods of extraction and allow them to kind of do this in a setting that isn't cost prohibited, not necessarily from the fees we're going to charge, but retrofitting and updating certain spaces that they might have to do depending on where they're at and who they're working with. I think that's just another part of the conversation. And from an equity perspective, the cannabis industry is losing women, just like every other industry. And the cannabis industry started off with more CEOs who were women, and over the last two years, that's dropped. So this is potentially something that people can do from home, which is what lots of folks are looking to do now and start their own business. So if this is about the fee, I would suggest we just leave the tier one, tier two, and leave the lower fee for tier two and just allow people to scale appropriately to their need within that tiering structure. But did they have to, my recollection of the rules, though, is that then they have to have professional kitchen, almost, right? Like, that's sort of what we wrote in terms of the sanitary requirements. And Vermont already has, don't we already have cottage rules for certain production? And I think we heard in one of our subcommittees that those cottage rules have been used in other states for cottage licensing for cannabis. So why wouldn't we just apply that in Vermont? I guess I don't have that distinction. I mean, to me, it's just really important to have a distinction, which is the distinction here is you don't have to be held to this standard or that standard. That to me is really, you know, when we have a tier, I just want to make sure it's clear what the difference between a tier two and a cottage tier is. So if there is some sort of cottage allowance for kitchen inspections, then I would definitely want to consider this, but I just, I don't know that. I just don't know the specifics. So I want to say, was it Jacob that talked about that? I can't remember now, but I'm only going to talk about it in the next meeting and I can get the information, but I remember that in one of our subcommittee meetings, they talked about the cottage rules that Vermont has for other industries being something that's been applied elsewhere for other states and cannabis. If we can just, if we can come back to this just in a way that really clarifies for me and if it is just this kitchen inspection or kitchen standards that people have to adhere to, because I agree that for tier two, I would assume that we have, I can't quite remember, but we have some pretty significant health and safety issues because you could essentially be making thousands of products a day and if this is, you know. But we already have a home production benchmark in Vermont which is $10,000. So we could apply that benchmark here. And it would be, that would, I mean, $10,000 of cannabis product is a very small amount. And would you anticipate us visiting each one of these every year? Probably at licensing, at the start, yes. But I don't know how many there would be. It might be a small, it might be maybe a hundred, it might be 50. In the scale of Vermont, that's a lot. In the scale of licensing, it's not huge. So the Department of Health calls them home-based food establishments. I think cottage is just a general moniker that's used to talk about these, but there are certain exemptions in place that allow you to do this. And so I kind of agree. I want to see what this is versus how this tier two is going to do, but I like the concept and I think we just, I need to have that clarity in my mind. But I think recognizing that the big, the big burden here might not necessarily be the fee that we propose. It might be everything else they need to do to scale up to the commercial kitchen, regardless of their tier two or tier one. I think that's kind of my interest in this. Okay. Well, if you don't mind, I'd like to just look at the home-based food establishment exemptions with those provide and look at what we are requiring of a tier two and just make sure that they're, for me, there's a clear delineation. So when someone asks me, well, what is the cottage license, I can really understand just what the difference between the tier two and the cottage would be. Generally like home bakery with annual sales under 6500 bucks or food manufacturing establishment with annual sales under 10,000 bucks. I don't know how those translate considering price points are a lot different than what we're doing versus food, but it looks like they do it based off of how much you're generating from a dollars and cents perspective. Okay. All right. Limited retail? The store within a store? I wondered actually if this is needed if we have a delivery license. I mean, I'm not opposed to it in general, but if folks are able to have, because I think the original goal was that if there's a town that's really too small to stand up, it's an individual brick and mortar store, is this style of retail needed if delivery is allowed? Not from a consumer perspective but from a small business perspective possibly. I mean, it's one more products, especially one that people are willing to travel for and, you know, go to your local general store when you're visiting and purchase some Vermont brand cannabis. I can see how, you know, some struggling general stores might really want to have something like this. Yeah, I look at it through that lens, not necessarily benefiting the consumers and it's not necessarily our job to come and save the struggling general stores in Vermont that are closing and that have closed, but I think we could, you know, lend a hand to that cause and that effort and help give them an opportunity to add something new to what they're already doing. My one question is, some of these general stores also sell liquor, so can we sell liquor and cannabis in the same building? I don't have the answer to that question. I don't know if any of us do. Could we legally do that? Other than that, I support the concept. Would we require all the same security requirements for the sort of co-located retail as we do for an independent retailer? What would we do with the co-located do we do co-located retail? No, that's what this was originally called. Oh, okay. Sorry. The only thing you can't locate is co-located to retail establishments. I mean, it really, to me, depends on how much product these places are moving. How much are they going to have on site? I mean, I think what we say here is that there would be limited amounts of cannabis. So this wouldn't be kind of a full-on retail. I mean, I see this as kind of two different models and either one or both could exist, which is kind of you have a section on the corner of your store where you have kind of an age check and maybe even a separate register and you go purchase in that corner of the store. Or it's kind of more like cigarettes where they're behind the counter and you can ask for them. There's no signage. There's no display. There's nothing that would indicate maybe there's a hot leaf or something. But you know, you could ask for it and they could pull it out behind the counter, the store owner and sell it to you at the traditional point of sale. Yeah, and I mean, this license type does present a lot more questions for us to answer than I think other license types do. I think if we were to do it in the spirit of the limited, what's it called even? I can't remember. Limited retail, like this one might be where we look at it. I know in our other license types we've talked about, we're not in a position to limit certain license types to a specific number or whatever. What if a gas station applies for this license type? What if a grocery store applies for this license type? So we might need to be more selective on how many of these licenses we award and what the actual optics of certain stores that may apply for these look like just because the more we put this into the hands of a store that has kids under the age of 21 involved, the more likelihood there could be potential law enforcement or legal problems down the road. I think it's that that I'm thinking about in terms of security. What is, what use prevention tactics will be in place if it's in their local general store versus in a separate store? I'm foreposing that we think it's a good idea and the spirit of how Vermont likes to go here like to purchase products and figuring out a path forward to making it viable, but I think it'll end up being something that we need to be very prescriptive over and not, you know, having a different philosophy for this license type than every other license type that I think we're going to, you know, be pursuing applications for. Yeah. It's a tough one. Certainly I would say no visible products, no visible signage, no visible advertising. And then as far as security could be commiserate with what we do for general retail stores. I don't know. Yeah. Like for liquor, there's a separate, there's an entrance within the store, right? So the liquor stores that are in general stores now have separate entrants within the store that can be locked separately. We can only see in, well, some places you can see in better than others, but it's definitely like a separate space. I've seen it. I've seen the one in the Maplefields in Berlin is just right out there in the open. Oh. Yeah. Well, I've seen it both ways. Yeah. The Hanna-Fords has the separate entrants and sort of masses, right? It has a separate entrance. Yeah, I've seen it both ways. Yeah. I have not seen the other. With beer and wine I have, but not with actual liquor. No, the maker wasn't blind. You can go by liquor right next to the candy. I learned something. 