Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: We're live.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Good morning, folks. Welcome back to House Human Services. Thank you for being here this morning. This morning, we are taking up the forensic facility bill, And we are going to hear from Max Barrows, who is the outreach director at Green Mountain Self Advocates. And Max, I'm sure, is probably going to tell us, just to refresh your memory, about what Green Mountain Self Advocates is all about and what that organization does. And welcome, Max. Happy to see you online. And welcome to House Human Services. Just so you know who all is in the room, I think it's important for us to do introductions. So we will go around the room. And I think this is your first time here this year. So you know me, I'm Theresa Wood. I'm from Waterbury, and I also serve Bolton Fuels for and Huntington. Dan.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Good morning. I'm Daniel Noyes. I represent Wilkie at Hyde Park, Johnson and Belvedere.

[Rep. Eric Maguire (Member)]: Hi. Good morning. Eric Maguire. I represent Rockland City. Good morning.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Doug Bishop, and I'm one of Colchester's representatives.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Good morning. My name is Zon Eastes. I live in Guildford and also represent Vernon.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: I'm Max. I'm Esme. I represent Hartford.

[Rep. Jubilee McGill (Member)]: Hi Max, I'm Jubilee and I'm from Bridgeport and also represent Middlebury, UVA and Woodbridge. Hi Max, I'm Rey Garofano and I live in Essex and I also represent Essex Junction. Hi Max, my name is Daphne Camino Laddis, I'm committee assistant. Right around, Jamie. Hi, name is Jamie Johnson from Burnett Peer Partners.

[Jamie Johnson (Peer support organization representative)]: Hi, Jill said Halperin from Montanquilla Society. Great.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. So Max, the floor is yours and we're happy to have you here this morning. And members, why don't we hold any questions until Max has done his testimony?

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: All right. Well, hello. My name is Max Barrows. I live in Worcester. I have been the outreach director for Green Mountain Self Advocates for nineteen years. I am a person with an intellectual and developmental disability, and I'm on the autism spectrum, and I get developmental services. I just want to quickly mention that I am not feeling well today. So that's why I am here online. So, you know, at least I'm, I guess you can say in the room in spirit, but not physically. Anyway, thank you for the opportunity to testify on S-one 193. My testimony is presented on behalf of Green Mountain Self Advocates. We are a five zero one(three) nonprofit organization run by and for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. We are against placing people with disability with an intellectual disability in a forensic facility. Our organization was founded in 1994, just one year after Brandon Training School closed its doors, many of our founding members grew up in Brandon Training School. After leaving the institution, they got involved in self advocacy. They understood something important. Closing Brandon was not the same as ending segregation of people with intellectual disabilities. The belief and attitudes that allowed an institution like Brandon to exist did not disappear when it shut down. They remained in our communities, our systems, and our culture. That is why our work continues today. People with intellectual disabilities have legal rights, but having rights on paper is not enough. Too often, do not respect our rights and choices. Green Mountain Self Advocates was created to serve as a disability rights organization for people with intellectual disabilities. We advocate for systems change, and we make sure our voices are heard in policy debates and in the halls of power. We also work to educate our communities and improve public perceptions of people with intellectual disabilities. When new institutions open, people often say that they will be great places for people with disabilities. They will get the specialized treatment and therapy they need. But one way or another, our experience is that institutional settings end up hurting us. It's a vicious cycle, a cycle of institutions, a cycle of segregation. In 2023, the history of Brandon Training School was reviewed by the Vermont legislature when you passed your resolution to apologize for state sanctioned eugenics policies. And in October published an investigative report on the abuse that occurred at Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center. AHS has never been held accountable for what happened at Woodside. To this day, it has offered no public explanation of how the abuse was allowed to occur, who was responsible, or what consequences, if any, happened. AHS should not be permitted to operate a forensic facility until these consequences are answered. So here we are again. And so just institutions get opened, closed, remade, remade, and open again and again and again and again. And one of my advocacy roles is serving as a member of the state program standing committee for the Developmental Disabilities Services Division. And last week, we voted to send a letter opposing placing people with intellectual disabilities in the forensic unit created by S-one hundred ninety three.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: This forensic unit is designed for people with a mental health diagnosis who have committed a serious crime.

