Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Alright, we're live.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Alright, everyone. Thank you for being patient with that delay. We are transitioning over to witness testimony on S-two 78, an act related to cannabis. We did a walk around the bill yesterday with counsel and the sponsor and reporter of the bill. And now we have our friends from CCB in to just offer their perspective on the proposal itself. So thank you for being patient with the clock spill over from that previous slug of testimony. I'll stop talking. The table is yours.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Thank you, mister chair. I'm Gabe Gilman, the general counsel from the Canada control board. I'm joined by Julie Hilbert, the county control board member. And, we're here with you today to talk about the, what was handed to you by the senate, as s two seventy eight. There's some exciting stuff in here and some other, content that, we think maybe could use a little bit of work. Shortly before this meeting, we were glad that you were running a little bit late because we were too. And I sent the committee assistant a overview and some documents that may be helpful too. If anybody's I'm had time to open those up yet. I didn't give you much. But just want to let you know that there are some backing documents here. The one that I think will structure our talk with you is just a section by section analysis. We're here to answer whatever questions you have and make sure that you're getting legislation that you thought and it's doing what you expect it to. So please interrupt at will if there are any questions or anything you'd like us to stop and elaborate on. We're not scripted here. But I'll maybe hand it over to Julie to talk about Sections one to four.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Sure. So just to add to what Gabe said about sending over documents, one of the documents we send is a cannabis 101 that has a list of the types of products. I know there was some confusion about that. So I hope that that doesn't add to the confusion, but maybe clarifies some things about the types of products and the milligrams that they have. And then also a state by state comparison, which we also shared with the Senate to frame some of at least the Sections one through four. So, Sections one through four talk about an increase in milligrams and obsession limits, and we, as a board, we support that. It does bring us in line with some of the other states and the direction they appear to be going. So, we don't see a regulatory issue in that regard. What we do, what we would say is one of the challenges we've had operationalizing that difference between ounces of flour and milligrams of cannabis is how to do the equivalency in products in real life. So, you can see in our memo that we sort of address the challenges that we've had there. We have some reports from other states, if you want to look at them, we could summarize them for you, that talk about just how challenging that math and science is to figure out what the dosage is. So if this committee wanted to entertain a longer conversation about that, we would certainly be glad to come with some more information. But as a practical matter, we have no concerns about these first four sections of the bill.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: So I'll talk with you now about what's in Sections five and six. Those sections were kind of both minds about, as the board is. Section five, the board, I think, really feels positive about in the sense that it would open new opportunities that have been somewhat neglected in travel and tourism and economic development. It's pretty well thought through. This is a structure for creating a pilot program for cannabis event permitting is structured loosely around the alcohol system. It resembles it. But obviously, for obvious reasons, there are differences that can't be bridged. We like the place that gives the local oversight. I think municipalities have a thorough hand in making sure that whatever is going on in their communities is appropriate to the setting. This is limited to 10 permits annually. Really it is a pilot, after which you'll see that we are to report to you under the language about how it went and then use that experience to inform rulemaking. So it allows sort of a controlled experiment in this space without overcommitting the state. And we like it. We think it can be done. The board really feels like it can be done responsibly, that the tools that are given to the board are adequate to allow us effectively to regulate, especially authority to require that an OPR licensed security company be contracted or someone. We don't have the staff to do that. We don't imagine there's going to be a compliance agent at these pilot events most of the time. So we think that that one is in good shape. Happy to answer any questions you may have about it, but we really do encourage you that that's one of those concrete things that can be done to keep pace with adjacent states that have legal markets that are experimenting with this, as well as to showcase some of the things that make Vermont cultivators special and make those spots not only good places to cultivate cannabis, but also attractive tourist destinations in some cases. Section six is a little more complicated. This is a proposal to expand delivery to the adult use market. Right now, a registered patient can obtain delivery from a cannabis establishment that wants to provide it. Section six, for reasons that I won't read from my paper filing, strikes the board as underdeveloped in some important ways. It just doesn't really address some problems that would need to be addressed in order to have a viable system, things around insurance, security, age verification. And then there's a real practical sales tax, for example, would need to be addressed because the current tax law regards the transactions having occurred at the point of delivery. And so if you're delivering from a no local option tax town to a town that has local option tax, that it creates some uncertainty. Also unclear from the language as it now stands is what the legislature intends for those communities that have not had a municipal vote to authorize retail cannabis sales. Can they be delivered into or not? It isn't very clear. So we just want to make sure that you make a conscious decision about that if you decide to go forward with this section. Finally, a little bit of skepticism about the viability. I can't get a pizza delivered to my house and I don't live in a particularly rural area of the state. The same economic constraints are there. It's just going to be a very hard business to make money at. And I think we found that a little bit in medical delivery. Just not that many people offer it because it's very expensive and it doesn't bring a lot of revenue. But I can't speak for businesses. They know their business better than we do. We just want to not lead you to believe that would be a blockbuster economically, as it probably would get limited uptake. And ironically, the uptake is likely to be in cities that already have a lot of availability, not in the sub of underserved places. So there's that kind of paradox. But that's just life in rural place. There is that. So there's a