19 though. That's in the letter. But then that gets back to my question and I don't know if we know it right now, can we sell this in the same establishment that you can sell liquor and tobacco and everything else? That might move out. The cool idea. Or make general stores choose which they would rather sell. I don't know. Maybe we're not ready to move this one forward right now considering everything. I don't know. But I like the concepts. Yeah. If we can figure out the nuts and bolts, I think that's all right. I mean, it's a good way for like an incubator program to begin, right? But I think we have a lot of security and prevention questions to answer. Why don't we go through our security rigs before next Monday when we meet at 11 o'clock on Monday and try and think through some of this and we'll hear from our advisory committee in the meantime as well. Yeah, I'm sure we can hold a comment on that too. Yeah. You can see if there's things that we would feel comfortable eliminating that we have in place for a brick and mortar retail or expanding upon for this. And we can see if we can come to some sort of consensus. We don't have to figure out the whole thing but just think about really what's the difference between this brick and mortar and you know, a stand-alone and how we would want it to look. Yeah. Sounds like we're all wanting to explore it further. Yeah. Okay. Entry level or reduced rate retail sometimes referred to as farm gate, sometimes referred to as direct consumer sales. So, you know, it's always hung and I think I know how other people would react is that there's really no prohibition on direct consumer sales. There's no prohibition on a cultivator also having a retail license. I think that the of course the issue there is well, you've got all these regulations for retail licenses that it makes it not viable for me as a small cultivator to you know, comply with those regulations. But the way that I see it is the reason why we have so much regulation around retail is because of the federal status of cannabis and because of the FinCEN secrecy act. You know, we really have to know what's being sold. We have to know that people aren't, you know, diverting product, diverting cash, etc. And we have you know, some responsibilities we've taken on by giving someone a license to make sure that they're complying with these federal kind of guidance documents and so we don't as a state have to deal with department adjustments or the DEA or whatever else coming in. So this I really do, I mean I think we can all picture a Vermont market where direct consumer is allowed. I mean, we see it at our general stores with liquor we see it at Hill Farmstead, at the Alchemist, at every farm stand we see just kind of direct consumer sales. But to me, this direct consumer this year in this kind of initial outlay of licenses to me is kind of a chicken and egg problem because once we give someone the ability to retail we need to go on site and make sure that they're in compliance with everything that would ensure that we're in line with kind of FinCEN the GSA guidance and you know I just don't think that we have the compliance and enforcement staff or any staff to really do that initially. Yeah, you know, I tend to agree and I know there's a lot of very passionate folks out there that want to see this as part of our program and I think it does have a place in our program on having trouble seeing it as part of our program as of January 4th, 2022 and this year of us trying to launch. I know that, you know, I've heard this would help bring more folks from the illicit world into what we're trying to do I kind of look at it in a different way especially if small cultivators or cultivators are going to be selling this directly from their farm I want to make sure that they can sell excuse me that they can grow and cultivate this product in a regulated market before we allow them to do that plus apply with what you prefer to through a retail lens I think again being able to demonstrate a successful market on phase one will help us get to where some folks want us to go next year or late next year or down the road at some point I agree I mean I think that you can add on a retail license there's something that prohibits from having a cooperative model selling to a retail I think there's lots of opportunities to sell that are relatively low barrier and the other, you know there's licenses that have been awarded in Canada to sell directly from your farm but those are little brick and mortar stores on your farm that folks are selling from this doesn't exist anywhere else it doesn't mean it can't exist here first but I think you know given everything we're not ready right now to move this license type forward from trying to build a brick and mortar store on their you know farm and selling it through that so on this one I think we will get there I just don't think that we're ready to do that with this initial out label licenses I think it's important to acknowledge that but that's an end goal because you know this is one that can really cannibalize a traditional retail operation and so anyone with any amount of retail should know that the board I think just said on the record that we want to move towards a direct consumer sales once we have our feet under us once we have kind of our we know what our resources are and how we can really enforce this yeah I mean I've heard from retailers that don't have a problem with direct to consumer sales but they want it to be played by the same rules as those that are selling it from the farm and I think everything we just said okay if you want to sell from your farm you need to do what is required of a retail license holder I think this is an add on that we could I hope to see in the coming years if not next year but I think we need to get you know to a successful launch of the program first before we do that yeah alright I think we've been through all of these yep alright ready to move on from license types to the second recommendation that you're required to make is about whether there should be a minimum about amount of CBD in cannabis products to aid in the prevention of cannabis induced psychosis that occurs in some users I just wanted to refresh your recollection about the recommendations you made in the November 1st report to the legislature about THC potency public health issues so the solid concentrates issue we recommended that cannabis licensees be allowed to produce extractions with 60% or greater THC for purposes of incorporating those into other cannabis products also made the recommendation that the legislature should remove from the prohibited products list solid concentrates with THC concentration of 60% or above for people who are over 25 25 or older and also the recommendation that the board have jurisdiction over the manufacturer and sale of products containing any of the deltas that have that have certain effects so also in context of this recommendation the exploratory subcommittee at its December meeting spoke about this recommendation and reviewed the Massachusetts review of the existing scientific literature and data coming out of Massachusetts and their conclusion that there really was not sufficient evidence to recommend a concentration of CBD be included and subcommittee also concluded there was insufficient evidence to impose that label minimum CBD amount so for your discussion so I really don't know where to begin with this I mean I have heard the science