Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: We're gonna be taking a break at ten, and then more witnesses coming in. But to talk about hemp, which is something that we don't really spend too much time on, but we will be likely spending time on it next week, following week because it is in a bill that is probably going to be coming to our committee. So to get

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: a head start. The 03/23? Yes.

[Speaker 0]: Bradley is going to give us just some legal background on the hemp, and then we'll have Steve Collier come in representing the agency. We've invited the chair of the cannabis control board to come in. I'm not sure that we're gonna have time to do that today. If not today, tomorrow. And then we've also got the Vermont Woodlands Association coming in this morning. I had reached out. We had spoken earlier in the session, the director of that organization and I, and they expect an interest in coming in and just giving us an update on what they do. And so we'll hear from them. But in the meantime, Bradley, thank you for joining us. And we're all ears, I think, for the next twenty minutes, although I'm sure we'll have questions.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Okay. Sounds

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: great. Riley Schumann, office of legislative council. So I'm just kinda giving a verbal overview of of the bill, but it is sections 26 through 29 and s three twenty three. And and this will be transitioning the the oversight of hemp and hemp processing from the agency of agriculture to the cannabis control board. And some of the background on why this is happening, And and you folks are are aware that up until 2018, you know, a lot of hemp or hemp products were schedule one federally speaking, and so prohibited at the federal level. But there were some pilot programs that were allowing the cultivation of some hemp products with some limitations on THC content. And so there's a federal law in 2018 that kind of opened the door for a lot more hemp and hemp products to enter into the market. Federal law. Federal law. Yeah. And so what wound up happening in the last six years was that there was a proliferation of hemp and hemp products, and some of it was intoxicating based on the THC content and the kind of different variants of THC that could be in hemp, multiple different variants of THC and one hemp product, something of the sorts. So there was some concern that intoxicating products are being sold under the guise of not being an intoxicating product, under the guise of being hemp. And so federal law changed in 2025 to tighten what is and is not hemp. And there's some ambiguity there because there's fear that there might be well, there is fear that there will be more products, more hemp products that are considered schedule one drugs and prohibited at a federal level. And so, what the cannabis control board in consultation with the agency of agriculture, but the cannabis control board is would like to do is to kind of unify oversight of cannabis and hemp into one regulatory agency so that they can better control test for and ensure that hemp and hemp derived products don't have more than point three milligrams of THC of any THC content in them. And so that's kind of the federal oversight. You know, the state has been has had programs since I think 2014, maybe even a little bit earlier for hemp and hemp processing. And so it's it's part of our state and looking to just kind of change the regulatory scheme to make that safer and more secure for hand processors. Yes. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah.

[Speaker 0]: So I

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: think it was in a big beautiful bill was added into it. Mitch McConnell from Kentucky, and Kentucky is a big hemp processing state and also a big bourbon state.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: And

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: they were taking the distillate from Hampton, which is I grew hemp one year. Yeah. Awesome. We do a lot about it.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: You and everybody else. Yeah.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Yeah. So anyway Which

[Speaker 0]: year sorry. Which year out of curiosity was this? There was a boom and kind of a bust then. Right?

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Nineteen, eighteen, nineteen, somewhere in there. And 30 acres grew the hell out of it. I have a tremendous yield. But anyway, it it it will come in a lot of times a little bit hot and they can distill that off. Mhmm. And then they take that distilled product and really they can do some wonderful things with it without going full blown THC, but it is THC. And McConnell changed the federal law to protect the bourbon industry in Kentucky. And much to the chagrin of his fellow Republican senator Rand Paul. So that's some of the backstory on it. And that it comes out as kinda like a paste that distillate. And I was in a lab, and I was looking at it, and I said, I smelled it. You know, did what any farmer would do. Stuck my finger on it, went, oh, I guess. And my mouth instantly went completely numb. And I looked at the guys in the lab, and they were going, no. No. No. I've got my finger in my mouth. And I looked at it cocaine? Exactly. I said, you clever sons of guns. I said, I know exactly what you're gonna do with this now. And if you have a toothache if you have a toothache, get that stuff done. You wrote that on up. It didn't affect me at all, but my it was just like

[Speaker 0]: Painkiller.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Pain be

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: gone. Absolutely. Amazing. Absolutely. So I think there is real bad that changed my whole mindset because I'm the guy that never smoked dough ever. You're the wild goat.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Me either. For real. Wow. You you knew. So 20 We're role full of nerds in here.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: You missed the member from Brownington.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: List the drugs he had done, and we were like, we're alive here. Was

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: CAX and Brownies this morning. So we're gone. We're gonna

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: be in this.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: For a lock.

