Executive Director Travis Ahern: “But first, today we’ll start with an update that was mentioned at our July 10th meeting and was planned for an initial discussion at today’s meeting:”

“The Public Health and Safety Advisories Portal. The Director of Digital and Creative Services, AnnMarie Burtt, will review the creation of the portal and walk through the user interface. Please note for items not related to the portal itself, you may direct those questions to me and I’ll ensure that they are routed to the proper staff member. I’d like to summarize a few points about the most recent Public Health and Safety Advisory, before the Director reviews the portal itself.”

“The PHSA was issued on August 6th related to an enforcement action, which identified 544 lab samples that previously failed Total Yeast and Mold testing. An incredible amount of work from our Investigations and Enforcement team working with our Data team led to the information that is within the Portal. The Portal contains products that went through the supply chain to be sold to consumers and patients, that individuals can now cross-reference to determine if they purchase potentially contaminated marijuana or marijuana products.”

“Separately,. significant effort was undertaken by I. and E. to issue Administrative Holds requiring licensees, M.E.s, M.T.C.s, and Delivery Operators specifically to either dispose or transfer the affected product back to the originating cultivator or manufacturing licensee, or maintain the product in its inventory during the Commission’s enforcement action investigation. As such, those licensees are required to notify the Commission of its intended actions within ten business days of the effective date of the Administrative Holds, and update the Commission accordingly should the proposed changes– should the proposed actions change. Excuse me. Communications with licensees and industry representatives on next steps for those products that were still on shelves has been clear and concise, and I appreciate the collaboration that we have had with these licensees and industry representatives to handle such a significant effort. The Portal is an important compliance tool for trans– to transparently communicate with the public when the Commission has identified public health and safety concerns through its enforcement actions. With that summary, I’ll ask that Director Burtt provide you with an overview of the Portal and then she can answer any questions on the Portal, and I can help direct any questions that are not specific to the Portal itself. Director Burtt, please take it away.”

Director of Digital and Creative Services AnnMarie Burtt: “Thank you. Good morning, and thank you all for having me. It’s great to see you. As introduced, I am AnnMarie Burtt, Director of Digital and Creative Services, and I will be presenting this morning on the commission’s new Public Health and Safety Advisories Portal, hosted on the Commission’s website. Slide, please. The Public Health and Safety Advisories Portal, of which you see a screenshot on the right of the slide, was launched on Wednesday, August 6th at the URL listed here, just prior to the public release of the latest Public Health and Safety Advisory of the same date.”

“The content strategy of the portal begins with an email signup form for users to be added to the Commission’s distribution list of future Public Health and Safety Advisory email notices. There is then a call out block with information for consumers and patients; specifically, links to the Commission’s ‘Understanding Labels’ flier, and video explaining where to find the batch number and testing date on a Massachusetts marijuana product label, and what to do if you possess an affected product or have experienced an adverse health reaction.”

“Below the consumer and patient information block, there are links to all public health and safety advisories the commission has posted up to this date, which is then followed by a list of affected marijuana products. This list also includes advanced filtering options based on the data provided, and a search field to easily determine if a product is included, as well as options to extract the data in multiple file formats.”

Burtt: “Slide please. This slide shows a close up of the user interface of the marijuana products list., the data provided for each product, and the options for advanced filtering and searching of the contents of the list. This display was based on the user interface of the newly automated Licensing Tracker Development Infrastructure that was launched back in June, providing familiarity and an intuitive interface for users to easily navigate the list and filtering systems used on our website.”

“Slide please. The Public Health and Safety Advisories Portal, of which we have also provided a short URL of masscannabiscontrol.com/phsa, can also be found in the following locations: within the slider on the Commission’s homepage. Linked in the footer of the website, which appears on every page on our site, via a button included at the end of the notice that was published on August 6th of last week.

“An icon and link on the ‘Frequently Viewed Resources’ page within our Public Resources section, and buttons added to the top of the ’News’ page and ‘Enforcement Announcements’ page linking to the Portal. And that concludes the introduction to our new Public Health and Safety Advisories Portal. At this time we are happy to answer any questions that you may have.”

Acting Chair of the CCC Bruce Stebbins: “Thank you, Director. I Invite my colleagues, if they have any questions for Director Burtt. Commissioner Roy.”

Commissioner Kimberly Roy: “Thank you, Acting Chair. Thank you, Director Burtt, for your presentation. Having this functionality is critically important. Especially in light of recent events. So I want to thank you and the data team and everybody involved to make this a reality. And I just want to– there was some questions when it was first– rolled out– and I don’t know if this question would be more appropriate for the E.D. or you, Director Burtt, but, looking at the ‘Product Name’ column, so I see it here.”

“Was that part of the initial rollout? Because I know folks who were looking for that. And, I’m just glad to see that it’s there so folks can easily identify if their products were part of this advisory. And secondly, I had spoken to– had a nice conversation with Executive Director yesterday about tying this to our Product Catalog, because sometimes if you see the actual picture and I think it drives this to the Product Catalog, but not to the product, and maybe this is something aspirational where you could click on that product name and it would bring you to the picture of it in our Product Catalog. So I just wanted to ask about that specifically that column there. Who wants to take that?”