that having a certain amount of CBD is a benefit to people as but how much and why we would require it to me is just way out of our depth and way out of our really regulatory mandate and if Massachusetts did an extensive review of the existing scientific literature and said we don't know whether this is a good thing or not I mean why would we do anything on this I think it's not only out of our depth I think it seems to be out of everybody's depth at this point at this point in time so I don't think that makes sense for us to make a recommendation and get ahead of science that is evolving because of the federal status and you know data is interesting because depending on who's funding certain data streams or whatever the case may be you can arrive at a destination that you might have pre-selected until there's more unbiased data I think it makes sense for us to just not recommend anything I'm fine with not recommending it I don't think we need to but I also don't I want to make sure it's not prohibited I don't think it's prohibited or if it is I mean it's certainly not the flower we're talking about manufactured products I don't think it's prohibited we can figure that out it's not there's some provisions that indicate that they can't be in the same part of the store we're dealing with that elsewhere so we can move on from this so finally there's a requirement that we issue a recommendation regarding the display and fail of cannabis related paraphernalia that's sold by non-cannabis establishment licensees so can I just clarify so that's sold by non-cannabis establishment licensees so does that mean if it's sold by a cannabis establishment licensee that it's regulated by us not by tobacco or would it I need help often the direct words of the legislature do need a little clarification so there is a requirement in statute now that if you want to sell tobacco paraphernalia a license from DLL I believe that's a second class license so presumably people who are cannabis establishments people who seek a license from us and receive one who would want to sell cannabis related paraphernalia that could also be interpreted to be tobacco related paraphernalia they would need to also have a license from DLL there's no legal distinction between cannabis related paraphernalia and tobacco related paraphernalia so not that I know of could we make one, do you think, by regulation as in if you are a cannabis retail licensee the pipes and bongs that you sell in your store are cannabis related paraphernalia they're not tobacco related paraphernalia I'd have to look at the definition of tobacco related paraphernalia in Title 7 I don't have it in front of me I think that's interesting the way requiring the way this reads to me is that you can only sell these paraphernalia on pipes, bongs, whatever else you want at a dispensary and I think that's just not necessary there's adult stores, there's gas stations there's everything else that sells these products if their intent was to ask us can these only be sold at retail locations that are also selling cannabis it doesn't make any sense to me I think that's the question I think if it's sold outside of a cannabis retail establishment then I don't think we want to be responsible for that I don't want to be responsible for that, trust me but I want to make sure that those vendors or people operating those establishments don't get unintentionally swept up in something that we're a decision that we're trying to make because people have certain shops that they like to shop at for certain products as relates to apparatuses and I don't want to force them to go to a certain place by the apparatus recognizing that it's already regulated as a class 2 license from DLL so what kind of recommendation do we want to make on this I think what we would say potentially is something along the lines of we don't know what cannabis related paraphernalia means and so whatever the current current status of cannabis related paraphernalia is we want to leave it alone I'm interested in your you're trying to thread the needle because what I don't want necessarily is for DLL if we're not going to work with DLL to help on our enforcement to have a backdoor into getting into a cannabis retail establishment if that retail establishment does decide to sell paraphernalia so we need to understand where make sure there is no overlapping jurisdiction so we don't get subverted I'm not saying there's anything in the various that DLL would necessarily do but I think that's something that I was thinking of when I saw this we also don't know the limitations I'm getting that class 2 license so when you have a criminal background and get a class 2 license would you be limited in being able to sell like if you're a retailer we've specifically opened the door for folks with criminal backgrounds would they be then limited on what they can sell if you're not allowed to sell those things under the class 2 license so it seems like we would want to be able to regulate it if it's an cannabis establishment but otherwise not if that has a possibility yeah, I mean no one is forcing cannabis licensee to sell cannabis paraphernalia so in some ways they're opening that door themselves if they want and then DLL has authority they're opening the door to that authority but to that regulation it seems unrealistic though so you're we would expect a retailer to sell flour but not a pipe you know, it's their choice I mean if there is essentially unless we have a definition of cannabis related paraphernalia that's different than tobacco related paraphernalia there is not one right now that's tobacco related paraphernalia it's a pretty broad definition that does include rolling papers for example and it includes bongs, it includes most things that I think you would think of as I think of cannabis related paraphernalia because at the time that was the only way you could sell those things right you couldn't sell them if they were cannabis related paraphernalia my only concern is making sure that whether it's gas stations or adult stores or whoever else is selling or glass shops that have that specific purpose don't get swept up unintentionally I was trying to take jurisdiction by then not being able to do it unless they have a retail license from us which would out a lot of those products from being sold elsewhere so we could either we'd go one or two ways on this I think one would be just saying let the status quo survive untouched, don't recommend any changes just let all pipe spongs paraphernalia be regulated as tobacco paraphernalia the way that it is currently or we could say we believe that we should have a definition for cannabis related paraphernalia that's exclusive that paraphernalia that's exclusively sold by a cannabis retail licensee and there's no tobacco on premises there's nothing tobacco related it's all tied to the cannabis retail and then we have jurisdiction over that paraphernalia I think if we can do that I like that can we do it? I don't know but I might be you know I think it's really just a recommendation at this point not right now because it's your brand sorry about that well now everybody alright well we'll see what happens perfect you though we will review we will review this again on Thursday and again on Monday so I'm going to move on another thing that the legislature required us to do is to work with some various state agencies to develop outreach training and employment programs that are focused on providing economic opportunities to people who historically have been disproportionately impacted by cannabis prohibition which we are doing but the board has talked about how this may be kind of an in or an opportunity for the board to make some legislative recommendations that may encourage the legislature to enact some policies that could serve to mitigate some of the economic harms that have been caused by cannabis prohibition so some ideas that the board has discussed are here in the bulleted points recommending that the legislature allocate a percentage of the cannabis excise tax to the business development fund that they've created on an annual basis create a cannabis community reinvestment fund similar to what other states have done for example New York that would be set up to provide resources specifically to communities that have experienced that disproportionate impact and then recommend that a percentage of the excise tax be demoted to that fund on an annual basis for your discussion I always have a little bit of a tough time when it comes to us making recommendations about