colorado – RI Future

April 19, 2015

Colorado’s funding formula for school construction

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If you can believe it, until 1998 school building construction was a local matter in Colorado. Functionally speaking, with the current moratorium on state aid for school construction and rehabilitation, this is the case in Rhode Island right now. In Colorado in the 1990s, and in Rhode Island today, young people in low-income, politically-weak areas are less likely to attend high-quality public school buildings than those in wealthier, politically-networked areas.

Since 2008, however, Colorado has administered a competitive grant application for districts based on diverse state funding streams, including, since 2012, a small percent of taxes from marijuana sales.

“The state’s voters in 2012 legalized pot sales – and taxed them heavily – in part because the constitutional amendment promised that $40 million a year would go toward school construction across the state,” according to USA Today. “In the first full year of sales, however, the state expects to collect only about $17 million in special school taxes levied on the marijuana industry. Still, it’s better than what the state collected the year before: nothing.”

Colorado’s current state funding stream has its origins in a 1998 class action lawsuit (Giardino v Colorado State Board of Education), says Kori Donaldson s. “The lawsuit alleged that the state had not fulfilled its constitutional responsibility to establish and maintain a thorough and uniform system of public schools because of the deteriorating condition of many public schools and issues of overcrowding.”

In response, “Senate Bill 00-181 implemented the terms of a settlement, which required the General Assembly to appropriate $190 million for public school capital construction over a period of 11 years. In 2008, the General Assembly enacted the BEST act [Building Excellent Schools Today].

The BEST program distributes approximately $40 million a year. Yet, the demand for better schools in Colorado outpaces the funding supply, even with the BEST program. Colorado’s challenges include overcrowded classrooms and overstretched buildings (one principal, Melanie Moreno, noted, “Even if we hired more teachers, we wouldn’t have anywhere to put them.”)

Todd Engdahl argues, “The BEST selection process is unique in that the construction board has a certain amount of discretion in making its recommendations and because it makes its decisions request-by-request in an open meeting where applicants are allowed to make brief in-person pitches to the board, in addition to the voluminous applications they filed months ago…

The board uses a complicated process to cull the applicants. Projects require a majority roll-call vote to advance to a short list, but projects die if they don’t gain a majority, don’t get a second or fail to spark a motion at all.”

The Massachusetts model remains superior in that its application process has an emphasis on “urgency and need” in making decisions for construction, and provides a steady, consistent, and much larger funding stream. That said, Colorado shows a willingness to organize a formal, transparent grant process to make funding decisions, and the possibility of including new revenues.

Massachusetts and Colorado both have consistent funding streams to rehabilitate and construct school buildings. Rhode Island’s leaders have a great chance to be innovative and do right by students, families, and teachers.

March 6, 2015March 8, 2015

Legislators say it’s time to tax and regulate marijuana

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Representative Scott Slater introduced a bill (H5777) in the RI House of Representatives yesterday to tax and regulate marijuana. Senator Josh Miller introduced identical legislation in the RI Senate. Speaking at a press conference yesterday, both legislators were optimistic that this might be the year the legislation passes.

Though a pair of cranks attempted to hijack the press conference by insisting that the speakers use the word “cannabis” instead of “marijuana,” Jared Moffat, executive director of Regulate Rhode Island, a coalition of groups in support of marijuana regulation, showed remarkable poise and kept the presentation on track.

Representative Slater said that Colorado, the first state to tax and regulate marijuana, “has one of the fastest going economies in the country.” Money spent on legal marijuana products is money denied to organized crime, says Slater, who asked, “Do we allow criminals to control the market? Or do we want the sales to be regulated and taxed?”

Senator Miller cited justice, public safety and revenue issues as reasons for a growth in support for the idea. Many more groups have joined the call for regulation, and the governor, the Senate president and the speaker of the House have all said that they are open to considering such an idea.

Dan Harrop, the recent Republican candidate for mayor of Providence, was to speak at the press conference, but an auto accident, in which Harrop was unharmed, prevented his attendance. Instead Dr. James Crowley spoke about the current laws regarding marijuana prohibition as being “fundamentally wrong, and a tremendous waste of resources.”

Crowley also spoke of the “first mover advantage.” The first state in New England to tax and regulate marijuana, Crowley maintains, will have early and sustainable marketing advantages that should last even as other states follow suit. Massachusetts activists have already managed to get legislation onto the ballot, and Rhode Island has “a small window of opportunity” if we want to be first, and reap the financial rewards.

Senator Miller says that a majority of Rhode Islanders are in favor of taxing and regulating marijuana, saying, “I think this is the year to do that.”

January 29, 2015January 30, 2015

Which New England state will be first to regulate marijuana?