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: The goal is competency restoration using medication or therapy to help someone understand the court process and participate in their own defense so they can stand trial. This does not work for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Our disabilities are not caused by an illness or a mental health crisis. They are part of how our brain works. No treatment or medication is going to change that. We cannot be restored to something we never had. Under S-one 193, a person with IDD who is found unable to stand trial and unable to be made ready for trial could be held in this forensic prison until, you know, maybe for the rest of their life, and they would never have been found guilty of a crime. This is not justice. This is indefinite imprisonment. People with IDD need a residential program that provides real support and keeps the community safe, not a forensic unit built for a population with a completely different set of needs. S-one 193 may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA requires that people with disabilities receive services in the most integrated setting possible, meeting in the community, not locked away in an institution. This is not just a guideline. It is the law. In 1999, the US Supreme Court made this ever clearer in the landmark case called versus LC. The court ruled that unnecessarily placing people with disabilities in institutions is a form of discrimination. States are required to serve people in community settings whenever possible. S-one 193 would send people with IDD to a forensic institution, not because a community option failed, but because no community option is being offered. That is exactly the kind of unnecessary institutionalization the ADA and the homestead decision were designed to prevent. It's been thirty three years since we closed Brandon Training School. We should be celebrating that we have been able to serve people, even those with challenging behaviors in community settings for all of that time. And we understand that our communities need to be safe. That's why we have Act two forty eight, A civil rights commitment order issued by the court often means a person must be under 20 fourseven supervision, but they receive treatment in a staffed apartment or a group home, not an institution. Act two forty eight works. Dale and its designated agencies have successfully provided people the treatment that they need in community settings. When this bill was proposed and defeated in 2024, AHS estimated it would cost about $3,400 per day to place one person in a forensic unit. That's more than a million dollars a year for a single placement. Please do not spend $3,400 a day to place a person with an intellectual disability in a forensic unit. That money is better spent building community based resources. We know work. One idea that Dale hasn't tried yet, at least as far as we know, is for the state to ask for proposals, RFP, to develop a new therapeutic residential program in the community. This program would be designed to support people under Act two forty eight who have intense needs. They also look into what other states like North Carolina and Indiana are doing to provide community based supports for people with intellectual disabilities who also have mental health problems and are involved in the criminal justice system. These programs support people in community settings, including people who may try to leave their homes without permission. Look, we understand the need for safety. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities experience abuse at far higher rates than the general population. But when someone is struggling and not getting the support they need, they act out. That is not a reason to lock them up indefinitely. It is a reason to get them better help. We should be investing in community programs, not building new ways to segregate people with disabilities. We have already been down that road. Why would we want to go back? Why do we want to go back? Why would we go back? We have supported people for thirty three years without an institution. We want safe community based options. It is possible to meet the safety concerns of people with disabilities and the community at large. Advocacy groups like The Arc have been working for years on ways to improve services for individuals covered under Act two forty eight. The Arc runs a National Center on Criminal Justice and Disability that could be a valuable resource for Vermont. Finally, in federal law, we people with disabilities are protected by protection and advocacy agencies. They have the authority to go into any residential place the state puts us to ensure we are treated with dignity and respect. This bill S-one 193 does not identify what outside organizations will be checking up on any new forensic facility. Your forensic working group that met in 2023 all agreed that if Vermont decides to build this facility, it's very important to have strong outside monitoring to do unannounced visits and have open access to the facility. SY-ninety three needs to include money to pay for this monitoring to ensure fair treatment. So on that note, thank you so much for taking the time to listen. And please take this seriously as you do your work every day.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you very much, Max. And thank you for reminding us about history of institutionalization in Vermont and that people who have challenging behaviors and have committed crimes are already being served in the community in Vermont and have been for decades at this this point in time. Questions from committee members? It seems as though you covered the gamut, Max. And I'm just wondering, have you been invited to testify in the House Judiciary Committee?

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: I have not.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I would I'm gonna, I guess, make a note to the chair, but I would also suggest that it's probably important for the House Judiciary Committee to hear from you. We can, of course, send them the link to this testimony, but it is always better if they have the opportunity to hear from you directly.

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: Thanks, Theresa.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. I'm wondering as part of Green Mountain Self Advocates, do you have anybody within the organization, because it's an organization that's made up of lots of smaller organizations around the state. Has there ever been anybody who's identified as being a person who had any kind of criminal behavior in the past that you can recollect?

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: I believe so. Yeah. I believe so. They let's see. They usually have eyes on, like, staff with them.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That would make sense.

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: If they, like, you know, if they've, you know, if they per you know, particularly, or if they participate in, like, in, oh, let's see any programs or classes we run. So yeah, they usually have eyes on staff with them if they participate in any programs or classes that we at Green Mountain Self Advocates operate or run. If that answers your question.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It does. Thank you. Are there any other questions for Max? Okay. Thank you very much, Max, and we hope you feel better.

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: Well, thank you very much. Thank you for listening to me today. Thank you.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Thank you. Thanks. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We are going to pick up more of S-one 193 next week, and we'll be hearing from the agency human services. We'll be hearing from the designated agencies. I have asked people who used to work in this field within Dale for their thoughts on this. And I think we had some initial thoughts in discussion when we had the bill walk through that I think we'll figure out a way forward. And right now, I think that the plan is for us to provide language to the judiciary committee because they're not gonna be voting the bill out for probably not till next week sometime. So, and thinking about timing and there's four committees that this bill language from this bill needs to be considered by us, the health care committee, corrections and institutions, and the judiciary committee. So just to aid in the traffic control process, we'll be providing language to them for any suggested changes to the bill. We won't actually take possession of the bill unless things go wonky and I see a need to. So that means if judiciary doesn't take our suggestions. Yeah. All right. So let's move to S-one 198 because we have people in the room early. That's great. And, Jill, you are ask you need access to you got a link?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: That is it. Those just joined. We've let them know you're here.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And it is on our website, committee members.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: Just to make sure we have some Oh,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: that's a nice picture of you.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Oh, it's Alright. Working as usual.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: Alright.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: If I could share, that would be great.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: I'm working on that. Those Zoom calls just dropped from my computer, so we're still on live. Okay.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. I can

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: introduce myself if you want to. That would be

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: me to mute.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: If you need to mute. Sounds like you're