how the tax revenue is spent it's clearly outside of our authority and it's clearly not contemplated as something that we should be deciding but that being said the cannabis business development fund is woefully underfunded and it's not going to have any sort of massive impact to helping social equity applicants get off the ground in the absence of banking and traditional access to capital so what we did obviously as we said is a condition of licensure our higher tiers cultivators can contribute to that fund contribute a portion of their profits as a way to have some sustained revenue source going into it but I do think that given the cornerstone of this legislation being social equity and trying to mitigate the harms of prohibition and making this recommendation would not be outside of the balance of what we should be doing I agree this is central to the mission that the legislature gave us I would say yes to all three of those bullet points to me it seems like the most immediate need is the cannabis business development fund and putting a significant percentage in there I really like the idea of the cannabis community reinvestment fund but I also know that there's other money coming into the state of Vermont through ARPA funds and other funds now that maybe those funds can support some of those efforts but there's other money available for the types of programs that might benefit there should be some sort of annual funding I don't think that we can just say cannabis community reinvestment fund and not have a more detailed plan for what that looks like and how that money is allocated I know that H414 does have a plan the plan I think is a little unwieldy you know I know that we as a board tried to define disproportionately impacted communities and economic opportunity zones and I found both of those processes to be incredibly over inclusive and at the same time not targeted enough to actually reach people that needed it and we left a lot of people out as well that are that have been harmed by prohibition by trying to just kind of find zip codes or policing districts or whatever else to kind of figure out what an impacted community is so we have to find some way to say if we just tell the legislature cannabis community reinvestment funds they'll spend the next year the next session trying to define what that means and who gets to allocate the money and how much I think if we're going to make that recommendation we have to be a little bit more prescriptive to feel the legislature about what it is and what it looks like and that's a whole different conversation that's my own feeling on that so I think I agree I think I agree with take the legislature some time to sort of develop what that meant and to define it I think we could provide them with some details you know we could say it could go to mental health you know we know that in terms of disproportionate impact we know that people of color at the same level of mental health they haven't received the same level of health care in general so we could be specific about how it was used and where it went you know maybe it went towards programs where social services is supporting police departments and answering calls so that they're providing social services instead of police services yeah I think it makes sense every modern more recent I should say legal state has included something along these lines so it's a little bit of an oversight that it's not in you know S25 or X62 X61 64 and I think that this conversation will come up I'm happy to support it I just I mean we can just support it and just see what happens to support the concepts yeah do you think that we need to prioritize which of these things is most important so that the legislature puts their efforts in the right place you know I don't need to I don't mean to prognosticate about the legislature's intent or what they're going to be able to do I do think that the cannabis business development fund is essential to actually equitable and effective market and so we can very easily say this fund is insufficient to actually do what it's intended to do and then we could say and by the way if you really want to correct the harms of prohibition, the war on drugs that you need to reinvest in the communities that have been harmed with the excise tags and just not getting more specific about what that looks like yeah I absolutely agree I think we need you know both of these funds recognizing that the community reinvestment fund we're going to have to help do some legwork to make sure that it's and then some of the legwork has already been done by advocates that you know tried to do this already so I don't want to take credit for that and I think it's fair to prioritize every leader is busy the legislature is incredibly busy so they're going to want to hear from us what is the most important, what is necessary to make this work and I think it's fair to say that that is the cannabis business development fund but that the repair is needed through the reinvestment fund and I do think the business development fund is extremely necessary I mean I know you mentioned ARPA funding I wonder how federal funds can be used in this industry I didn't mean it for the business fund but for like the community reinvestment meaning that if there are like community projects that ARPA funding can go there's lots of other funding that's coming into the state that's unusual right now no I get that thanks for clarifying anything more on these would we want to talk about a specific percentage that we would suggest or would we want to just put that in the hands of the legislature to allocate a certain percentage I mean I don't think I don't want to pull a number out of a hat right now because that's not well informed but that would be something that we need to the social equity subcommittee said I think 5-10% for the business development fund I think we should do higher I think we've got recommendations for 20% for that they're going to do what they're going to do that's absolutely right but at least they have a starting point I just needed a starting point before we you know I'm glad that thanks for the reminder that that was discussed so the next part of the discussion today is going to be about this revised fee structure proposals so at our meeting in November with Ways and Means when we presented the October 15th report and the associated fee structure recommendations you'll remember that the committee did express some concern that some of the fees may have been too low and asked that we return with a new proposal so what I've put together here is proposal C and it increases the price per square foot in a way that keeps those lower tier cultivators relatively the same as proposal B which was our original recommendation and then it increases the price per square foot for the middle higher tiers and gradually becoming more expensive as the tiers get higher and just to note that the license fees here for the upper tiers for indoor cultivation are higher overall as compared to other states and I included the slide that we submitted with the October 15th report that does a comparison to those other states so here's proposal C and you can see it in comparison to the other two proposals that were submitted on October 15th so you can see the first two outdoor tiers one and two are the same as what we proposed proposal B and then the price per square foot goes up a little bit as you get higher higher and the mixed tier just goes up $50 so I'd like to just talk briefly on the so we're totally looking at outdoor you know we've received a number of public comments about the inequity between indoor and outdoor outdoor particularly in Vermont based on our planet and it does seem, I know we have our equivalent plant count written there and I just want to expand upon that a little bit I know that the thousand square foot has been to us by the legislature as the definition of small cultivator I do think that the legislature did not want to prioritize indoor cultivation you know implicitly they didn't make a distinction between indoor versus outdoor so I think this could be an opportunity for us you know I see it written there but to actually propose an equivalent plant count to legislature for outdoor they would yield a similar amount as a thousand foot indoor cultivation would we do that just for the thousand square feet or would we have equivalent plant counts for other tiers see the thing you know I think we almost want to do it for all of them except you know I know why we chose the thirty seven five and