Cannabis-related VT News Stories

[yardgrazer]

More coverage tonight on that same show, it's airing now but I'm gonna have to catch it later. I did hear a teaser where one of the members claimed that craft licenses for small producers would be relatively simple to obtain and not require a lawyer or financial advisor to start the process. Time will tell, but that sounds okay...

 

[yardgrazer]

Heard on the radio that the chair of the CCB is looking to gauge interest of craft producers by opening access to provisional craft licenses soon, in order to figure out whether they'll be enough supply to meet the demand of VT dispensaries. Not sure I like the sound of that, I'm also presuming that "craft producers" still have to jump through a huge number of hoops in terms of facilities, local approval, etc, that it isn't going to be accessible to most Vermonters.

 

[yardgrazer]

The CCB held a public comment meeting tonight, which I listened in on. It sounded to me like there is a ton TBD, but I didn't particularly like the tenor of what I heard. Didn't really help that last week I took a quick read through the regulations as they stand... the short version is their big talk of bringing underground growers into the industry and therefore ending the black market is most likely a pipe dream. Too much red tape, too much initial investment, I suspect it's just too much for most growers. Doesn't breed great hope for the legal rec market in the state, but then we don't really know what will happen on the federal level, if they were to legalize federally Vermont commercial growers would likely be fucked across the board.

Also no real surprise but you don't get too many people sticking their necks out, so most people on the call seemed to be some sort of established commercial growers who wanted to scare the CCB into dropping any kind of meaningful grassroots craft market.

 

[radioman]

I'd like to see "Them" mandate that all recreational cannabis be - organically grown. No giant warehouses with chemically grown cannabis. Maybe limits on what is sold too - like a quarter ounce to out of staters - I don't want to see all the good Vermont Organic weed going to "Flat Landers". I would like to see Cannabis Farmer's have a market for plants as well - even the local Farmer's Market. A Local Cannabis Club would be nice as well - Let someone like Me who has been growing weed for years - sell my wares (Seeds, Plants & maybe a little product). I'm out of the Criminal Drug Scene now - I don't buy weed anymore or associate with "The Scene". I just grow My Own & share with close friends & some relatives. I want Cannabis to be a mainstream product - like whiskey, beer or tomatoes are now. I don't want Cannabis to be a "Big Deal" anymore...

 

[yardgrazer]

I'd like to see that as well, one of the "scary" things the big growers talked about was that you couldn't trust small growers not to use dangerous chemicals. If that's a problem at all it seems to me that could easily be solved by setting standards as to what controls are used, either on the front end, or by requiring testing for pesticide residues, etc, or both.

Digger has an article about the CCB's proposal (to be approved by the legislature), sounds like long-story short is $750 per year for 1000 square feet of outdoors, and then tiered pricing up to $100k plus for big operations. On the surface $750 doesn't sound totally horrible (though out of reach for a lot of people in my area), but 1000 square feet isn't much, and as it stands the regs call for the producers to test and package which sounds expensive. That sounds capital intensive to me. The margin likely wont be great, and it's always possible Federal legalization will come to pass.

 

[yardgrazer]

Digger has a piece up about the state medical society's resolution calling on the state to limit adult use cannabis products to 15% THC. The state regs already called for a 30% cap. Typically out of touch given that testing and "THC levels" aren't standardized or all that meaningful. Guess everyone in Vermont will be testing their flower without drying the shit out of it first?

 

[Ralph W. Llama]

Leave a few leaves and some stem, I hate trimming anyway. Does this mean you can make edibles with 15% thc? An average cookie weighs about 13g, so ~2g of thc. That's almost enough. Thank you for keeping us up to date, the state website is not so easy to find info.

 

[yardgrazer]

It would mean no cannabis product could be sold that tested over 15% THC by volume (e.g. flower, not over 15%), but keep in mind this is just a proposal from the medical society, it isn't in the regs yet, and may well never be. I don't recall any specific limits on how much THC can be in edibles, but in other states it's often limited to a specific amount in milligrams, I would think VT would be similar.