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: turning it back here. Okay.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Hi, I'm Jill, and I'm happy to be here. It's been a while. And I'm representing the Coalition for Tobacco Free Vermont and the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids in the Vermont Medical Society, here to talk to you about S-one 198. And let me see if I can share my presentation here. Great. Okay, so we are ready. So I just wanted to start out because we spent a considerable amount of time talking about the flavor ban bill, and I just wanted to let everybody know this is not a bill to ban flavors. What we're doing here is really working on our game of whack a mole, because as you know, the public health community keeps trying to catch up to the different nicotine products that are being marketed to kids. Our job is really trying to protect kids. And we are just seeing such an amazing array of these different nicotine products that are coming out right now. So one of the things that this bill does is really try to tighten up the regulatory market. And Vermont was an outlier in having two for one alcohol tobacco license. We were the only state that had that. And so what we're doing is actually splitting that, and now we'll have just a tobacco license. And there is a fee associated with that, but we don't feel like it's a very large fee. It's $150 And so I just wanted to ground everybody in the health care costs for tobacco related disease, and that's $4.00 $4,000,000 annually in Vermont. 93,700,000 of that is Medicaid, with $1,000 approximately per household. So just sticking with the numbers, Vermont spends about $2,700,000 on tobacco control, and that includes our prevention, education and cessation. And we're outspent by the tobacco industry about five to one. They spend about $16,000,000 marketing their products. I don't even think that really captures the social media push right now. And so one of the things that this bill does is actually ban the sale and the marketing of deceptive products. So as you know, e cigarettes are discreet. You're not smelling the vapor. They're easy to hide. They look like a cell phone. Now we have products that look like toys. We have products that act like cell phones. They act like Bluetooth audio players. There are video games where you vape to play. So you puff, and then you get to keep playing the game. So there are sweatshirts. I think we talked about that in this committee before, where you can hide, hide, hide. Highlighters. And so what we're trying to do is really go after those products that they look and feel like a toy, and they are clearly marketed and designed to appeal to kids. Kids say it's easy to get these products. This is from youth behavioral risk survey from 2023, where 60% of kids say it is easy to get electronic vapor products. And I have on here a new study that came out in January that just shows that Instagram and TikTok is the Wild West in terms of any sort of regulation on marketing to kids. And one of the things that we're really seeing is that 70% of those posts have the website. And then a lot of times, they'll go and they'll say, did you forget to buy? And they'll reach out directly to the kid.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: There

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: we go. So I just wanted to talk about that a little bit more because social media is one of the things that we wanted to do is really make sure that we are understanding what's happening in the online space. As you remember, we have an online sales ban that your body passed, but we still know that that's a poorest area where kids are getting them. And so in the original bill, we had an online compliance investigator included in this bill, and we are urging you to put that back. The Senate took that out. But we would really like to see that just to really crack down on this. And because what we're seeing is a direct relation to the social media posts and then the sales. And these Zin products are going out of control. And part of that is there's nobody that's telling them that they can't say that nicotine's okay. This is a great way to study and then with these reward systems. Lila Bennett runs a program for kids up in North Country, and she testified in front of your committee in 2024. And she's saying it's just going younger and younger. When you have products that look like candy, they smell like candy, then the young kids know that they're for them. And so we're really trying to take away those addictive products. What's the impact right now? Our high school rate is sixteen point one percent of kids who use e cigarettes and eighteen percent that use any tobacco product. That's in high school. And then the middle school is increasing, as we know. And there's less education in the middle school. So that's an area that we really need to be considering as well. What we hear from our college students is they're going to cigarettes, they're going to combustibles, because e cigarettes are for kids and cigarettes are more affordable. So one of the things that the Department of Health funded was a real look at what products were in schools. And there was a study that was done over the last two years. And this is just I'll go through this quickly. But you can see that Loon was the number one product from 'twenty '3 to 'twenty four. And that most of the products, 99% of them, are flavored. And then look at Vermont's retail map for Loon. We have a Loon glove going on here. So just pointing that out because there are things that we can really do to tighten up our There was a grant given to a group called Public Health Response to Research. And so they went in and they went to the schools, collected all the confiscated baits, and then looked at the Loon app was just on the Loon website. Really? So yeah, we didn't have to look far. And then this is the second year, and you can see that things have changed dramatically because of what's being marketed. These Geek Bar products are ones that have the light up features. These also have an exponential amount of nicotine. And I'll just say that in 2019, when we were really starting to get a handle on the e cigarettes, we were like, Oh my God, Juul equals the amount of nicotine of one pack of cigarettes. Now we're looking at one of these equaling the amount of 20 packs. And also, you can change that. These products, these Geek Bar, they have Geek Bar Boost. So you can boost the amount of nicotine in there as well. There's just no federal regulatory market. We have questions. So

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: when you say it's equal to 20 packs, is that just because there's more liquid inside of it so you don't have to

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: reload it? They call they measure it by puffs.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: So there's more puffs in the bigger one versus that little one.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Yes. Well, the jewel is the one over here. And they just keep on increasing the amount and the opportunity for kids to use more and more. And there's really no federal regulation around this at all. You don't have to put the amount of nicotine that's in there on the package. And then these, I just showed you how colorful and lovely they are. You can have two flavors at once.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And there's no health warning on them?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: I think they do have to have the health warning that says there's nicotine in this product. Thank you, Jill, this is so startling. My goodness. So the one that's 20 packs, do we have an idea how long it would take someone to get through? Is it lasting a week? Is it lasting a day? It depends on the kid. But I will tell you that one of the things that I had up on this slide is this thirty seven percent of the high school students report using daily. And so that really indicates an addiction. A lot of the kids talk about the the first thing they do when they wake up, some kids sleep with it. So I don't think there's a way to limit the amount.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: What's you said thirty seven percent reported, and that was in 2023. So Yeah. Is that data up? Is that data down? Is that data level? Trajectory. Yeah. You mean from right now to 2020? Before. Yeah. Gone up or down. I'm just trying to figure out, know, so that's a high percentage, but is that higher than it was previously? What what's what's the

