Cannabis sales wafting to nonprofits, charities
States using funds to aid communities harmed by war on drugs.
California has used some of the fees from sales of recreational marijuana — nearly $100 million — to fund grants to service groups.
Nonprofits have an unexpected new source of funding: State marijuana sales.
Over the past two years, California has used some of the fees it collects from the sale of recreational marijuana to give grants to community organizations that serve people and communities harmed by the war on drugs. So far, the state has awarded nearly $100 million, a figure expected to jump to $175 million in May.
Fathers and Families of San Joaquin, a small nonprofit that serves young people and people who have been through the criminal-justice system, received a $1 million grant in 2019. The group trains formerly incarcerated people as substance-abuse counselors. Former inmates conduct workshops and training for young people in correctional facilities. The group also has rapid-response teams for domestic abuse and child abuse.
So many of the problems the organization tackles in and around Stockton, California, can be traced to the war on drugs, says Samuel Nuñez, the group’s executive director. He remembers police officers knocking down his front door when he was a child — something he says was common in his neighborhood — and his mother sitting terrified on the floor.
“They were fiercely policing our communities,” Nuñez says. “They were traumatizing us.”
Alaska and Illinois have similar programs, and as more states legalize the drug, additional programs could be on the way.
In the 2020 election, voters in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey, and South Dakota approved measures to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. At the end of March, the New York state legislature passed a marijuana legalization bill that will set aside 40% of tax revenue for grants to help communities disproportionately affected by harsh drug policies.
The system that California set up has been particularly beneficial to smaller groups that are closest to these communities, says Bonnie Midura, a senior program manager at the California Endowment, a foundation that supported efforts to push for the marijuana grants. State agencies often have rigorous application requirements for nonprofits that can shut them out of the process.
Many of the grantees rarely receive such large amounts of money.
“I’ve had a number of conversations with these organizations where they’ve told us that these are the largest grants that they’ve ever received,” says Matt Cervantes, an official at the Sierra Health Foundation, which manages part of the California effort.