This is James Pepper chair of the Cannabis Control Board. Today is June 17th 2021. It's currently 9 30 so I'll call this meeting to order. I have a few administrative details to go over before we move to our agenda. First the governor has lifted the emergency order and so all the leniency that was provided to government bodies during the state of emergency related to the open meeting laws has also been lifted. We tried to secure a physical location for this meeting in order to comply with the open meeting laws. The logistics really just did not come together on the short notice. We don't have a physical building quite yet. So starting next week our plan is to continue to hold these remote meetings but we will work with BGS to have a physical meeting location for whoever wants to show up and will have at least one board member present at that location. So we will update our website as well as the Department of Libraries website with that location as soon as we have it. Second while we are still technically holding special meetings we are going to be working on adopting a regular meeting schedule. That being said we intend to in the interim continue to hold meetings at this time in this place and likely you know with the physical meeting location soon to be announced. So Thursday is roughly 9 to 2 or 9 30 to 2. For the next few weeks while we're kind of waiting for our executive director to come on board and our consultant we're going to do some of this similar fact-finding around the priorities that we've identified in Acts 164 and 62. Last week we heard some very thought provoking and thoughtful testimony from small growers business owners members of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition and others about the barriers to entry that will prevent them from participating in a regulated market. This week we're doing some initial orientation to social equity and economic empowerment. Next week we are we'd like to focus on the viability long-term viability of the medical use program including how we as a board can ensure access quality and affordability in that program. We'd like to move to youth prevention and education next and then probably the following week will do sustainability and energy and environmental impacts and opportunities in the cultivation and processing of cannabis. I'd like to note just now that in particularly to the people who have not been invited to speak to us or have more that they would like to say that all of these topics that we're talking about early on are really too important and too nuanced for a single meeting or even just a three-person board to fully grasp. These initial conversations are really meant to orient us at a high level to the priorities of Act 164 and 62 and the concerns of stakeholders and others that these bills present. So our plan is to do an extensive stakeholder engagement process likely through our advisory panel and subcommittees and the rulemaking process and we'll start that kind of a little bit later in the summer once we have our executive director and consultant in place to help direct us. That being said if anyone watching has thoughts for us or articles that we should be reading witnesses that we should be hearing from please continue to provide public comment. You can also submit comments through our website at ccb.vermont.gov. You can sign up for our press alerts and to the extent possible please just continue to join our meetings watch them and pass them along to anyone who might be willing to lend us a helping hand or help guide us. So with those kind of just initial administrative details I'd like to move to the agenda. We have made one small edit to the draft minutes that were posted on our website but with that change I'd entertain a motion to approve the minutes. I'll move to approve the minutes from the June 10th meeting. Right thanks. A second. All in favor. Aye. Aye. Okay and now I'm going to move just to a quick discussion of our request for services we published a request for services last Friday on our website and really what that does is details the areas of expertise and the scope of work that we feel that we need to supplement our knowledge base and that of our advisory committee. So very high level very briefly what we're looking for is someone to help us develop social equity programs including criteria for social equity applicant conduct a market analysis including tax and fee projections help us facilitate and direct our advisory committee and the subcommittees that we form help us develop energy efficiency standards grant groundwater considerations sustainability and kind of conservation measures help us develop a retail framework including specialty licenses potentially help us with some of the recommendations that we need to make around potency limits concentrates craft market farm to consumer sales etc. And then services related to our medical use program. So some of the initial comments that I've heard from people that are interested is this is of course a lot of work for anyone consultant to tackle particularly given the budget that we have for this. But it does sound like we have a few interested applicants. I should note that we are to the greatest extent possible going to be relying on stakeholders and our advisory committee and the expertise that they bring to the table to get this job done. But we do feel like we need a consultant to help guide the process. So the application period is open. It's open until June 25th and hopefully at our July 1st meeting we'll be able to select a finalist. So that's the RFP update. We do have next on our agenda we're running I guess pretty far ahead of schedule. Unless any does Kyle Julie do you want to add to any of this. I might just quickly say that that James Julie and I certainly recognize that there's a lot of potential content there for a contractor or a somebody interested in working with us to come back and try and hit all of those bullet points that are in the suggested scope of services portion of the document especially for the dollar figure that we're working with. But what we decided to do is kind of put out every kind of area that we thought in addition to other resources that we have at our disposal. You know what we feel like we could really utilize a consultant with and we're hoping we understand that it's going to be hard to hit all those points. But from a consultant's expertise how do they best feel like they could help us recognizing that certain things the wheel doesn't need to be reinvented for certain portions of what we're trying to accomplish. But things need to be right sized for a state like Vermont understanding the rural nature of what we're trying to do and how we're trying to make sure we're we're learning lessons both good and bad from other states that have really taken a leap into a regulated market. So we get it. It's it's a lot to swallow. And but we're excited to see what proposals do come back. Yeah I think the only thing I would add to that is that you know as Kyle was saying with the and Chair Pepper were saying about the the amount of work that's involved in this you know I think we recognize that we need to find some folks that can bring the national perspective and the market research to us to help complement the great information that we're getting from members of the public and people who are here in Vermont are already part of this process. Yeah that's that's that's absolutely right. I think you know we heard last week that we need a uniquely Vermont marketplace and I think we need some help getting there and that's going to be a combination of our consultant and the stakeholders in our advisory panel and our own kind of departments of agriculture you know public service etc. So it's going to be a collaboration and there's certain aspects of our request for services. Just like you said Kyle that our need to be custom to Vermont and certain aspects that I think we can look to other states and try and at least learn what they've done and use some of their guidance. So I think if there's nothing more on the request for services we'll of course have an update next week on that but maybe we should just take a moment to open for public comment. So we've been doing this kind of in two phases. First phase would be anyone who is joined through the link could just raise their virtual hands and we'll try and go in the order that the hands are raised and then for those folks who might be on the phone just to wait until I kind of open things up to people on the phone. And again I don't see anyone on the phone but if if someone joins you hit star six to unmute yourself. So if anyone in the who's joined through the link has a public comment please feel free to just raise your virtual hands. I know it's a little early in the morning to get called on but let's give it just another minute or so. So I have David Templeman first and then Graham second. So David if you would mind just unmuting. Can you see what's going on here. Can you hear me. I can hear you I think you may have flipped your camera. But. Yes. Good morning I just wanted to take this moment to thank you all the last meeting was really amazing to to have you all actually listen to other people with my own concerns and acknowledge them. And you know coming from California there is no forum like that and I think we are in a very privileged and special place here to be able to have this conversation at all. And I just wanted to say thank you. Thank you. Graham did you want to unmute. The only thing I just wanted to say I'll just come back in a second public comment period right now and I'll see you this little later I know but thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to provide a public comment at this point and I would just remind everyone that what we're trying to do is to have more public comment kind of woven throughout the agenda so that people can respond to things that they're hearing in in more real time than just kind of one public comment period at the end. And I don't see anyone on the phone so I guess I'll skip that but I guess maybe it might be good now just to give a little primer about what we're going to be talking about today with our witnesses. Of course you know when we did our walkthrough of Act 164 and Act 62 with some of the lead sponsors of those of those bills it was very clear of course that you know trying to bring in as many of the small cultivators and people that are currently growing into a regulated framework is one of the key tent poles of the legislation. And the other one that is very explicit in Act 62 particularly is about social equity economic empowerment and trying to repair to the extent possible some of the harms that we've seen over the past any number of decades with respect to the war on drugs selective policing redlining and all the kind of collateral consequences that come with criminal history records. It's not certainly I've said before and I will say again no amount of cannabis policy alone that the board can do is going to correct those kind of second third and fourth order effects. But that's not to say that we there aren't things that we can do to help deemphasize the use of criminal history records to provide tools assistance capital to social equity applicants people that have been disproportionately harmed and really to kind of take a strategic think thinking on how we define social equity applicant. We heard from Susanna Davis early on and we're going to continue to hear from her and learn from her and learn about how we can promote equity in all of our decision making. So today we're really going to hear we're very fortunate that we have such a great witness list today to hear not just about equity in Vermont from some of the people that have been fighting this fight for decades I mean specifically on cannabis policy for at least half a decade and some some people that have been disproportionately impacted by criminal history records and have really felt the collateral consequences of those and then also from some national experts that have done some great thinking about how do you define social equity applicant what's worked what hasn't worked and how we can kind of embrace what I would call on what's being well what's being called social equity 2.0. And so Julie really put together the witness list for today which is just phenomenal and I'd like to you know we're going to take a break but I'd like to just turn things over to you Julie briefly if you kind of want to give just a little bit of a primer on the kind of agenda for today. Sure I think it it's worth pointing out that President Nixon announced the war on drugs 50 years ago today so perhaps it's our proposal that we're having this discussion today and it's taken 50 years to get to this point where we're you know looking at reducing those harms in earnest both on a state and local level and on a national level so in in terms of building the witness list today you know as Chair Pepper said we've reached out to some folks who are local who have experience personal experience to share in the criminal justice system and how it's impacted their lives and then also one person who did quite a bit of advocacy work in the legislature for the social equity programs that will be building. And then later in the afternoon we have some folks who've done some national work that can share with us some lessons learned in other states. And the the idea behind this is it's you know the very beginning of a much longer conversation of things that will you know equity will touch every piece of you know this legislation and every piece of the rules and program that we build. So this is the first of many conversations and we tried to bring in a variety of voices and we'll continue to do that. That's great thank you for that and the historical perspective as well. Kyle is there anything you'd like to add you know we can get in touch with Mark and see if maybe he's willing to join us a little bit early. Nellie maybe you could maybe you could do that. But is there anything you'd like to add before we take a kind of brief break and get ready for all witnesses. I think I think you both covered it. I think it's it's going to be a very important discussion today. I'm excited to hear from folks from a different couple of perspectives in the state of Vermont. Those that have been fighting this fight. Those that have had previous convictions for marijuana related issues in their past and hearing nationally how you know how some states and advocacy groups have really tried to make social equity front and center to a lot of these programs and the shortcomings associated with that. Chair Pepper I did see Graham's hand go back up during your remarks. I don't know if he tried or if his daughter may have afforded him the ability to provide a comment. But I know we're in this little waiting game. It might be appropriate to see if Graham is. I don't want to put Graham on the spot. If he still has a comment and he's in a position to to be heard I would suggest that we listen to him. Graham if this is a good time to chime in please or if anyone else would like to provide some public comment please feel free to raise your virtual hand. Sure thank you. This is Graham the director from rural Vermont and I didn't want to distract from the focus of the meeting today on racial equity but given that we were just at the beginning you were speaking about the RFP and some of the other stuff. I wanted to specifically speak I was looking at the description to the RFP and I understand it's sort of written within the balance that you all were given you know in terms of some statute it refers to for example the the zoning issues we spoke to last week and how you're sort of confined to to cannabis being considered commercially zoned. You mentioned the current use allowance of 1,000 square feet. I