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: have launch of the email and things? To get you that information on the using daily, but when we were looking at that data, people were saying that's very significant to indicate addiction. But I can get you that. Yeah, I'll be interested to see it for the last maybe ten years. Has it increased exponentially?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: We'll ask the health department as well. They will be in to testify on this bill.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Yeah, and actually Doctor. Golrang Rey is testifying after me. She'll be great for that. I just wanted to talk a little bit about one of the provisions of the bill and for several years, what do you think, Tina? Six years, seven years, the Coalition for Tobacco Free Vermont has been urging this body to remove penalties on youth because we really believe that youth are being targeted by the tobacco companies. We see that specifically around the social media and all the flavors and the sweet, sweet candy taste. So we believe that penalizing kids is not an effective strategy to reduce tobacco use. So I'll just say we had a compromise in the Senate because the Senate felt like if you were attempting to purchase with a fake ID, then you should not have the penalty removed. They actually increased the penalty. And we are asking you to reduce that back down to $50 because they doubled it to $100 And we're also asking you to include a cessation alternative, if possible. And we have language that the AG's office is going to be offering to you. And I will just say that for us, this is from Doctor. Farris, a pediatrician, saying that we haven't seen that punitive policies are the things that are going to help kids come forward and say, I need help. I submitted to Megan, the Department of Health has a guidance for nicotine free schools, and they're really moving to restorative practices. There are grants from the Department of Health for a couple of different cessation programs. Knot is one of them. Well, I submitted it so you can see the other program, but we just for a long time have really wanted to take the onus off the kids. And it was actually in the 1990s when the tobacco companies really pushed for the penalties to be put on youth, which takes the heat off of them. And then we do have another language change that the AG's office will be talking about with that. Just going more into that, there are several states that don't have up laws on the books, and this is really a health equity provision. And then just going back to that online compliance investigator, this is some data around when we're doing more compliance in this area, and we have brought in considerable amount of money. Actually, there's so many bad actors in this space. And so we just recommend that we try to put that back in. It'll help the brick and mortar retail shops. It'll really help cut down on what's coming into Vermont. One of the things that we're doing with this bill is making a wholesale license as well. So the online sales ban made it where only wholesalers, because that's where the tax is placed on the product, could purchase online. But there was a loophole in there. So we're really trying to make it where that's regulated. We know what products are coming in. We know that the tax has been paid, and we know that kids aren't getting these online.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Can we go back on that slide just for So a it looks like it's close to 1,000,000 point dollars that have been collected in enforcement activities. So why can't we take a portion of that to fund this compliance officer? That was

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: actually language that was in the bill that they didn't pay for their position, the Department of Liquor and Lottery could say, okay, we can't pay for this. But the Senate still felt like it was too expensive at this time. But we feel like if it's paying for itself, if it's helping us really have a handle on what's coming into the state, and we're doing the work of consumer protection, then we really would like to have that added back in.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: That represents Bishop. Is there any indication other than collecting the fines here that it's working? If I get fined $25,000 I have no idea what these fines are for these folks who are doing the online sales, but I'm selling a million dollars worth of 40% profit. That's the cost of doing business. I'll pay the fine if I get caught the next time.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Yeah. I mean, I think you should ask the AG's office. I will just say that part of the issue is the FDA doesn't have the ability to their regulatory system. And so there's some amazing array of, online actors in this space. And then the products, there's millions and millions of different products that are waiting to be approved by the FDA. But so I think you're right. There could be companies that they get a fine and then they change their name and then they you know, do it again. But as much as we can show that, like, Vermont is strong on this and, you know, that you're gonna get a considerable fine and that we're not going to stop going after you, I think that that's a good signal. Oh, this is more of this in 2025, 1,300,000 in penalties. And then I just was going to leave you with a quote around that. This is from one of the students who came with the OBX group. And just saying we're not the next generation of profit, we're the generation of change and we should not be targeted. Open to any questions, but I know we've got Doctor. Belonte and Matt Vina as well. I'm thinking

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: maybe it's good we didn't pass S-eighteen because now maybe we need to come back with a stronger bill, and we can certainly be more targeted. It's really disturbing to see nicotine being turned into games and everything else. And so obviously targeted at youth. And

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: that's all I'll say. Thank you. I think we're really thinking about this from the perspective too of Vermont has to protect its citizens because regulatory market is not able to on the federal level,

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: and we need to protect our kids too. So the work that you need to do is to get the Vermont Retail Brokerage Association on board with a flavor pick?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: That would be yes. I will say they've been good partners on this bill. And so we're really trying to work with everyone to make sure that this gets across the finish line. Go ahead, Rutland. It

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: seems like bright colors is is is part of this marketing scene. I was walking down Church Street in the last week or two, and for the first time, noticed new shop that looks like the whole back wall, if I could if I was judging correctly by looking at it, looks like what you have in your photo. Is there anything that states can do with respect to packaging? Require these all being only black and white?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Wow. I haven't seen that. That would be a good question to ask the Department of Health, I can look for that, too. I don't know if any states have done that. I think there are countries that only allow black and white, and then the warning label is much larger as well. But I think that Tina from the Heart Association is going to speak too, and she's going to hand around some of these products. Because I think the other thing is that it feels sleek, feels like tech, it feels like something familiar because you hold your phone. And so you're right, that would be amazing if you were like lack of light.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: And do you know why the federal government isn't taking action?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Well

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: mean, this is not

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: new. It's not the first administration or the first series of officials agencies that

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: are acting.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Yeah, I think definitely there's financial works at play, but I also will say that we don't have a functioning office of smoking and health that changed when the Trump administration came in. We all are very incapacitated in that area. Then I can't remember how many millions of applications there are for the FDA to review these different e cigarette products, but it's what is it, like, 11,000,000 or something like that? Mean, it's something that's so beyond what they can do, and they really don't have a handle on the chemicals in these products.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Go ahead. I'm not sure who had their hand up first. Esme. Thank you.