I don't want there to be concurrent too much concurrent jurisdiction with other agencies that really slows down our licensing process and you know the well in tier is it tier five and six that we're not going to open right away or just tier six or that was indoor that was indoor but maybe we have equivalent plant counts for the kind of tier one through four and so the way that I I mean if we want to present that to the legislature and ask them for approval I'd be fine with it but in trying to figure out this plant count methodology I really thought that our best effort our easiest path to doing this without I'm not going to say without legislative oversight but at least without legislative trying to make us present another option as they've already have which is frustrating to figure it out myself as 904A small cultivators we have the ability to do a little bit more for the smaller tiers so I was thinking in reviewing this concept making it just for the smaller tiers and attaching a plant count to that because we could probably do it through rulemaking without as much legislative oversight so which is that just tier one tier one is we have to tie it to the definition of small cultivator that's my my scheme I shouldn't say that if we want to talk about doing it for other tiers I'm happy to do that but I think through rulemaking we could do it we have enough power in Act 164 to make special accommodations for small cultivators and there is no as you said differentiation between indoor and outdoor the small cultivator and that's why tying the indoor plant count average plant count recognizing different methodologies of growing indoors to an outdoor plant count that would be equivalent to that indoor thousand square foot so in terms of plant count does that help with the flowering versus total canopy concern that's been raised to us? I think that it does I'm sure there's folks out there would rather have it be flowering canopy versus total canopy and I certainly understand that I think from the point of regulating plant count will be easier than asking inspectors to go out there with a tape measure or something along those lines to kind of see what's really going on but I think again my view and I could be corrected happy to always be corrected is that attaching the plant count to just tier one or just to small cultivators gives us the authority to do it without having to go ask for a legislative change like the definition of plant canopy or are we pushing the bounds too much of legislative intent by attaching a plant count to higher tiers I'm not against doing that I thought this would be just the tier one would be most strictly our jurisdiction to do it So you did a lot of work with the folks at ANR on this if for some reason outdoor cultivation was deemed to be an agricultural activity in an agricultural product would it add 250 apply for the larger tiers I think it still would because I think if certain things that happen at the legislature I think that that that fix only attaches itself to small cultivators not all outdoor cultivators that's what was introduced Is that is that under an acre though or is there an acreage attached to that and now we're going to act we don't have to do that so there's 10 acre towns and there's one acre towns and there's a reason for my Supreme Court opinion that says I can do it later I'm trying to remember it all the top of my head there's a reason Supreme Court opinion that says improvement in a one acre town over an acre falls within Act 250 jurisdiction but if it's under an acre it's not under Act 250 jurisdiction and that's why I asked to pull the Tech Tier 6 footage from 40,000 down to under an acre recognizing that that's not an acre but the other activities that you might do in the process of creating your cultivation area might expand beyond an acre so we kept everything under an acre to help people in one acre towns there's still an outsize question on impacts in 10 acre towns I think I explained that yeah Krause you have it but but a bill that was introduced today to make outdoor small cultivators an agricultural product does not apply to anybody that would not be considered a small cultivator I mean I definitely agree with the small having a plant count for the small cultivators I guess I could go either way with the other ones I mean I think it's probably helpful for the cultivators yeah so the cultivators that I talked to the reason why they really prefer the plant count as opposed to a square footage is because there are ways to really enrich the soil by having kind of lanes in between your cannabis plot plastic and a deal of mites that can you know, mitigate soil erosion etc and so they don't want to be jammed into a thousand square feet because half of that they would prefer to have kind of lanes in between their cannabis plants so I just don't know so they're the ones that I have talked to said you know a thousand square feet indoors should probably be roughly and there is kind of a scientific basis for this or at least kind of a mathematical basis 125 plants outdoors so when you start to apply that ratio to some of the higher like the 10,000 and 5,000 you're going to quickly get into active 50 territory and so we do kind of agree with Kyle that maybe we start with the tier 1 outdoor maybe tier 2 if we can find a way to finagle it and then possibly tier 3 and then stop there yeah and I'm going to be opposed to that I think it'll take some oh I don't know what it will necessarily take but I think it's more strictly in our jurisdiction to start with tier 1 and we might need some help across the street for the higher tiers as we get further away from the power of 904a for small cultivators and making new accommodations I wonder will that stand out through the regulatory process yeah that's my only concern I'd be happy to attach plants counts to everything if we could alright well we can kind of finalize our thinking on this before Monday next Monday so moving on to the indoor fees so again starting first two tiers are the same as proposal B and proposal C and then they get progressively a little bit higher from where we landed in proposal B and again tier 6 indoor is the one that is not immediately going to be opened retail so retail storefront returns to proposal A 10,000 and then season clones goes up to 2,500 from 1,000 manufacturing fees returns to proposal A for tier 1 again goes up to 2,500 for tier 2 and then based on your discussion this morning sounds like we're going to return to the manufacturer cottage tier do you have a basic sense of where it should fall price wise cost wise on the fees I think it should align with the small cultivated fees and then this is just the comparison chart comes from the October 15th report to comparison with comparable jurisdictions and again you know our consultant has indicated to us that the fact that our fees are higher than they are in comparable jurisdictions may indicate that they're too high to generate much entrepreneurial interest which could leave us in a position where there's not enough regulated product on the market to meet the demand I need to say that because we have said that to us on multiple occasions so you can see 750 to 34,000 is the new range under proposal C and that is generally a bit higher than what exists in Massachusetts and in Alaska quite a bit higher for indoor do you anticipate including this slide specifically in our January 15th report so no not in the January 15th report but this would be relevant for the conversation of ways I mean as they consider this proposal C and yes that was an included in that presentation for them still support proposal B I guess I'm looking for the board's authorization to present proposal C as an alternative since they did ask us for one so we are increasing the fees which generates more income I guess for the board but we're also decreasing the entrepreneurial demand which finishes our income potential so does this mean that we're going to be asking for roughly the same amount of the excise taxes to support our operations and so really the only benefit to going with proposal C is that for the only the only thing that really changes is that we might not have enough cannabis to supply the market that's certainly one doesn't paint a very pretty picture they asked for a new proposal I mean a different proposal I shouldn't say a new proposal because I don't want to prejudge that they've already dismissed proposal A and proposal B it may be helpful for the legislature to see like here's proposal C but it does not we really