Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Welcome back to House Human Services. This afternoon, we're taking some testimony on a bill that we do not have possession of, but for which we have an interest in, S-two 78, an act relating to cannabis. So we are going to hear from the Cannabis Control Board, the Department of Health, and Director of the Cannabis Action Fund. So Mr. Pepper, glad to have you take And the just to be clear, members, we are only going to deal with the public health aspects of this, which pertain mostly to the increase in the packaging and purchase. So the witnesses, that's just a FYI for the witnesses. We're not gonna be taking testimony about events and things like that. So welcome.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: Thank you. James Pat Burt, Chair of the Cannabis Control Board. Always great to be in this committee. Usually come here around this time of the calendar year. Last one. Yep. So S-two 78 and accolating to cannabis, I think what you notice is every year there's generally a cannabis bill. This industry evolves very quickly. And we always spot things that we didn't know about last year. And we ask for essentially a good housekeeping bill every year. And then sometimes things get tacked onto that good housekeeping bill, because there's other interested stakeholders other than the cannabis for the regulatory authority. This bill was a little bit different because it started off as a, I mean, started off in Senate economic development and they look at the cannabis industry through a much different lens than the House Government Operations Committee, where the bills have historically started. So this has a lot of, I guess, industry specific requests in it, A lot of industry specific recommendations as how the market should evolve over time, and the market should evolve over time. But I the nature of my testimony in the Senate and in the House of Ops Committee so far has really just been, what do we take to implement some of these things at the board level? Not taking a position on the policy. I mean, we're regulators. We're not really trying to substitute our judgment for for what the legislature wants this market to look like or how it should evolve. So, one of the documents that I asked Lori to post today just gives a comparison of how other New England states handle some of these issues. And that's the forget exactly what it's called, but it's kind of a Excel spreadsheet looking chart. So you can get just a sense, one of the main themes out of the Senate was we're moving in a direction right now under this administration towards some kind of possible rescheduling of cannabis, maybe opening the floodgates towards interstate commerce of certain cannabis products. So one thing that they wanted to do through this bill is to start to have a little bit of more regional harmony amongst our regulations, so that if the kind of floodgates of interstate commerce are opened, that we wouldn't have a patchwork, especially in New England, of policies and products that are allowed in Connecticut, but not allowed in Vermont. So that was one of their motivations. The packaging limit per package limit moving from 100 to 200 was one example of that. I think you can see the states on my chart that have that 200 per container limit. And, you know, the idea that and then the the two ounces, there is one update to the chart that just happened, I think last week, which is Massachusetts increased their transaction limit to two ounces. They're the kind of one New England state, I think, that had a one ounce per transaction limit. I should just say just a little bit about a transaction limit. This is you walk into a store and you're allowed to purchase up to one ounce of cannabis. And that is also the amount of cannabis a person can have on their person and not face civil penalties. So when the Senate Economic Development Committee wanted to raise this two ounces in a single transaction, then they also increased that civil penalty threshold to two ounces, that you couldn't, you didn't wanna be in a position where you're selling someone enough cannabis to make them violate the law. That's why you see not just the two ounces being raised in the transaction limit, but also in title 18, which are the kind of criminal and civil penalties for cannabis possession. Happy to talk about any aspect of this bill you'd like, but really, when it comes to what resources at the board would be needed in order to make this change around per package and transaction limits, it's nothing. This is just we update our guidance documents, people updated their point of sale systems so that you can't sell above that. And is almost like flipping a switch. Some of the other portions of the bill have given us a little bit of concern about how we're gonna effectively implement them, given our current resources. But almost everything in this bill is permissive. It doesn't force the board to do anything that's unwise or not in line with our resources. It gives us the flexibility to roll out these pilot programs slowly and to the best of our ability, as well as outsource a lot of some of the kind of more complex issues to third parties. Like for instance, for the event licensing, it gives us the authority to say, you need to have private security or you need to hire a deputy sheriff to be on call at the event in case something bad happens. We don't necessarily have to be boots on the ground at these events, which will likely happen at night, on the weekends, times when we don't generally have field agents out in the field.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So I'm not seeing on our website, unless somebody else has found it, the sort of state by state comparison. Do you know?

[Representative Doug Bishop]: It's a of regional cannabis policies.