guess I would just encourage you knowing that you also have the ability to make recommendations of legislature to change statute to perhaps you know make that RFP a little more broad such that it could for example analyze the access and affordability differences between commercially zoned land and agricultural or residential land zoning etc etc. such that you have information to to make reasonable recommendations to the board beyond what that could could could push back against some of the things that are in statute which may serve as significant equity barriers whether from an economic perspective or from a racial perspective. So that's my comment before we really get into the racial equity piece here. But thank you all very much. Yeah and if if I may quickly respond to Graham thank you certainly appreciate that. If you kind of I've been working in the RFP world unfortunately or fortunately I guess the way you you know want to look at it and drafting these things and selecting contractors and going ironing out a statement of work you know there's a couple different phases where you have an opportunity to really drill into what the specifics are going to be that a contractor would service us with. So there's you know there's that as you outline Graham is not in a in the suggested scope of work and perhaps that wasn't. We overlooked or I overlooked that and taking a stab at drafting this but if it's something that we feel is is important we can certainly make up for it through a more detailed statement of work once a contractor is selected. So thank you. Any other public comments from anyone in the audience. Okay well why don't we take a break. We're scheduled to come back at 10 20. I think I might be able to get Mark to join us a little bit early but if if not we'll come back at 10 20 but otherwise we'll just kind of stick to our agenda as it is. So thank you Nellie. Could you just throw up our away message and maybe just pause the recording for us. So Mark I just I know you're there if you're ready I would just like to just say a few introductory remarks about you if you don't mind. I don't want to embarrass you. And I'm just still trying to get things figured out here but by the time you get finished I should be okay. I'm actually in a shared space and I'm trying to figure some things out but I am I am prepared. Thank you. Okay great well this is Mark Hughes' first time in front of the Cannabis Control Board which is we're very fortunate to have him here. Mark is the co-founder of Justice for All. He's a member of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition. He's the original co-chair of the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice advisory panel. He's been fighting what I would consider a great kind of emotional cost for equity not just on in cannabis policy but across all social systems for as long as I've known him. He's been a seminal voice on my understanding of systemic racism and white supremacy. And I think despite some of the shortcomings of Act 164 and Act 62 there was a reorientation of those two bills away from some of the purely public safety or consumer safety priorities to a more social equity focus that likely would not have happened without Mark's consistent advocacy and that really is not meant to deemphasize all of the voices that were calling for change but I just wanted to acknowledge some of Mark's contributions. Julie again you put together the witness list for today so I'm going to hand things over to you to manage and but just really grateful for Mark to be here today and I'll turn things over to you Julie. Sure it looks like Mark is still getting a little set up. So just to kind of reiterate there was you know Act 164 didn't fully address social equity and then Act 62 has really four or five points that are specific to social equity around fees around reporting back to the legislature and a few other things. So are you ready Mark. You're muted. Sorry about that. That's OK. I'm going to start I'm going to start without video and I'll come back. So I just want to thank because I'm just in the interest of time I want to keep things moving for everybody okay. Sure. So so thank I want to thank the the the board itself you know for you know the way in the manner in which you've come together in the sense of urgency to the extent that you have been able to move forward. I also want to just give like a shout out to just the just all of the folks that are behind the scene that a lot of folks don't see that are doing this work and I know it's really super exciting for a lot of folks and I know sometimes what it seems like is is that there's like a flying ointment and you got folks that are trying to slow things down or maybe they don't appreciate the the magnitude of what it is that's actually happening because perhaps they haven't been around in this space. I know Chair Pepper has been around has been has had some extensive experience in this space over the years of some of the others. I know I've seen a lot of folks who come and testify. Also and I know that this is sensitive because it's about money and when folks start talking about money everybody gets crazy. So I just wanted to just you know especially shout out to each one of the board members whom I actually had the opportunity to speak with offline. I appreciate that. The other thing I wanted to do was just acknowledge the legislature as well. Which you know it hasn't been you know it's been a pretty bumpy road with the legislature and every you know there's no denying that and I know that all of them you know whether it's Dick Sears or Jeanette White or John Gannon or Sarah Copeland Hans is or whoever it is we're talking about I'm sure that they would agree that this has been a bumpy ride and we haven't always agreed and and I still don't agree with some of the things that we came to conclusions on. So but at the same time I respect the time and effort that they put into it and the engagement with them was formidable and I do appreciate that. I'm the executive director of the of the racial equity the racial justice foundation but I'm also I'm also a the founder and the principal of the racial equity association which is a DEI consulting firm. I didn't have enough things to do so I figured out I'd do some other stuff. And also what I started to do in my off time is is I figured out what go ahead and start a cannabis company. And it's it's called it's called the cannabis partners for my cannabis partners. It's it's a company in name only but I believe in full transparency in the work that I'm doing. And I think it's important that you know before this body that that type of information is available. I think I found some power and I can show myself now you have no idea just what it takes to get to make these things happen in the background. I want to I just want to offer a few words and before I check in Mr. Chairman I also wanted to just I wanted to verify first of all has the I get the sense that there is an executive director of this body. We announced last last meeting that we're going to be hiring Bryn Hare as our executive director. OK OK so I just I thought I heard a rumor or something like that so I didn't want to move too far into the into the conversation without acknowledging Bryn Hare who I know in deeply respect and who has been instrumental in much of the work that we brought to the table not just in the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel working act 54 of 2017 but was also present and available in much of the other work that we're doing that we've been doing and I'm sure if we haven't seen her on the forefront in the committees that she's definitely been busy down there in the dungeon. So I know that there's there's a lot of work that she's put into this and I think I really appreciate and respect that you know that that that Bryn is being offered the opportunity to have the gig. And so that's that's just great news. So congratulations director Hare. Thank you. I wanted to just tell you like the perspective that I'm going to be speaking from because more than anything I wanted to talk from the perspective of the Vermont the the cannabis equity coalition in stand shoulder to shoulder with my colleagues that have already come before you I know that they've already kind of glazed over or I should say glanced over some of the stuff related to racial equity in particular. I know that some of us have various all members of the board have had conversations with us collectively and or me individually about matters concerning equity. I know that you have all had the opportunity to review H414 which was our proposal for racial equity in the policy. And I think that it's it's safe to say that there was an attempt by the legislature to incorporate some aspect of what it is that we were doing. I think it would be it would I think it would be robbery if I didn't you know speak on racial equity in the cannabis industry from a broader perspective and really talk about some of the broader work that we're doing. So here's what I'm going to do is I want to talk just a little bit more broadly then I want to circle come back in and talk about equity here in this particular market from the perspective of the you know this is the within the context of our coalition the Vermont cannabis equity coalition. But however I do want to speak specifically for you know as the executive director of the racial justice alliance from that context then then what I'd like to do is stop for a minute and take my hat off and tell you kind of how I'm feeling as a guy who's you know who's looking at potentially entering this market. A you know an African-American man here in Vermont who has in name only registered with the Secretary of State in that is all and is looking at this market and saying well this is a this looks like a good opportunity what do I do now. I don't know what to do. So from the broader perspective before I go on I'm noting the time right now that it is 10 30. And I believe that I was scheduled to speak for about 30 minutes but I want to just do a quick check in on that and because I do not need to go for 30 minutes but I could go for the next 2 hours. So so I just want to check with with with you Julie on that. Yeah so I think you have a little bit of time Mark. We did have one witness that was supposed to appear between you and the the next witness that wasn't able to make it and we've asked the other ones if they can come a little early although I do not see them yet in the meeting. So I think I think you can probably plan to talk for a little bit. Okay I appreciate that and just so you don't get dizzy I'll just tell you I'm going to just turn around a little bit because this is the shared space and just in the event that somebody else joins as I don't I want to just respect their privacy if they walk in the building. So thank you for that and I would just assume that we may be OK until maybe about 11 or something like that if and I would like to do is in the you know is is instead of talking at you for the next 30 minutes I would love to have a conversation with the with the board. I'd love to hear from you and answer any questions and perhaps just more importantly walk away better understanding your your perspectives. So I could you know because I think part of part of this is is I view it as a conversation and also view it as an opportunity for me to learn. And that'll be something that will be kind of a recurring theme in this entire conversation on cannabis because I think that's what a lot of people are looking for is an opportunity to learn. And I think you know with that you know obviously you're going to hear you're going to hear you're going to hear that there's a lot of folks that just don't have access to capital. You're going to hear that a lot of folks don't have access to land. But I just want to flag that you also want to hear that there's a knowledge deficit that the infrastructure is just doesn't exist to be able to ramp folks up at the warp speed that this is moving at to ramp folks who are disproportionately impacted up to really to get proper footing so they can walk in pace with what's going on so they can have the same types of opportunities. So we talk more about that before before I talk about that what I would share with you though is is that we've you know there are there's some significant challenges that we are that were that we're facing as as a state as a and as a country you know as it pertains to this whole idea of racial inequities. For those who have not noticed now in the wake of the global pandemic which laid bare these disparities across all determinants all social determinants and has impacted black and brown people first and worst across just all of these areas then for those who did not notice then I'm not talking to you because this is a this is another conversation and I don't know that you have the capacity to actually hear what I'm trying to tell you but for those who did notice what has been occurring here over the last 15 months and indeed 402 years is that there is a there is a disparity that exists that's being produced by this thing that we call in some ignore systemic racism and I think that that's the frame that I come to the conversation with now I'll qualify what I'm some of the things I'm going to say is because I cannot speak I cannot speak emphatically or in a very well informed manner about all of the things being marijuana all of the things being and if you find that term offensive then think about why but all of these things I don't I don't I don't have the ability to effectively speak towards constructing a market or have the ability to speak towards all of the ins and outs and there's a reason why and and I think that many folks who are black and brown could probably say the same thing but what I can tell you about this is I can tell you about systemic racism and how I'm in in some way or another it would seem to me as if the an emerging market like this would be impacted it would be impacted I think I think the best best best place to start is is just where a chair chair pepper started was is just talking about some of the work that we we've been working in because the racial disparities in the criminal and juvenile justice system advisory panel that was created what also came out of that panel was the Attorney General's and the Human Rights Commission's task force that provided report on disparities across all systems of state government and what does that mean what it what it really means is is is that simply the Attorney General T.J. Donovan at the time and the Human Rights Commission Executive Director Karen White at the time produced a report I think David sure actually ran and carried the water but there was a report that was produced that just you know laid it out laid it bare and and and talked about the all of the impacts and it talked about the need for this this state to to to lean in and actually take this kind of work seriously so that's where that's what created the impetus for us to come back the following year with S-281 and then Senator Debbie Ingram introduced S-281 and through that through one veto and a return in the special session we were able to bring across the finish line policy that would create the position of the Racial Equity Executive Director. Though we did feel that the Executive Director should have been an independent position and we still do we also feel that there should be some some obligatory and compelling language in that Title III that actually causes state agencies that actually obliges state agents to adhere to data collection policy and training but that's another conversation. We also thought that maybe there should have been I don't know maybe about five million dollars or so to create a data infrastructure to support the race to disaggregated racially data across racial