2026 Policy Agenda

These policies represent foundational issues, such as directing cannabis excise tax dollars back into people and communities, restoring justice to those harmed by prohibition, and ensuring harm does not continue for possessing, consuming, or growing cannabis. We urge policymakers to prioritize these issues above all else. Vermont should not advance its adult-use market any further without enacting these policies.

• Devote $1 million of the cannabis excise tax to the Cannabis Business Development Fund for industry reinvestment and establish technical and financial assistance services for licensees, and 25% to the Land Access and Opportunity Board for community reinvestment.

• Expunge all cannabis-related charges for every Vermont resident, no matter the possession quantity or plant count and cost-free.

• Allow for the public consumption of cannabis anywhere lit tobacco is allowed.

• Allow for non-homeowners to consume and grow unless their landlord or property owner specifically prohibits it.

• Strike the 10% ownership criteria from licensing to close the franchise loophole.

• Provide the Economic Empowerment application status the same statutory and regulatory benefits as the Social Equity application status.

• Limit importation and instate shipping of hemp-derived products that exceed the state-defined tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol total packaging limits.

• Replace retail opt-in with retail opt-out.

• Increase the state possession limits and the market transaction limits to match the medical cannabis program limits for cannabis products and cannabis.

The design of the market directly affects the equity and fairness provided to farms and businesses, as well as the satisfaction of its patrons. In this section, we seek to reform existing licenses, use scale-appropriate regulations to expand allowances for small producers, remove larger tiers of production, and more.

• Expand the allowances for Cultivator Tier 1-2 to allow for cannabis, seeds, and immature plants that the licensee principally produced themselves to be sold to the public, and cannabis products produced by a manufacturer using cannabis principally produced by the cultivator, with reasonable regulation to be defined by and oversight to be performed by Cannabis Control Board.

• Expand the allowances for Manufacturer Tiers 1-2 to allow for cannabis products that the licensee produces themselves to be sold to the public, with reasonable direct-to-consumer sales caps, such as gross annual income, and regulation to be defined by and oversight to be performed by the Cannabis Control Board.

• Expand the allowances for all manufacturers to allow for the purchase, possession, and wholesale of cannabis to other licensees.

• Increase the manufacturer tier 1 license gross cap to $125,000.

• Lift the ban on delivery, and allow licensees with direct-market access to delivery to the general public, with reasonable regulations to be defined by and oversight to be performed by the Cannabis Control Board.

• Amend the nursery license to include the allowance to buy living plants from cultivators and wholesalers, and the allowance to sell living plants to cultivators, wholesalers, and the public.

• Strike the Cultivation Tier 4-6 (Indoor, Mixed-Use, and Outdoor) from the licensing structure and develop a transition plan for licensees in those tiers.

• Develop antitrust measures that maintain fairness among retailer licensees, such as shelf trading, similar to that in New York.

• Task the Cannabis Control Board with a legislative report studying consumption establishments, mobile, temporary, and permanent options to produce recommendations for the next biennium.

Cannabis is an annual dioecious herbaceous plant, and the cultivation of cannabis is farming. Though we may be limited in what Vermont can achieve absent federal cannabis reform, VGA will pursue the agricultural designation of cannabis in Vermont and changes at the Federal level. These policies reflect the continuation of that fight.

• Strike Act 166 (2024) setbacks and cultivation districts for outdoor cultivators.

• Explicitly ensures that farming is exempt from municipal zoning, which includes outdoor cannabis cultivators.

• Direct the Cannabis Control Board to work with the Agency of Agriculture Food and Markets to establish an appellation program for cannabis defining and recognizing, at minimum, the specific geographical area the cannabis was grown and the production standards, and once adopted, should accept applications to create an Appellation of Origin.

Vermont has some of the most onerous prohibitions and restrictions in the country, with its THC caps on cannabis flower and concentrates, and dosing and packaging limitations on manufactured products. It was the first state to enact THC caps in an adult-use market, and it has proven to be a disaster for the industry, with no gains in public health. Vermont is below the national average for dosing and packaging limitations, a consumer and environmental-related concern.

• Lift the ban on cannabis that tests over 30% THC, and solid concentrates that test over 60% THC.

• Increase the dosage limit for cannabis products to up to 20 mg per serving and the total package limit to 500 mg.

Standardizing testing procedures across state-licensed labs using state-mandated operating procedures will begin foundational improvements to testing.

• Task the upcoming Cannabis Control Board State Laboratory to explore the benefits of defining state SOP lab standards for licensed labs and to report that to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency, and Forestry, and the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing, and General Affairs.

• Replace Aspergillus testing for cannabis with mycotoxin testing.

• Increase the number of plants allotted for pesticide testing in cannabis.

Vermont has some of the most onerous advertising restrictions in the country for an adult-use cannabis market, despite the 2025 advertising lawsuit settlement (link). Small businesses are the lifeblood of Vermont, and local small farmers, producers, and retailers need to be able to market themselves and communicate their products to the general public in a reasonable way.

• Lift the ban on all advertising, including window displays, items, text, or objects inside and outside of cannabis establishments and model cannabis advertising laws similar to the alcohol advertising laws (link).

• Reduce the annual Production Registration fee to $10.00 and $5.00 for Economic Empowerment and Social Equity applicants. 

• Allow a licensee to bring a product to market 5 business days after submitting a completed production registration submission, except for product renewals, which may be brought to market immediately.

• Increase the product registration period from 1 year to 2 years.

• Increase the adult home grow allowance to twelve (12) mature plants.

• A public process run by a state agency other than the Cannabis Control Board or a private third-party to review and develop recommendations to improve efficiency, consistency, and ease-of-use, and increase data integrity and transparency of the Cannabis Control Board’s essential systems, including but not limited to licensing and product registration systems.