Ahern: “Yeah sure. Director. If you’d like to. Thank you, Acting Chair, I apologize. If, I believe the Director can take the Product Catalog question, and I will respond on the licensee information in the data. Director Burtt, if you could address the product catalog.”

Burtt: “Sure. Thank you. And we did make an update to the product catalog page today with a call-out block that links back to the advisory just to be able to create a user pathway from one to the other. But as far as the integration of the pictures and product details, we’ll need to look into that with our vendor.”

Ahern: “Thank you. And I believe and, Commissioner Roy, feel free to jump in if I’m not answering your question as it relates to the information within the portal: certainly it is not forward facing with, sort of, licensee information specifically as it relates to, you know, the– the point of sale. And that is intentional. But was your question more about the product itself?”

Roy: “Yes. I just want to be clear. I was not advocating for that. It was more the product. I think people are looking. In addition to a package label or a batch number, the product name. And I think when it first rolled out, there was a little bit of confusion. So I just, if you could I wasn’t sure, but when it was immediately rolled out, was that column included or did– was that responsive to feedback we got?”

Ahern: “Thank you. And to the Acting Chair, I think, ultimately, you know, the information that’s in there right now, as was shown on the slide, there’s some of the information related specifically to each product, but perhaps the C.I.E. or D.O.I. could, you know, could answer more specifically on that type of information as it relates to the product.”

Roy: “And I saw Paul’s screen open. Acting Chair.

Stebbins: “C.T.I.O.?”

Chief Technology and Innovation Officer Paul Clark: “I was just available on the product catalog conversation.

Stebbins: “Okay. Director Binkoski.”

Director of Investigations Katherine Binkoski: “Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes. To my knowledge, the product name column was always in the portal. We did receive some feedback regarding the brand name. And that that, possibly would make it easier for, for users to, to, filter that. The brand name for certain products is within the, the naming convention. But that is specific to licensees.”

“But the product name, was always one of the columns along with, testing date, sale date. Kind of type of product to help consumers or patients identify the product.”

Stebbins: “Thank you. Director. Commissioner Roy, anything else?”

Roy: “Yeah. Thank you, Acting Chair. And thank you all for your answers. And just as a commentary, I, it with the product catalog and this isn’t necessarily about the Portal, but I have difficulty using the product catalog. So I respectfully, maybe we can have a meeting with Metrc to make it more consumer and user friendly.”

“What I tried to do last night is I cut and pasted a package label, and I went over to the product catalog to and it wouldn’t let me paste it in. And so I tried to do my own, work based on the help of this advisory and go to look at these products and protocol and it doesn’t it’s not compatible.”

“So I think there’s a little more work to do to make it more consumer and patient friendly and user friendly. Especially when we have these Advisories. So I think they need to talk to each other where they’re really not right now. I mean, we’re driving people there with a click, but once you’re there, it’s very difficult. As I experienced last evening.”

Ahern: “Thank you to the Acting chair. We’re happy to take that feedback and come back to the board with any, potential, adjustments.”

Roy: “Great. Thank you.”

Stebbins: “Thank you, E.D.. Thank you, Commissioner Roy. Just, a couple comments. To Director Burtt, and to the E.D.. You know, I like that we have stood this up and thank Director Burtt for pulling this all together. I know it’s, it’s it’s, not an easy task. I think it is going to be extremely helpful, not only for our licensees, but consumers to– to access information, kind of, right at their fingertips.”

“I know this hasn’t been up very long, but, Director Burtt, have we had any traffic to the page at this point? I mean, have anybody– short of this discussion today– to kind of highlight it’s, you know, it’s, it’s presence, you know, anybody kind of jumping right to this and seeing the functionality of it? What kind of traffic are we driving?”

Burtt: “Yes, I actually do have, analytics of the portal from the day it was launched up until yesterday afternoon. And I can drop these numbers in the chat as well. So that you don’t have to take notes while I’m speaking. But we’ve had about, a little over 6100 views and, 2550 sessions, which is averaging about 3.32 views per user and an average session duration of just over four minutes. We’ve had 25 downloads of the ‘Understanding Labels’ flyer, as well as 933 views started of the video, of which 142 actually watched the entirety all of the way through.”

“We’ve had 44 signups for the ‘Advisories’ email notice list, and the Portal is currently our seventh most viewed page in the past month, with the notice being the third. And the majority of users who view the– The August 6th notice continue onto the Portal, whereas the reverse is also true, in that the majority of users who view the portal then also view the August 6th notice.”

Stebbins: “Can you– can you restate what that first number was the number of folks that have I think I think you described them. They’ve gone to the page.”

Burtt: “Yes. That is as of yesterday afternoon it was 6186 views. And we have an average each user views the page about three times. So technically that was 2550 unique user visits over the past week.”

Stebbins: “Wow. That’s– those are some impressive figures for only being out for a week. But thank you, Director Burtt. Appreciate you having those numbers.”

Burtt: “Thank you.”

Stebbins: “Commissioner Concepción, any questions?”

Concepción: “I do not have any questions. Thank you so much, Director Burtt. This is really great work.”

Burtt: “Thank you, Commissioner.”

Stebbins: “Thank you Director. All right. E.D., we’ll turn it back to you.”

Ahern: “Thank you, Mr. Acting Chair. If we could go to the next slide…”