[Speaker 0]: So back

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: to him and

[Speaker 0]: Bradley's Somebody else had a hand up. Bradley,

[Rep. Richard Nelson (Ranking Member)]: can you just for the audience and to update me since I did a lot of reporting on various hemp and the spills back in 2019. Just describe like when we're talking, when we say hemp, is it synonymous with cannabis? As I understood then it's the same plant, but cultivar wise, you can have one essentially breed or variety grown for flowers and THC and other varieties, what we usually call hemp, it's grown more for the fibers or other things you can use it for.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: That's exactly right. And it's the same plant, different processing is probably the easiest way to kind of think about it. Representative Nelson is exactly right. There has been a proliferation of hemp derived products, kind of different ways to synthesize and process hemp to have different kinds of effects, whether they're intoxicating or numbing or something of the sort. There's been a proliferation of different kinds of products in the last six years. And so that's why the federal law kind of changed. It said, okay, well, there's actually a lot you can do with hemp to have intoxicating or sometimes intoxicating adjacent effects. And so the federal law changed to kind of try to rein that in. And and here we are.

[Speaker 0]: So intoxicating adjacent, a mild buzz. Is that

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Maybe. Yeah. I I think intoxicating adjacent is my word. You know, it's it's because they do have different kinds of effects. They're supposed to be calming or, you know, like a tea could be calming or something like that or, you know but there's also concern that, you know, like how much THC is in this, or if you process a THC differently, or if you add different strains to the same type of product. And so I think from the federal point of view and then from this bill from the federal point of view, they just kind of wanted to ban and restrict and kind of put schedule A on things that they think will be intoxicating or at least put rains on things. And from this bill's point of view, it wants to kind of bring the processing, growing, and producing of hemp and hemp derived products into kind of one umbrella to make sure that, okay, these things aren't intoxicating. And if they are intoxicating, they have to be registered in a certain way. Registered and labeled in a certain way so people know what's in it too.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I was

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: on this committee back when we did all of this,

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: and it was

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: really clear that THC level was the key. Obviously, they're the same species, but if you were above the level, were hemp. It wasn't hemp. It was below your hemp. It was very simple, and I'm surprised it's become so complicated. You mentioned a change in federal law. Did you actually say what changed?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, so the federal law in 2018 was Delta nine point three THC content of the Delta nine variants of cannabis. And what changed in the federal law is it changed that to just 0.3 THC content of any variant. And so I think the confusion and the proliferation hemp derived products that could be intoxicating, is because there's different variants of THC. So there's delta eight, and then a whole bunch of other variants that can't rattle off off the top of my head. But those variants of THC technically were not covered under federal restrictions and and proliferate. And so there's some concern that you could have a delta eight, THC content product that is more than 0.3% by volume of THC as long as it's delta eight. And the cannabis control board will probably be better to tell you about the different varieties and how those work and synthesize and things of that sort. But I think the overarching concern was, okay, we have all these different strands, but the regulatory framework only looks at Delta nine. The federal framework changed that to look at any THC content and which might now start to exclude some hemp derived products that have more than point three of a THC content of a different variety.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So it sounds like we're talking about processing of hemp. Because back back in the day, it was made really clear that if you tried to get high by smoking hemp, you're gonna get a terrific headache before you're gonna get any kind of psychotropic effect. So it seems like the casual user, you know, grower isn't gonna have the tools to process to make these specialized products. And at the farm level, the farmer's not gonna have that stuff. The farmer, I'm just confused why it's become an issue at all because yeah, once the processor has it, you make something, you can regulate that, but why would we be regulating the farmer?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: That's a good question. And so the processors are, can process the hemp and make all sorts of products, right? It's not just for smoking, but honey, gummies, teas, infused energy drinks. And you know, the the farmers, you know, still have to follow, you know, federal laws, federal, like, federal regulations as well. And, you know, what that specifically means for specifically growing certain plants and things of that sort, that's a little bit beyond my expertise. But suffice to say that this regulatory framework tries to kind of bring what this does is it just puts people into three categories. Producers, which they use synonymous with growers. So growers are producers. Processors who will kind of take the product and then process it into something or take the hemp and process it and process it. And then products, which any hemp derived product of more than zero point four THC content, so something that could be intoxicating under federal law has to be registered with the cannabis control board. And then there's some restrictions on sale because you cannot sell those interstate commerce and you can't sell them to anyone who's 21 in the state of Vermont. And so, especially with the kind of regulatory scheme where cannabis and some forms of hemp are schedule one, are federally prohibited. The hemp, the cannabis control board feels that they have a better control over both the growing, the processing, and the labeling of products to make sure that everything is in line and to also give growers a little bit of freedom, guess. Would be struggling with the word, but kind of maybe regulatory certainty that if we're following these laws in this way, we're not going to get in trouble. There's definitely caveats in this section and sector with cannabis and hemp now anyway, but growers have been interested in trying to make this clearer for themselves.