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: I think it's under his testimony.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: Written testimony is where I can tell. The document itself is under my name and it's called Written Testimony. I see it.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you, sorry. Of course I had every other one opened. Thank you.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: I know there's a lot of sometimes confusion about all the various caps and limits that are in the cannabis statutes. So I may just give you a quick primer on that. We talked about the transaction limits. That's how much a person can purchase with a single swipe of a credit card. There's no real prohibition on them walking out the door and then walking back in and buying another ounce. But there's a serving size limit of five milligrams per edible per beverage per, you know, cannabis product, there's that per package limit, which is being proposed to increase of currently set at one hundred milligrams per package. There is a potency cap on flour, a THC potency cap 30%. So people cannot grow flour that has more than 30% in it illegally. And then there is a tap on solid concentrates. Again, these are things like concentrated cannabis, and that can't be more than 60% THC.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: So in looking at this chart that I've finally found, I guess I'm curious because you were just talking about trying to create some consistency, particularly in New England, with potential federal changes on the horizon. But I guess I'm not seeing the majority of states doing what you're actually proposing to do here. I didn't propose this. Somebody is proposing to us to do here.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: I think there are quite a few areas where that was the motivation around event licensing. Most of our New England states, mean, there are a number of states that do event licensing or have some form of social consumption allowance. That's what we don't have in Vermont. So you can purchase cannabis, but if you're not a homeowner consuming the cannabis in your own home, there's no legal place to consume it. So that's trying to kind of capture, we know people are doing it, why not just regulate it a little bit? So that's that, there's a piece around delivery. And I think we're just one of the minority state that doesn't have delivery. There's even a piece towards the end about allowing, authorizing our governor to enter into interstate commerce compacts for cannabis products. If one of four triggering events happens that would allow for interstate commerce, that would give the governor the authority to negotiate who's collecting the tax, what taxes apply, how to do product recalls, what health and safety standards we want, products that are being shipped into the state to meet. And so, I mean, again, the bill, not necessarily on the per product limits or the per container limits, but elsewhere is trying to anticipate a world where there may be cross border sales.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I appreciate that, thank you. Yeah, go ahead. You said that I

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: think it was Mass just made some changes to theirs.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: It's not reflected here.

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: Can you just repeat those for me?

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: Yes, Massachusetts, it's on the transaction.

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: On the transaction

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: limit. So their transaction limit, I think, was one ounce and they just bumped it up to two ounces. Okay.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: It's helpful to understand, like, it was helpful. Oftentimes when we have this sort of miscellaneous cannabis bill, it's at the request of the board. And so helpful to understand that that's not necessarily the case with all of these elements.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: The one request that we made in here is to eliminate from statute. Again, just a good housekeeping thing. It doesn't actually have to happen this year, but we no longer have integrated licenses. All of them have relinquished their integrated license and split them up into their component parts. And we're not issuing new ones. So there's probably about 20 different references amongst the various statutes to integrated licenses. So this bill just strikes all those references. So that's one thing that we did ask for. There's three sections of the bill that the tax department has asked for, just to clean up some of their statutory requirements. Nothing substantive, very technical. And then I think the rest of it were requests from other entities. Thank you. You

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: have anything else you want to say in terms of your comments? Questions for Mr. Reppert? Yes, go ahead, Representative Bishop.

[Representative Doug Bishop]: I see in your summary of section six, which focuses on delivery, there's reference to something that I was wondering about, but I'm not sure I'm understanding it, is how it compares to alcohol, what we currently allow in Vermont with respect to the delivery of alcohol. I don't know if that's something that you could

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: didn't draft that, so I actually don't know. I think our general counsel drafted that in the longer history in the alcohol space.

[Representative Doug Bishop]: Gotcha.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: I don't know what we do with alcohol. I know that we extend we looked at the sunset on the ready to go beverages. Right. You know, that you can kinda purchase at a bar and, you know, but I don't know how much alcohol we deliver. I don't think we do any spirit delivery.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I have no idea, and not the jurisdiction of this committee, but you might be able to find that out downstairs in house.

