“The biggest killer in this country is isolation,” said Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale, D-Chittenden Southeast. And cannabis, she argued, could be part of the solution.
“We have seen our cannabis industry follow all the rules, give people a third place, give people the opportunity to find community and they have done it in a more constrained market than the states around us,” Ram Hinsdale said, sitting before the Senate Health and Welfare Committee Wednesday.
Ram Hinsdale is the lead sponsor of a bill, S.278, that aims to loosen regulatory limits on Vermont’s legal cannabis market. The bill would increase the amount of cannabis a customer could buy in a single purchase, changing the max from one ounce to two.
Under the bill, retailers could also put up to 200 milligrams of THC in a single product, double the current limit. Few nearby states allow the higher quantity of THC per package, according to James Pepper, chair of the Cannabis Control Board. THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, is the ingredient in cannabis that gives the substance psychoactive effects.
“Only one other New England state has this limit and it’s Maine,” Pepper said.
The limit on buying cannabis per ounce only applies to one retailer interacting with one customer, said Tucker Anderson, a lawyer for the Legislature. As Sen. Ann Cummings, D-Washington, pointed out, there are many cannabis retailers within a few blocks of each other in downtown Montpelier.
“So I could purchase the limit at one, walk next door and purchase the limit there, and then drive out to River Street and purchase more there,” Cummings said.
The bill would also try out a new state program that would let cannabis businesses sell their products for consumption at events, if the cultivator or manufacturer was approved for a permit to do so.
“It could be the farmers market, it could be a sampling event, it could be catering a wedding,” Anderson said. But while the event concept is still in its trial phase, there will only be 20 total permits to go around, split evenly among public and private events.
If the bill became law, another trial program would let people get recreational cannabis dropped off at their door, rather than having to trek to a dispensary.
— Charlotte Oliver
On the move
Wednesday, the House approved a bill, H.814, that aims to bolster privacy protections surrounding how generative AI is used in health care. The bill would establish “neurological rights” for people. It preemptively strives to protect an individual’s data from being used without their consent as mental health chat bots and brain-computer interfaces become more sophisticated.
After reporting the bill on Tuesday, Rep. Brian Cina, P/D-Burlington, moved to amend his own bill to clarify language on Wednesday.
— Olivia Gieger
The House on Wednesday heard a second reading of an Agency of Education-backed bill that would reform state laws around truancy and absenteeism.
The bill, H.930, updates Vermont’s laws that have hardly changed since the 1960s. The bill clarifies and amends language around how school districts and state and regional agencies should handle student truancy and absenteeism.
School districts last year recorded their lowest rates of absenteeism since the 2021-22 school year, with 25% of the Vermont student body considered chronically absent last school year. Vermont’s statewide rate is still well above the roughly 18% of Vermont students who were considered chronically absent during the 2019-20 school year prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The House Education Committee unanimously approved the bill. Rep. Robert Hunter, D-Manchester, a House Education Committee member, said on the House floor Wednesday that the legislation would “more deeply consider the root causes behind absenteeism and the impact of chronic absenteeism on communities rather than on individuals.”
“This bill is necessary, sensitive and straightforward,” he said.
The House approved the bill on second reading and will vote on it once more before moving it on to the Senate.
-— Corey McDonald
Buzzer beater
In a flurry of crossover-week action, the organizers of the Statehouse’s annual March Madness bracket competition launched this year’s contest on Wednesday. To say the announcement comes on short notice would be an understatement — the deadline to lock in men’s team picks is tomorrow (Thursday) at noon, while the deadline for women’s picks is Friday at 11:30 a.m.
“We’re going to pretend this is just like a last-minute floor amendment. We can all do these things very quickly. I know you can all vote at the drop of a hat,” said Rep. Chea Waters Evans, D-Charlotte, who is one of the contest’s ringleaders this year, on the floor Wednesday.
Aside from consulting their favorite basketball prognosticators as they solidify their picks, participants will need to hand in $5 to the lieutenant governor’s office, the speaker’s office or the pro tem’s office — or send the same over Venmo to @Chea-Evans or @ashleyrbartley.
Of note: I should address the allegations in men’s tournament co-commissioner (and former VTDigger reporter) Sarah Mearhoff’s email this afternoon about my use of the bracket “autofill” feature. It’s true. But reading her message really got me wondering: Sarah, when’s the last time your Penn State Nittany Lions won an NCAA basketball title? Please — enlighten me!
— Shaun Robinson