[Speaker 0]: Sure. Senator Lawson?

[Sen. Lawson (first name unknown)]: I was just wondering if you could tell us a little bit where this came from. Like you're presenting a bill to us, but I don't know what the history like. Did it pass from the Senate?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Did it

[Sen. Lawson (first name unknown)]: come from another committee? Where did it come from?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: So this came this is in the miscellaneous senate's agriculture bill, senate a s three twenty three. Okay. And the impetus from the bill came from a request from the cannabis control board. I believe in consultation with the Agency of Agriculture to do this.

[Sen. Lawson (first name unknown)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Speaker 0]: Representative Lipsky? Yeah. In Greene.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: What year did the rules change?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. So the federal rules, they kind of opened the door in 2018 and then closed the door in 2025. But those rules, I think it was like November 2025, the federal law changed, but it will go into effect sometime a little bit later this year. Think maybe this summer, but don't quote me on the exact date, but very recently.

[Speaker 0]: And most of us are familiar with CBD. It's that effectively, so CBD infused consumables, teas that you mentioned, for example, those items that have been on the store shelves for quite a few years will not be

[Rep. John O'Brien]: That since the 2025

[Speaker 0]: law. Is that

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Yeah. I think the concern is that those things could be swept into something that might become unlawful. And so it's trying to give some regulatory certainty on those things. I think the specific products and things of the sort, the cannabis control would have a lot more because sometimes those CBD drinks can be intoxicating, sometimes they cannot be. And it just kind of depends on what's in it from a chemical point of view.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Follow-up question. The state lab down in Randolph said, did they ever get asked to test for whatever you call those, the THC or gelatin that's in a test cannabis or

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: You know, I'm actually not familiar. Not familiar. I I would assume so, but I'm not 100% certain about that.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Representative O'Brien. Yeah, I was gonna bring up the same thing with back in the day, CBD, because originally hemp was illegal because it was, whatever that is, class one. Schedule one. Schedule one, right. Then Kentucky managed to get a pilot project with vanilla hemp without THC and that led to the CBD being used. So when we were doing this, there were all sorts of, it was the same thing as John was saying that if your CBD was finally that legal, but if it had too much THC, then it was, you couldn't use it. So there's that conversation. It sounds like it's coming back again. In the meantime, what was it in the last Schedule one. Schedule one. So cannabis has been what, schedule two now? It's not schedule one anymore, right? So that's been down very good.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't know if that actually happened. I'm actually not 100% certain of that. I know there's been a lot of talk about descheduling cannabis. I don't think it's actually happened. But I know that's a priority of the Trump well, I shouldn't say priority, but I know that that has been something the Trump administration has discussed is descheduling cannabis. And I think there might even be an executive order to the effect of trying to promote the cultivation of hemp as well. So on the federal level, there's a lot of uncertainty right now.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: And

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: schedule one means that it is full stop prohibited. The federal government has determined that there's no appropriate medical use and there's no good use for that substance.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Fentanyl is not even scheduled one, I think.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah, think you can get fentanyl prescribed by a doctor under certain circumstances. And federally speaking, they're not going to approve medical marijuana, for example, under a federal health insurance program or something of the sort. There is no legitimate use for cannabis, as far as the federal government's concerned at this point.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: As far as the federal government's Federal government. Federal government. It's it it the whole deal with the hemp is what do you do with the distillate? What do you do with the because you can bring a a hemp plant that's well, that's 23.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Point three.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Point three. So if you have a hemp plant that's blown out of four or five or six even, they can process that and bring out that Novocaine and set that over to the side, and then what do you do with that? And it it has value, and it has it to the industry, it has value. And so that, you know, and we're gonna have everybody coming in because they're gonna wanna have it, farmers markets and and, you know, there's people that we could have a witness list for a week on this on this issue with think there's people over at

