Good morning Chair Postman, Board Member Vollendroff, staff, and guests. The lobbies are open recording has begun.
Thanks, Dustin. Good morning everybody, we'll convene the board caucus meeting for Tuesday, April 16, 2024. Member Garrett is on leave today. We have a light agenda, just board member and executive assistant reports.
Jim, yesterday, we had our roundtable with public health and prevention. And I was just gonna...
I saw the notes.
Did you see the notes? Okay, good. That's right. One. Yeah.
And I just wanted to touch on a few things that we talked about that we may want to follow up on or find some way to engage on. And, Kristen I'm not gonna put you on the spot but, since I see you're on, if you do want to join and share any of your thoughts on the meeting or, or, the follow ups, please just go ahead and we'll have you.
Jim, it was really interesting, a lot of interest in the dashboard.
Oh, good.
You know there was this bill last session, didn't end up passing. And some good examples shared about what other states have been able to do with some fairly sophisticated mapping and other things of that sort. So there was sort of a request to really think big of on that thing. And my only takeaway on that is that we need to encourage the build sponsor to talk to some stakeholders and hear from them, because I don't think there was a lot of that prior to last session. And and so a ton of interest in that which we're interested in.
Can I ask a quick question, David, or do you want me to wait until you're done.
No, no, please. Go ahead. No.
So on that particular one, I was really glad to see so much interest. And I was wondering, and I know that it's early yet. But you know, are we considering I think I've had some brief conversations about agency request legislation. And so I am really interested in that one as well. And glad to see that the prevention public health community is is tracking that and interested too.
Yeah, I think that should be one of the ones we discuss. I'm looking at Justin here, and we'll put that on the list. I mean, I, you know, Will was really into it. And you know, I think there were some questions about the fiscal note and the requirements on other agencies that we're gonna have to deal with a little bit, but but seems to me, all of those are workable problems. And,
yeah, and talk with the, and talk with the prime sponsor to see in fact, if that would be helpful or not, yeah, yeah. But just do it in collaboration with the prime sponsor last session.
Yeah. And I, you know, I think the our licensees, too, will have an interest in what's there and how it's accessible. And so if we can just hear from all those folks. So to that end, Kristen is going to be convening different groups going forward. And that's one I know that she's already gotten a fair amount of interest in and, and don't know exactly what formed those sessions will be or how that will be, but we'll definitely have those conversations with with everybody.
The other one that really sort of sparked some good conversation was about flavored vapes, across our product types, you know, tobacco cannabis. General non nicotine. And, you know, I think I've said before, but I would like us to try to look at what we can do there. I don't think we well, I just, I think we should be somewhat aggressive in looking at what we can do with flavored vapes, particularly on the cannabis side, I think, because it is the most sort of unknown piece of this. Not that the regular vape world we know a lot about, but we just don't know what's in these things. It's clearly it's something that the experts tell us helps appeal to young people. And so I think we can talk about that, too, about where we have authority, would we need legislation is a rulemaking we could do and the request was made by somebody yesterday, could the board I think they referred to it as a resolution, like just pass a resolution calling for the end of this. And I said, Well, we don't usually do that. But, you know, let's put it on the table and see what we can do. So Justin and I have talked about vapes a little bit, and, you know, we do have one rule petition in now, but it's more on the...
Disposable.
Yeah, the environmental side of it, so I don't think that's the same package that we would have to do this on, but we should look at it. So that would be one that I would put on either potential for agency request legislation or rulemaking or something. So
That's great. I'm glad that's another one that I'm glad to hear there was discussion on and, you know, at the federal level, on the tobacco side, there's been movement on banning and, you know, flavored vapes, and it feels like, you know, we want to be a state that is progressive and supportive of the retail side of things. But we also want to be progressive and supported on the public health side of things. And when there's federal legalization for cannabis, my guess is there will be movement to ban these at the federal level. And wouldn't it be great if we were leading by example, in this state, like we've done in so many ways? So I agree.
I agree. And I think it's one of those things that even if flavored cannabis vape disappeared, you know, there's still plenty of product available for adults to choose to use cannabis, I don't I don't worry that that's going to be a, you know, death knell to the industry by any means.