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: little uptake. Then also, from a regulatory standpoint, it opens up a number of places that we need to keep track of in terms of the points to customers and where cannabis is beating customers. Our ability to regulate that also or our responsibility to regulate also expands. And so doing that without additional resources is a little bit of a concern for us, depending on how this rolls out with the rules and the shape of this particular section of the bill.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: So section seven really just updates the cannabis excise tax. You would need to do that if you were to expand direct sales to individuals other than retailers because the tax right now aims only to retailers. Section 10 is the rulemaking and reporting follow on to those pilot programs. As you would expect, it tells us to get going with rulemaking by 07/01/2027, and file a report with the relevant committees by 11/25/2027.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Well, it's not rulemaking. It's procedure for events and delivery. So we would make the procedures. And then I think we're intended to give some feedback on the effectiveness of the events of delivery, which is something that we have done throughout our existence as various programs have rolled out. We've all have asked us to produce reports, and we do so loudly.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Yeah, that's a useful point that we're authorized to implement procedures before the rulemaking mandate, which is unusual but really functional in this case because if we had to do a full rulemaking before launching these pilots, they would not have it this summer. They might not have it next summer. So that would be a transitional thing. As Ledge Council got into a little bit, those procedures could be brought to bear only upon applicants and people holding these permits, not upon the general public. We have no authority to do that.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: We're on to fees, I think, now.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: You want to tell fees?

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Sure. So these fees, I think, effectively reduce the outdoor cultivator fees in half. This particular section 10A also ties to the last section in the bill, so the trigger point for this is a contribution of, I think it's $105,000 to the cannabis regulation fund in order to support the loss operational funds that we would have. So the regulation remains the same, even though the fees would drop. I suspect that you'll hear from outdoor cultivators and others in the industry about the impact and benefits and drawbacks of this in terms of how it affects them?

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: In barest consideration, there are indoor cultivators that are not helped by this. And I think sometimes they're stereotyped as big business, and most of them don't think of themselves as big business. A lot of them are doing niche genetics and niche craft processing and doing it inside. This cut would only affect the outdoor cultivation. It could affect even the biggest. So there's that paradox of giving the biggest cash benefit to the biggest operators, and the smallest to the smallest. Section 12 just makes sense and I think makes everybody happy right now. Members will be to remit these very small amounts of local fees collected by our lawless and licensing process to individual municipalities. Doing that four times a year is way too frequent. Administratively, our billing people as well as the municipalities are saying, could you just do this once a year? It's just easier for everybody. So that one, we fully recommend. Don't think it's controversial.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: We did a short I did a short check-in with the LCC, and I didn't seem to raise any It concerns about