[Representative Doug Bishop]: I'm just wondering whether we'd be treating them similarly or differently, is what they're asked for.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Yeah, I understand the question. I that I guess there's a nexus to public health there, Potentially, yes, obviously. And I answer know to that question. But we can perhaps find that out from our House General and Military Affairs Committee, which they should know the answer to that question. See? The bill is still in their jurisdiction. They're still working on it. And then it still has a ways to go because it has to go to Ways and Means after that because of the fee changes and the tax department stuff. Any other questions for Mr. Pepper? Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank being here, James. Thank you. Okay, thank you. We're gonna, oh, did pop in there. Okay, Thank you, Shayla, for being here. And I see you have Tony with you. So welcome to House Human Services. And we're interested in the health department's thoughts on, in particular, I think you probably figured out the public health aspects of these proposed changes in Act two seventy eight to the cannabis laws we have.

[Sheila Livingston, Interim Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Great. Yes, happy to be here. Sheila Livingston, Interim Deputy Commissioner at the Health Department, and Tony Falland, who is from our treatment team at the Division of Substance Use, is here to keep me straight on all of my facts. So, I I can be brief. We we did go and testify in front of house gov ops, and they actually had a bunch of data questions. So we sent the committee, like, our laundry list of data, and we're happy to go over any of that. But I won't do that unless unless you you would like that. I can speak first the bill specifically. So, we really appreciate that currently we're maintaining the existing THC potency caps concentration limits, and we would like to see the bill maintain the single serving package limits and not increase those. So, that those are the those are the big, I was just going to summarize our big takeaways when we think about public health and we think about cannabis regulation. The Health Department was part of trying to put in place the safeguards for when this original law passed. And concentration and serving size and dose, you know, the dose that a human gets is a very important aspect of reducing, you know, poisoning for kids, reducing over consumption, trying to ensure that people are not, you know, using too much at once. It can, you know, potency, concentration, serving size, all of those things are really important to how much a human being is taking into their body. And so, when we look at that, you know, that group of regulations, that's why those are important for public health. We want to maintain the existing purchase and possession limits, again, discouraging heavier consumption, and finally, maintain the existing advertising rules, which the Senate bill does do. And then the advertising changes, again, this is a public health practice of trying to decrease any exposure of targeted advertising to youth, and was something that was really important to us in the original passage of this law, and we would like to to make sure that stays the same. And and it does in the version, I believe, that's in front of you. So we just wanna hang on to that as it passes through the house. Specific questions, I'm happy to talk about impact or health, but those are our big, those are our big pieces. And so again, in the language that's in front of you, it's really about the single serving size packaging and possession and purchase limits that we want to see the current standard maintained and not see those increase. The other pieces were taken care of in the Senate.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. Thank you. Tony, you have anything you want to add?

