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Permissible uses of money in the marijuana tax cash fund

By Cannabis Patients Alliance on May 6, 2014 • ( 1 )

We thought you might be curious about how the retail marijuana tax money is going to be spent. The money for school construction (up to $40 million) has already been taken out of the equation, as has the shareback to local governments. This is what they’re planning on doing with what’s left. This is straight from the Colorado Joint Budget Committee SB14-215:

Uses of moneys in the marijuana tax cash fund. The permissible purposes for which the general assembly may appropriate moneys in the marijuana tax cash fund are:

For the study of law enforcement’s activity and costs related to the implementation of laws legalizing retail marijuana;
For the coordination of the executive branch response to the legalization of retail marijuana;
To increase the expertise and knowledge among prosecutors and law enforcement officials regarding the legal and regulatory issues surrounding the legalization of retail marijuana;
To obtain health data regarding marijuana and other drug use and to monitor the health effects of marijuana;
For advanced roadside impaired driving enforcement training and drug recognition expert training for peace officers;
To develop and implement marijuana education and prevention campaigns;
To provide inpatient treatment for adults who suffer from co-occurring disorders;
To increase the availability of school-based prevention, early intervention, and health care services and programs to reduce the risk of marijuana and other substance use and abuse by school-aged children;
For community-based programs to provide prevention and intervention services to youth;
For local judicial-district based programs to provide marijuana prevention and early intervention services to pre-adjudicated and adjudicated youth;
To expand the provision of jail-based behavioral health services in underserved counties and to enhance the provision of jail-based behavioral health services to offenders transitioning from jail to the community to ensure continuity of care; and
For the provision of substance use disorder treatment services for adolescents and pregnant women.

In connection with the permissible uses of the moneys in the marijuana tax cash fund, the bill:

Creates the school health professional grant program in the department of education to provide matching grants to education providers to enhance the presence of school health professionals in secondary schools throughout the state and to facilitate better screening, education, and referral care coordination for secondary school students with substance abuse and other behavioral health needs;
Creates the office of marijuana coordination in the governor’s office to coordinate the executive branch response to the legalization of marijuana;
Requires the department of public health to conduct 2 marijuana education and prevention campaigns, each with a specified purpose, and to create a web site to serve as the state portal for the most accurate and timely information regarding the health effects of marijuana and the laws regarding marijuana use;
Creates the school-based substance abuse prevention and intervention grant program in the department of health care policy and financing to award competitive grants to entities to provide school-based prevention and intervention programs for youth 12 to 19 years of age, primarily focused on reducing marijuana use but including strategies and efforts to reduce alcohol use and prescription drug misuse; and
Expands the purposes of the Tony Grampsas youth services program, created in the department of human services, to include community-based programs specifically related to the prevention and intervention of adolescent and youth marijuana use.

For more details on the programs and agencies where this money might be appropriated, please refer to the bill: SB14-215 Concerning the Disposition of Moneys Collected by the State in Connection with the Legal Marijuana Industry, and, in Connection Therewith, Making an Appropriation.