data across all state systems instead of kicking the can down the road on data that's just related to the criminal justice system. All of this is related the reason why it's related is because we've been doing the work yes H-210 came over to finish line which is the health equity bill the economic empowerment bill did not the home and land ownership bill did not. So there's a lot of things that didn't happen things that are crucially important. We also don't feel that we've made significant progress with this policy here with this with this cannabis equity policy. I think the relationship here is is that there is there you know there is there is a severe disconnect in you know in you know this whole idea of you know what does economic opportunity look like for black and brown folks. In fact what I would share with you is is that indeed the median wealth of a black family is one-thirteenth that of a white family and that's that's pre-COVID and that was that was growing at that time. These I think I think all of these facts are relevant when we start talking about considering rules when we start talking about considering how we we fully I fully expect that our coalition will be going back to the to the legislature. I think that they were largely leaning on you to take the lead in the creation of some of these rules. I think definitely definitions when it comes to definitions as it pertains to you know those all those things concerning you know those who are disproportionately impacted definitions concerning you know what these you know you know how do we define us the the challenge that we're trying to address. I you know it was disappointing it was highly frustrating that you know I feel as I was talked in a circle in in you know in in the legislature I think largely in judiciary probably in gov ops and senate you know because you know somehow or another there's this sense of amnesia that has occurred in some of our legislators who seem to have forgotten how this nation has gotten on its economic footing and how it is how it could be that you know in terms of race and class that most black people are poor despite the fact that most poor people are white and the fact that the this was created by policy of this nation by by by federal policy and by state policy of this nation is the reason why these disparities exist today the reason why 39.4 percent 39.4 k is the median household income for black folks in vermont while 50 while 63.7 k is the median household income for white folks in vermont which is why the unemployment rate for black folks is at 4.4 while that for whites is 3.5 which is why today uh 25.9 percent of vermont black population is at below the poverty line what i said is over a quarter of black folks in vermont um they live below the poverty line whereas um what we see is is that number is around 10 for white people and we know that 24.4 percent of black vermont homeowners there are 24 percent of blacks who own homes in vermont whereas 72 percent nearly three quarters of the homeowners in vermont of whites in vermont own homes and this is significant not to say that any of these these other things that i was saying is not but whereas despite the fact i beg your pardon whereas 0.2 percent whereas 0.2 percent of vermont farms are owned by blacks 0.2 percent of vermont farms are owned by blacks and 99.7 are owned uh by whites 52.2 percent of blacks are are vaccinated whereas 61 percent 61.5 are vaccinated 37 and a half percent of vermont third graders are um proficient they are proficient in the english language where where over half of the whites are and the list goes on and on um and so the question is is not so much um is this a coincidence or is this you know how could it be that all these things go together the question is is you know how do we connect this to our and contextualize this to to the to our historical context of who we are as a state and who we are as a nation now some would say that what i came to do is is to give you some critical race theory or something like that um but you know i think um really what i came what i came to do is is to connect the true history of who we are as a nation and who we are as a state to the empirical data that lays before us in the context of an emerging market and ask you to take that into consideration as we're creating these rules and as we're creating this structure and as we're grounding everything and centering everything that you do as uh as a as a board that's all i really came to ask you i could leave now i mean that's pretty much what i just came to ask you um and because i i do believe that inherently the manner in which this this whole contraption has been contrived up until this point has been informed by the very mess that i'm telling you about right now okay and i have zero confidence in the current trajectory of it i don't current i don't mind telling you that unless something changes in the decision-making process it it processes in terms of how this thing is rolled out now you can decide to just do the same old thing and you'll probably be held accountable very little because those who stand a profit are largely already affluent white men because that's if you look across the nation that how that's how it's already proven itself to be um and we don't really have the political power to necessarily hold you accountable in numbers or empower not not not so much um i think i think there are some of you who would care to be on the right side of history and i think there are despite what many others might say i think there is a a strong moral compass that's on this this this pant this board um to include the recently appointed director uh so what i'd like to do is is um you know share with you just some thoughts some brief thoughts uh from you know the perspective of the alliance and the coalition rather you know grounded in some of the work that the alliance has done and just so you know 414 what you would have saw in 414 is the vast majority a lot of the same language some of it hasn't emerged transparently but a lot of the language that you've seen from my ag colleagues matty and graham uh josh uh jeffrey a lot of the language that you've seen from my colleagues would have been in h414 i'm not going to get into the politics and the procedural um jockeying and maneuvering that precluded that from occurring but you could only imagine being close to and in and out of the state house how these things have a tendency of working themselves out and it probably would also explain why this thing is still on the wall in gov ops and was hardly even in house gov ops and was hardly even taking consideration when s25 arrived in fact it wasn't um i did want to um take a couple of minutes and and just step through h414 not in detail at all there's a few things there was four major points that i saw in 414 that i wanted to bring to your attention really quickly one is there's a lot there's a lot of time spent on definition um if you were to go over on page five of 20 you see things like social equity applicants um uh four of 20 qualified social equity applicants the legislature did not did not had a political will or the intestinal fortitude they call it time uh they said they didn't have the time to actually get this done so they kicked it to you uh so i wonder uh if we might be able to have some and i'm i'm leading all of this to somewhere and let me just tell you where it's going just in case you cut me off is is that um you know i really believe that there there should be some type of racial equity or social equity um standing advisory committee to the work that you're doing in fact it might even you may even need i i think in order to truly guide the work that you're doing effectively that you may even you may even have some kind of director or something like that or or someone who has sole responsibility for keeping their eye on the ball with this thing because for some odd reason every time we start talking about money everybody gets all goofy and they take their eye off the ball and everything goes sideways and then by the time we know it the same people end up getting rich by golly i don't know why that keeps happening um and i think that you know if we're going to really have you know roll this thing out with an i on equity again we should roll every market out with an i on equity okay i think the the significance of this market is is the harm that this weed has done uh and and it's and when you think about the harm i need you to think generational harm because so long throughout this process i've had white people looking at me saying well did you go to jail or did well who went to jail well did they get out of jail do you understand what it means what a person in your family is incarcerated and how that affects generationally folks and not just that person or that family but when you have a large demographic of folks in a certain when you have a large group of folks in a certain demographic population how that even impacts who they are the damage um please note the kerner report if you will you know in terms of the fact that this is not a black problem this is a white problem because you know systems of oppression have been using the criminal justice system to oppress black people since whenever so i wanted so i just wanted to just urge you that you know um when you start talking about creating process and the work that you're doing then hold yourself accountable and put somebody in place to kind of oversee that susana davis is not that person why uh the reason why is because she's a political appointee she works for the governor yeah she's got some great ideas she got some great attested fortitude eloquent and a great friend but still a political appointee who works for the governor and she does not speak for our community she probably is consistent with some of the things that we believe but just because she's a black face and she has that name don't pull her in your committees and say susana said we can do it so we're we're heading down that road especially because that's just what you want to do anyway like the legislators often do so i'm going to pause there for a minute and then i'll go through those other three things i wanted to tell you already told you where i was taking you um but there was like three there were there were four things about 414 that i wanted to share with you and then i'll i'll sing you a sad song about the company that i'm trying to start uh is there are there any questions or comments so far so i have a couple of questions mark chair pepper if it's okay if i just start absolutely and i just lost my train of thought oh so one of the things that we've talked about or talked about in one of our first meetings was a subcommittee of the advisory committee and our committee that would look at racial equity so that's one piece that maybe doesn't fully achieve your goal of a you know of a a racial equity committee or advisory committee but is is you know sort of along the same lines in the same thought process so that's one um thing i wanted to mention and then i had a question about in 414 um it talks about you all recommended a definition for social equity applicant and one of those uh pieces of that definition is the 51 percent ownership but what i understand is that in some states there has been um you know companies that come in in a predatory nature and try to convince someone to um be that 51 ownership or to sign on to something so i i want to know how to prevent that in vermont or what your thoughts are about that happening in other states um and taking advantage of people um in order to get that social equity applicant designation um but really in its predatory and taking advantage of people can you talk to that a little bit a little bit yeah i mean i the short story is i don't have the i i don't have the answers to that um but but you know it does occur to me that is not unlike um you know challenges or issues that have existed in other markets or in other situations i i don't think we need to i don't think we're like making this new wheel um to that extent um there are plenty of markets where there are plenty of situations to where there is um you know as far as control we're talking because really what we're talking about at the basics of this conversation is control of a company uh in trying to demonstrate that there is a person that has a vested interest in a community or a state or whatever uh to uh to prove that control uh and you know obviously that may go into residency that may go into you know there's a lot of different directions that could go it could be time you know how how long of you can you prove you know who's the agent there's there's i could take that um and run with it but i won't uh because i think that um you know respectfully i just think that you know that's that's the low hang that's the easy ones though those are the easy ones in my personal opinion frankly um and i think that um yeah i think i i would be more than happy to um you know return to that conversation with you at some point when it seems appropriate um but i do believe that you know that's low hanging fruit and and we can we can get after it okay mark i've got a uh i got a question for you but it's not related to h414 um it's more i'm just noting the time and i just want to make sure i hear from you on some of these more foundational questions uh what how should we as a board define success when it comes to social equity and economic empowerment i mean is it just you know we've been given our authority we have this limited authority should we define success as a board just as cannabis license ownership or is there something else that we can look to um you know given our authority and to kind of achieve those promises of social equity and economic empowerment yeah yeah i think we should define success together i think that's how we should define success i think that i'm i think that there are there are you know folks folks who are representative you know and i don't i don't speak for all black and brown folks in the community and in this who are leaning leaning into this market or who are interested in this market i'm sure there's some who will probably diametrically oppose me on some of the things that i'm saying today and that's okay um because they need to be heard as well but we do however we define this we need to do it together and i think that that means that the board shouldn't do about themselves and that means that they shouldn't just put the weight on the community the black and brown and poor community to do so either i so i but i do think that those those those um goals or those um you know though those success those key performance indicators along the way or whatever all of that looks like i do believe that they would be emerging i think that what we're doing is overwhelming i think that you know we have to i i do believe we need to take some baby steps and right now we're running at a full sprint um you know i just i just want to flag the fact that you know when when things are important to folks with political and economic power especially those who are affluent who have controlled and everything there is a sense of urgency uh but when things are important to black and brown and poor people who have a sense of urgency to achieve some type of economic goal or something like that then those with uh political and economic power have a tendency to slow things down right now what it looks like that things are on full tilt running real fast and i think you know this pepper because we've talked personally uh is is that you know some these and some other questions i hope we get a chance to slow some things down and talk about um you know we know we can't we don't want to delay going to market because that's just that's not even i would be dumb to show up talking like that but somehow or another we got