Illinois Awards $45 Million In Marijuana Tax-Funded Grants To Support Communities Damaged By Drug War

Illinois officers introduced on Thursday that they’re awarding $45 million in grants, utilizing funds generated from taxes on adult-use marijuana gross sales, to help neighborhood reinvestment in areas “hardest hit by the failed battle on medication.”

That is the second spherical of funding that’s being made accessible via the state’s Restore, Reinvest, and Renew (R3) program, which was established beneath Illinois’s adult-use hashish legalization regulation.

The $45 million will help 148 applications run by organizations working on comparatively small budgets in communities designated as socioeconomically deprived. The state first introduced that functions for this grant spherical had been open in December.

“A contemporary and equitable hashish trade requires fairness, alternative, and a strong funding in righting the wrongs of the battle on medication,” Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) stated in a press launch. “Which means investing in our underserved communities who’ve gone far too lengthy with out the funding and assets they want and should heal and prosper.”

“We’re proud to make use of hashish income to instantly help community-based organizations invested in creating alternative,” he stated.

Underneath Illinois’s leisure marijuana regulation, 25 p.c of tax income generated from hashish gross sales should help communities which are economically distressed, expertise excessive charges of violence and have been disproportionately impacted by drug criminalization.

The Illinois Felony Justice Info Authority (ICJIA) stated it acquired 512 accomplished submissions for the R3 grants that had been then vetted by neighborhood residents and stakeholders.

Among the many grant recipients are the Illinois Jail Challenge, Illinois Fairness Staffing LLC, Lifehouse Restoration Group, Resilience Companions NFP and Ladies in Want Get well, every of which acquired about $1.5 million. Grant quantities assorted, with most within the mid-to-low six figures. Prepare dinner County, the place Chicago is positioned, acquired $305,137.

Organizations that acquired grants via the preliminary R3 spherical final 12 months may have their funding renewed for one more 12 months to make sure that they’ll proceed offering companies of their communities.

“Illinois is exhibiting what it appears prefer to work towards repairing the hurt impacting our communities, by persevering with to construct the infrastructure that addresses many years of disinvestment, over-incarceration, and trauma,” Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton (D) stated. “As a software connecting communities to the assets they want equitably and sustainably, R3 is on the core of our efforts to deliver restorative, therapeutic options to the folks and areas which have for too lengthy been unheard and underserved.”

Final 12 months, in July, state officers put $3.5 million in cannabis-generated funds towards efforts to scale back violence via road intervention applications.

Illinois officers have touted the power of the state’s marijuana market, however they’ve harassed the significance of placing tax {dollars} from this system to good use in repairing the systemic harms of prohibition.

The state noticed practically $132 million in adult-use hashish gross sales in April, the second highest month-to-month whole for the reason that market launched in 2020. The primary couple of months of 2022 noticed lagging gross sales, however state knowledge on hashish purchases in March and April signifies that the market is on the rebound.

From final 12 months’s gross sales, Illinois generated virtually $100 million extra in tax income from adult-use marijuana gross sales than from alcohol in 2021, state knowledge discovered.

Whereas state officers have persistently voiced their dedication to fairness, legalization’s rollout hasn’t been with out hiccups and frustration amongst would-be licensees. Illinois regulators have confronted authorized challenges over the way in which social fairness licensing functions have been managed, with complaints concerning the lottery system that the state later stated it will work to resolve. Because the market has matured, there have nonetheless lingering issues, together with a courtroom order that prohibited the state from approving 185 further leisure hashish outlets for practically a 12 months earlier than that call was lifted final month.

Along with offering neighborhood reinvestment funding, the governor introduced in 2020 that his workplace had processed greater than 500,000 expungements and pardons for folks with low-level hashish convictions on their information.

Pritzker additionally not too long ago signed a invoice that may make it so courts can not deny petitions to expunge or seal information primarily based on a optimistic drug check for marijuana.

A state-funded initiative was additionally not too long ago established to assist residents with marijuana convictions get authorized assist and different companies to have their information expunged.

It’s these kinds of initiatives that Toi Hutchinson not too long ago informed Marijuana Second that she’s most pleased with as she transitioned from being Pritzker’s hashish advisor to the president of the nationwide advocacy group, the Marijuana Coverage Challenge (MPP).

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Photograph courtesy of Max Pixel.