[Rep. John O'Brien]: the

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: agency, AAFM, that would like to talk about this.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Representative Lipsky. Thank you.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: You know, I don't use any of this stuff, but I hear different opinions about this CBD cream. You know, for some people it's same offer, like, pain medicine or arthritis. I to me, it seems like a psychoile or a psychological, but I have no idea. Every who who is it for some ailments that it actually works? Has the FDA ever confirmed that it's a valid, you know, salve for pain or arthritis. So Is this a coupon sale and promote it if has that value?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: A lot of those products do not have FDA approval because of the federal prohibition on identifying medical uses for cannabis and in some respects hemp. But it is going to depend because CBD is not cannabis. Right? And so I think and that's where my expertise kind of breaks down because I start to kind of like lose the thread about what threshold something becomes illegal, unlawful. And I think that that's a lot of people's concern about these products and also from a grower, producer, and someone who's licensing a product, their perspective too, because they wanna know what follows state law, what follows federal law, what doesn't. And so those are good questions. And so it is important on those products to look at FDA approval because the problem is a lot of people assert that these kinds of products do have a valid legitimate medical purpose, but they're prohibited from being studied at a federal level because the underlying THC is Schedule I, and they're not allowed to actually study. They're not allowed to do tests. And so it's just kind of a little bit of a question mark.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: What's interesting, though, historically, going even further back than you started is you look at World War II posters, many of them said, Grow hemp. And we were hearing the hemp testimony before, it was amazing the different products we got from hemp, fiber, rope. Rope. Rope. I mean, World War II, it

[Rep. John O'Brien]: was rope

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: and hempcrete was born again.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: And again, concrete blocks, the hemp blocks, it's amazing the versatility of the product. And it's kind of odd that And that's why we said, was below a certain THC level, it was not Cam, it was not marijuana, it was him. If it exceeded it, it was no longer him. It's pretty simple.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the correction, at least at the federal level anyway, in 2018, they tied it to Delta THC Delta nine of the delta nine variant of cannabis, right? But you could have other variants, synthetic processes, and things of the sort have proliferated since then. And those aren't necessarily caught up. And so it's interesting from a chemical or processing type of situation or perspective to see just like the number of products into different ways that processors have decided, have been inventive enough to to create new kinds of products. But that has, on the flip side, has given a lot of people some pause in terms of, okay, are these too many products that do we really know? And and also, what about labeling? Make sure that when someone's buying a product, they know exactly what they're getting.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Nelson, thank you.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Is some of the disjointed noses on this coming from because when you make that distillate, whether it's delta nine or or delta eight, is some of those coming from the cannabis people because of stepping on their toes? That much I'm

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: not familiar with. I think the cannabis control board might have some perspective on that, though.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Because kinda sorta is you you could grow have some regulated. We go down to your place and I could bring my my water wheel and my plastic puller, and we could lay down 30 acres of hemp in three days, work like a bastard, and then you could spend all summer bush hogging it and weed whacking it. But, you know, you could lay down 30 acres and It was a quarter. Yeah. 125, I know. If you don't charge for it. Right. So and with with with cannabis, you gotta get a permit. If you get a permit, you better be can only have so much and Fencing. So on and so forth. And with hemp, you can make make a drum of that stuff pretty quick.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Jed Lipsky? Thank you. It's possible that only Ralph O'Brien and I were here three years ago in this committee when we had the and some tablets or they're they're chairs. Yeah. But he's not sitting right And he was here, and it was clear that this committee, it was not considered an agricultural product. Would that include hemp or just cannabis? Just cannabis. We had cannabis board in here three years ago, and it why were they here if you said it's not it's a Western agricultural problem. Do you recall why they were

[Rep. John O'Brien]: I mean, we talked a lot about hemp in here in 2018 and 'nineteen, Then there was the great bust, And since then, hemp hasn't come up in here once. Yeah. Does. And it has though, because I think there's always going to be this tension between some of the industries saying, this is a plant, it's agriculture. No matter what's happening at the federal level, it's a plant that gets grown. Then on the other side, people say, no, it's a drug. It should be at CCB. Then, curiously, we're talking about municipal regulation of agriculture because cannabis was part of that Supreme Court lawsuit. Ducks and cannabis. So yeah, it would make sense to somehow