to figure out how we get our heads around some of this stuff surrounding equity i hope that answers your question it does and it also addresses my follow-up question as well about you know when you move quickly when we is a three-member board you know all white board move quickly we unfortunately have to rely on our mental shortcuts aka our unconscious biases um and uh i just you know i talked we talked to susanna davis when she was here a few weeks ago about how we can try and short circuit those and not entrench them in our rules in our um application processes and um you know there's no great answer of course but uh i think you know it weighs on me pretty heavily about this kind of Nate the kind of what you described the the desire to move quickly versus the desire to not entrench some of uh the kind of systemic biases that we've seen in our work especially early on and that's not really a question but i'll turn things over to i'll turn things back over to julie can i ask one question mark thanks so much for for being here i wanted to get back to i was wondering where you were oh i'm here don't worry um i wanted to get back to some of the the the great data that you provided us a little bit ago and i say great because it's quantitative and not anecdotal because the disproportionate nature of it and it's certainly disheartening um so i don't want you to think that i think that the actual numbers are great um you mentioned two point and i don't want to make sure i got this clear a point two percent of vermont land are owned by people of color or black people and 97 or 99.7 percent is owned by white people was it land what that means is that's percent of vermont farms okay farms because i wanted to i was wondering if it was all all types of zoned land in the state whether that's residential commercial zone for agricultural use um and i'm and obviously this is a i know we're running short on time and i don't want to belabor of certain points as we try and crack this commercial versus agricultural conundrum and nut for a lot of small cultivators at least in the state you know i'm wondering about barriers to entry and buying agricultural use land for people of color versus commercial you know buying commercial businesses or commercial land for folks and of folks of color and where we kind of shake out what what i i want to be conscientious of that as we try and potentially make recommendations to the legislature around the agricultural versus commercial you know concept and so if you have any kind of more data that i can sink my teeth into as we start to think about how to go about addressing some of those issues that would be very helpful absolutely it's good to see you in that that that those data are noted on our website if you go out to our website under data that's vt racial justice alliance dot or go under data tab cruise down there where you find that stat and you'll find a link out to 2017 census of agriculture agriculture so that you can unpack that data there regarding your second point or the i guess the extension of your comments surrounding you know commercial what we know about commercial land is just more expensive what we know you know about wealth is it's passed down through housing and land some of these things that you know we've got you know we've got the you know empirical data some of these things you know we have to make certain assumptions and in fact it not only would be unwise but it would be almost um it would be almost hypocritical it would be almost um derelict for us to not make certain conclusions in the absence of some of these data um you know it's kind of like saying well um systemic racism it exists everywhere except for here which is ridiculous because by definition if it exists anywhere it exists everywhere so we do so we do have to make certain assumptions however it's not necessary that we make bold assumptions um what we do know is is when we start talking about poverty rates that those data are those data are available and we start talking about wealth rates those data are available it doesn't take a leap of logic to understand the trends the intergenerational wealth and and where that landed along racial lines um so I think that you know what we're unpacking here is is yes we're unpacking a problem that was that was related to cannabis but this it's a much broader challenge and it's not that we need to fix everything with this market but we certainly want to acknowledge everything as we roll this market out acknowledge its impact to not do so is somehow or another to suggest that we can just look at where we are today and forget about everything all the way back to 1865 or 1619 for that matter and not try to and not reconcile what we're doing today with the historical context in which we exist this is this is the challenge of rolling this market out okay and and to to do so again I'll say again it's derelict um three three three additional point I hope well before I go on does that help that certainly helps thank you I'm very familiar with the with the ag census and I think all of this data is going to be important obviously no matter where a person of color chooses to enter this marketplace whether it's as a a grower where the ag versus commercial question will really be um something I want to pay close attention to but there's other opportunities and more of the strictly commercial context for a person of color to enter this marketplace we hope and recognizing the balance with which we're working in I just want to make sure we understand barriers and how we can work to address such barriers you know depending on on the tools that we have so thank you yeah it looks like my time is about up but I will just um you know there's a there's a maybe a couple high level points I can hit on the way out the door is in 414 um you know we were we were definitely looking at definitions one of the things that that we were looking at was is you know what does you know what is this this whole business of and this is one of the things that we were looking at in in s25 compliment 124 uh was the cannabis equity programs we know that um the cannabis development fund is is one of the things that did actually stick um we don't know how that program is going to be funded beyond the first year um I don't know if you know I mean I'd love to hear it um it you know so there's that and then of course the third the third thing we were looking at the other thing was is a community social equity program and that was something that was completely taken off the table we won't really go too much into that and then um then finally when we started looking at integration integrated licenses uh you know and how we were would be able to rely on the integrated licenses to be able to to do some really innovative and creative things and five really one uh was is to um to further fund the program uh that's the social equity program two was to offer education because again you know give me land give me money but if I don't know anything where am I going uh what do I mean by education that is the you know fund of Vermont Community College get a program up get some folks in there reentry is the third one uh an incubator space incentivizing uh these integrated businesses to create their own incubator space to be able to turn folks out into the market even allow them to get up to 10 percent um on a stake in that business as they turn it out and then the last one is a loan program that allow businesses to to to loan money uh to um to loan money to uh upcoming those thriving businesses those reaching back and pulling forward those businesses that were up and coming so essentially that was that was 414 in my estimation you know with the richness in you know and as well as the um thoroughness of what that policy was seeking to achieve as opposed to what we actually receive you know I think it's like more like night and day uh hopefully there's something that you can do uh to address that finally uh I would say um again you know I am a um I'm a business owner too uh I own I own nonprofits you know I I mean I own a LLC I own you know I I also I'm starting another LLC with this with this particular market I am exploring the possibility of entering the market uh and it doesn't look incredibly hopeful at this point um because I don't really you know I mean I I am somewhat privileged uh you know because you know I do understand some of the moving parts I don't understand the market really well um I would up I would almost feel guilty um take advantage of the knowledge that I do know understanding that there are some some people that are out there who don't have access the type of access that I have quite frankly I'm just being really honest with you about it um I think I could maybe I could figure it out I don't have money to do this I don't have land um and um I'm not really heavily confident in the ACCD and I would just conclude by telling you that you know there was uh half a million dollars that was kicked over to the ACCD uh year effective the beginning of June uh and yeah we're looking for dispensaries to kick in another I think $50,000 each that's all it sounds like it's all one time money uh it doesn't look like any of it is recurring uh further within the ACCD evidenced by the manner in which the ACCD has administered BIPOC small businesses administered grants loans programming technical assistance and the lot and the whole lot the the track record that they have frankly sucks so the reason why we got what is it FS 159 that just came just came across and this summer study or whatever it is where that $100,000 was set aside for folks to put out to contract for folks to come in and and bid on a contract to create some type of apparatus that would begin the process of getting their arms around what a black owned business is and how the ACCD is able to support them because we're at that level of capability maturity with the ACCD to put that $500,000 over at the ACCD right now and say that hey help the cannabis industry with black and brown folks be blessed be gone goodbye is ridiculous so um so I think you know we need to really take a close look at the so-called um bone that was thrown to us in this particular session regarding the use of the ACCD to administer $500,000 in a program that faces black and brown folks that's broke or I should say is working fine because maybe it was never designed to do what it is we're trying to get done here can I ask you about that mark um there thank you we I just have one question on that piece in particular I mean we have a little bit of latitude um using our authority to help define social equity applicant um I know ACCD is ultimately going to be the one who's administering the the fund but um where where did the definition we're going to be hearing from some national folks that have spent a lot of time thinking about what's worked in other states and fundamentally what has not worked because it seems like most things have not worked um but I'm curious where the definition in in 414 you all um I assume had some some say over uh that around um what social equity applicant impacted areas impacted families etc it was that from Oakland like I just did a quick google search and it looks like it was from potentially Oakland but I'm trying to think like uh you know that's where we can try to we can try to kind of use our authority to to kind of help direct ACCD and and have a good definition for who actually can access that money however limited that money actually is yeah thank you for that mr chair I think um you know I think there there is a synthesis that has occurred here in this policy I can't rightfully say exactly but I will say that it was heavily influenced by Illinois Illinois it was heavily influenced by Illinois uh it it made some some some of it may have bled over from other jurisdictions and and I think we tried to um massage this language to try to comport it to uh who we are uh in the state of Vermont and I I don't know how close we came to doing that I hope that helps no it does help and and that will help kind of guide us in a later half of this conversation with the you know the the folks from Massachusetts uh you know Shalene Tidal and uh Bo Kilmer about how those programs you know in Illinois and others have actually worked and in actually delivering on some of these promises so absolutely and as far as the rules process is concerned you know I'm again I think part of what we're doing here is a lot of uncharted territory for those of us who represent um some of these black and brown communities and just even maybe there I think they're even you know I would even speak for members of our coalition we're not really familiar with that process I know it's steeped uh in um it's steeped in in white supremacy the whole rulemaking process and I say that unapologetically you know so um maybe that's the reason why it's you know part of it is such a secret to everybody uh you know I have a list of other processes that are governmental that I'll share with you in another presentation but one of the things that um concerns us is is that you know we want this process you know to be informed to be continuously to be consistently informed in centered centered in and informed by those who are the least of us so hopefully this is not a one shot my hope uh Mr. Chair and and I'm bored uh as you know I sense that it's it's time it's time for me to go but as my hope is is that we'll we'll have an ongoing our entire coalition will have an ongoing dialogue with you we're not looking for any special privilege or anything we appreciate the opportunity to speak into this body I appreciate your service these are challenging issues that we're working with but I think that I hope that everybody from our coalition has shown a willingness to work with you and has been you know forthcoming with any information that they have and has has been willing also to reach out even into our own networks and pull other folks to the table for expanded conversations we are open to hearing from other folks who we do not represent who have differing opinions we understand that you have a synthesis to perform and we have you know complete confidence that you do it we just want to make sure that you have all the information that you need to do it we understand that the outcome is probably not going to be quite the way we like it to be we know how sausage is made um so again um thank you so much uh for the time I did this afternoon and thank you so much uh for the work that you've taken on I would not want your job but I appreciate the fact that you've you've all three signed up to do it and again congratulations to the executive director I think that's probably the best choice we could have made in the entire state can I ask you one more question mark about going back to what you said? Come on that's not enough! Is that your mic drop? That's something important but I didn't want to interrupt you so you talked about sort of like the you know the supremacy and systemic nature of like the rule making process and how it for a lot of people it feels sort of shrouded in mystery um what is the best way for us to communicate out when we're going to make rules or when we start to the to the point where we make real big decisions so that we can get we can get the influence of the public and people who might not normally go to our website to look for an agenda and so forth how what would you recommend that we do? Julie I am really sorry but I'm going to ask you if you can restate your question because I'm I'm just I'm not able to follow it exactly um so I guess what is the best way for us to communicate out in your opinion when we're going to start rule making to encourage people to comment because there is a public comment process piece of that how do we encourage people to join us for that part? I see I see what