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: is small money. It's not as though there's a half million dollars being held up or something. It's relatively small references. So Section 13, kind of complicated. The Senate did some good work on this one. We're not in the business of telling the General Assembly what's its business. But we want to emphasize to you that the changes of the kinds proposed in Section 13 can be more costly than they look. Because our entire systems are built up around certain expectations. We have training manuals built around them. Our IT infrastructure is built around that kind of thing. So it's easy to look at something and say, well, why don't we just make a little tweak there because it would be helpful and accidentally throw off a quarter million dollars in costs? That is a real risk. So there are two proposals in here, really. One is to adjust the duration of an employee ID card from one year to two years. We could pull that off. It's not going to break the bank. It would cost some money that isn't funded to make the IT changes, but they're not we've got bigger challenges. We could do it. The only question is, do people want it? Quite a few people are dabbling or contemplating a job in cannabis, but they're not sure they don't even have the job. This would commit them to spending twice as much. They'd pay $100 for two years rather than $50 for one year. So I think a matter of judgment, that one is not really terribly controversial with us. We just question whether it really help in the way that might be intended. The one that really alarms us, which the Senate did really, we thank them for listening to us and making it permissive rather than mandatory is this effort to create different classes of product and assign different durations to them. Right now, we have this really simple, clean process where every product gets a renewed look every year. Many of the products in this industry have not really been tested over time, whereas the food industry or the chemicals or solvent industries or something, everybody has a lot of data on how long things last on a shelf, when they degrade, etcetera. Because of the legal status of this product, there's a lot we don't know about how these things age. There's also a lot of concern among regulators and scientists and public health officials about the novelty of some of the devices. For example, the vape devices involve wick sitting in distillate. And the distillate could test clean for heavy metals and all that. Nobody tests the wick, and nobody comes back and asks, after nine months, twelve months, seventy two months, is there leaching from the wick into the distillate that will make the product less safe after a period of time? A lot is moving here, and there are similar analogies with regard to almost every product. And the most important thing to understand, I think, is that state cannabis regulators like us are not equipped to play FDA. The Food and Drug Administration has armies of scientists that can figure this thing out. We'd be figuring it out politically with licensees. And it's only natural licensees have an economic incentive to make those durations as long as possible. And so every duration we would come up with would be too short, and we'd have to of figure about how long it should be. More important, we'd have to create bureaucracy to deliver this supposed simplicity. We would have to create rules and processes and evaluative teams to assign the durations and then argue with people about them. Whereas in our world, it's just like, leave it at one year. There's so much moving around. All of our IT is built around one year. So the Senate really did us a favor. They made it permissive. It would be the simplest thing in the world for us to just have it pass as is and not do it. But I want to be candid with you that the board's intention would be to do very little with this because we don't think it makes sense to do a lot with it. Topicals are a different story. I think topicals don't need to be seen every year.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: It's important to us that it's main language, because as Gabe is saying, every couple of months, there's a new novel product. There's a lot of creativity in this market. People are finding new ways to make things. And so this one year product registration allows us to revisit those every single year, rather than letting them go for a long period of time and then maybe having to pull something off the shelf if it's not working out. So to me, this is actually market protected, even though it is an investment for the market to make.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: Go ahead.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Yes, an excellent point. We've used that mechanism many times when we have a label defect. Instead of saying, well, that's an adulterated product, which it is under the law, you've got to take it off the shelf, we can say, listen, that's really not a dangerous problem. It's just a compliance problem. Why don't you fix it before your next registration sell through what you've got? That can save tens of thousands of dollars to a small business. And we want to keep that flexibility. So enough said about that one. Sections 14 through 21 do a lot of important work, but it's all cleanup. The integrated license was a special license type that was devised by the General Assembly in order to transition the vertically integrated dispensaries in the medical system into the current mixed system, where we have adult use existing alongside medical. The last of those licenses has been converted. And so they no longer exist, and they no longer need it. So that was a successful transitional project. And sections 14 through 21 just do the cleanup to move it back out of law now that it's not needed. Do you want to do two eighty or should I?

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Well, I think I think Tucker did a really lovely job yesterday about talking about taxes, which I think he called it a labyrinth or a wild and crazy world, and I would entirely agree that I don't want to wade into that one. That is what this is about. Certainly, from a regulatory perspective, we don't have any concerns about this. It benefits the market, it benefits the businesses in it. And the fiscal impact, I think you'll hear from JFO about policy decision for you all. So no, I don't really want to

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Nor is it necessary. I think it's hard. It makes things fair. It avoids carrying over not various federal tax law. Section 25 is really something that I think the Department of Taxes and some others who would have to work with this section flagged for us. Just the language is very confusing in a concept that could be abused by the two groups that I talk about in the memo. Illicit cultivators may be illicit, but they did initiate cannabis cultivation outdoors on a parcel of land. And so are they entitled to those benefits? I don't think that's what you intended. And then we have mixed operators. I don't think it was the drafter's intent to confer those benefits to the indoor part of their operation, only outdoor part. So what the other agencies have suggested there makes a lot of sense to us. We think We see no reason not to go ahead with it. 26 allows information sharing with the Department of Taxes for enforcement purposes.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: And then 27 is about cooperatives. Really, this is just another business model that would provide access to the market. It's not a license type for us. It just, as Tucker was explaining yesterday, allows cannabis companies to organize this way. And it's a very Vermont way to organize business. So, I don't think we have anything negative to say about it. In fact, I think it's great. And then, going to the next section. Scrolling down because there's quite a bit here. Is this the compact?

