Public Comments

Please get clean and safe drinking water for these people!! This is inhumane and absolutely ridiculous!!!!

Im a licensed Outfitter in the State of West Virginia. Operating Bloodline Trackers and Chillbilly Outdoors, Both licensed and insured businesses within our beautiful state. My primary contribution has been to our hunting public, working as a professional wounded game recovery specialist. I've been successfully tracking game since its legalization. I strongly support handler dispatch. Ive personally been in several scenarios in which the safety of myself or my dog has been challenged by a wounded animal. I've also had physically  challenged clients whom, either by age or handicap, were unable to keep on the trail.  Those licensed hunters may not have the physical prowess necessary to recover an animal that's put distance between himself and the hunter or to follow myself, the tracker, into rough terain. I support this bill. Thank you.

I am for Handler dispatch. This not only keeps everyone involved safer but it also ensures the animal a quicker resolution.

That would be great for people who can't vape

Public Comment in Opposition to West Virginia SB 704

Dear Chairman Akers and Members of the Committee,

On behalf of the Frederick Douglass Freedom Alliance, I respectfully submit this comment in opposition to West Virginia Senate Bill 704.

Protecting veterans is a goal we all share. However, SB 704 would restrict veterans’ ability to choose how they pursue their disability claims without addressing the underlying challenges they face navigating a complex benefits system. Many veterans have only one meaningful opportunity to present their claim correctly. Limiting access to assistance increases the risk of delays, errors, and lost benefits.

These restrictions would disproportionately impact rural and minority veterans. In many rural communities, access to in-person Veterans Service Organizations or legal assistance is limited, with long travel distances and appointment backlogs creating barriers to timely help. Minority veterans also face documented disparities in access to services and outcomes within federal systems. Reducing available options will widen these gaps rather than close them.

Nearly identical laws in other states are currently facing First Amendment challenges, including concerns related to veterans’ right to petition their government for redress of grievances. Policies that restrict who veterans may seek help from raise serious constitutional concerns and undermine the principle that veterans should retain control over their own decisions.

Rather than eliminating options, policymakers should focus on safeguards that protect veterans while preserving choice, including contingency-based fee requirements, prohibitions on upfront fees, confirmation that veterans are informed of free resources, restrictions on aggressive solicitation, and strong data protections.

The demand for claims assistance already exceeds the capacity of government agencies and volunteer organizations alone. Reducing options will not solve that problem. It will leave veterans with fewer pathways to obtain the benefits they earned.

For these reasons, we respectfully urge the Committee to oppose SB 704.

Respectfully submitted,

Troy Rolling

Chairman

Frederick Douglass Freedom Alliance

• may not withdraw a child from public/charter/private school for the purpose of providing home instruction, and
• may not assume/resume being the primary provider of home instruction.  

• investigations can be lengthy, and
• “pending” status alone can restrict a fundamental parental decision (education) without a required prompt judicial hearing or evidentiary threshold written into the bill.  

• heightened burdens on minority faith communities, and
• risk of unequal enforcement or disparate impact, especially if cultural practices are misunderstood or reported as “neglect.”  

• require court review within a short timeline before restricting home instruction,
• allow home instruction with temporary monitoring / welfare checks, or
• limit restrictions to cases with specific, documented risk factors—rather than any “pending investigation.”  

1. prompt judicial hearing + evidentiary standard,
2. strict time limits,
3. explicit non-discrimination and data reporting on enforcement,
4. clear accommodations for legitimate religious/cultural education practices, and
5. narrower triggers tied to substantiated risk—not mere investigation status.  

• Most adults may already carry without a license.
• The concealed handgun license primarily affects reciprocity with other states and provisional licenses (18–20 year olds).

• Conduct criminal background checks
• Verify mental competency disqualifications
• Confirm eligibility under state and federal law
• Ensure required training compliance

• Issuance errors
• Litigation against counties
• Liability exposure
• Delayed detection of disqualifying records

• Campus carry expansions
• License changes for 18–20 year olds
• Expanded private carry authority

• Counties may face civil litigation.
• Insurance costs may increase.
• Public trust in law enforcement screening may decline.

• inherited property during probate,
• modest rentals (small landlords),
• properties where owners are temporarily displaced,
• lots tied up in family disputes,
• homes where documentation lags behind reality.

• Keep a limited redemption window for non-owner-occupied property (even 30–90 days) where the delinquency is cured plus costs.
• Require a real appeal/hearing on owner-occupied classification before rights are cut off.
• Allow courts to set aside deeds when notice is constitutionally defective (not damages-only).
• Add protections for estates/probate, heirs property, and hardship situations.

• §18-2E-5 (Office of Education Performance Audits)
• §18-2E-12 (Mountain State Digital Literacy Project)
• §18-2I-1 (Professional Development for Educators)
• §18-8-6 (High School Graduation Improvement Act provisions)

• The Legislature should provide documented justification.
• Replacement oversight mechanisms should be clearly identified.
• Impact on students and educators should be evaluated publicly.