you're saying I think that um yeah I if it was just that easy I I everything here's what we're working with in in in this is this is part of what you're going to see in our um our outreach efforts in turning the curve on systemic racism um building back a healthy of Vermont as we begin to teach people um a common a shared definition of systemic racism and also to be able to know it when they see it because nobody you know it's kind of like that justice is that well I don't know what pornography is but I know if I saw it I'd know it you know or something like that so so these very systems that you're talking about you know whether it is the the public outreach process you know name a title name you know a group of black and brown and poor disabled or folks challenged with language who who are you know who are supposed to be involved in a public process uh and and an entity or state agency is being paid uh for that participation but they can never seem to figure out how to reach that public that particular demographic but yet and still they they realize appreciate and benefit from the the actual um revenue that comes in or people that look like them okay so they're so I think this is much more complicated uh I think you know it's borderline consultancy uh I'd love to come in and get paid for what you're asking me um but I think um the short story is is is that you know whether it is the public engagement process whether it is the appointment process um you know whether it is a um a process that seeks to uh that dictates a this um when you say communications your communications your public your um the fact that the two that two of you cannot talk at the same time um what do you call that process it's this um open meeting open meeting laws open meeting laws though those process your your executive your executive sessions you know we are everything you know our our whole system is steeped in such a way to itself itself healing itself protecting itself preserving uh so we have to have a broader conversation about how to disrupt that you know and I can go on with a list of other things uh that feed into this process and you are a part of it uh so what I'm trying to do is I'm just trying to help as best I can um but as far as how to go about uh breaking down some of those barriers uh in in opening the door up and getting some light in so we can actually really make some progress um I think that that is a broader conversation that would um that would be um that would I think it would need to start at the executive range that would be a Susanna Davis conversation fair enough so so I have a couple comments and they're not necessarily questions for you mark so I'll let you leave on your on your mic on your mic drop um thank you so much okay well I was just gonna comment um just very very um quickly on the rulemaking process I totally understand and respect that it's it's nauseating for a lot of folks in the public world to understand uh wins the best time to provide input how do I provide input do I need an attorney to formalize a document for me to actually provide input and I would just say and maybe this is a topic that we can schedule a meeting around some time when we're a little bit further down the road to make sure folks understand um and you know not without setting any any specific expectations but you know if if we put out a proposed rule I mean there's administrative techniques to kind of short circuit the traditional rulemaking process I don't really anticipate any of that really happening here often that's done for for timing purposes more so than a public input purposes and I'll say that recognizing that some agencies at the federal and state level do it for other reasons like trying to limit public input um James Julian I don't think are trying to limit public input by any stretch of the imagination uh but you know we're gonna have to respond to each unique comment that is presented to us as it relates to proposed rule um so on and so forth I mean the key word there is you unique and that's just you know we can talk about that word and what it means from a legal perspective a little bit further down the road but we're gonna have to respond to a comment on why we chose to make a decision one way or another that's that's part of this process so what I'm trying to say is even if a comment wasn't incorporated into what we're trying to do we're still going to be on the hook so to speak for helping the public understand why we went in a different direction so that's not rulemaking 101 that's just my experience with the process um based on my career I wanted to circle back to a couple things Mark said that I think are extremely important and I experienced them in my time at the agency of agriculture that really helped a lot of folks at various different levels um in and around the state and that's business incubators and business accelerators and borrowing some of those models from the ag sector where I've seen businesses graduate from an incubator level to an accelerator level to get out of those types of shared spaces sink themselves into their community and actually find success at the state and federal level with whatever product they're selling we need to figure out a way to bring a lot of those types of concepts to the cannabis community I believe and that was a topic that I was trying to start on tangling that ball of yarn with some of our business and technical providers um at our meeting last week education is super important here in understanding how we can leverage as you mentioned Mark community colleges maybe VTC other other institutions that might be willing to um you know help folks learn um not just the business end of things but learn how you know this is going to work um end of things as well so thank you for touching upon those points very briefly um it's really important is is this where I sign off I'm sorry say it one more time I said is this where I sign off yeah like I said there are more there are more comments than questions for you so yeah I appreciate it Kyle uh James uh Julie again um and in all of y'all who are doing the work I appreciate you I really I want to I want to work uh with this in this process and I want to you know get other folks more importantly I want to get other folks who are interested in this process engage so for those who are watching maybe now or folks who might I don't know that this is going to be available on the site uh you know reach out to the racial justice alliance vtracialjusticealliance.org if you want to somehow or another get plugged into this process to help um you know to help stand this thing up you know again I I know that their that industry and others are coming at y'all with rules already you guys are they come they probably came with some kind of baked in alec flavor flavor type of pre pre uh you know blah blah blah again you know the folks who are running circles around us out there you know what everybody else knows they're running circles around us yeah well all we get is we get this little snippet but you're getting a constant fee from these folks who do this for a living I don't do cannabis for a living this is just one you know probably one half of one percent of what I do with the racial justice alliance we don't even do policy for a living that's probably about 20 percent of what we do as an alliance so I mean we we need you guys to fight for the little guys we need you guys to push back on the guys that are big guys that are coming in that are flooding you with stuff every day and you know they are mark yeah can I just respond to that quickly just uh because what you do know whether it's cannabis policy or not is that if we want to do something bold and something outside of the normal kind of cookie cutter approach um we need a coalition behind us we need you know everything we do uh has to be approved in one way or the other by the legislature um either you know directly or indirectly um and so we need that we need those voices calling their legislators and and helping us craft the the rules and so I know you know that better than anyone but I just wanted to just make that kind of the last the last word on that because it absolutely mr chair and and I would also you know add to that you know that you know they could folks can feel free to reach out to info at btracialjusticealliance.org info at btracialjusticealliance.org you know if you are someone in your organization somebody you know is interested in being a part of a Vermont equity Vermont cannabis equity coalition because we're also building power there we want to do that the only thing I push back on mr chair is is that you know there is a rulemaking process that you guys have that you have quite a bit of autonomy with yeah only that is not a legislative process that is an administrative process and we we know that we may not know a whole lot about it but I do think that a lot of the philosophy choose the dog park in the background it's not mine there's a lot of philosophy that we adopt in the principles that we choose to inherit can manifest themselves in rules so we we're calling on you as well we're gonna put you know it's good to pass the buck but we're I'm not gonna let you off that easy we're also gonna hold the body responsible as well and those are buzz in the community we're gonna bring the same type of accountability we're gonna ask for the same kind of accountability and we will bring also the same level of pressure if necessary on this body to get you to do the right thing because we're just fighting for people just trying to get we're fighting for the small guy it's all we're doing nobody's trying to get ahead here we're just trying to fight for a small guy so we're going to be asking you to do your job great thank you mark thank you thank you so much for the time I appreciate you all yeah thank you bye hi mark um do we know if Matt Leonetti is on the phone I don't I don't see his name in our list of attendees here if you are on the phone Matt um you press star six to unmute yourself okay great um Julie I'll turn things over to you sure Matt I'll let you um sort of introduce yourself and and and kind of give us your background but I think what you've offered to speak to us about today is about um you know your experience in the criminal justice system and how that has impacted you um and what you uh your thoughts on going forward okay uh sure I can I can speak to that can can you all hear me we can okay well thank you for having me and thank you for allowing me the opportunity to kind of share some perspectives on this I appreciate that considerably um I'm Matt Leonetti I am a convicted cannabis felon for a 98 bust out in Arizona from that point forward that conviction has been very difficult to kind of overcome especially in the early days because we did not have the sweeping legalization efforts early on that we're seeing now nationally uh so it's definitely been uh an uphill battle in certain instances uh you know to to kind of bring it to recent terms I think the last two episodes where I had to declare this where one I was teaching uh coaching uh rec soccer in Richmond uh I had to write something about why I did what I did uh what happened how I've come from that how I've moved forward uh same thing I'm the tree warden for the town of Richmond uh same thing when I applied for that position I had to give a whole expose to the select board and everything about my felony conviction which at this point you know we're we're pushing 20 years um so I am a convicted cannabis felon uh I do have a degree in plant science and horticulture uh I do run uh clean green here on the east coast which is the largest nationally recognized and the longest running certification body in the cannabis industry born in 2004 far ahead of any other programs um I own and run an award-winning landscape and design firm so I'm very well rooted in in agriculture horticulture I've run diversified organic farms I've been an advisor to the UVM farm uh so I am very well rooted in in agriculture I think that the difference that I carry is this this felony conviction in seeing the ugly side of of cannabis so you know I I lost everything um and you know I I I will say I was young and dumb at the time um I from that day forward I now have 23 years clean from heroin I turned my life around from that point forward I have two amazing beautiful kids uh but it's certainly not been easy getting over the stigma of of being a felon I was not allowed to go on a trip with my daughter to Canada because I am banned from Canada I am banned from South Korea uh I think something that happened 23 years ago especially for people that turn around and put their lives back together especially now that we're seeing legalization uh the one thing I would like to see is that for all nonviolent cannabis offenders everything is fully expunged and those people are pulled from prison and released uh there should not be a legal market while there are people still sitting in prison for this that does not seem equitable that does not seem just or fair so my biggest thing is I would love to see everyone have their records cleared off so that they can gainfully get employment and other things without having to explain the significance of their actions as we move forward with legalization and allow others to profit um you know how how we create and what sort of parameters we put forward to allow this I don't entirely know but I don't know if there's a way to use some of the tax revenue to create grants or loans training programs technical assistance for those in more impacted areas we have to give them a chance to get in I hate to bring up this term but I'm going to white privilege it seems this cannabis industry is dominated by white folks that have investors and other things and I don't see a lot of that within the minority communities and so I think as we move forward creating a framework that allows them to have an equitable footing getting into this you know financial assistance training loans those kind of things I think are going to be a huge way we can possibly help that or we do it in areas that were negatively impacted more so than than others so I'm not entirely sure if there's an opportunity for felons to get a reduced license cost other ways to kind of bring a lot of people out of the black market because I think that's what needs to happen somehow you guys are going to have to gain a lot of trust from from those of us and make it incentivized for us to come out and to move forward in this market and and again I'm not an expert I don't know exactly what all that looks like and entails but there has to be a level of trust on both sides moving forward and I know in talking to a lot of folks that are in this there still is you know I think a lot of people are waiting to see final language if they're going to jump in or not if it makes sense because a lot of people are pretty comfortable right where they are doing what they do I would love to be a part of of of this thing moving forward you know I think some things too that may accelerate and continue the black market I think our THC caps I think we are the only second state in the entire country that has those so when we look at something along those lines of you know five milligrams is the max for the older demographic sure that's great you know the 60 year old that wants to pop a teeny little edible to go to bed and help them but we have other folks that need higher higher counts to that and if those accounts don't exist in the legal market the black market will thrive in that arena and there are already amazing concentrate markers out there and removing those caps too it also allows the craft artisans to create the products that they're good at without having to dilute them just to meet an arbitrary number they don't want to take their bubble hash and