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: I think it's appropriate to be

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Figure this out, yeah. And I think with municipal regulation, unless it's pretty clear, I could see that that's something that a lot of municipalities would like to potentially add even further restrictions to. I think right now, towns have to, I guess, know Cannabis? Yeah, if you're a grower, can towns ban that or do you just need a license, I know.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, you definitely need a license. So there's a specific zoning statute for cannabis saying that towns cannot prohibit cannabis cultivation in their districts, but they can zone it. And so they have to have at least one place where it is zoned. So they have more leeway to zone cannabis than they do any other agriculture activity, at least our understanding of

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: it Yeah. Retested. What about the issue of individuals thought that Vermont law allowed a family or an individual to grow?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. Six times.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: We had a lot of discussion and questions here. Did you did we derail what you were gonna tell us?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: No. No. I mean, it's director just wanted me to just tell you that the bill exists, give you some background on it. I think one thing I wanna flag for the committee is that it does change the fees for growing, processing, and hemp derived products. And so current law sets a fee for hemp growers at $25 or $25 if they're growing it for personal use. And there's gonna be a new fee structure in the proposed in the s three twenty three where it's, I think, $50 for grower, $500 for a producer, and then $75 per product if you wanna register it. And then it's also taking out fees for hemp growers. There's statutory scheme that you have to pay a certain fee based on the poundage or acreage of hemp that you are growing, And you have to pay a certain fee, then that fee is gone. And so those fees can actually be pretty pricey. You know, currently greater than 50 acres of hemp or greater than 50,000 pounds, you pay a $3,000 fee. And it's much less one to 50 acres or less than 50,000 pounds. It's a $1,000 fee. Those fees are gone in the new bill. So that's just one thing to flag because when you're changing fees and things, that always, kind of raises, some interest.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: Does one thing you did downstairs create more obstacles for somebody to grow hemp? Like like, there there may be advantages to keeping that an agricultural product, and and there may be advantages by not. I I I don't know enough about it. I I've been hearing rumblings. And

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: So those are good questions. And so one, hemp is still an agricultural product. It still has to follow the wraps. It's still kind of regulated as a plant in terms of agricultural plants. So it's it's not not being considered cannabis, which is not an agriculture. So whether it's gonna be more or less difficult, I think that's a the answer that question is two pronged. One is the federal law made it more difficult. And so there were a lot of hemp growers who were concerned that they might be out of business or might not be operating their business in a way that is safe for them. And so that said, I don't have an answer. I think it would be a good answer, a good question for the agency of agriculture or the cannabis control board to kind of talk about the ease of regulation. From the statutes, I don't see much change, in terms of requirements and things of that sort. But how that happens on a practical basis, in terms of applying and working with the board and the board's knowledge of of agriculture and agricultural practices, those are good questions for the board.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: What's the correct terminology these days? Is it used to be, we called it marijuana. We switched to cannabis, but cannabis is a genus name and hemp is cannabis because it's the same genus.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: So how do we make the distinction now with psychotropic cannabis versus hemp? I've been saying cannabis to refer to the plant that is intoxicating. And I've been saying hemp to refer to the agricultural product, I might be wrong on that. I think that might be a good question for the cannabis control board, but that's how I understand it in statute. But if the terminology has changed more colloquially, that might be something we might consider updating. As far as

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I know, the genus name for the hemp plant is still the same as cannabis. So it gets confusing very quickly. Yeah. That's exactly right. One thing that I remember and presumably it's still the same is if you're growing cannabis for psychotropic, you've got all these different varieties. And if you're growing it outside, number one, you have security issue. Number two, if anyone grow is growing hemp nearby, your your psychotropic cannabis is just gonna be totally messed up because of cross pollination. So you have to be you have to be very careful if you're trying to breed for various psychotropic effects to do it in a greenhouse and really control pollination. So the way they're grown is, least from what I was told before, is so very different. You've got very controlled psychotropic cannabis, and then you've got hemp that can be out in the field and whatever, where you're going acres and acres. Is that still the way it works out there?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Think that that particular question is a little bit beyond my expertise.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Bradley, do you know just in general, does this committee have some bit of jurisdiction over cannabis and CCB for because it's not agricultural.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Not cannabis, right? So That's judiciary usually? Think so. It's health. I think so. My colleague Tucker handles that. But it's a controlled substance. Same thing with alcohol and things of that sort. And so we have jurisdiction or this committee has jurisdiction over hemp because it is an agricultural product.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: And that this bill, is it just referring to hemp? So that's why it was at senate ag?