end up in a different place and that you know we still our team proposal I am appreciative that it keeps slow for smaller cultivators indoor and outdoor I think the retail license even if it's consistent with states like Massachusetts but yeah I mean another option but as I hope I'm sure you'll tell them this brand consider the potential outcomes for going with proposal C yep do we need to vote on it today or can we do it as a package on one day I think that I don't think you need to vote on it but I do think it would be helpful to just because you're going into ways of being on Thursday yeah have your authorization there is one more slide that has the I thought there was one more there is of the other piece I just wanted to go through that quickly before you have your final conversation the obviously a significant difference here for the integrated licensee wholesalers return to proposal A testing labs stays the same so does employee registration local processing fee has been bumped up to $500 from $100 and then the product registration fee proposal that was not included in the October 15th report and our November first report did introduce the idea that the board could create a product registration process as a part of its review to ensure that the delta products were that we're hitting the market were safe so we're proposing here $50 per product fee that would support both random testing of the products and also the board's review of each product to ensure that it's appropriate for adult use and the label isn't misleading I'm nervous about the product, per product I mean I think it might hinder the market a little bit in terms of creativity and the products that people might develop and their genetics I could just know a little more about that I think it's important because not because of the amount but because it helps us ensure that all the products that hit the shelves we know what they are so in some ways the fee could be lower because it's really the process that we care about just ensuring that that process has been done for every product I think we would need obviously right here it just says per product we don't know exactly what that means we would have to further define that and we could define it in such a way that doesn't really hinder the kind of genetics it's really about is this a delta 8 isolate is it a delta 10 or 11 isolate what do we know about delta 8 and at the time where we're viewing it is you know I think you're right that if it's any variation in the kind of cannabinoid profile requires a new product registration fee that could be problematic it could hinder innovation but I do think that we need something and we could say not to exceed 50 dollars or 50 dollar max for products and the lingo use comes from I'm sure it's used in many places but I know in talking with folks at the agency of agriculture they can they can help support a lot of programs through product registration from a feed and seed perspective from a pesticide perspective so on and so forth so the ag department or agency do you know who generally who pays this fee is it the retailer of the product or is it the manufacturer of the product I think I know but I don't want to I guess it could be either it doesn't really matter you know you could have if you're a product manufacturer you could pay the fee and say listen I paid for the fee it's I want to say it's the retailer how can you generate too much revenue from this fee to pay for state program you know if it's a manufacturer making a product that's one for every retailer that is selling the product that retailer who wants the I don't know now I'm talking I'm talking without much I don't know the specifics of how these registration fees work I think we need to we can leave it first but I think we have a lot of conversation about what is the product so if somebody is making chocolate chip cookies and then they make snicker drills is another $50 you know I think we need to be very clear about what that is you don't have any cookies I don't have any cookies I'm hungry now alright well maybe just for any you could just put that this is a maximum fee for a product and that product will be defined by rule or something or just if asked would we also apply the reduced fee schedule that we have for social equity applicants to this for the product registration we recommend you know we recommend a scaling up of the fees overtime would we apply that to this as well I mean again to me it's really the the process you know this is a way for us to ensure that every product on the shelf you know is tested and has some you know we know that has known health effects so to me the fee isn't quite as important so I don't mind scaling it reducing it waving it for the applicants as long as they go through the process so that in the pesticide context I don't have the feed and seed I know that the feed and seed program is completely funded through registration but for pesticides the manufacturer pays a fee and if you want to deal those pesticides you also have to pay a fee okay but I mean it's like it's not an individual fee it's like you pay 50 bucks to be a pesticide retailer class B dealer but the manufacturer has to individually pay four products that are looked at and made sure they're safely tested in the state per product okay not to confuse everybody even more but in some ways we have that same structure here because you're paying to be a retail licensee and now the product manufacturer is going to pay per product so I think that's smart alright yeah I think we can give you approval of propositions unless I hear an injection nope thanks guys thank you so why don't we move to public comment almost right on time and we will if you've joined by the link please raise your virtual hands we'll try to call you Nellie maybe you can help us call people in the order that they raise their hands we've got Amelia first yeah I had a couple thoughts and I'll try to keep it quick the first is if you're going to implement an age minimum on concentrates over 60% then you also need to carve out a medical patient acceptance watch somebody with a medical card who is under the age of 25 should still be able to access those concentrates given that they're already able to access them within the integrated and then the other thing I was thinking was just in hearing the talk about safe consumption sites it's a little concerning that in 2022 we're still hearing rhetoric about like contact highs and what's safe for the people around you when you're smoking you are in a well ventilated area outside contact highs do not happen and there was recently a study done that I will gladly say to you guys by the National Institute on Drug Use that also shows the effect of secondhand infant smoke on things like drug tests contact highs etc so just what we're talking about public consumption and safe consumption spaces I just really, really want to make sure that we're not pushing outdated rhetoric on something like a contact high and a potential danger there when there is a one yeah, that was it, thank you Thanks Amelia Next we have Eli in first consulting Lady, alright thank you very much I just want to say on the events I think the question of detaching consumption from sales events, you know the current problem that I think was alluded to was legal consumption spaces and that is apparently different than sales at these events, right so there's a way to get started using the alcohol model literally we did this in 2018 in the Memorial County Sheriff's Department in the town of Johnson went through this process step by step EMTs, plans, so you know, using the department of liquor control templates really and having some clear red lines like hey, we don't want to see anybody consuming cannabis in the beer garden right, it's basic things like that we were able to with those people in law enforcement and public safety have a comfortable scenario where there was some consumption in a safe regulated way where everyone was ID checked in 21 plus on private property so sales and consumption I think are two things that need to be detached for the purposes of events and that people have cannabis at the weddings already we just need to tell them it's okay to smoke it there or preferably maybe directly to where we would like them to rather than other things so being proactive on that I think it's I think it's big you know as far as the bees thinking about the outdoor cultivation, you know just for reference you know, I know the Senate when they talked about this wanting to be competitive with