dumb it down with CBD so again I think allowing them to do what they do best and I understand we could have some some limits but I think the limits are pretty stringent right now and pretty pretty out of line nationally with what we're seeing everywhere and I don't think we're seeing detrimental effects from higher THC edibles of course we're always going to have a little kid that gets it here and a little kid that gets it there those stories happen all the time same with pharmaceuticals we that's just kind of part of it but I do think the THC caps are going to foster if they stay in place a very large segment of the market being illicit and I don't see how we can have a legal market if we have a black market that is bigger and picks up pieces of parts of this and I think you know something that came out very recently which we're seeing in California California has made a lot of mistakes from the minute they passed prop 215 and 96 they are now walking it back and they're offering a hundred million dollars to help the legal market because it can't compete with the illegal market that's 75 percent of that state so if we want to move forward I think we have to find those ways to incentivize and get all of these people that want to be in it and that are good craft artisans and that are willing to put in the testing to make sure that their products are clean give them a chance give all of us a chance I think ultimately when I look at Vermont's bill seems a lot of it has been handed away to the five dispensary owners and that's what I look at in terms of corporate cannabis and it makes it very difficult for the small guys to get in and I know those guys are fighting tooth and nail with their lobbyists to make it very difficult for us where they should be encouraging people to grow at home and I think you know and taking this a step further if we can alter and amend the current medical program two plants and four plants is really really small especially if someone has an issue and makes a mistake it does happen this is agriculture pests and disease are all over the place I have done this for a very long time sometimes I hit the ball out of the park sometimes we absolutely fail and but when we're talking about someone's medicine that's on a fixed budget or an income that cannot afford to go to the dispensaries the home grow is the best option for them so I think home grows and amending the medical program will also allow the entire market to thrive so let's think about our medical patients and not just the tax revenue and the rec side of things these are people that need it far more than the rec market this is to you know quality of life so I would love to see the medical plant counts get changed I'd love to see the caregiver plant counts get changed more medical patients can take on more caregivers because of the potential for mistakes and I think you know I think that would would offer a big solution to a lot of people that the medical program really should stay in place but I think we can amend it and make it much better because the plant counts comparatively to all the other states we are at the bottom again and that's just not fair to some of these people that have been paying ridiculous prices for the last several years and I think you know that that's pretty much my spiel on social equity I'm not really sure where else to go with a lot of these things because I know a lot of states have put things in writing but they have not implemented these plans so seeing how some have not been implemented I don't know how they're entirely going to work I don't know how the tax revenue can fill into these things and so I'm sure this is probably more so in your wheelhouse but you know getting us felons and opportunity to get into this market because we were trailblazers or in my case just stupid and a young and doing something I probably shouldn't have done on that scale but what's done is done so I would really like to find a way to to get more of us out of this black market and into a market where we feel we have an equitable footing for the small guy because I feel we're up against some pretty big licenses right now and we don't get some of the things that they've gotten we've gotten virtually nothing in writing they've gotten everything and so we're all still kind of sitting here as question marks of where do we get land can we get land the tag land can does it all have to be commercial I mean there's just some un things that are just not clear to a lot of us yet and I know that's part of this process moving forward so I don't expect it all to be done but you know how do we get us felons into this market because we've been here a long time and we would love to I don't care to make money I just want to make people's quality life better and I'm pretty damn good at growing cannabis and I would like to have the opportunity to share that with people thank you Julie Julie yeah go ahead thanks for being here Matt I think we've got a lot to learn from you that goes far beyond this 20 minute conversation and I look forward to hearing more about your you know angles and pathways and your expertise through the cannabis marketplace moving forward you know we've heard a lot about THD caps and really having the medical program and that's something we're paying attention to and to one of your other points I think a lot of folks are kind of waiting and seeing what they're you know if they're going to be interested in the regulated market because they want to see action instead of just our words and I certainly appreciate that and we're very cognizant of that and I want to I want to turn back to you know and I'm sure it's never fun or easy for you to constantly have to revisit the impacts of your felony conviction but but hopefully you might uh you wouldn't mind indulging me for just a couple minutes so I'm thinking you know as we talk about social equity and a social equity application understanding all these compounded issues that are the result of your of your conviction you mentioned that you're a successful business owner in a couple different ways and I'm wondering from a mortgage perspective from a loan perspective from an access to capital perspective how has that conviction impacted your ability to just move a business forward you know separate from the cannabis specific expertise that you have how can a conviction like that follow you long 20 plus years after you know that actually happened uh you know it's really only followed me in that you know I am banned from Canada um and and I think that was probably more so that I was crossing the border for for 10 years after I moved up here they finally caught it I never knew I had to declare it I never knew that I wasn't allowed to go there they swiped my passport said don't come back here again you will be arrested this and that so I walked into something that I wasn't really sure of the the legal ramifications of my background because I didn't know international laws and moving from you know Arizona to here I loved going up to Montreal I loved going up to Quebec uh you know getting out of Vermont and seeing a little bit of it but I didn't know what Canada's laws were because partly they've got some things decriminalized over there and and legal over here so I didn't think that was so that was the biggest impact was crossing the borders I have been self-employed since I moved to Vermont so more so the employment thing has not really affected me because I could either hire or fire myself and say hey I'm not going to take you wait a minute it's me um ultimately it was simply just you know the tree warden uh because I wanted to give some time back to the town of Richmond that I live in I didn't think that to be the warden of the public right away for trees I would have to declare my my my felony to to run a rec soccer program I didn't think I would have to give an expose on the background of of everything after I have created um everything so I don't think it impacted any sort of loan process in any way um some of that was never asked when I did apply for loans through my business um it was just those few little things and then missing trips with the kids um you know sometimes I wouldn't apply for jobs when I thought I might want one only because I knew I'm gonna have to declare that thing and so again it's kind of that stigma of you know I feel bad I I don't feel bad for what I did because I felt I was taking care of people but ultimately in the eyes of the law that was uh not the case 23 years ago so the impact for me I think was a little more minimal ultimately because I've been self-employed my whole life so it hasn't hit me as hard but there were those few examples where I was kind of bummed that I couldn't go on my daughter's trip with her um little things like that the little memories that I'll never get back I'll never be able to share um yeah well thank you I mean all that factors kind of into how we're gonna start viewing these these impacts of a conviction like that whether it's shying away from applying to a job and maybe that's somewhere in this legal marketplace and I don't want folks with a an illicit background in cannabis that might have a conviction shying away from the regulated market strictly for that purpose and I think that's something that we're you know certainly going to be looking at and you know um it's much appreciated for you to share your story sure of course do you have any questions that you want to have um yeah I I've got a question that I'm gonna ask both Matt and Erica if you don't mind I mean Matt me by starting with you um under the statute Act 164 the board is required to obtain criminal history records of all applicants that have I think above a 10 ownership interest in any of our licenses um what we do is kind of up to us with the kind of one qualification that we need to determine whether the criminal history record or the applicant based on the criminal history record poses a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of the regulated market so those are the two kind of products we have to evaluate um how would you suggest we do that um like what you know you've got a cannabis conviction from 20 years ago I clearly to me that does not pose a policy threat or the proper functioning of regulated market but I think we need to get a little bit specific for the public about how we're going to evaluate those and I just would seek your advice um about those two points oh that's a good question uh I yeah I don't know how big this process is going to get I don't know how many licenses and things are going to come in I don't know how many backgrounds are going to need to be checked but I I honestly think you know if there is the opportunity to do it if it's a case by case basis because I think everything is so different and everything is so unique uh individually um I've never felt that mine has been that bad it was a nonviolent cannabis conviction for cultivation I've always said that you know I never thought the impact went far greater than me and I only hurt myself but when my parents got up and spoke at my sentencing hearing I felt that and I learned that the reach of my actions is far greater than myself uh so I needed to take my blinders off a little bit um again I think it would really come down to when did that conviction happen uh what has that person done uh to remediate that what have they done since has there been repeated infractions thereafter uh you know I think the story for for everyone should start at where that first conviction is where they have gone what they have done since uh I would assume violent convictions are probably immediately tossed out which I would certainly think so um you know that's a really tough one I think everyone's situation is very unique and I don't know if if if there is a a single set of standards that could be put to each I'm sure there certainly could be certain parameters that would be laid over over each person but uh I think you know just kind of very similar to having to give a spiel about myself uh for running a rec soccer league as well as being a tree warden allowed them to have a better understanding of me where I have come from who I am today and not who I was 23 years ago um I think would allow a little more personalization and an opportunity to get to know those people uh at their present state uh and see how that fits with the framework of the bill that you guys are are going to create for us um so I don't know if that really answered much but no it really is helpful um so thank you welcome yep do we have any other questions for mark no questions just from me from me matt I know that you've got a lot of other expertise as it relates to growing environmental considerations and I look forward to engaging you as as we move into that process to get a an understanding of where where you're thinking oh and I would love to have the opportunity to share that I've been in cannabis for a long time and I I think you know my partner very well Jesse when we are our very strong advocates of clean cannabis uh and testing and making sure that the products going out are safe so when the opportunity arises if there's an opportunity to hear me out and and some of the clean green framework I would love the opportunity to share all of that info as well at the at the proper time for sure thank you thank you for your time matt and um I really appreciate you sharing all of this with us I appreciate your time and taking to you know your time your valuable time as you navigate all this to actually listen to to me and to all the other small cultivators out there so greatly appreciate it for sure thank you thank you for your time thank you I think that Erica is here I am here Nellie is Erica able to oh there is she able to turn her camera on she should be able to yes very good there she is okay when I hit on it says it's off and when I hit off it says it's on can you all hear me yes we can hear you okay so I'm trying to turn it on okay I can see myself in the bottom corner of the screen okay got it we see you good great Pepper did you want to start uh sure um so Erica thanks for joining us um you and I met you know virtually very briefly we were both testifying on an expungement bill and your story was very compelling and your openness and frankness about it was very compelling to me personally and um you know I don't know how you feel about cannabis policy but I think that we would love to hear just um how criminal history records have stuck around in your life and impacted you long after you had completed your sentence um and you know repaid you know repaid your debt to society and just how we as a board um might not want to use criminal history records in the kind of traditional sense that they're used in and how we might be able to think differently about them especially as it relates to getting into the cannabis industry and and getting licenses in the hands of folks that may may have uh been previously targeted uh for um enforcement or um have been rehabilitated have served their have served their sentence so I you know I don't I assume that you're not going to get in the cannabis industry or you know if you want to that's great um just love would just love to kind of hear your story and hear about the collateral consequences of your conviction and then we have I think probably a few questions for you at the end sure um well and just listening to the conversation so far this morning I would just say well first of all you absolutely should look at criminal history um and it should be a factor in consideration obviously you want to make sure that you know you're not uh giving a a grant you're not granting a permit to a violent offender somebody who has demonstrated a lack of consideration for the public trust so it's it's interesting and I think I was talking about this with Julie originally I