Over the past few weeks, the Senate has been busy working on a handful of cannabis-related bills, including S.25, which has emerged as the preeminent vehicle to amend Act 164. Crossover was last Friday, a deadline in the State House when bills must move into the other chamber, and the Cannabis Control Board still has not formed, but we anticipate they will finally convene by the end of this month.

VGA and our Coalition partners – Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, Trace, Rural Vermont, and NOFA-VT – spent the past few weeks in different Senate committees working to amend S.25 with our proposed amendments to fix the racial, agricultural, and economic inequities that exist in Act 164. While our Coalition was successful in getting some of our proposed reforms added to the bill, most of our language, including a robust social equity program, has yet to be included in S.25. Visit the 2021 Policy Agenda to read more about the individual reformations we’re seeking this year.

Perhaps more important than amending any specific piece of legislation, however, VGA and Coalition are now more included in the legislative process than we were a year ago, and our ideas are actively being considered and deliberated by lawmakers. We also want lawmakers to hear more from Vermonters on these issues, and while we haven’t managed to create the space for public testimony, yet, we have managed to bring some Vermont farmers and producers into the process to begin to move us toward a more inclusive legislative process. VGA and Coalition will continue to fight to open up the legislative process, to include the voices of Vermonters, without slowing down progress.

In the Senate

At the end of February, we spent a couple of days in the Senate Judiciary and Government Operations committees presenting our proposed amendments to bill S.25. For the first time, Senators in these committees listened and engaged our ideas and we eventually managed to amend bill S.25 with some reformations to the Cannabis Control Board and the Advisory Committee, including directing the Advisory Committee to form before the Cannabis Control Board, giving the Advisory Committee removal authority over members of the Cannabis Control Board, and the addition of a 13th member of the Advisory Committee to represent medical cannabis, since Act 164 moves Vermont’s medical cannabis program out of the Department of Public Safety and under the authority of the Cannabis Control Board.

At the beginning of March, we finally managed to move bill S.25 into the Senate Agriculture Committee. This is an important symbolic win because for several years corporate cannabis lobbyists in Montpelier have been successful in preventing any cannabis legislation from landing in the House or Senate agriculture committees. That’s right, bill S.54, which is now law, did not spend a single minute in either agriculture committee, and the other week we found out why – lawmakers who understand farming have foundational issues with Act 164 and the taxation and regulation marketplace it creates. We only had three days to deliberate in the Senate Agriculture Committee, and while it was clear that time was not on our side, members heard our ideas and agreed that the legislative process should take more time to discuss matters as serious as taxing and regulating cannabis.

Other Bills

The other four cannabis bills in the State House are H.24, H.164, S.94, and H.414 – we will know more about the likelihood of passage this session after crossover ends, which usually takes about a week to complete. House bill H.24, is a health insurance-related bill that would allow CBD to qualify for coverage. House bill H.164, would allow towns to prohibit all licensed cannabis establishments from operating. House bill H.94, would allow towns to collect two percent of the taxable retail sales to municipalities that host a cannabis establishment. House bill H.414, would create a cannabis social equity program under Act 164, this bill comes from our Coalition partner, the Vermont Racial Justice Alliance, and we endorse this legislation.

An Update on Act 164

Act 164 is now significantly behind and we anticipate likely delays in the market for Vermonters. As enacted, Act 164 was to arrive at a market by the end of 2022. However, for the first time, a few weeks back, Senators openly discussed the possibility of not seeing a market until 2023. It’s important to recognize, that, in other states, delays have a common tactic by corporate cannabis companies to slow-down participation by small businesses during the formation process. We fought against the Cannabis Control Board, in favor of using the Agency of Agriculture, Farms, and Markets to manage Vermont’s adult-use marketplace, because of the likely risk of delay. So, where is the rollout process, now? In the middle of February, the Nominating Committee sent 10 candidates to the governor for him to select the Cannabis Control Board, which was to deliver sweeping recommendations to the legislature by April 1. The April 1 milestone is important because it’s the first deadline critical to Act 164’s formation and implementation process, and with that milestone missed, delays for Vermonters become more likely.

The 2021 legislative session is about halfway over, so there is still plenty of time to fight for our reforms and see actual change this year – this is still a possibility. We know Act 164 does not work for most Vermonters, and we will continue to fight, with our Coalition partners, to address the racial, agricultural, and economic inequities that exist in Vermont’s new taxation and regulation law.

Update 03/24/21

It's important to note, VGA and our Coalition partners are not the only organizations working to influence S.25. The Vermont Cannabis Trade Association (VCTA), the organization representing the corporate cannabis companies in Vermont, including CuraLeaf Holdings, iAnthus Capital Holdings, and Champlain Valley Dispensary, are also following the bill and participating in amendments. The VCTA is effectively the opposite of VGA and has been running interference on our legislative efforts this year. For example, we advocated to include a medical cannabis representative on the Advisory Committee because the CCB will oversee the state medical program and needs patient and caregiver expertise. The medical program currently has an advisory committee, called the Marijuana For Symptom Relief Oversight Committee, which is expected to fold when the CCB absorbs the program. So we proposed to lawmakers that a new, 13th member of the Advisory Committee should be a patient and caregiver advocate, someone sympathetic and knowledgable about the unique challenges patients face. Then, days after our amendment was added to S.25, the VCTA rewrote our language to include a member from their organization, the VCTA, not a knowledgeable patient advocate. While we will likely have the opportunity to correct any amendments we put forward, this back-and-forth with corporate cannabis lobbyists is a tactic they use to slow down our efforts by forcing us to address their interference. As we have stated in this year's Policy Agenda, the medical program is vital, and seeking medical advocacy and greater accountability for the CCB is something we will continue to push lawmakers on.