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Yeah, it's all the compact.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: All right, so you heard a wonderful explanation about how this is rolled out in other states yesterday as well. To the extent that the legislature can start thinking about what happens with the cannabis market in the face of federal regulation, in the face of interstate commerce, this is a good step in that direction. There are lots of things to think about related to that, and I'm sure you'll hear from others who testify to you about what they're thinking about in terms of the future of their businesses and that. This is copy paste from New Jersey. New Jersey, I think, did adopt this, as did maybe Oregon and Washington. So, we're comfortable with this to the extent that this is a decision that you all would like to make as a legislature.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: And Finally, the residential lease provisions. This was added by the Senate. This is sections thirty and thirty one of the bill. All we really this and the language would prohibit residential lease agreements from prohibiting themselves, a tenant from possessing or using cannabis in the property. It has a carve out for properties where the federal law and federal funding make that not a choice. Our only comment to you is in terms of legislation, you probably want to decide what lighted means. Because the term lighted is a carve out that says, yes, the landlord can prevent the use of lighted stuff. That makes a lot of sense. But on the ground, it's gonna be unclear to people whether that applies to this class of electric heating devices. So you can either heat canvas flower short of causing it to combust, but smoke comes off it. Or you can dab, which is just heat again, either fire or electricity, cannabis concentrate and inhale the vapor. That doesn't smell very much. It doesn't put up much, but it is in the air. So those areas, I guess, matter of pain, but not as much as a flower just burning. But it does smell. I should correct myself. But ultimately, you just want

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: to clarify that. But yes.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: It's just important that it be clear. And I think the board has a position on where we going on that as a legislature.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: We skipped a little bit of Section 11. So I'll go back to that on local government. There are some clarifying language there about the role of local government, and we totally support that. It helps us work with local governments and the local commissions, so that's good language for us. And then I think the one other thing we skipped was the cannabis business development fund. So there's a change in the language in terms of eligibility for the fund and expands the eligibility for the fund. There isn't any additional funding for that fund right now, though, so that's something to consider. And I think you have ACCD coming in at some point to talk about how the funds have been spent.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: And so I have the executive directors voice my head. But I want to remind you of two opportunities where the board probably wouldn't mind you diving in to make some policy choices. One is the one I talked about concerning product equivalence that Julie talked about. One can go from store to store and basically do that provision anyway. But we're trying to understand that it's really not working for products on the ground. The other is that we are due to develop this summer retail siting requirements. We took one swing at that already in rulemaking. We promptly put something out. It was not popular, and it did not get adopted with the rest of our 2025 rule update. To the extent that's a policy decision that you want to make, I think the board would really invite you to make it. We're in a position as an administrative body where most of the people we're talking with are our licensees. Because no matter what we do, it will be highly controversial. So that's all. Don't know there's Just anything can to

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: add to that last thing, we've done quite a bit of legwork in terms of the retail citing and meeting with provincial folks, meeting with retailers, done some data work. So if you decide to take that up, I would be happy to come back and show you

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: all of it. There's a lot of homework going, lot of options considered, but it really is, in many ways, a choice that is made for policymakers.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: All right, well, you for that run through on that. I think it was important to hear from you folks, counsel. So questions for our friends over at the CCV on their thoughts?

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Bill? Yes, Robert.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: This is a simple question,

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: but with the renewing of the ID cards, could we provide both an annual and biannuals option? That's exactly the IT challenge that we're worried about. Congratulations.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: That was floated for a second, and then we figured out what it would cost to do it.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: I would love that journey for us, but the cost is probably not worth it.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Juice to the proverbial sweet. Rep Coffin.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Was actually going to go on with that line of thought also, is DMV, you can get a two year, four year, six year license. How much different is that to say, oh, your license is good for this long?