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: This might be out there as well, but following up on Rud Bishop's line of reasoning with the black and white, and you spoke to other countries, we know that in Latin America, for example, they do these really graphic images of what these products can do to you. I think even if you had a beautifully colorful vape, but it was tied with this destroyed lung or person on a ventilator, think that could have an impact. It seems like the research seems to support that as

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: well. So

[Rep. Esme Cole (Member)]: yeah, I'm just curious if groups have explored that line of And I know I could see, having been on the ad committee, the GMO labeling product thing, how that could be a whole concern. But yeah, just curious if Vermont

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we've

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: I don't think so because I think we've just been grappling with all the different things coming at us. But I love this idea. And I think that would be a very great idea for the attorney general too as a consumer protector. Go

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: ahead, Eastes, then we're gonna move on to the next one.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: On the same topic, I mean, I don't know how much or is there data about how how much children buy these products in physical spaces or do they buy them online? So I mean

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: It's both. And actually, doctor Vellante can speak to that because she does a specific project on that.

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: I just wouldn't wanna have to spend a necessary a lot of money on on something that really wasn't a big part of the market. You know what I mean? It's just gonna be elsewhere. It's it's, you know best use of phones. So- Always in education. That happened when I was a kid. It was all over the place when I was young, about cigarettes. Right, yeah. Yeah.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Great.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Great, thank you so much, Camille.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Thank you so much. Doctor.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Belanti. Good morning, you for having me.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you for being here.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: I have been editing my testimony as your questions have come up, so I will send updated slides to you at the end of the session.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's great. Thank you so much. The floor is yours.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Great, I just requested to share my screen. Great, thank you. Okay, so I am thrilled to be here with you this morning to share some data from Vermont teens and young adults on access to nicotine and tobacco products. I'm a professor at the Rutgers School of Public Health and deputy director of the Rutgers Institute for Nicotine and Tobacco Studies, but I'm a Vermonter. I live here. I have kids who are teenagers in Vermont schools. I'm a public health researcher and I work closely with the Department of Health on studies related to tobacco and substance use in teens and young adults. Do receive funding from the National Institutes of Health and from the State of Vermont, but I have no other funding to disclose. So we know that the retail environment is a really important place where young people are exposed to tobacco products through advertising, through price promotions, colorful product displays, and potentially accessing the products by purchasing them. Price promotions really appeal to price sensitive young people. The presence of these products in stores where kids are in their communities can normalize use and increase susceptibility to use tobacco and nicotine, and it can also impact their beliefs about how easy it is to get these products and purchase these products. So I run the PACE Vermont study, which is a study, a cohort study, where we're surveying young people over time in Vermont. And our goal is to understand the impact of state level policies and communication campaigns on substance related beliefs and behaviors. And this is a partnership that I've had with the Department of Health for seven years now. We track things in real time, so we conducted our earliest data collection in 2019, right around the time that some of these earlier tobacco related policies were implemented in the state. We then had COVID, we had retail cannabis come into the market. We are currently about to collect our last wave of data. We've been collecting data every six months for the past two years. So the data I'm going to share with you today are from the 2025. This is in Vermont teens and young adults aged 12 to 25. This is a convenient sample of online participants, so it's not representative of all Vermonters. But we surveyed about 300 young people and asked questions about their ever and past thirty day use of tobacco or nicotine products, exposure to tobacco or nicotine marketing, access and purchasing, and also their quitting behavior.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Doctor. Belanti?

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So how you said a convenience sample, so people it was voluntary.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Yes.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: How did you get your survey out to the teens? How was it delivered?

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: It's delivered online. So we do a recruitment period prior to the study opening. So we worked with the Department of Health, a number of community organizations, we had advertising that went out. Also, we contacted our prior participants to get folks involved. We have coverage across the state, we, so we basically recruit, we screen participants, and then they receive an online survey every six months.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: And so were one of your partners the Vermont Prevention Lead Organizations, did they assist you in outreach?