[Tony Folland, Division of Substance Use, Vermont Department of Health]: I think the only thing that I would add is that just in size and scope, if you think about what is one ounce of marijuana, we're talking the ability to roll 40 plus joints out of that already. So that is a substantial when we start talking about size. So if you think about the amount of consumption just on the current existing law. So thinking of increasing that and part of our goal health wise is the more you have accessible at any given time, the more likely, particularly if you have a substance use disorder, the more likely you are to overindulge. And so if we are already talking that somebody could roll conceivably 40 joints off what they can purchase now, the thought of being able to double that amount at the singular purchase, puts folks at higher risk.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Questions for, Tony or Sheila? Okay. Thank you very much. We appreciate you being here this afternoon. Thanks. Okay. Dave. Welcome.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: Thank you, madam chair.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: Yeah. Thank you for inviting me here today. My name for the record is Dave Solderman. I'm an attorney. I specialize in cannabis law. I also own and operate Flora Cannabis, a dispensary in Downtown Middlebury, and I direct the Vermont Cannabis Action Fund or VCAF. VCAF is a coalition of over 50 licensed retailers, manufacturers, cultivators, and we focus on supporting the regulated market as a whole, as opposed to the illicit market. When thinking about the public health impacts of cannabis policy, it's important to keep some some basic truths in mind. First, not all cannabis use is inherently problematic. Our stores, Vermont's licensed stores, we cater to responsible adults who want to buy cannabis that they see as safer because it's been tested. Second, legalization has not led to increased teen use, not in Vermont, not in any other state. Now I know this was a huge, huge concern in this building when we were debating legalization from when I started my advocacy, here in 2015 all the way until legalization was passed in 2020. This concern has been put to bed. We have now seen more than ten years of sales in Colorado, four years in Vermont. It just doesn't happen. A big reason for that is that underage users don't get cannabis from our stores. We are your licensed retailers here in Vermont rigor rigorously check ID. We don't let people who are 21 into the store, let alone purchase from us. On the other hand, teenagers have easy access to illicit market cannabis from unlicensed brick and mortar retailers, like the smoke king in South Burlington that was busted by the South Burlington police a few months ago, set up across the street from the middle school, selling to the middle schoolers. They're your problem. Fourth, when you make the policy choice to prohibit us licensed retailers from selling products that are widely popular among adults, you are not stopping people from getting their hands on those products. Instead, you're just sending them to the smoke king and other shops like that, those same stores that sell to underage consumers. And so by prohibiting us from selling these products, you're unwittingly rewarding the people you should be punishing. And then finally, according to the CCB's market analysis, it was released just last month. I have a copy here. It's on your website. Only 68% of total cannabis demand in Vermont is currently being met by the regulated market. That means that nearly a third of cannabis today is being supplied by the illicit market. Now we believe that bringing the remaining third of cannabis demand into the regulated market is good for public health. It's good for public safety. It's good for the state's budget. Most importantly, from my perspective, it's good for the safety of cannabis consumers because our products are regulated, and the ones that are sold at these other stores are not. They're not tested for safety, potency. There's no standards applicable to them. And so we urge you to look at the CCB's market analysis as a road map for how to bring that third of the market into the regulated market for public health and safety. Now the CCB's report found that the single most influential factor that is driving consumers to the unregulated market is Vermont's artificial limit on product potency. It also found broad, broad interest in purchasing cannabis through alternative settings like cafes, consumption lounges, events, special events, you know, the cannabis equivalent of the beer tent at the Burlington Jazz Fest or having cannabis be catered to a private wedding and even farmers markets. Now we believe, at VCAF, we believe the single most effective change you can make right now is to align Vermont's potency edibles limit with the national standard. If you ask any retailer in this state, they will tell you that every day a customer comes into their store looking for a ten milligram edible and taking their business elsewhere when they find out that Vermont limits it to five milligrams per serving. Vermont is an extreme outlier on edibles potency. Only two other states limit edibles to five milligrams per serving. 23 other states with legal markets all follow the national standard of ten milligrams per serving. There is a broad consensus among all the regulated states except Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Vermont. Now ten milligrams is not a high potency product. That's just standard potency. So I wanna address very directly the public health concerns you've heard about potency limits. First, I wanna reiterate. Vermont is an extreme outlier on on the edibles potency. If our five milligram limit was actually delivering tangible public health benefits, we'd be seeing it in the data because we'd be able to compare results in Vermont to the results in the 23 states that have a ten milligram limit. You should be able to see it in terms of lower rates of ER admissions in Vermont than other states for accidental ingestion of edibles. But we don't see it at all. This data does not exist. When you look to compare Vermont to the other states, you don't find that our policy choice is having the impact that we assumed it would. All we see is people buying those ten milligram edibles elsewhere. And those other sellers, they're not required to package those edibles in childproof packaging. I'll show you. These are, If I may, you can pass that down. Try to open them. These are very, very difficult to open. These are edibles we sell. Trick. This is actual packaging off the shelf in my store. When shift demand to the regulated market, you get public health benefits. And in fact, the data shows that since this market opened, twenty two, twenty three, twenty four, twenty five, we see decreases decreases in the rates of people visiting ERs in Vermont due to accidental ingestion of edibles. You can't open that. It's really hard.

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: I know.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: So again, if we can drive the adults who are buying their ten milligram edibles off market and buying it in Ziploc bags or even like Skittles bags that you just rip open, if we can drive those people to our stores, and those people happen to be parents who have kids at home, now their edibles will be more secure from accidental ingestion by their children. That's the promise of the regulated market, and that promise, again, it's delivering. We see it. We we see it in the data. Again, ER visits related to accidental ingestion is down.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I'm glad the law about childproof packaging is working.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: And we support it. Some people say it's adult proof.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That one is proving to be adult proof.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: You have to push really hard, turn the There

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: you go. Other thing on The I don't do it. Just don't do it. Yeah. Okay. This is

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: the risk of show and tell.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: That's exactly it. We get we get sidetracked.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: The second thing

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Oh, did Eric figure it out? Out of

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: the butts.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I knew I'm showing the dots.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: You have to push really hard.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: To do it with the dots. Yeah.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: My five year old

