Cannabis and Funding for Education

 

 

One of the main arguments of persons who insist that cannabis should be prohibited is that it will harm the youth even though these claims have been proved incorrect, through multiple studies, in places where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use. On the other hand, taxes collected from cannabis sales is making significant contributions to school development programs in US states where the plant has been legalized. 

 

States such as Colorado, Alaska, Nevada and California, which were early movers in the legalization of cannabis, have been utilizing cannabis taxes for their education funding in the last few years. States that plan to legalize are looking at the funding of the education system as a key benefit of legalization. Funds have primarily been used so far to fund school infrastructure with the potential to scale this up to other areas such as operational areas like teacher recruitment. 

 

2020 was a catastrophic year for education. In the name of Covid, government shut down all institutions of education worldwide. The damage it caused, and still continues to cause, is not even fully clear. Only the coming years will reveal the extent of disruption this has caused in the lives of children and youth. While rich nations and high income individuals revel in the new found joy of how they are using technology to continue what they call education at home, the real picture is evident for all who would dare to open their eyes and see. In India, less than 25% of government schools have access to even the basic technology to continue the online education that is being trumpeted. Even among private schools, many have suffered, especially children and youth from low income households who can barely afford to feed themselves, let alone set up expensive technology for education. With many parents having lost jobs, even urban India has suffered great destruction in the field of education. The rates of school drop outs, especially in rural India, have spiraled. Even for those who were fortunate enough to access online education, the quality remains largely suspect. For the child and young adult, face to face interaction with the teacher is an essential part of education. Besides the teacher-child interaction, the social interaction with peers and the loss of extracurricular time at schools and colleges has caused psychological damage that only time will reveal. The financial situation of everybody, the schools, the parents and the teachers, the three segments that are critical to a child's education, is dire.

And what have the governments, that were so quick to use a disease that causes less damage than even road accidents, done to address the harms that they have caused to child and youth education in their utterly selfish aim of suppressing dissent among the people and giving the industries that fund them, pharmaceutical and petrochemical, a boost?

In India, a massive amount of its budget for 2021 was directed towards infrastructure development (read as contracts to carbon intensive industries to build roads through eco-sensitive regions), defense purchases, and hikes for its vast number of employees. According to the Indian Express - "The total education budget was slashed by 6 per cent from Rs 99,311 crore in 2020-21 to Rs 93,224 crore — the lowest in three years — with school education taking the biggest cut of almost Rs 5,000 crore. The allocation for higher education has decreased by roughly Rs 1,000 crore to Rs 38,350 crore this year." Rs 35,000 crore was allocated to Covid related activities (read as money into the pockets of the pharmaceutical and petrochemical companies providing vaccines and medical equipment).

 

In the US, cannabis was one of the few industries that witnessed stable and sustained growth through the Covid period. Revenues for all states that have legalized cannabis, especially for recreational purposes, has risen dramatically during the last year. Cannabis was denoted as an essential service in nearly all states that had legalized it. Governments struggling to meet today's needs and hoping to borrow extensively from external lenders, most of whom have also been hammered by their own respective governments' Covid measures, would vastly benefit if they legalized cannabis completely and took a leaf out of the books of the US states that are directing cannabis revenue into education.

 

The fact that the majority of cannabis businesses still remain illegal and that regulatory barriers prevent more businesses from moving out of the black market is an indication of the potential for education funding. If countries legalized recreational cannabis worldwide, we are talking about hundreds of billions of dollars worth of much needed funding that could flow into the global education system instead of flowing into the hands of vested interests and criminal networks as it does today. If you combine that with savings from redirection of law and drug enforcement agencies as well as freeing up of prison resources, we are talking about the potential to fund a large part of global education, especially in the countries that need funding the most. All countries compromise their education budgets, citing lack of funds, while giving more focus to areas like military, federal salaries, pharmaceutical and petrochemical businesses. Taxes through recreational cannabis sales could provide the much needed additional boost in terms of education funding that the world's children and youth desperately need today.

Related articles

The following set of articles related to the subject are taken from various media. Words in italics are the thoughts of yours truly at the time of reading the article.  

'Another “sin industry” universities are embracing appears to be cannabis, particularly in states where marijuana has been legalized—19 and counting. The financial crunch caused by the pandemic is a big reason why the University of Colorado dipped its toes into the space this spring, about nine years after the state legalized weed.

“We had to get creative and look at how we could increase our revenues,” said Lance Gerlach, the university’s assistant vice chancellor of advancement.

Colorado became one of the first major universities to add a cannabidiol purveyor as a corporate sponsor in April, signing a multiyear partnership with Synchronicity Full-Spectrum Hemp Oil, a local supplier of CBD products.'

https://www.wsj.com/articles/college-football-beer-gambling-cannabis-sponsorships-11631759264

'State Question 788, which legalized medical cannabis use and sales in Oklahoma, mandates that 75% of any surplus OMMA funds go to the state’s General Revenue fund and that the money “may only be expended for common education.”

That money made up $12 million of the funds given to the Department of Education, Watkins said, while the remaining $30 million was the result of a funding appropriation by the state Legislature.

“So I talked to the Department of Education, and we calculated what that money would represent, and it represented the salary of (794) teachers,”

https://tulsaworld.com/news/local/marijuana/omma-reports-contribution-of-more-than-40-million-toward-oklahoma-education-enough-to-fund-hundreds/article_f96b27fa-0da1-11eb-a7a0-dfc01c0efd1f.html

'Alaska and California are linking revenue from legalized marijuana sales to after-school and out-of-school programming, according to the report, which recommended Massachusetts follow suit and "specifically funnel the revenue to programs that focus on promoting social and emotional competencies and learning."'
http://www.wbur.org/edify/2018/10/23/marijuana-could-fund-afterschool-programs


'So, do any marijuana taxes go into schools? Yes, but...

The truth is, no amount of marijuana taxes will change Colorado’s per pupil funding ranking. That’s because, virtually no marijuana money goes into schools’ operating budgets — the money that pays teachers, keeps the lights on, buys books and stocks the school chemistry lab. Instead, the money funds some maintenance and construction, and on a smaller scale, anti-bullying, literacy, dropout prevention and school health professional programs.'
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/do-marijuana-taxes-go-to-schools-yes-but-probably-not-in-the-way-you-think-they-do


'While Amendment 64 ensured excise taxes flowed into the BEST program, it did not offer any allocations for anything past that initial $40 million each year. That’s because organizers didn’t think recreational marijuana would generate much more than $60 million or so in tax revenue each year. Today, excise taxes on pot generate more than $80 million annually and sales taxes on retail marijuana alone have topped $178 million.'
https://www.denverpost.com/2018/12/27/colorado-marijuana-tax-dollars-schools/


 'While there has been some political wrangling over how that marijuana money gets distributed, the state is sending a good chunk of it towards education. Other cannabis-legal states have done the same – in Colorado, wholesale pot taxes are set aside for a public school fund, in addition to paying for regulatory oversight, youth drug prevention, and substance abuse treatment.