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: We really partnered with the groups that were working with the Department of Health. So we information about organizations that had grants, other organizations that we have partnered with. So yes, a number of the prevention organizations. We also send emails to all of the SAP and guidance counselors at all of the schools to share information about the study. We try to really distribute it widely. Part of the issue with getting folks in is that parents have to provide consent for young people aged 12 to 17, and so that is always hard for people doing research in youth is making sure that we get participants in who have parental consent.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: So in our sample, we have a high proportion of our sample reporting ever in past thirty day use of nicotine and tobacco products. Again, this is a convenience sample, this is not representative of the entire state, but our sample has slightly higher prevalence of use of these products. And you can see here that a quarter of our sample is reporting past thirty day use of electronic nicotine products or vape devices or e cigarettes, and about 12% reporting use of nicotine pouches. When we asked them if you wanted to get tobacco or nicotine products, how hard or easy would it be for you to get some? We had about sixty one percent of our sample who was under the age of 21, so under the legal age purchase these products, reporting that it would be sort of easy or very easy for them to get tobacco or nicotine products, and the folks who were age 21 plus, about ninety percent said that it would be easy for them to access. We also asked about their exposure to electronic nicotine product or vapor product ads or promotions, and you can see we asked for each of these different types of exposure how often they were exposed, so online, on websites, on social media, in state or local newspapers or magazines, on local radio stations, or when they're out and about, so meaning out in stores, on public transportation, or by the side of the road. And I just want to highlight here, we're looking at the proportions are for folks who said that they had seen these promotions daily or weekly, and we see that a higher proportion of our teenagers, so those are folks 12 to 17, reporting that they are seeing promotions for vapor products when they're out and about in stores on public transportation by the side of the road, about 42, 43% compared to about 31% of our young adults. We asked them also about purchasing behavior. Part of our work with Tobacco twenty one was trying to reduce the kind of sharing of tobacco or nicotine products from older siblings to younger siblings or older friends or cousins, what we see in our data is that a large proportion of the folks who are using tobacco or nicotine products are purchasing them, not getting them from, you know, some are getting them from friends, but we do see the highest proportion reporting that they are getting their products in a vape shop or a tobacco shop, a gas station or convenience store, or on the internet, like a product website, online, vape or tobacco store, other online marketplace. There are about 22 who report that they bought them from another person. So just highlighting that the retail environment is an important place where young people are being exposed to the products and also accessing these products. So I am involved in a companion project. We have a center for rapid surveillance of tobacco that is funded by the FDA and NIH, and we have Vermont as one of our sentinel sites, one of six states where we are conducting retail audits again every six months. So we're collecting survey data also in a cohort through this study in Vermonters, and we are doing retail audits every six months. And I just wanted to highlight some of the pictures, and this was published in a scientific article of some of the images of the products that we're seeing in Vermont. I didn't think Vermont was going to be one of the six states where we were seeing so many new things showing up, but as you saw, as Jill presented, Loon really is very prevalent in our state. We're seeing gaming devices, disposable vapes with gaming systems on the left, these sort of stackable disposable vapes where the different colors are different flavors and you can change the flavor of your vape by using different colors or ordering those pods in different ways, large displays for these disposable vapes, and also large displays for these nicotine pouch products by e. L. F. And Loon. E. F. And Loon are both vape companies that also have pouches, and there are many other kind of crossovers there. So again, these are products that have not been authorized by FDA, and the displays are pretty impressive. So we're talking about this today because we're talking about nicotine. Nicotine is a highly addictive chemical compound. Nicotine is what keeps people using tobacco products. And to the earlier question, we have seen a lot of changes in both patterns of use and also in the market itself. So you can see here, this is the prevalence of current, which means past thirty day, electronic cigarette use, and this is a national sample of youth. And you can see that it went from about three percent in 2013 up to the peak of twenty percent in 2019, and it has come down since then. In 2022, it was reported as nine point four four percent, and in, I'm just looking at my other screen here, in this past year, 2025, among high schoolers, the prevalence was about seven point one percent. So it has come down. But want to highlight the products have really changed. So the products that we were very concerned about in 2019 were Juul, which were a new product that had come out. It was a new formulation of nicotine. So young people were being exposed to higher levels of nicotine in a plug and play device that was very appealing. What we're seeing now is really a continuing diversity of products that are showing up with higher and higher nicotine content available in the product. So you can see that Juul, when it came out and we're very concerned about it, one Juul pod has about forty milligrams of nicotine. When we're looking at newer products, this is Elfbar, the product had about six fifty milligrams of nicotine in that single product. And I'm just going to note also, nicotine pouches are a product that have emerged in the past five years and are becoming more prevalent. You may know Zin or On, you may see those products regularly. And what we're seeing here is also that the concentrations of nicotine in the product are increasing over time. So this is just from 2019 to 2022, and you can see the sales of these higher nicotine concentration products are going up. So six milligram, you can see the eight milligram. There are products on the market that are ten milligrams and above. So when we're thinking about the retail environment, exposure in the retail environment, and how we're protecting youth, I think it's really important to note that even young people who are using tobacco or nicotine products want to quit. Over half report some intention to quit. Over two thirds around two thirds report trying to quit in the past year. And they do note that they can feel an impact on their bodies, and they can't imagine what that would be like in the next few years if they continue using, they don't want to be pinned down to nicotine to get them through the day. So the provisions in this bill really help to reduce access to youth, prevent use. They could also assist with cessation. And what we see in our own data, again, was from the fall, is that of our people who have ever used cigarettes or electronic nicotine products, thirty percent of folks who had used cigarettes had tried to quit or cut down in the past month, and forty four percent of our electronic nicotine product users had tried to quit or cut down in the past month.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Doctor. Valenti, do you know, we've actually really upped our prevention funding for youth in particular, but for all of these substance use issues. And I'm just wondering, part of what we heard when we tackled this subject a couple of years ago in a bill that was eventually vetoed is youth are not having as much access to treatment. So, we see youth trying to quit, are they doing that on their own? Are they doing that under guidance from a treatment program? Because they're already facing addiction and the science shows that that's very difficult to do on your own when you're trying to address that. So did your research touch on any of what resources they had available to them?