Massachusetts you know it's 25 cents per square foot indoors and a 12.5 cents per square foot outdoors right, so those were the initial standards for Massachusetts and we're still clearly way outside of that understand the idea of going to perpetrate for outdoor cultivation you know and would just suggest that as far as social equity I think the elephant in the room is still the question of the integrated licenses with the market access that they have and considering if the need is to raise this money for a cannabis the reinvestment fund you know the reinvestment fund is social equity I would much rather speed the vertical license be $500,000 to subsidize the rest of this program over the licensing fees then to see higher tax rates the illicit market and then put this into some fund that's then distributed by the state which I personally do not have a ton of faith in due to previous not you folks paradigms and regulators so I think that's just something to consider when we're talking about social equity that is very much a put on the scale already and that's who restorative justice would be to let the integrated licenses where we now know are all owned by multinational corporations that could theoretically afford it to let them subsidize a lot more of this so that you really can not be charging $50 per strain for somebody to get set up so I think there are other ways to go about raising money with things like fishing licenses we've talked about in the past for out-of-state consumers that could be sold at general stores and that we need to find a way to get the burden off of these small cruisers and off of consumers that we have a chance to really compete here so thank you for the chance to speak and the consideration Thank you, Eli Next is Graham Hi everybody, this is Graham, you're here for not I'm Carlson, director of World Remond I just wanted to say first of all, I appreciate where you all have kind of been general on social equity you are also a member of the Remond Community Society Coalition as the members of the Board know we fully support your recommendations in terms of this poll, it's really ongoing funding to see the Canvas Development Fund the excise tax for investment communities as well in terms of percentage, I believe we've recommended 20% of the excise tax I also wanted to elevate Eli's comments really to see the appropriate support and the very things great companies in terms of on-site consumption, I think Eli and Amelia make really good points on-site consumption is different from sales and certain purposes and I think where you all made point to mention the sort of fundamental disconnect between the reality of consumption in the state and the current regulations, they're an equity relationship, privileged to consume in general the intonability, living hand or tour suddenly will access to places to consume and what I'm hearing is that you're concerned about the culture of fear that's still associated with the plan and because of that you only feel comfortable starting with a temporary retail license for events but I think my concern is that that doesn't really address the concerns related to private first access sorry Graham hold on a second consumption with a temporary retail event it will remain legally inaccessible in life unattractive unless the portability person can on one's own to most residents and tourists in terms of the other retail licenses the question of whether they be fully regulated so I think these are all very accessible models for retail, the farm gate the example about the general store having its place we have all the examples we have examples of licenses like this existing they're morally probably distributed for wells and types of businesses we have models for how they're differentiated in terms of risk to use alcohol and tobacco and ammunition and all the purchase of general stores and gas stations and groceries and such a lot of concerns around visibility and optics usually from a real risk in the landscape we're present in in terms of farm gate you know as a representing agricultural organization I just want to again to say that I think there's some narratives that you're espousing here that just aren't grounded in the realities of concern that they keep coming up in terms of having we're not talking about equal regulation it's being full retail in farm gate sales for example we're talking about equitable regulation we're talking about very different types of sales when you're only selling your own agricultural product you're going from product to produce on your farm it's very different than selling product you're buying in constantly from producers all around the state we have in terms of the bullet cannibalized traditional retail I think was the direct quote I heard from an objective perspective it makes no sense to fully we have farm stands farm stores, farm markets other examples of retail environments are very different in full groceries and it's not cannibalized groceries I'd be happy to speak to retailers and feel like this would be a threat to them but really we have examples throughout whether or not being a threat and I just appreciate that narrative sort of not being espoused through them being pushed back against I'll leave it there Thanks for having me Next is Jesse Lin Hello this is Jesse Lin I have to do a little SPL I apologize I'm the president of the American Nurses Association Vermont as well as the director of the American Cannabis Nurses Association my statements do not necessarily represent either organization I'm a research nurse specializing in pain management and opioid use disorder and pregnancy and in-comput withdrawal so as you guys know I tend to have feedback and comments so I have a few please thank you for listening and having a public comment session as far as delivery I would ask that as you guys continue to hopefully continue the conversation and consider not having the unburden of taxes for patients at an adult use retail and allowing patients to not pay that tax and be able to shop at adult use retail if that is not an option to consider at least extending that option possibly for delivery so adult use can deliver to patients I would also like you guys to consider on-site consumption that as some of these licensed cannabis facilities we will be employing patients and people who consume to help them get through their day and use cannabis as medicine so if that can be part of the conversation so licensed cannabis facilities allowing on-site consumption for patients and employees I think is important to address I'd also like to second what E.Y. said I was there with him and I think we did a fabulous job talking to law enforcement officers and really keeping a very safe and respectful organized event so I will second and for anything we can do to work towards having those events permit I would like to not think of that so much though differently than on-site consumption with alcohol when we allow alcohol we do not ask them to have an overnight plan to not be driving home we understand that they are adults and they are making the decision to have the education to either keep themselves safe or to have a designated driver I think that becomes an issue and a concern from that social equity aspect as far as having the finance to make that part of that mandated I also have had many elderly folks reach out to me and ask for educational opportunity and an event to partake and consume with somebody during the day and have the ability to sit there for hours and hang it out and then hours later feel comfortable leaving and going home I would not want to also lose that opportunity for folks like that I would like to see if there's ever a possibility that you guys can consider when you're talking about all these fees is there and I could be totally wrong is there any way you guys have any authority to allow sliding scale fees at different points or different applicants and you know at what point can you do that when we look at the direct sale I'm sorry the licensing from you know gas station or a store and parceling that out I would encourage and like to advocate for you guys to be looking first at those direct sales let's have the farmers and the cultivators do that before we allow a little gas station or a store and I'm thinking both from that educational standpoint I would want to ensure that we have people who are bud tenders or people who are selling those products have more education than not and I believe direct sales from a farm or cultivator has a very different level of education respect