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: son told me how to do

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: it. Nice. So, secondly, it's important for us to separate the discussion of edibles potency from the discussion around concentrates potency. The concerns that you've heard over the years about things like cannabis hyperemesis syndrome and things like that, those are not related to edibles. They're related to high potency concentrates. Now that's two very different products with two very different risk profiles. So when we talk about ten milligram edibles, moving this from a five milligram limit to the national standard, we are not talking about the 60% potency cap. We're not implicating the questions about those risks. Different risks, different products. And for folks who, you know, intentionally conflate those two items, that doesn't clarify. That that's intended to confuse. So, look, we we support the stated purpose of s two seventy eight to bring cannabis users into the regulated market from the illicit market. More broadly, we want you, all everyone, your colleagues in this chamber, we want the legislature to base cannabis policy on facts, on careful analysis of facts and data, and not on well intentioned, but ultimately factually unsubstantiated concern. And so I thank you for your time. Thank you for having me in today. I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Questions for Mr. Silverman? Yeah, go ahead.

[Representative Doug Bishop]: Don't I have access to ten milligram edibles right now by just having two?

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: You do, and the thing is that a 20 pack of five milligram edibles and a 20 pack of ten milligram edibles costs approximately the same to produce. And so if the solution is for a person to eat two, then you are Another way to look at that is a 100% tax on edible purchasers because what they want is 10. And I could sell them a 20 pack of ten milligram gummies for less than a dollar more than what I sell this package for. It's a cost of production thing.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Silverman. We appreciate you being here today.

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: Oh, I'm sorry. I I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about advertising. Did they change any in the bill?

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: I think advertising is good. It's good? Okay. And as long as delivery.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: So this bill does have a delivery pilot program in it. Look, my group, you know, we've talked about this internally a lot. The majority of my group oppose delivery. Almost everyone in my group opposes delivery as currently written. We think this doesn't get it right. We think a lot of work needs to go into getting delivery right. And in fact, CCP's market analysis, it shows what is keeping people in the unregulated market. Delivery doesn't make the list. So that's just not where my focus would be right now.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Yes, this will be the final question.

[Representative Doug Bishop]: One other question, and perhaps it's in the report, but what evidence is there to determine where that last one third, the unregulated market users are getting? You said a third of product use is coming from the unregulated market. We know that's because it's not cheaper, it's more convenient.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: Think the report actually does a really good job of laying all of that out. So potency was the number one factor. Price is a big factor. Convenience was not a factor. The report found that the current retail footprint is sufficient statewide to meet local purchasing behavior. So that was an interesting finding in the report. It did find that people wanted to get them at alternatives to retail, like consumption lounges and events. It also found some people are staying in the illicit market because their friend grew a plant and they get it from their friend who grew it in the summer. And that's not the illicit market. That's sharing. I don't think we should do anything to crack down on that. But there are stores, online sellers, that's a health risk. That's a real problem that should be addressed.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you for being here today. I appreciate it.

[David Silberman, Attorney; Owner, FLŌRA Cannabis (Middlebury); Director, Vermont Cannabis Action Fund]: Thank you for having me. Really appreciate it.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. And finally, we're gonna hear from Jill Sudhakaran.

[James Pepper, Chair, Vermont Cannabis Control Board]: And

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: we have information from Vermont Medical Society that Jill provided to us on our website.