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: That's exactly right. Yeah.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So if we were to go with the senate version, they would know hemp would no longer come under this committee?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: That much, I don't know. I think that that would be a good question for the clerk. Right, because it's not in title six anymore. It would be going to title seven, but it's also an agricultural product. And there's a section in this bill that specifically says hemp is an agricultural product. It has to follow the wraps.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: Oops. Thank you, vice chair. You've used the word psychotropic. Could you explain to me what is that Latin or Greek or what?

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm not You can always No. That's right. I remember, like, famous for this guy. What's

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: the genesis

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: of that word? I'd have to look it up. It's just a word I've always heard relating to the effects of THC in the body and that it's line altering. But exactly what a psychotropic look exactly what it means, I'd have to look at

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: cyclone fine, hope it could be changing. You're asking me the same question. You mean the psyche does things,

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: so he has a

[Sen. Lawson (first name unknown)]: mind. I don't

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: know what that

[Sen. Lawson (first name unknown)]: means, but it

[Rep. John O'Brien]: I just

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: wanna try I've studied neither

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Latin nor Greek, so I don't we

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: can't tell you the word difference without looking pretend I'm not educated. So

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: I don't have anything more to report on the bill. I'm sure it'll get referred to this committee, we can go over the nuts and bolts at that time and then hear more from the cannabis control board or HCP agriculture. Does this committee have any

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: more questions for me? Well, it's great to shift gears and get caught up in where we are, for this living bird.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: What's the number?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: S three twenty three. And it is sections 26 through 29. So it's on page 36.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: This book doesn't even have 26 or 29.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: I don't

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: even think it's been on I don't think it's been noticed yet.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yeah. It's the senate. Has it come to the senate floor?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. I don't think it's even.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: It's being ripped apart in different committees down there right now.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: It's being ripped apart. Only dealing with hemp.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: These these sections. I mean, this bill doesn't touch campus at all.

[Unidentified Member (farmer/hemp grower)]: It is.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: S But three twenty three is

[Rep. John O'Brien]: a miscellaneous bill. Bill in senate. And so It's big one. Different committees.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: I'm curious. He just brought up a point. You characterized it as being ripped apart. Is is the bill facing a lot of changes? I'm trying to figure out whether we should be taking testimony in preparation for this big bill that's coming. But if other committees are making significant changes in the senate, maybe amendments on the floor, Do you can we expect a lot of changes from what the agriculture committee in the senate?

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: That's a good question. I'm familiar with one amendment that does not touch hemp, though. I think the the finance committees have it right now.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Yeah, just one more.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: I mean, what's interesting is this is almost a 180 degree term because the last thing we passed, it wasn't hemp, but it was cannabis.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It

[Rep. John O'Brien]: was small scale outdoor cannabis would fall under the reps, or at least, I remember the Senate started this bill that we eventually passed that let, it was sort of the size of a bowling alley, of outdoor cannabis. As long as it was, if it was on a farm following the wraps, it sort of fell under the wraps.

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: It would

[Rep. John O'Brien]: be interesting to see how

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: this might completely turn that around.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, well, hemp will stay under the wraps. I don't think that's a question at all. Cannabis. Yeah, cannabis.

[Rep. John O'Brien]: Maybe that, whatever that law was, go away.

[Riley Schumann (Legislative Counsel)]: The RAPs are water quality, right? And so anything that's gonna have a significant adverse effect into the waters of the state have to be regulated by the federal government, right? Or per the federal government. And the RAPs are how we implement those requirements. And so if there's agriculture activity, you know, you're exactly right that, you know, cannabis could and probably should, well, could, and if it affects water, should fall under the RAPs. But those are open questions.

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: So we've got agriculture food and markets coming in at 10:30. If we

[Rep. Jed Lipsky (Clerk)]: have a

[Rep. John L. Bartholomew (Vice Chair)]: break, we should probably take it. Thank you so much for Thank you

[Rep. John O'Brien]: very much. What's up, man. Appreciate it.