and understanding of the plant so I would like to just advocate for that more so I think that is it thank you guys so much for listening thank you Jesse next to Ben hi everyone happy 2022 thank you all so much for this I don't want to be too repetitive I think that Jesse and Graham and other commenters have definitely addressed the fact that while the consumption options and event options that you all discussed so far are really a phenomenal jumping off point it does not necessarily address all the equity concerns and we have to wait to prove the success of the events first I think we all will understand but we will also continue to be aware of the audiences that are not yet served I have been working on the policy document that I will circulate to some of these people who have been commenting for months and months so hopefully we can get some things in front of you for consideration for the 15 report and otherwise I just want to thank you for bringing up the broadening of the delivery license that is really important for folks, especially for the folks that are looking to build a business that we can stand on for more than just five years so thank you all so much thank you Ben next is Mark hey Mark just got a couple things here hey brand David team happy new years all of you let's see let's go back something I think we missed in our recommendations that we sent over to you I don't think we caught it I think it might have come up and it was a little further contingent back in section 23 of Act 164 Title 23 1202 and what it was is the consent of David in terms of blood alcohol content for the presence of you know what I'm talking about it was pretty big on the negotiations that were committee conference and I think it slid out the gate at me and this kind of goes to partially goes to conversation that we were having earlier just about nobody really being in a position to talk about this whole THC content was it another I think perspective that's just content and product but we know these tests aren't reliable we know they impact mostly they're probably going to be the folks that are disproportionately being stopped by law enforcement and then we get into constitution and I don't even know how to slid by the ACLU trying to figure out are there any plans to go in and get this addressed since this is a public comment I'm not going to wait for that answer but that's something I'm going to ponder the other thing is and there's additional language that goes down there I'm not going to belay it right now but it's all connected and it goes into that policy integrated license yeah, like Eli said like others were saying the whole structure it's outlining 4.14 so we're still lined up we're supporting society again we know this entire process and we continue to support the policy that's on the wall in house government operations that lays out the strategy on exactly how to go about getting that done so if you're looking for some language you're still over there and yeah I'm going to go now to the report that we did offer you on page 11 if you have it I'm just going to talk a little bit about some stuff on racial equity as it pertains to some other things like Act 62 that's set to 15 implementation of medical cannabis registry at the time this is written I don't know by the way congratulations on the year you guys got dropped in your lap few days ago I understand the whole medical cannabis piece so there's the medical cannabis registry and the regulation of so what I'm looking at is I'm not clear on the timelines and the steps whereby the medical cannabis registry and the regulation of the cannabis dispensaries that they begin to comport to the principles and the standards and rules that are established by the CCB regarding equity and I'd love to catch somebody off line on that or maybe there's a note or maybe you can come back with that because it sounds like there's supposed to be a convergence in Reno but I think most people understand that there's inherently inequity of those entities operating in this market and it's hard to navigate so the next one is substance misuse this is a pretty good size one substance misuse and prevention it was also in that report and the reason I'm bringing it up is just that I haven't heard a whole lot about it it seems like you know when you take and allocate 30% of this funding to something it seems that there'll be more conversation about it it's a big little chunk of change and I think what we asked you to do is reminding you is to give some consideration to the historic poor outcomes of this approach this whole substance abuse and misuse approach to black and brown communities as it pertains to much anything to include that to that it just hasn't served our communities very well so we're hoping that the program somehow or another can be branded and tailored in a way that's more culturally sensitive and it may be even administered by some black-led organizations to effectively benefit these black and brown communities we're talking cultural sensitivity in these areas because that message of just don't do it may not necessarily be the message that some of my communities really need to hear because there are other messages so let me see here let me go back again and talk a little bit about the recommendations to the legislature and I know you're going to come back to this and I know that everybody's trying to stay in lanes but the whole thing about addressing systemic racism is that there are no lanes because everything interconnects and I see your tip tone around 250 which really needs to be addressed itself and knowing and understanding as a board as a well-seasoned assistant attorney general and ledge consul I think we also all know and understand that there are things that are intrinsic in 250 that are problematic in this particular market and that's because it's what we're looking at is we're looking at a policy that was created over 50 years ago that has disproportionate outcomes and has delivered disproportionate outcomes consistently and the only reason why anybody would say it's hand to toe because nobody's been measuring it but the bottom line is there are some things that I mean why are we talking about one acre just the language that we're using there indicates that we got some huge problems so you're not here to fix that but you are here to make recommendations to the legislature and I hope you don't have blinders only to make those recommendations and I hope what you're doing is you're making those recommendations if you see something that has something that there could be some modifications made to that are continuing to contribute to or perpetuate these disproportionate outcomes that you would make those recommendations to even though they don't primarily relate to the cannons industry per se, if you know what I mean to include Act 250 because there's a lot of work in these women there just down to compliance and enforcement again the reason why I'm bringing some of these out is a combination of some of the stuff I haven't heard personally maybe because I haven't been on these calls and then the other piece is that there's been some kind of a communications breakdown if some of you know what I mean between us and the board and some clarity on exactly what you are recommending so I may as well just take this time right now and make sure it's on the record so with the compliance and enforcement piece obviously our concern has been that just as in the illicit market and just in enforcement in general there is a disproportionate disproportionate disproportionate policing in our communities there's nothing to preclude that from happening in the tax and regulated market and we really need to get some attention on that during this rollout and I don't think we wait to let that work itself out because that's not how things work here so that also includes this is many recommendations that may not be primarily in your lane but could be legislative recommendations nonetheless that could have a direct impact on this market such as exceptions for home growers who are renters and how we deal with their landlords and so forth I will leave it there but I'll come back maybe on Friday and give you some more because there's a couple of other things but I'll just leave it there. Thanks for your time and I hope y'all have a great afternoon Thank you Mark No, and there are no phones joined currently Alright, well it's four o'clock and we made it through the agenda so I will adjourn this meeting. Thank you all very much Thank you Thanks everyone who joins