And I just think in general, you know, we do work, to find ways to modernize and evolve our regulations, but we shouldn't just move towards the more lax side, we need to look for those places where we can build up. And I will say, you know kinda, there was a little bit of criticism yesterday in the roundtable, about our position on the signage bill, the cannabis sign bill. And we had some good conversations about it. I believe, you know, we had the right, you know, we were doing the right thing in trying to come up with a compromise. We did engage with all parties on it, the bill didn't pass and try to be clear about it. In the sense of it's it's, it's about enforcement priorities more than more than anything, and And is that how is that the highest and best use of our our people to measure signs? Or what could they do in the absence? And I don't know how we go about that for the next session. But you know, Mark seems to be pretty confident that bill will be back again, I think this will be the third session, in some form. So yeah, but they were not 100% happy with that. And, and so we just need to be aware that they weren't and and Mark did a good job yesterday, briefing them on the session and acknowledging that difference of opinion. But also a lot of things where we did agree, and were able to make some progress on things. So I thought it was pretty good. Yeah,
Sounds like it was a great meeting. I sent Kristen, and she sent me the notes, and I sent her an email this morning saying there were a couple of things I'd like to follow up on. Those are two of them. The other one is the high THC concentration products. I don't know how much it was discussed. If there's notes here that there's going to be a workgroup or a group of people getting together, which I think is great. Following session I just sent Rep Davis an email recently, during session, we had said, Hey, after session, let's get together and talk about where things were left and what we should consider moving forward. But bringing together industry and other public health and other people to the table as well.
Great. Yeah. And then we talked to you know, we didn't get into it as much as I thought we would yesterday, in part because we're running ran a little behind and Doctor Carlini had to leave before we got to that point with where she's the expert on. But we did talk about it. I said which what I've said here is I think that we really there, we have an obligation to stake out a position on this issue, even if it's taxation, which we normally don't, because it really is an emerging issue. There, you know, and public health representatives yesterday said there were some people on the licensee side who were supportive of trying to find an answer and they had some good conversations and and so I think there's a eagerness on public health and prevention's part to, to have those discussions with the industry as well. And I think, you know, the LCB can play that role and, and and helping to to bring folks together and I know that's an area you're interested in, so maybe that's something that you want to work with Kristen on to be part of those workgroups, and because it seems like there should be something doable there. Through the legislature. So yeah, I thought those were good.
Yeah, those were the main issues. I thought Kristen's notes were pretty comprehensive and Um, I will also just say, I think that those, you know, I've been doing those meetings now for three years, we do them quarterly, they've gotten better, as you know, I think they've gotten more helpful for me, in part because people are more and more open with each other in those meetings. And that's helpful. And I take the fact that people are able to express some unhappiness is a good sign, you know, that we're hearing real stuff. So I found it really valuable and appreciate their time coming to talk to us about it.
That's great. And I know that Kristen has had conversations with them. And to the degree that you can Chair Postman at future meetings, I really want to see more of the participants in that meeting, attend board meetings, as well, and share some of these concerns with us publicly. And I know that there's a number of reasons why that's been a challenge. And I know that there's a number of challenges there. But educating the board on positions or concerns, I think, are an important way for us to make decisions. So just want to say publicly, again, and invitation as a board member, for more members of the prevention and public health community to participate in board meetings. And you know, and if they can't, maybe they can find a family member who they know has some similar concerns or other people that could share the message on their behalf if in fact, they're not able to do it themselves. Because I know they're a member of a number of coalition's and they have a lot of contacts with people in the community who've been impacted by some of the concerns that they have. And so if not them, others who could share some of their concerns would be helpful.
Yeah, I think that's great. And, you know, in general, I, you know, I really enjoy it when we have somebody come in who can briefed us on a new study or findings of a survey or something. And so, Kristen did talk a little bit about that with with folks yesterday, too. And I, yeah, good point, Jim. And we should encourage that as much as we can. And they have a lot of reasons why they say they don't come out in public. But I think we need to create that space as much as possible where we can do that. And hear that. And, yeah, we there's the WSIPP study was brought up yesterday in relation to the sign issue, you know, as sort of an indication that advertising may have an impact on youth if it's true that you know, misuse of of cannabis is higher in areas where there is a store that might lead one but did point out even WSIPP said there was questions they still had about that work. And but yeah, we need to have those conversations here as much as possible, I think. I think that's all I can recall from that at this point.
You got anything else, Jim?
I don't have anything else, thank you.
Okay. Just thinking for a second whether I do but I don't think so. Okay, yeah, well, then that's it. We have some scheduling things we're going to figure out over the next month or so because of travel and other things where we have some rulemaking deadlines, and so we might have to move a couple of meetings around, but we'll make sure that everyone gets plenty of notice before we do that, so.
Okay, Dustin, anything else?
Not for me. Thank you, Chair.
Okay, great.
Well, with that, we will adjourn the caucus meeting for today and be back next week. Next.