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: The most important difference is they already paid to put it in their code, and we didn't. So it's not really, you know, couldn't you copy it in process? It's that we would have to make our stock informed. Probably is more than that.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Okay. And the other was on the event permitting. Mhmm. Okay. Assumption. Now consumption would be any of the products. How do you for smoking for smoking cannabis. I'm a cigarette smoker. I have to be restricted to a tiny area. How do you restrict that in a open area where people can get high, intoxicated, whatever you wanna put it, from just inhaling what came off. But how do you safely have people driving someone out of there even if they haven't personally consumed?

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: One of the reasons that the language contains as much latitude as it does for both us and for both the board members and the municipality to rightsize specific permit requirements is that these contexts are going to bear. But one thing that may only make sense and is done in alcohol sometimes is the stadium stops selling beer in the fifth inning. And a similar thing could be done at an event that has a defined duration. Similarly, as you pointed out, there are products that put off smoke that could be noxious to others. And I suppose mostly a myth that you can accidentally intoxicate somebody. But it does happen if you're in really close quarters. But more important than that, you could just have downwind stuff that you don't want to smell like cannabis. And so it would be possible to write one of these permits that says edibles only. Could have cannabis branch. You could have cannabis edibles. But you can't burn flour. Or perhaps more simply, because the vaping is a little bit less noxious, it could say, go ahead and vape outdoors, but you can't smell flowers. There are Clean Air Act considerations that probably are going to matter anyway. So there are certain locations where no matter what the cannabis regulator says, you shouldn't be lighting things on fire. But the short answer is no.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Representative, you also said something about driving away. You still wouldn't be allowed to you still can't consume cannabis in a car even if you're a pest.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: I wasn't talking about using it while driving. I don't think driving well after it.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Oh, So, you know, that is a good question. And this event gives us broad authority, as Gabe was saying, to write the rules around how that consumption happens. One of the past proposals had some other designated driver things in it a couple of years ago related to weddings, or maybe it could only be at a place where people stay. So if somebody is at a resort, then they're already there for the weekend or what have you. Those are all things we would consider. And we hear from a lot of people, even though this is a procedure and not a rule, I promise you we will hear from lots of folks on the health and safety side of things if we do consider those things really seriously.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: The market has come up with creative solutions. Like if you think of the brewery tour above, which is sort of how we envisioned if you were to permit a wedding or something, It wouldn't just be drive home. It would really be you've got to be transported in a bus or something by an operator who is sure that you haven't consumed within a certain amount of time. But there are challenges there for sure. Of course, they're probably not different from the challenges we already have with those at UC and with alcohol.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: What's it been? But

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: that would be my only concern with that. You're having it in a area granted yet no children will be allowed in there but still you know, how do you figure on determining a a designated driver? If they're around flower that's burning, you're going to smell like that flower regardless, where if somebody's consuming alcohol, you're not gonna smell like a bar when you're driving, and the and the officer can clearly see you're Oh, I see. Not intoxicated, where if you get in the car and you've been around people burning flower all day, and now you're driving and you get pulled over, then you're through a whole sobriety test to prove you didn't A possible blood test or whatever to prove you didn't.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: That is one of the risks of something like a draft.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Yeah. And it sounds like a point of public education at the event. Right? So, I mean, this is why you are in seat and we're over here. So we will execute, but you're ultimately the ones that made the decision. So I can see some ways that we could mitigate the issue, but you're right.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: I'm playing devil's head.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Absolutely. Sort

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: this out in my head. Yep. Because I know they've asked for smoking anywhere cannabis or wherever you can smoke a cigarette. I personally don't wanna smoke cannabis.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: Yeah.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: The reason hence the reason other people don't wanna smell like cigarettes, and I have to be 50 feet away from a building standing in the rain to have a cigarette. So just

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Alright.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Things to Yes. Pay attention.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: We know to be worried about these, and we feel like we left enough elbow room, both for us and for our municipal partners, to worry about them and write appropriate restrictions. Have you talked to law enforcement at all? Not directly about this language. We talked with them. For example, we had a location at a drive through that bought a bank. And when we spoke with the town about that, law enforcement was right there. They were conveying their concerns and interests in how this was going to work. The entrepreneur involved was basically working with the town to make sure that it would be acceptable to everybody, not just in terms of safety, but also backing up traffic and that kind of thing. So, but no, we haven't spoken directly with law enforcement about the Vietnamese piece. This test is geology. Everybody is different. Yes. The police officer stops someone suspected of operating a vehicle under the influence.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: Part of that investigation relies on observation of the size of the individual, their weight, and their behavior to certain physical kinds of things. The event that an officer can't smell alcohol, but can suspect still This person is operating under the influence of cannabis. They have to secure either blood or urine in order to know if they're both of them. Where where does medical stuff come in to your research? What's the background?