believe you know what you're talking about is potentially giving licenses to people who have already demonstrated that they will break the law and so we'll well oh yeah but it's weed so it's whatever now and blah blah blah well yeah but when it was illegal the people were willing to commit crimes to participate in that so it's a weird area to be like okay well this person had convictions previously and now we should just trust them even though we couldn't trust them before but it's the same thing you see so I understand you're in like a weird spot there so to me looking at criminal history is really important um do they demonstrate a history of criminality is it continuous is it is it various things did they just get picked up because they had a gram of pot in their pocket like 10 years ago yeah probably you don't have to worry about that person but if it's repeated history of a person who has demonstrated a lack of care and consideration for the law I'm not sure why you would want to trust them with this now so I just want to throw that out there so to me for you guys setting up the rules rather than reinventing the wheel I would probably just take something like what does a person have to demonstrate in order to get their record expunged if I as a person say say you're looking at criminal records is this crime eligible for expungement and if they apply for one could they get it um because I think Matt mentioned this and and I'll share my story in just a moment you don't know like I think you're really going to have to take all of these on a case by case basis and to me there's already a framework for you to do that by looking at what the expungement process is and if the person would qualify for it I don't think you have to reinvent the wheel um so I also have a felony conviction and I think one of the reasons why I specifically was encouraged to share is because 15 years ago that crime I did not have to be convicted of a felony and I didn't know that I could have said no to accepting that plea deal you know I was a drug addict I didn't have anyone to advocate on my behalf I had a public defender who did not really care about me or my circumstance and I mean understandable I was an asshole back then I was a drug addict like a lot of people in the middle of their addiction are just jerks and so it's not always surprising when you hear about public defenders not doing the best that they possibly can for their for their um for their client because we I was really sick and a lot of people when they're getting arrested and convicted are very sick so I don't totally blame him but I could have been charged with a misdemeanor and since 2006 when I was convicted I've seen multiple people charged with the same crime embezzlement for far more than me I think it was a few years after I got convicted a woman got busted for stealing like a hundred thousand dollars from St. Albans or something like that and she only got probation but I got a felony conviction and I served time in state prison and was on probation until my restitution was paid in full so sentencing across crimes is not the same depending on which county which judge which public defender or you know even which crime so it's worth making sure that as you do this you're looking at individual cases and like I said having the framework already for expungement I think is a great place to start from maybe you need to tweak it a little bit specifically for this um but that would be a great place to start um and I just totally take any questions I'm happy to talk about it I have no shame about my past you can ask me whatever you want to ask me um I would just like to say it's been interesting to hear people talk about the social equity pieces and so just to go on record you know Vermont is primarily a white state and when I was in college and in my 20s and early 30s Vermont was still one of the whitest states in the union and so I in my opinion if you're going to prioritize who to give um certificates to license licenses to or whatever it should be prioritized to Vermonters and people with a history in Vermont so there may be a desire to want to appear to be racially fair but if you give a license to a black person who's only lived in Vermont for two years instead of somebody like a mat I'm not saying you mat but somebody like a mat somebody who's lived here for decades and been involved in the in the scene and in whatever for decades um if you're gonna give it to a black person who's only been here for two years instead of a white person who's been here for 20 years I think that's a mistake and I think that whoever you do give licenses to should have ties to the community so it shouldn't be somebody who moved here five minutes ago it should be somebody here with family here it should be somebody who grew up here it should be it should be people with ties to the community so that you can ensure that the people you're giving licenses to actually care about Vermont and actually care about Vermonters and don't just care about appearing to be a woke or just don't just appear like they're doing something and people who just moved here to take advantage of our laws so that is my two cents on that piece and I'm happy to answer any questions you guys. Thank you Erica. Kyle, James questions. I do have a question so Erica this is a similar question that I asked. Oh I can't hear you guys. I'm sorry no if you can hear us. Oh there you go I hear that. Okay so uh Erica this is a similar question that I asked Matt which is and you've already touched on it a little bit but you know we are required to obtain and consider criminal history records of all of our applicants. We're not you know the the mere fact of a criminal history record or a conviction does not preclude license ownership but we're required to determine whether the an applicant with a criminal history record presently poses a threat to public safety or the proper functioning of a regulated market. I hear what you're saying about using the expungement criteria and you know for those who aren't aware there's certain crimes that are qualifying you have to have a waiting period where you haven't had a subsequent conviction and there's a few you have to have completed your sentence and you know there's a few other criteria but your crime your conviction is not expungement eligible. Correct and it's it's also even if it was you have a very unique circumstance around your restitution order and you know things have changed since then. You know what do we do for the folks like you that are not eligible for expungement for one reason or another but seem to clearly be you know in a good place to own a license you know that are before us and they're demonstrating to us that they could participate. Yeah great question. I think that's why I said I think the expungement criteria is a really good place to start. So you've got this framework right there's like certain crimes there's timeframes there's deadlines things you have to complete I think that's a great place to start. Now for somebody like me you could go okay well if all things were equal Erica could get an expungement like this is something in theory that she could do. I also just for the record I have a pardon application that has been sitting on Governor Scott's desk for 3 years that anybody who's read my application seen my information would gladly grant me the pardon.  Okay like when the when the correction system is saying give Erica a shot like you know that there's something going on. So I'm sorry I'm just having weird problems with my sound can you guys still hear me? We can hear you okay. So that's the framework to start from. Obviously if people have demonstrated a history of violence I would not trust them with people I just I just wouldn't. Again if it's been 10 years if a person has put their life back together if they have demonstrated I think that given the sorry word I want to use given the sensitivity and the responsibility of owning any kind of a license where you're providing hallucinogens to people the the clearance for getting permission for that should be up here. It's nice to say we want to be equitable it's nice to say we want to give people a chance it's nice to say we want to be inclusive but you guys should always be keeping in the back of your mind that you are granting people permission to sell a hallucinogen to people. So should that be an easy mountain to climb? If someone does have a criminal record in my opinion they should have to at least do the same level of work that I had to do for an expungement application or a pardon application to demonstrate that they can be trusted selling a hallucinogen to people. I just clarify one point there because I think I thought I was clear but maybe I'm not. Yeah I thought what you were saying is that whether someone's gone through the expungement process or not or the pardoning process if they are technically eligible under the criteria we should treat them as if they've been expunged for the purposes of licensure it's those folks that aren't technically eligible that we should do on a case-by-case basis. I would say so I mean I would think that technically if they went through a process that was similarly set up as expungement it would that is the same as on a case-by-case basis right because you can't just apply for an expungement and then get it. It has to be reviewed people like so when I say use the same process like what kind of documentation do people have to provide what sort of review is done by the corrections department how you know what is the step-by-step process and things that a person has to provide in order to even be considered for an expungement. So I would say it should be a similar process to that regardless of whether or not they would actually be eligible for it. Okay yeah I only mentioned that sorry I only mentioned because you know expungement is somewhat complicated I know legally does a lot of work to help provide legal assistance to people seeking expungements but you know sometimes it requires an attorney certainly you know it is just getting that actual expungement order approved can be an additional barrier but I think we as a board can treat people that are expungement eligible that they're technically met all of the criteria as if they've been expunged. Well and just keep in mind like I had legal aid help me with my partner application and my expungement application that is free of charge and I will just state again if you can't count on people to go through the process of an expungement and getting that stuff together then you cannot trust them to sell drugs to people. Okay. I mean remember this is like a pharmacist pharmacists have to go to college and get certified and get degrees and all this other stuff and we're literally talking about homeboy off the street Joe Schmo, Joe Blow coming in and being like hey give me an application and oh by the way I'm a felon like okay well okay no big deal like no you're literally giving someone permission to sell drugs to people this should be hard this should be hard it should be a hard and complicated process and the person should need help to do it and the person should be willing and capable of going through the process and if they are not willing and capable of going through that process you should not trust them to sell drugs to people. Erica was there a wait when you sought help from legal aid was there did you have to wait for that or was there a I'm I'm I'm admitting some ignorance in this process so I'm yeah trying to understand what is it that people have to do to get to that expungement and get the resources that you had access to. Hey it's Erica Redick I want to apply for an expungement okay here's the instructions and then I got together what I could I wrote what I could I assembled everything that I had and then Maread O'Reilly I hope I said her name correctly was the person who helped me and so she gave me the instructions she kind of gave me some direction I compiled everything that she asked me to and then I sent it to her and then she reviewed it okay hey change the language here hey you might want to touch up your essays there blah blah blah blah blah. For me I probably took like a month to get it done because I also had to get you know I got like 15 letters of recommendation they only asked for three but I was like screw that I'm getting one from like everyone I know because I got clients and AA people and friends family you know I got across the spectrum. So I went harder probably than most other people necessarily might or have to but it really was not that complicated you know the hardest part honestly was like having to call corrections because I didn't have I couldn't find a copy of my discharge paperwork so I had to call and get a copy of it from the court and it cost me like two bucks or something stupid like that but it wasn't hard and again if you can't trust people to read directions and get some letters and write a couple essays then you cannot trust them to sell drugs good question though I appreciate the question. Hi Erica this is Kyle Harrison it's nice to meet you I don't believe we've had the pleasure of of meeting before and I think if I'm if I'm thinking about how to best sum up your your comments at least at the tail end of this discussion it's it's the board really needs to weigh accessibility. Is everybody just being quiet or oh no nope I lost my sound again what is this doing. I'm sorry guys okay. Can you hear me now. Yes. Yes sir. I'll be I'll start over and I'll be quick because I know we're running out of time. Okay. Nice to meet you Erica. Thank you for being here and sharing your story. My name is Kyle Harris and what I was going into is the tail end of your comments I think what I'm what I'm hearing is we really need to weigh accessibility into our legal marketplace with the respect and quality of the marketplace with which we're trying to stand up and I think we've got a lot of hard thinking to do on where to draw some lines in the stand in the sand recognizing that we want to be as equitable and inclusive as we as we possibly can. I have a question for you and it's similar to the one that I asked Mad and maybe your experience and your felony convictions might make and you know employment history so on and so forth might make this question easier or harder for you to answer I don't I don't know but thank you for your willingness to revisit but I know for a lot of folks it's one of the hardest times in their life so much appreciated. I asked Matt a question about give me the compounding effects of your your criminal conviction whether it's going to get a mortgage or a business loan or a personal loan so on and so forth you know I asked Matt in the context of trying to move folks from the illicit marketplace into the regulated marketplace but there's a lot of folks out there that I would imagine have convictions that have no experience with cannabis that may be interested so from your perspective in that perspective I'm curious what barriers you see that that you know we should look out for assuming that somebody can kind of do that hard work check the boxes to to make sure that they're not a violent felon so on and so forth but but are having trouble accessing capital or loans or you know commercial real estate or so on and so forth. Yeah great question and can you guys still hear me okay? Yeah so I definitely struggled to get employment I have very I've had barriers to employment my husband and I have had barriers to housing so even though it was a 15 year old felony there's places we can't rent so I definitely have lived in pretty ghetto neighborhoods like in Austin and other places because that's all you can get they're the only people willing to rent people with criminal records. I have not had a problem getting access to capital or a mortgage or anything like