It is halfway through February of the New Year and about a month into the legislative session, so where are we at? The Cannabis Control Board is in the middle of its first rule amendment process, the State House is beginning to introduce cannabis-related bills, including a standalone THC cap reform bill, other bills continue to get drafted, and the adult-use market experienced its very first product recall the other week, highlighting some of the structural and internal processing issues with roots to the enabling statute that the industry wants to address.

Updates from the State House

The Vermont State House convened for the 77th biennial session on Wednesday, January 4th, 2023, and we went into the session with the understanding there will be several different cannabis-related bills this year. In January, the Cannabis Control Board worked with lawmakers to include language in the Budget Adjustment Act to exempt cannabis products from the 92% vape tax. Since the state fiscal year begins in July, the Budget Adjustment Act is a midyear balancing of the budget. Also in January, we joined former Senator John Rodgers, of Underground Farmers, Jesse Lukas, of Boreas Ventures, and Tito Bern, of Bern Living Organics, in the Senate Committee on Agriculture for a committee discussion on agriculture-related issues regarding cannabis, notably direct-market access for small producers, expanded land-use and agricultural designations for cultivation, and more. More recently, in February, cannabis bills have begun to emerge from lawmakers, and we review them below. 

S.71 and H.207, The CCB’s Omnibus Bill

On Wednesday, February 8, 2023, Senator Sears and Hinsdale introduced bill S.71, an act relating to the adult-use and medical markets, which is effectively an omnibus bill with several different policies. The same bill was introduced by Representative McCarthy and Birong in the House, bill H.270, so the CCB has an omnibus bill in both chambers. In these two companion bills we see moderate changes to the adult-use and medical markets, some of our policies have influenced this bill, but it is largely the CCB’s own priorities, such as:

• Repealing and ending the CCB’s Advisory Committee.

• Repealing and sunset of CCB itself (Act 164 dissolves the agency after a few years).

• Relaxing some advertising limitations to allow for the CCB to better vet advertisements.

• Expanding the dosage and package THC limitations to 100mg from 50mg.

• Allowing for cultivators to possess and sell cannabis products.

• Creating a new Propagation license type.

• Eliminating the requirement that a patient diagnosed with PTSD be engaged with psychotherapy or counseling to qualify for a medical cannabis card.

• Increasing the number of plants a registered patient or caregiver may cultivate from 2 mature and 7 immature to 6 mature and 12 immature. 

• Eliminating the 15 requirements that caregivers be fingerprinted.

• Allowing a caregiver to serve two patients.

• Eliminating annual renewal for patients who have a qualifying condition other than chronic pain and the caregivers who serve those patients.

• Allowing licensed cannabis establishment 2 to do business with any other licensed cannabis establishment.

• Clarifying that cannabis establishments are not required to obtain a license from the Department of Liquor and Lottery to sell tobacco paraphernalia.

• And, establishing 3 new staff and a state-run lab in the CCB.

We are working with the sponsors of bills S.71 and H.270 to amend the legislation with more of our legislative priorities for this year, and a new series of reforms we recently developed to help address the product registration issues that are currently severely impacting licensees and was a contributing factor in the market’s first product recall, and will have an action alert in the coming week to begin those efforts.

S.72, The CCB’s THC Cap Bill

On Wednesday, February 8, 2023, Senator Sears and Hinsdale introduced bill S.72, an act relating to lifting the potency limits on concentrated cannabis products, also known as the THC cap bill. It is important to note, the issue of THC cap reforms was intentionally left to its own bill, the strategy was to allow this single issue to move quickly through the State House and to prevent it from being deliberated with other priorities. This is a very short bill, just shy of 2 full pages, and only repeals the THC cap on solid concentrates.

We are working with the sponsors of bill S.72 to amend the legislation to remove the THC cap for flower, and will have an action alert in the coming week to begin that campaign.

Updates from the Cannabis Control board

In November 2022 the CCB kicked off the Rules amendment process with proposed changes to Rules 1 through 4. The public comment period is set to begin in late February, and the amendment process will likely conclude sometime in March, after Town Meeting Day. On January 26 we held a read-through of the CCB’s proposed changes to Rule 1, which we will upload to our YouTube page soon as a resource. We also developed a summary of the proposed changes for Rule 1 to help you better understand the CCB proposed changes. Below are links to the CCB’s proposed Rules changes for this year.

• The CCB’s proposed changes to Rule 1, the Licensing of Cannabis Establishments.

• The CCB’s proposed changes to Rule 2, the Regulation of Cannabis Establishments.

• The CCB’s proposed changes to Rule 4, Compliance and Enforcement.

We plan to hold future events to read-through the remaining changes in Rules 1 and 4, and discuss as a community the reforms we’d like to see in the CCB’s Rules.

Next Steps

Stay frosty – alerts alerts are coming up next week for important pieces of legislation that we plan to move through the State House and work to amend. We also plan to release a statement on the market’s first product recall and the compounding issues surrounding that incident, such as the product registration issues severely impacting licensees and the market, and offer clear reforms for moving forward.