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: This is a challenge because cannabis can be in your system for up to thirty days, right? In different concentrations. So, we don't have, into point, the kind of roadside testing yet that we have for alcohol. We do have drug recognition experts, as you all know, but it's not quite the same as a breathalyzer test yet. I do know that those things are under development. I don't think we have yet. I do know that there are scientists working on this.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: And I've tried to prosecute this case so that I know of the challenge. Absolutely. I suspect that most of the people here responsible enough to be driving out of the influence of cannabis already are. I wouldn't expect that this legislation would aggravate that problem. In fact, it may mitigate it by channeling everybody, at least who's doing these in an orderly way under a permit, into a system where they're likely to have a ride. But the fundamental challenges of prosecuting drug driving are a problem.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We appreciate our prosecutors. We're not always patrons. I think there's a lot of problems with it.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: Yeah. There are challenges. One of the reasons that this was kind of put out as a pilot is we're going to find out some things didn't work. And we're going want to change course without just letting cement try the first time.

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: More strongly about it. But I don't want to be peachy.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: You get to if I didn't have the office, but you know, we your concerns are well.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: I've got this to continue on with the thought out of possible DUIs, saying, you know, you stated that most of the people that should be responsible knowing already about driving under the influence of cannabis, well, you would think adults 45, 55, would know the hazards of driving while intoxicated, yet we have how many thousands of DUIs a year? And how many deaths due to that where, oh, this person should know and don't.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Do we know I mean, I have no idea. Now I have a question about data. Like, do we know how many of those people it's poly substance or cannabis or alcohol?

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Have not split the two up.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Yeah. I

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: I know that a friend of mine was in a motor vehicle accident last year where it turned out that the operator was intoxicated marijuana, cannabis. So I know that happens because it happened right in my district, a block from his home.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: I mean, I can say about this that, you know, there's very strong incentive by the participants to make sure that these pilots do not result in anybody being bound on the road, under the influence to the extent that I present probably a lower than normal risk of

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: people leaving the party and appearing on whatever.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: If you get into a system where we're past the pilot and have events like this, Our goal in the pilot is to learn what works and what doesn't in terms of controlling human behavior because we can't really get at all of the different ways somebody might irresponsibly be prepared to drive a car. One of the biggest that nobody talks about is prescribed drugs from a physician. People on a lot of benzodiazepines, even Benadryl, often shouldn't be driving a car. And so there's a challenge all around. I wish I had a simple answer. All I can say for this bill is we don't think it makes it worse, but we're also not going to pretend we got a solution to make sure it never happens.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: And also bear in mind that the providers of the event have to get insurance. And so there will be liability on their part, I would assume, because some of the dreadshop laws would apply to the liability of those people who attend. So I don't know what that means in terms of the actual ability for folks to have very many in these events or what the insurance I mean, the cost of insurance might be

[Robert Hooper (Member)]: prohibitively wrong. But it doesn't raise

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: a lot. Right. It's just maybe a scenario like you mentioned, a horrible thing.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: No. No. I mean, I was just saying I'm losing a quorum right now because members have lunch meetings. And so to put a pin in all of this, I'm not stopping the conversation. I am halting the conversation. Yes.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: In in an hour.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: Am rapidly losing a quorum.

[Gabe Gilman (General Counsel, Cannabis Control Board)]: I think we're No. No. No.

[Matthew Birong (Chair)]: It's you you still got two minutes. It's everybody else who's bouncing. Thank you, Chea. Alright. We got a lot of airtime coming on this bill in the coming days and next week. So all those thoughts, we'll get deeper with it. Thank you, everyone. Thank you, CCB, signing off till after floor.

[VL Coffin IV (Member)]: Thank you.

[Julie Hilbert (Board Member, Cannabis Control Board)]: Hi, Jay Hooper. Thank you. Where's my phone?