1. This law needs passed. Others get by with stuff while others get max sentencing over nearly nothing. Stuff needs to change! Not just with this bill but other laws and constitutional laws!!!

• immediate constitutional challenges,
• conflicts between lower courts and state enforcement agencies,
• prolonged uncertainty about what law actually governs day-to-day conduct.  

• Federal injunctions
• Prolonged constitutional litigation
• Attorney’s fee liability under 42 U.S.C. § 1988
• Potential exposure to federal oversight orders

• Parents leave the workforce.
• Small businesses struggle to fill jobs.
• Economic development efforts stall.
• Children lose access to high-quality early learning that improves long-term educational outcomes.

1. Restore and increase dedicated child care funding.
2. Stabilize provider reimbursement rates.
3. Protect infant and toddler slots.
4. Treat child care as essential economic infrastructure in the state budget.

1. The complex administrative requirements in HB 5645 will increase our state’s payment error rate;
2. When our payment error rates increase, West Virginia will have to cover more of the costs of both SNAP and Medicaid;
3. Future legislatures will have to either identify new funding streams, or cuts will have to be made (with the latter being more likely);
4. Health care system, local grocers, and our charitable food system will be left to manage the fallout from these cuts;
5. West Virginians will lose critical access to food and healthcare.

I’m writing to oppose HB 5645. This bill would make it much harder for eligible West Virginia families to access SNAP by adding more paperwork, more frequent recertifications, and eliminating common-sense eligibility options. These changes would create confusion, increase administrative burden, and likely cause many qualified households to lose food assistance.

I urge you to oppose this bill.

Please support House Bill 4027...Khadija Lewis Khan has the best way to explain WHY this is essential for not just our beautiful mountain state, but the entire country...“Child care is infrastructure. Like roads and bridges, people need child care to get to work. We must invest in child care and systems that support families."  Help build a state where families can thrive and children have a solid foundation of support for healthy lives!

• The evidence does not support Schedule I placement: Schedule I is the most restrictive classification, reserved for substances with a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. Under the federal Controlled Substances Act, before placing a substance on Schedule I, the scheduling authority must evaluate eight statutory factors—including abuse potential, scientific evidence of pharmacological effects, the history and scope of abuse, risk to public health, and dependence liability. Many states have modeled their scheduling criteria on this federal framework or rely on federal scheduling decisions. A peer-reviewed eight-factor analysis published in Psychopharmacology advised against scheduling of kratom or any of its specific alkaloids under the CSA because it does not share the high abuse potential or safety risks of “prototypic morphine-like opioids,” and banning kratom products would put users using kratom to abstain from opioids “at risk of resuming opioid use and overdose." The World Health Organization’s 44th Expert Committee on Drug Dependence found insufficient evidence even to recommend a critical review for international control of kratom, mitragynine.
• Kratom-associated death data are misleading: A review of 156 kratom-associated deaths found that other drugs were present in 87% of cases with available toxicology data, with opioids being the most frequently co-occurring substance. State-level reports consistently show that the vast majority of kratom-positive deaths involve polydrug use, substantially limiting the ability to attribute causation to kratom extracts alone. Serious adverse events remain rare, particularly when compared to the regular use of kratom by as many as 10-15 million U.S. consumers each year
• Prohibition risks worsening the opioid crisis: Surveys of U.S. kratom consumers consistently show that the primary motivations for use are self-treatment of pain and reduction of opioid dependence. In a survey of 8,049 users, 68% reported using kratom for pain and 29% reported using it to reduce opioid dependence or withdrawal. A separate survey of 2,798 users found that 41% use kratom specifically to stop or reduce opioid use—of whom over 90% reported it was helpful. Banning kratom derivatives risks pushing some of these consumers back toward more dangerous substances, with the potential to increase overdose mortality.
• Contamination harms reflect regulatory gaps, not pharmacology: The harms most frequently cited by scheduling proponents—heavy metal contamination, salmonella outbreaks, misleading or false labeling—are classic consequences of an inadequately regulated market rather than inherent properties of kratom alkaloids. A recent comprehensive toxicology review concluded that “poorly regulated kratom products” are the key source of contamination and recommended mitigation through good manufacturing practices and product testing rather than prohibition.

• Adult-only access with ID verification at point of sale and for online purchases, with civil penalties for noncompliance.
• Potency and formulation limits setting evidence-informed maximum per-serving concentrations of 7-OH and other derivatives in extract products, with clear labeling of alkaloid content and safe consumption amounts.
• Product testing and quality standards requiring manufacture under current good manufacturing practices (cGMP) and third-party lab testing for heavy metals, microbial contamination, and active alkaloid content.
• Marketing restrictions prohibiting clearly unsubstantiated disease-treatment claims and youth-oriented branding, with standardized warnings regarding dependence, withdrawal, and polydrug interaction risks.
• Enforcement authority empowering the board to mandate recalls, issue public safety notices, and impose civil penalties or license actions for noncompliant products.

I would like to see medical marijuana edibles available in the state.