VPR briefly featured the story about VMS tonight, along with a quote from the Executive Director of the medical society... who claimed to be concerned about unaware consumers consuming "high potency" cannabis products and getting overly high or sick. I was reminded of some other state's limitations I heard about on a podcast, CO maybe, limiting the "serving size" of extracts for sale. Obviously this proposal would be a different approach.

I'm always concerned about what the legislature will do, between those overly prone to persuasion and those simply anti-Cannabis in the first place (I have it on good authority that the medical society resolution is rooted in an anti-Cannabis perspective). The one thing I can say for the state is that the control board actually seems fairly reasonable? Maybe not ideal, but reasonable.

 

[Ralph W. Llama]

Hey yg,

I was joking about the 15% edibles and am quite familiar with the mg limits in other states. When you can walk into any liquor store in the country and buy enough alcohol to kill several people without needing a shopping cart to carry it, worrying about a few percentage points of non lethal thc seems silly. Preaching to the choir, of course.

 

[Sunshineinabag]

Hi all......

 

[yardgrazer]

Ah, haha! Jokiness on the internet, sometimes hard to pick up.

I was looking at the proposed regs this morning and realized extracts can be 60% thc, which is still low but way more sensible than 30%.

 

[radioman]

I don't think that "They" should mess around how much THC is in 'raw' Cannabis Bud. If the THC is there because of breeding and genetics - then allow it. I'm OK with limiting percentage on Edibles. The thing is with smoking weed - People can regulate themselves on how much they need. How many times have You seen a person take a hit or two and then say "That's it, that's all I need"?...

 

[radioman]

Vermont is still so far behind - Since it is legal to grow a few plants, why isn't there a place to buy clones and plants? I start my own anyway but "The Lawmakers" should include a way for people to purchase plants...

 

[yardgrazer]

The topic of nurseries did come up on the one CCC call I managed to sit in on, though it was more about commercial grow ops potentially needing clones than individual non-licensed growers (maybe they're forgoing seed-to-sale tracking?)

 

[Sunshineinabag]

Vermont strong lol

 

[Sunshineinabag]

I just lost my gummy connect to covid...thx 2022

 

[yardgrazer]

Doh! Sorry to hear that.

Anybody heard anything about towns that are going to have an "opt-in" ballot question on TMD 2022?

 

[Sunshineinabag]

Where I am up here Chittenden County I think huge issue with local businesses especially grocery store chains allowing employees to go to work number one because they can't find Reliable new employees to hire there's something going on in our country especially here in Northern Vermont where we have folks that are of hiring age that has this underlying mindset of I don't need to work a full-time job to support myself which I mean I grew up on a dairy farm up here that mindset is completely deluded and it blows my mind that they can live in think that way like I'll never forget the farmers I used to work for telling me Jonathan there's no f****** slush fund in Washington DC that are going to take care of these people it's kind of shocking that they think in that way and they've got this mindset that they're going to be taken care of without having taxpayers people that go to work everyday having taxes taken out of their checks that's what's supporting these people and it scares me you guys that we have a generation of people that think they can sit on their ass and not work so yeah you know the the grocery chains up here and excetera excetera excetera I'm sure letting employees come to work knowing that their red flag you showing symptoms and letting go to work anyway scares me so that's what's going on up here I did find a gentleman in Washington County that's made the best gummies I've ever had in my life and he dials have been specifically for my nerve damage pain so I'd like to keep going through him hopefully he can make it through this Omicron bulshit I hope you guys have had a good holiday and that 2022 serves you well

 

[Sunshineinabag]

I used microphone on Google to.post that ^^^may have errors

 

[yardgrazer]

Doh! Sorry to hear that.

Anybody heard anything about towns that are going to have an "opt-in" ballot question on TMD 2022?

Quoting myself on this one, but I saw that the southern VT town of Wilmington will have a ballot question on for TMD 2022. I believe the deadline for the submission of petitions is this week, so there may well be more news on towns voting on whether to "opt in" to retail sales in 2022.