[Unidentified committee member (House Human Services)]: Thank you for having me. Hopefully I'll be letting you go very quickly. This should be brief. I know it's been a very long week. Jill Salkov Karen.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society (on behalf of VMS, AAP-VT, and Vermont Academy of Family Physicians)]: Today I'm representing the Vermont Medical Society, American Academy of Pediatrics Vermont Chapter, and Vermont Family Physicians. And very similar to what Sheila told you, we are pretty pleased to not oppose to the version of this bill that passed out of the Senate because they removed the sections that would have increased the potency of the high concentrate products. And it would have stripped out our advertising regulations, which we have really been focused on as they are protecting youth from more and more normalization around these products. They're seeing the signs everywhere. They're seeing a lot. And so we're trying to protect youth. Then this bill also was asking to decrease the excise tax. And we know that price is a factor for youth as well. And as you know, 30% of the excise tax goes to prevention. So we really want that to be retained. So as I said, we are not opposed generally. Just so you know, the Vermont Medical Society works with the CCB and has worked with them. We were just in a work group this fall. We try to provide information and really try to strengthen the market as much as we can with input from clinicians on the field. That being said, our remaining concerns match what the Department of Health said. And it's really about the package size from one hundred milligrams to two hundred milligrams. We don't really see a need for that. And as far as buying two ounces, I think James said it, people could just go to a different store. It doesn't seem like this is actually going to be something that helps the market that much. What we do know is that, Dave said that there hasn't been an increase in the reported use among youth, but we do know that we have the highest reported use of cannabis in the nation and some of the highest rates among our youth. I will just say that that's twenty six percent of our high school students that report past month cannabis use, and then forty eight percent of our eighteen to twenty five year olds currently use cannabis products. So that's also very high. We have talked to some of the emergency physicians at UVMMC. Doctor. Jim Whitlich put in testimony in the Senate just around what he sees in his And you can see it in my testimony, when a young kid comes in and has ingested cannabis, this can result in just sedation. It can result in them not actually eating because they're so lethargic, and sometimes they have to be intubated. So we're really just trying to protect kids from this. And in 2025, the American College of Medical Toxicology put out a physician statement really recommending that the THC package be at fifty milligrams. And so we urge you not to increase this. We don't see this as anything that the market needs right now, and we need to also just focus on our little ones. In terms of the events and the delivery, the question is, do we have the capacity to roll this out right now and do it safely? Does the CCB have the ability to enforce this? It doesn't seem like we've heard that there's oversaturation of cannabis retail opportunities right now, and the delivery mechanism would shift this over to the 400 plus growers. And so it's really just opening that wide open, and we just don't think that that's necessary at this time.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. And was that a, you listed off the data? So that was a uniform consensus among those organizations? Yes.

[Jill Sudhoff-Guerin, Vermont Medical Society (on behalf of VMS, AAP-VT, and Vermont Academy of Family Physicians)]: Thank you. Anne, just when you look, live testimony is actually really long because there's a lot of data coming out right now. And I just thought, if people want to see the data, I think actually there's a study that came out in February that really shows the links between regular cannabis use and mental health conditions. And then I think the New York Times has some thoughtful pieces around what do we need to do now that there's so much access? Is access really the problem? And again, it's just really like, how do we do this in the most protective way?

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Thank you. Sheila, thank you.

[Sheila Livingston, Interim Deputy Commissioner, Vermont Department of Health]: Sorry, I just wanted to sort of reiterate what Jill was saying. And I don't know if I can share my screen or if you don't want that. But I have a data brief that shows the increased use rate since the legalization, you know, since both decriminalization, legalization, and then the retail market. And the YRBS data is what we're using to track the the high school kids. We only had one year of that since the retail market went into effect. It did go up. That's just one year. We do see a huge increase in adult use, including young adult use, eighteen to twenty five, which is a very concerning group. So I'm not, I want to really push back on the testimony before Jill and say that we do have data showing increases in use among adults, including young adults and young adults brains are still developing. So I don't, you know, we did this, we didn't, it has not been regulated. The retail market is very new. There is like no reason to go about changing it in this moment without more information. We do not make decisions in public health with one survey year of data. And so I'm not going to say like, oh my gosh, hair on fire. The high school students are using more since the retail market because we need more information. And so, but we do have data showing that trends are going up and going up very, very steadily since decree. So, I think it's really important that this committee knows that. The other piece that's going up is cannabis use dependence. And so in youth twelve to seventeen cannabis use disorder has increased since legalization. So again, it's I think it's really critical to, you know, we can walk through all the links and all the data and all the information we have, but this is a new market. What we see is increases. I love the packaging. I'm so glad about the packaging. Hopefully we will see decreases. I'm not sure what ED data he's looking at. My ED data, the latest ED data I have from the health department is from 2022. So that's when the market came online. So we don't have the information since then that's validated at this point. So I really, really ask this committee to consider leaving the laws in place that we have thoughtfully put in place in Vermont to make sure that there is safety around the substance, and wait until we can actually say with certainty whether poisonings are going down, etcetera, etcetera. Because right now, the information is that, that it's going in the wrong direction that we have from the health department. So just reiterating what Jill said, think it's we would rather just leave it and wait and Thank you.

[Representative Theresa Wood (Chair)]: Okay. So we're not gonna take a great deal more testimony on this. We'll be providing feedback to the House General Committee, government affairs. I always say general, and it's not, it's government affairs. I know, that's because part of what they used to do was over there on the other committees. For today, Kosta, I think we're done.