that as a result of my conviction but like job having a hard time getting jobs like let's be real I'm an accountant and I stole money to support my drug habit and then people have a hard time wanting to trust me doing their accounting like shocker okay I don't begrudge anybody that and anybody who has especially if the person is working from being rehabilitated or in recovery from substance abuse if they tell you that they didn't deserve or don't deserve every problem that they have as a result of their conviction they are not fully recovered from whatever it is they say they're recovered from and that's the truth so I take 100 full responsibility for the decisions that I made and yes I was the victim of society if you will I had been drugged and sexually assaulted the person who did it was not convicted for lack of sufficient evidence etc etc right like you can look at my past and you can go oh look Erica was the victim of society this is blah blah blah fill in the blank oh my god this is too bad right but I still made the choice to do drugs I still made the choice to steal from my employer to support my habit and as a result of that I deserve whatever the consequences are of that choice and anybody who tells you otherwise in my personal opinion is not actually recovered from their substance abuse because they have not taken responsibility for what is theirs to take responsibility for so I do not begrudge anyone having a hard time being willing to trust me I do not begrudge the additional hurdles I've had to overcome as a result of that and it makes my success today even sweeter because I have had to overcome so many more obstacles because I put them in my own way right like those obstacles I have to have had to overcome are my own fault and I put them in my way but I overcame them and as a result of being over being able to overcome that I have better self-esteem I have integrity I have discipline and I can feel good about where I've come from I've earned my dignity back by overcoming those obstacles that I put in my own way and anybody that is really truly recovered from addiction alcoholism or anything like that will tell you the exact same thing so that is not what's going to get in the way of people getting into the marketplace I think I heard a little bit of the conversation earlier I can tell you the hurdles for getting into the marketplace have already been put in the way by the legislature nobody dug down the street selling dope to his neighbors is not going to come get a license he's not going to start charging 30% tax anybody who buys dope from their neighbor is not going to go to the dispensary and pay 30% more with the taxes they're not going to want to go through regulated markets they're not going to want to give you their name they're not going to want to go on a list nobody wants to do that and so in my opinion the legislature has set this up to fail right from the start and that has nothing to do with criminal background checks or people with criminal backgrounds wanting to get into the marketplace thank you thank you do we have other questions for Erica just looking at the time mr chair and I don't have any other questions Erica it's so nice for you to be so open about this with us and you know your perspective is an important one so thank you once again for having to relive this kind of time in your life for help any time I get to use it for the good of my neighbors it is well worth every minute of it yeah well thank you thank you Erica thank you so we would like to do some public comments and you know we are we have a kind of hard start at 1240 when we have another witness but I think it would behoove us to do a little bit of public comment right now we're going to start with the folks that have joined via the link and can raise their virtual hands and and then we'll move to the folks on the phone so anyone who's on the phone that would wish to make public comments please just wait till I move to the phone and we're going to start with Dave Silverman Dave can you unmute yourself thank you chair pepper I just want to touch base on expungements and and the use of expungements while certainly I would not object to your creating a criteria where any expungement eligible offenses are deemed expunged to start with I really want to urge you not to limit it to that our expungement laws are really really weird and nonsensical so I'll give you a quick example um eluding a law enforcement officer is an expungible offense if you do it with a car but it's not expungible if you do it in a snowmobile um because that if you do it in a snowmobile that's a predicate offense and and if you do it a second time you can be charged more um with higher penalties than when you do it the first time and predicate offenses are according to statute not expungible and we don't actually have a good list of all the predicate offenses in law there are many many of them um so things like reckless driving is not expungible and it's a crime in Vermont it's not a traffic ticket and so I really want to try to steer you away from looking at expungible crimes as being the only things that should be looked past the legislative intent of the language that you referred to Chair Pepper uh was to um exclude people who are actively posing a threat to society so you know violence the the active threat of violence um as well as organized crime that that language around proper function of the regulated market was intended to exclude organized crime from the market um and so I really I beg you to narrowly focus on the statutory language here um and exclude as few people as possible uh because again as we talked about last week your overarching goal one of your main overarching goals is to bring in your existing sellers into this market and the more barriers you put in place by excluding them based on certain criminal histories the less will succeed at that goal thank you very much yep thank you David and thank you Dave for uh for your work on expungement as well um I'm just gonna I see three more hands raised I'm gonna skip around a little bit only because Susanna Davis has not provided public comment yet so Susanna if you could unmute yourself um and thank you for joining us for this thank you for having me um well I suppose it wasn't your choice it's an open meeting but um I just I wanted to touch on a few so I've been bouncing in and out of this hearing throughout the day to cover other meetings but from what I've heard throughout the day I just want to touch on a little bit of it and re-examine it from an equity lens I can't help myself that's how I am here available to you as a committee so um I really appreciate all of the commentary and the testimony so far especially from people who have lived experience with the justice system on cannabis enforcement that's incredibly important I'm getting a bad network quality warning so I apologize if my audio's choppy um and I just want to again cast all of this in in kind of an equity light I actually would agree with the con with Dave's comment about not limiting ourselves only to expungible offenses um as a you know presumptive approval and um and the reason for that again is because you know the the idea or the expectation is that if something has been deemed uh expungible it's because that is the only universe of things that should be expungible but we also know that law and morality are not always the same thing right there are sometimes incongruous and so I would encourage us to look beyond the scope of what the law permits um and on that note I do also want to address some of the comments that were made prior which are um the idea about who should or should not be eligible based on other factors other processes or other criteria for example we did hear the comment that if we can't trust a person to go through the expungement application process then we can't trust them to um you know be be licensed to participate in this market and I think that that that kind of a comment while I recognize I understand where it comes from right about demonstrating a certain level of um sticktuitiveness I recognize and respect where that comes from but it's reflective of immense privilege immense privilege to be able to say that because you were able to navigate a bureaucratic and deeply complex process that therefore everybody should be able to do it that if you had no barriers other people don't have other barriers and that people cannot be good at B if they didn't complete A and what you already have known in your experiences in your various professional experiences is that oftentimes people particularly from historically marginalized groups have been defeated by the system in so many other ways that going through another process through a legal system that's already failed them what would be the point in a lot of people's eyes right so I wouldn't necessarily look at failure to begin or complete one process as an indication of inability to be great at something else I also recognize the idea of holding people to a certain standard being able to say well if I had to go through something you should at least have to go through that much and we hear that a lot in contemporary and contemporary discussion around things like I don't know student debt well it's not fair to absolve such and such because if I had to suffer under this unfair system then other people should have to suffer too and I really encourage us to rethink that right we know that the American legal system is flawed in so many ways and yet because we've had system failures in the justice system that have impacted people today we should atone for that for those people but that doesn't mean we have to leave those same oppressive systems in place and have other people suffer under them right if we know it's bad for the people who've gone through it why continue something bad for new folks so similarly I would encourage us to look toward newer and better and different ways of going through this process instead of saying we're going to uphold the same unfair standards that we've already been upholding because it would be unfair to the people who've already gone through that and the last thing I just want to remind people love again I can't help myself as a person who is new to Vermont from two years ago I just want to remind the board that tenure in this state is not synonymous or interchangeable with who cares about the state or who has ties to the community I've known a lot of people who have come affirmatively to be a part of Vermont's community who have done more for their look for their towns and communities in the short time they've been here than some people who've lived here their whole lives and I know that there are some folks who do have ties to the community who may have done more harm than good in their time here and so I would just remind us as we consider priority you know that that we not just base it on this sort of in-state out-of-state xenophobia or the sort of you know you're a flat lander and I've been here for 29 generations and therefore I'm somehow more of a Bremont than you are because that's the same kind of thinking that contributes to the high churn rates that we see for people of color in Vermont who often report that they leave because they felt unwelcome because they felt like outsiders because they were repeatedly told they didn't belong and again you know if we're trying to accomplish multiple objectives like raising the state's birth rate increasing the number of students being enrolled in schools here increasing the retention of job markets and major employers these are all things that are at least in part fueled by whether Vermont and Bremonters see themselves as welcoming and really act out that welcoming so I would again remind us that tenure is not the same thing as investment personal investment and I'm gonna stop there that's that's what I got so far. Susanna thank you for that and you know your statutory required to help us but we would seek your help anyway I think on the social equity programming and the social equity applicant definition and it's going to be a huge part of our conversation at 1240 and and beyond and I would hope that you could join us kind of as an honorary board member to help talk with Bo Kilmer and Chalene Tidal about those very issues. So thank you for that and next on my list is Graham. Hi folks you caught me she's still napping here that's great for over two to two hour mark now that's impressive. This is Graham policy director at Rolvermont and I just want to first of all thank Susanna for everything she just shared I think she captured a number of responses to some of the comments that Erica made in particular that I would have made as well. You know I think clearly you know Mark Hughes is a member of the Vermont Cannabis Equity Coalition with Rolvermont and a number of other organizations that we are colleagues with. I appreciated much of what was said by the other witness today as well but there's a you know I think one thing today is about social equity and I hope there's also a date for criminal justice reform conversation because they are not the same thing although they are often related. So I didn't come today prepared to speak on criminal justice reform but I'd like to quickly say that you know although we talk about decriminalization having happened in Vermont as has been said the type of decriminalization decriminalization that has happened more it certainly allows a number of people to be free from a particular type of convictions and that is excellent. However it largely maintains criminalization across most of the cannabis marketplace. It really just allows people to possess very small amounts and to grow very small amounts and people will be making incredible profits and are making incredible profits while some people are still in prison are facing the results of past incarceration and do not face any sort of reparation from that. So I don't think we should speak about decriminalization having in Vermont we could talk a little about market capture you know by limited decriminalization perhaps and you know one thing that was said was about people's willingness to repeat offend in the face of the law and I think one thing we should keep in mind is that we're here today because we recognize the history of prohibition and criminalization as fundamentally xenophobic racist and classist. This is not about people being willing to be out of compliance with cannabis laws it's about the laws and lawmakers complicity in criminalizing people and their behavior and people facing severe consequences in their lives. I personally know people who have had to make choices about whether they're going to serve time in prison before or after their child was born and people who are removed from their families and subsequently sexually assaulted in foster care. Those people and their families are not facing any sort of preparatory process from the state right now. Just keep that in mind. I want to quickly you know speak to what we came here to talk about racial equity and you spoke earlier Kyle you asked specifically about zoning and how commercial zoning or ag zoning or what have you experienced. Different zoning may impact racial equity and you know as Mark spoke to earlier he gave a number of statistics about how people of color inequities in wealth and access in communities of color versus white communities in the state. I don't think I need to revisit those numbers. But we know if you mentioned the lack of access to capital in land is banned knowledge or some of the preeminent factors you know limiting BIPOC participation in its marketplace. We heard similarly from Nikki last week that you know lack of access to capital land is is an issue amongst farmers but we know even more so when you are person of color you face historic discrimination or current discrimination