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Yeah, so we have asked how they are trying to quit, and we ask a number of different ways. So are they trying VT helplink? Are they using the cessation programs that are available online to youth? My Life My Quit is run by the health department, which is sort of the youth, young adult version of eight zero two quits. Are they talking to a counselor, etcetera? And I can't remember the exact estimates. Young people are trying different ways. They are somewhat aware of the resources, but I think we're in a really unique state that has those resources available. The evidence currently is that text messaging is really one of the most effective, well, it's the only effective, currently effective, vaping cessation treatment. And so that's scalable, it's available currently to young people, and I think some of the question is just how to link them, how to make those connections and referrals to those existing resources.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: So my conclusions are just reinforcing that the retail environment is an important place where young people gain access to nicotine and tobacco products and establish norms about their use. More than forty percent of Vermont teens report exposure to tobacco and nicotine marketing when they're out and about, like in stores. That young people purchase nicotine and tobacco products in vape shops and tobacco shops and gas stations or convenience stores or on the internet, and that there are a

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: number of

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: provisions in this proposed bill to protect young people and potentially reduce nicotine or tobacco initiation and increase cessation. And I'm happy to answer other questions that you may have.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Represent Bishop.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Going back up to perhaps slide 10, it's the data on purchasing behavior in the past thirty day youth for among past thirty day users.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Yep.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: And it shows the high percentage with grape shops, tobacco shops, gas stations, etcetera. Your pool of respondents was ages 12 to 25. Do you have a breakdown as to how many were purchasing that at at what age? Are people able to get access to these products, I guess, they and they shouldn't be getting access to to them? How easily are they?

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Yeah. I can look back. I mean, part of the the issue is the sample sizes for our younger folks get small. And so we have to suppress the results, which is why we have just the 143 who reported any past thirty day use of nicotine or tobacco. But I can take a look and see if we have enough folks, ages 12 to 20 to share that breakdown with you all.

[Rep. Doug Bishop (Member)]: Or or if you have any other data that would illuminate the subject of whether we have how big of a problem we may have with retailers selling something to youth that they shouldn't be selling. That would be interesting. National data.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Yeah. Interesting. What we saw in 2019, we had data collected right before and right after tobacco twenty one was implemented. And we saw that the estimates for perceived access, ease of access, which is one of the first things I shared with you, went down between those two time points. So that provided some early evidence that tobacco twenty one did have an impact on perceived access in young people about their ability to get the products.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Questions for Doctor. Belanti? Okay, thank you so much. It's always illuminating, unfortunately, this case to hear the data, but appreciate the fact that you've been doing this for a while and that there's some continuity and that we're paying attention to data about this important topic for particularly impacting youth.

[Dr. Andrea C. Villanti (Rutgers School of Public Health; Rutgers Institute for Nicotine & Tobacco Studies)]: Yeah, we really appreciate your attention to this.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. And do we have Matt is online?

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: I am here.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Hi, Matt. Welcome to House Human Services. Thank you for being here today.

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: Yeah. Thank you very much for having me. Can you hear me okay?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yes. We can.

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: Awesome. So I just have a statement to read, and then I'm open to answering any questions that you all have. Is that okay?

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That sounds great.

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: So my name is Matthew Menyee. I am an SAP at Champlain Valley Union High School in Hinesburg. And an SAP, for those of you who don't know, does a range of things, but we work with students who struggle with mental health, substance abuse, and everything in between. So that could be a student who's struggling with their schoolwork and tests and stress, and it could be a student who is addicted to substances and and needs to kind of find some places to go to to get help and to get support. I also am a college baseball coach at Saint Michael's College. That's why I'm not in person today because we play in a couple hours at Saint Mike's against Franklin Pierce. So I'm sorry for not being able to be there today.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, good luck good luck with that. Thank very much.

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: So in my role, I work closely with students and families navigating substance abuse and mental health challenges every day. I think the interesting part for me is I get to see that continuum from ages, 13 and 14 all the way up through the college kids. And so I think it's given me a unique perspective on nicotine over the last seven years or so as I've been doing both of these things. And so I'm here to speak in support of S-one hundred ninety eight and to just offer some perspective on how the issues are showing up in school. From what I see daily, nicotine use is definitely a public health issue and very often an issue that students have with coping with the realities of what their experiences are. Many students I work with are using nicotine to manage their anxiety, their stress, depression, And these are students that aren't trying to get in trouble. They're just trying to get through something. And surprisingly, a lot of the students who are using are students who I think many would be extremely surprised to know that they're using. These are athletes. These are students who have a lot of support at home and students who have families that are working really hard to try to help them quit, and they're not able to. And so at the same time, the products that they're using have changed significantly. Students are not using what we see as or what we would see as traditional anymore. They're using the vape and the nicotine pouches and other products, and they're highly addictive. They're easy to conceal, and they're widely available. As adults, we are behind students and their need to hide from us what their true behaviors are. I feel like in many cases, when I sit down and talk with students because I get to have really honest conversations, students are pretty open and honest with me about how easy it is for them to conceal and to hide and to get their hands on these vapes and nicotine pouches and just nicotine in general. And so one of the most important pieces of the bill to me is the focus on deceptive products. Many of the items we are seeing in schools are just intentionally designed to look like everyday objects, and they directly appeal to the youth and to me to no one else. They're targeted that way. And so that makes identification harder for schools, and it increases the likelihood that students will use them without fully understanding the risk, and we will not find them as a school. I also want to highlight the issue of access because this is where I believe the bill has a potential to have a real impact. And to do that, I want to tell a little bit of a story. I worked with a family whose son has struggled with nicotine use for over a year. To me, his parents were extremely engaged. They were in contact with me pretty early when they found out that he had a nicotine problem. They contacted online retailers. They blocked deliveries. Deliveries that got to their house, they were able to get before he got his hands on because they actually were delivered. They worked with us at school to try to identify just local sources and potential students that maybe he was buying nicotine products from. And despite that year of effort, he was able to consistently access nicotine through his connections in the community. And to this day, is still using nicotine and still using nicotine at a pretty conserving level. And so that experience to me reflects what I see more broadly, which is families and schools working really hard, but access remaining the biggest barrier and really being behind that access. I think some of this bill takes important steps to strengthening the retail environment. I think licensing and accountability and restrictions to illegal online sales is really important. And I think reducing access is far more effective than focusing on possession after the fact. And I think that because these penalties that students may experience after being in possession, I don't think they really help support students getting better and support students getting off of these nicotine products. I think punitive responses often create more barriers than solutions. And I think what it creates is students becoming less honest and less likely to seek help. And I think when we reduce that fear of what might happen from some of that possession, I think we can create more opportunities for early intervention and support. I think that the bill is working in the right direction. And I really think that it aligns closely with what we are seeing in schools. And I think I wanted to continue so that we can continue to help young people. So thank you for your time and thank you to your commitment to Vermont's youth. And I'm happy to answer any questions.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you, Matthew. Questions from committee members. I'm going to ask you the question that I was just asking Doctor. Vellante. How So let's just say, you youth comes to you and has been using vapes or any other substances, honestly. How do you connect them with treatment services?

