MONTPELIER — Vermont Cannabis Control Board Chairman James Pepper predicts this will be "a very quiet year for cannabis."
"I would assume," he said in an interview Dec. 9. "We don't have a huge legislative agenda."
Pepper acknowledged the "perennial issues" of concern to the industry such as the potency caps, advertising restrictions and event licensing. On the latter, he said, "everyone in the industry wants to be able to serve at private events."
"How do you do public consumption safely?" he said. "That conversation comes up."
Pepper said the CCB and stakeholders have been in the process of writing legislative reports, including one evaluating the impact of new legislation on outdoor cannabis cultivation siting. He doesn't anticipate the report will have recommendations to change that.
Regulators will be looking for authorization for cannabis business receiverships. New York has a court-appointed receiver "responsible for selling assets in a responsible way and paying back the creditors," Pepper said.
"We don't have that here," he said. "It would be very useful in situations we saw where businesses had to shut down abruptly and those owners can no longer even be around their products or go in the shop."
During the interview, Pepper said the cannabis industry had been "kind of teasing that they are going to sue the state around the advertising laws and maybe seek a temporary injunction because they are theoretically unconstitutional, according to the industry." Then on Dec. 11, Flora Cannabis announced a lawsuit against the board over just that on behalf of a coalition of businesses.
The Middlebury-based retailer said it's trying to block the state's "unprecedented and unconstitutional restrictions on the protected free speech rights of the state’s 500-plus licensed cannabis cultivators, manufacturers, distributors and retailers." The lawsuit was filed in Addison Superior Court, Civil Division.
PITTSFIELD — On behalf of a coalition of businesses, Flora Cannabis is suing the Vermont Can…
Pepper said the CCB may need another attorney position in the agency especially if the ad law is struck down. Businesses don't like getting preapproved for ads before publication, he said, as it "slows things down ... by about seven days."
A fair number of submissions are rejected, Pepper said. Data from November 2022 to Dec. 9, 2024 shows 324 ads were approved, 144 denied and 25 were partially denied. Most denials are resubmitted and approved following revisions, according to the CCB.
If the rejections became enforcement actions with fines attached, Pepper said, they'll require "a lot more work for something that could have been dealt with through the advertising review process."
"Depending on how things shake out," he added, "we may need additional resources at the board."
In a follow-up interview, Pepper said he expects the court will be looking at some of the principles related to the freedom of commercial speech.
"How they come down on this will be interesting is all I can say," he said.
Pepper noted the CCB's job is to enforce law as it's written. He plans to ask the Attorney General's Office to defend the CCB.
"We really are, as regulators, not in a position to say the advertising laws are good or bad," he said. "We'll keep [enforcing] until we're told otherwise."
A hearing on a motion for preliminary injunction is set for late January.