While the west coast braces for the annual summertime heatwave, states on the east coast are trying to stay afloat amidst heavy rain. Destructive flooding ran through Monteplier, Vermont, the state’s capital, leaving many businesses closed for cleanup and repair. For affected cannabis businesses, this means that they can’t apply for federal aid.

According to VTdigger.com, Lauren Andrews, the owner of Capital Cannabis on Main Street, spent many days last week cleaning up her dispensary with the intention of reopening on July 17. However, upon returning to her business she found a water leak that left the walls and floors soaked through. “We’re going to have to gut the place and start from scratch,” Andrews told the news outlet.

Also on July 17, cannabis business owners received word that they aren’t eligible for federal disaster aid. Instead, those funds are being driven toward other businesses who were impacted by last week’s historic floods.

“Because we are a federal agency, we have to follow federal law,” said Small Business administration public information officer, Carl Dombek. “Cannabis is not legal under federal law, and therefore we are not able to lend to cannabis dispensaries.”

VTdigger.com also noted that a cannabis business that has also received any FEMA Small Business Program assistance is disqualified from aid. Although Vermont Gov. Phil Scott asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture disaster declaration, it still would not allow affected cannabis farmers to receive federal crop insurance, according to a USDA Farm Service Agency executive director.

However, if cannabis industry employees lose their jobs because of the floods, they can still apply for unemployment since it’s a state provided service, and not a federal program.

The floods aren’t threatening to shut down cannabis businesses across the entire state but according to Cannabis Control Board chair, James Pepper, they’re still in need of help. “All these businesses live on a knife’s edge already because of the closed loop system,” said Pepper. “There’s no outlet. There is no pressure-release valve in the cannabis industry. And so … when something bad like this happens, it can ripple through the entire industry.”

“It’s a very interdependent relationship,” said Andrews. “When one of us goes down, it hurts everyone.”

Unlike other agricultural products grown in Vermont, cannabis growers are still learning how to assess damage in the wake of destruction. “We don’t consider cannabis an agricultural product, but it’s a seed and it’s a crop that grows in the ground,” Pepper added. “So we can use some of the best practices from the Agency of Agriculture to help deal with this issue in cannabis.”

Cannabis growing farms will need to test for wastewater contamination, and will have to keep an eye on their crops for water-related issues such as bud rot.

Vermont Growers Association co-founder and executive director, Geoffrey Pizzutillo has been working to distribute assessment forms for cannabis businesses to understand what kind of damage was experienced across the state. “It’s too early to tell,” Pizzutillo said. “But we want to drive home that it is the entire supply chain. Every license type is being impacted—not just the outdoor farmers, but retailers and manufacturers as well.”

U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg visited Vermont once the floods subsided, likening the scene to the devastation left in the wake of Hurricane Irene in 2011. “You see just how urgent it is to make sure these communities get the help that they need,” Buttigieg said as he visited members of the community. “…Our message is to communities big and small: The federal government is here to help provide resources that are needed.”

While Vermont cannabis businesses won’t be benefitting from federal aid, Pizzutillo and others are hoping to prepare an accurate depiction of the damage so that businesses can at least qualify for emergency state funding—something that can be approved in a special legislative session. “I think the best thing that we can do at the Cannabis Board is collect the data and present it to the Legislature,” said Pepper. “And then we’ll see if there is a political will to help the businesses that are very severely hurt by this.”

Vermont’s recreational cannabis law was signed by Gov. Scott in October 2020, but sales didn’t begin until two years later. The state collected $2.6 million in just three months after recreational cannabis sales launched, and hit $24 million by May 2023.

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While witnessing the legal cannabis industry continually blossom over the years has been an exciting and invigorating experience for many, it’s also becoming increasingly challenging to ignore the amount of plastic waste involved. As states are required to enforce cannabis compliance, which generally means child-proof packaging for any products leaving the building, the result is often an abundance of single-use plastic that is more challenging to recycle than materials you might find at the grocery store.

Vermont’s Cannabis Control Board is looking to change that. In new “Guidance on Packaging,” released earlier this month, the board states that “packaging that is intended for consumer purchase at a retail location shall be reusable and shall not be plastic.” The guidance gives examples for acceptable reusable materials, including glass, tin, cardboard, and bamboo.

The packaging for cannabis must be child-deterrent and opaque. The guidance defines cannabis as all parts of the plant, including seeds; resin extracted from any part of the plant; and any compound, manufacture, salt, derivative or preparation of the plant, its seed or resin.

This is a new clarification, as “child-deterrent packaging” means tear-resistant packaging that can be sealed in a way that “would deter children under five years of age from easily accessing the content of the package within a reasonable time” while still being simple for adults to properly use and access.

Child-resistant packaging, on the other hand, includes packaging designed or constructed to be “significantly difficult for children under five years of age to open,” or to obtain a toxic or harmful amount of the substance in the container “within a reasonable amount of time,” also that adults can easily use.

It may seem like a small distinction, but child-deterrent packaging is generally a less burdensome requirement from a packaging standpoint, usually requiring less use of plastic or other hard materials.

The packaging for cannabis products, meaning concentrated cannabis and product that is “composed of cannabis and other ingredients,” intended for use and consumption, including edibles, ointments, tinctures and vaporizer cartridges with cannabis oil, must be child-resistant and opaque.

It’s a rational distinction to make, given that there are less risks of danger for a young child accessing cannabis flower than a cannabis edible. For example, a child would have to figure out some way to smoke the flower to experience its effects, whereas an edible or anything with activated THC would have a psychoactive effect upon consumption.

The new guidance also says that a licensee may seek a waiver to the prohibition on plastic consumer packaging if they can demonstrate a hardship in securing non-plastic packaging, including unavailability of non-plastic packaging; inability to achieve child-resistance; or the necessity to preserve shelf-life stability, prevent cannabis or cannabis product contamination or avoid exposure of cannabis/cannabis products toxic or harmful substances.

For those attempting to secure a waiver, a licensee must propose a packaging alternative that uses “de minimis plastic,” meaning only the amount of plastic “reasonably needed” to overcome the hardship identified in the waiver petition.

Vermont became the 11th state to regulate adult-use cannabis sales and the second state to do so legislatively, rather than through a voter initiative, nearly two years ago. Governor Phil Scott announced on October 7, 2020 that he would allow S. 54—the bill that would regulate and tax cannabis sales in the state—to become law without his signature.

“I know it is difficult to take on these complex issues remotely and during this unprecedented Pandemic,” Scott said in a statement at the time. “Again, I thank the legislators who worked to move toward me over the past two years on this issue. Nevertheless, the Legislature has much more work to do to ensure equity in this new policy and to prevent their work from becoming a public health problem for current and future generations. For these reasons, I am allowing this bill to become law without my signature.”

In 2021, the legislature moved forward to act on the promise of centering social equity, as the House and Senate passed S. 25, which looks to strengthen social equity provisions, requiring regulators to reduce or eliminate licensing fees for applicants who have been negatively impacted by federal enforcement of cannabis laws.

The new rules for plastic packaging will be in place when adult-use sales begin in Vermont, sometime later in 2022.

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