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: Yeah, so I think a lot of that is working with them and their families in communities. Sometimes honestly, we as a nurse's office and me, I have nicotine gum and lozenges in my office. So sometimes it's not even working with the family as much as it is a student saying, hey, I want to quit and I need some help. And I've gotten caught in school. Like, can think of a situation this year where we had a student who's gotten caught way more times than I can count. The student is obviously addicted to nicotine. And so one thing that happens is they have a plan to go to the nurse and to get nicotine gum when they have some of those cravings. And hopefully that gets them through the day so that they're not using at school. But truthfully, think it becomes really difficult sometimes to make those connections and to help students find what works for them. And I think some of that is also because they don't want their parents to know. A lot of these students that I work with, at least because I do not have to I don't always have to tell parents what students are coming to me and working with me. Their parents don't really know how deep their addiction to nicotine is. And so I think that fear of their parents knowing or even potentially getting in trouble is something that sometimes prevents them, I think, from getting some of that help and that some of that help and that support. But I would kind of piggyback off Andrea's point, like, they live on their phones. And so some of the texting and what takes place on the phone to kind of work through some of that stuff has been really helpful. Like, have a lot of students that will text the quitline, and I think that can be helpful. But yeah, I think we could do a better job of it. And I think it's difficult.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Representative Noyes.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Thank you. You were talking earlier about people hiding the vapes. And I just did a quick Google search and there's one that looks like a Sharpie. Like you know not a sharpie but a highlighter.

[Max Barrows (Outreach Director, Green Mountain Self-Advocates)]: Yeah.

[Rep. Daniel Noyes (Clerk)]: Do you see like what other things are available in Vermont that people can use to conceal these?

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: Yeah. So I mean I haven't necessarily seen the highlighter one, but I think we'll see things that look like a phone or even frankly, I have a lot of students who aren't always using the ones that are deceptive, but are using ones that have the most the highest level of nicotine in them. So like a lot of the students that I'm working with at this point aren't always using what's deceptive. I think they're looking for, hey. What has the highest level of nicotine? Because I think their addiction is is so high at this point. Like, I think another thing that's concerning and and that we talked about in the in the committee I was in last week is students at this point, by the time they get to high school, have really started to make a decision about whether they're gonna use nicotine or not. And so a lot of times by ninth grade, we have a lot of students who have are are in full blown nicotine addiction and are using nicotine every day and are looking for products that have the highest level of nicotine and the highest amount of puffs so that that they can use as much as they can. And so I think that's a that's a concerning thing to me as well.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: Mhmm. Thank you.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: When we were considering another bill a couple of years ago, we actually had some really good testimony from a treatment program that was actually working in the schools. And the data was pretty compelling. So it was treatment that the kids were able to access while they were in school. And while we're putting a lot of focus on prevention, I would love to see, because of the high rate of use of vaping in schools, I would love to see more treatment programs actually in the schools. And I appreciate the sort of position that you're in and where kids don't want their parents to know. And it's a kind of rough situation there. But I think we can learn from some of the things that are being successful in other parts of the state. And I appreciate your interest and willingness to be thinking about this for the kids that you serve.

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: I appreciate it. And I'll be here. That's what we do.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Let me just double check and make sure there's no other questions. Looks like we're all set.

[Matthew Menyee (Student Assistance Professional, Champlain Valley Union High School)]: Awesome. Thank you all very much for having me. I appreciate it.

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Alright. Thank you so much. You. Okay. Committee members, we're going to take a brief break minutes early. So we'll

[Rep. Zon Eastes (Member)]: yeah? Is Tina Sacks on the line? Here. She's here. Sorry. I

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: skipped ahead, Tina. If you need a break, it's fine. I think we do need a break, if you don't mind. Okay. Sorry. Thank you.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin (Coalition for Tobacco-Free Vermont/Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids/Vermont Medical Society)]: I saw you to come in

[Rep. Theresa Wood (Chair)]: with her bucket of just