Pot’s latest payoff: College tuition
Colorado pot smokers are helping send 25 students to college, the first scholarships in the U.S. funded with taxes on legal marijuana.
The awards offered by Pueblo County, in southern Colorado, are the latest windfall from legal Colorado marijuana sales that are also helping build schools and aid the homeless — and in one county, providing 8% raises to municipal workers.
Pueblo County is granting $1,000 each to the students; recipients will be announced later this month.
“It’s incredible,” said Beverly Duran, the executive director of the Pueblo Hispanic Education Foundation, which is overseeing the scholarships. “Every year we get a nice pool of students … but we can always only award to a small percentage. This for us expands that to extraordinary lengths.”
Colorado has the country’s most mature legal cannabis marketplace. Analysts say the state could see $1 billion in sales this year, and last year, growers and buyers paid more than $135 million in cannabis taxes and fees. About $35 million is dedicated to school construction and upgrades, although cities and counties are also using the money to prop up social safety nets, pro- vide drug-addiction counseling and increased enforcement to combat underage consumption.
In Aurora, the state’s thirdlargest city, marijuana taxes are helping improve roads, pay off a municipal recreation center and provide direct services for homeless men and women. Aurora has nearly 20 pot shops and five grow sites, generating a projected $5.4 million in new taxes this year.
Legalization isn’t a completely settled issue even within Colorado. Pueblo County voters this fall may be asked to ban marijuana stores — the same stores generating the scholarship taxes.
Across the country, lawmakers are eyeing Colorado as they consider whether to legalize recreational marijuana. Colorado, Alaska, Oregon, Washington state and Washington, D.C., have all legalized adult recreational use, and 24 states and the District of Columbia permit some form of medical use. That’s despite the fact that marijuana remains an illegal drug and Schedule 1 controlled substance at the federal level.