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Four New England states – Rhode Island, Vermont, Massachusetts, and Maine – are poised to enact measures to regulate marijuana like alcohol in the next two years. The big question is, which state will do it first?

The editorial board at The Providence Journal does not want it to be Lil Rhody.

According to them, adults who responsibly use marijuana should continue to be labeled as lawbreakers because marijuana inexorably leads to the “general rot” of society (“Put pot on hold,” Jan. 6). Fortunately, not all of our newly elected state leaders share The Providence Journal’s antiquated views. Governor Raimondo, for example, recently argued that, “[legalizing marijuana] is absolutely something we should evaluate, because if we think it’s inevitable, and if there’s a way to do it that is properly regulated so people don’t get hurt, then it’s something we should look at.”

Polls show that a majority of Rhode Islanders — and Americans — agree with Governor Raimondo and think it is time to end the failed policy of marijuana prohibition. Last year 29 members in the house of representative and 13 members of the state senate signed onto the Marijuana Regulation, Control, and Taxation Act. This year the bi-partisan coalition of legislators backing the bill is expected to grow even larger. At committee hearings last year, few legislators expressed staunch opposition to the legislation. Most of the hesitation came from those who suggested that we hold off another year to study the issue.

The “wait and see” argument, however, will be far less effective in 2015. We now have more than a year’s worth of data on Colorado’s experiment with allowing adults to purchase marijuana from tightly regulated, licensed stores. We no longer need to speculate: it is clear that the sky does not fall when you treat marijuana like alcohol. Neutral observers like the New York Times and the Brookings Institute have deemed Colorado’s rollout a success, and even Governor Hickenlooper, who initially opposed Amendment 64 in 2012, recently said this on CBS’s 60 Minutes:

“[A]fter the election [in 2012], if I’d had a magic wand and I could wave the wand, I probably would’ve reversed it and had the initiative fail. But now I look at it…and I think we’ve made a lot of progress…still a lot of work to be done. But I think we might actually create a system that can work.”

We don’t have to go west to know that regulating marijuana works. Here in our own backyard, state-licensed compassion centers, which have provided medical marijuana to registered patients for nearly two years, are running smoothly, giving back to the community, and creating jobs for local residents.

The notion that we should “wait and see” is wrongheaded for many reasons, but it is particularly foolish if the state hopes to reap any economic benefits from regulating and taxing marijuana. Massachusetts is very likely to approve a ballot initiative to make marijuana legal for adults in 2016. If Rhode Island does not get the ball rolling this year, we will lose a tremendous opportunity to attract new businesses to our state and take home a larger share of the economic pie.

A resurrected specter of “reefer madness” is the only thing holding us back. Ignoring the clear scientific evidence that marijuana is much safer than alcohol, opponents of regulating marijuana are forced to rely on fear tactics and sparse anecdotes to make a boogeyman out of marijuana

In truth, however, the vast majority of adults who use marijuana are responsible, tax-paying citizens who ask only that they not be automatically treated as lawbreakers. Just as some adults enjoy the occasional weekend cocktail, or a beer after work, others prefer to relax and socialize with marijuana. Every objective, scientific study has confirmed that marijuana is far less harmful to the individual and society than alcohol. So if we don’t have an issue with adults who responsibly consume alcohol, why should we have a problem with adults who responsibly consume marijuana?

As with any piece of legislation, the ultimate fate of the Marijuana Regulation, Control, and Taxation Act will depend mostly on how vigorously our allies in the General Assembly push for its passage. Those of us who live in districts with unsupportive legislators must make the case and show them that their constituents support the bill. Those of us who live in districts with supportive legislators must be unrelenting in asking these allies to make the issue a top priority for 2015.

Ultimately, whether Rhode Island becomes the first state to regulate marijuana on the East Coast is up to us. I hope you will join me and the rest of the Regulate Rhode Island coalition in the fight.

February 20, 2014

Colorado pot economy producing new revenue, new research and new residents

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Colorado expects to make $133 million in new revenue this year because of legalized marijuana. This is twice what the state anticipated when it became, along with Washington, the first state in the nation to tax and regulate the giant underground pot economy. Between legal and medicinal marijuana, Colorado expects more than $800 million in sales alone this year.

For comparison, Rhode Island faces a similar-sized budget deficit this year ($149 million) as Colorado expects to reap in new revenue, and the state legislature here is considering legislation that would make us the third state to profit from pot. Rep. Edith Ajello and Senator Josh Miller are sponsoring the bill and they wrote an op/ed about why here.

News of how the marijuana industry is proving to have a very positive effect on Colorado’s economy is starting to sweep the nation. Earlier this week, the Associated Press reported on a 5-year-old who stopped having hundreds of seizures a week when she experimented with a tincture made from marijuana plants grown specifically to prevent seizures.

From the AP, which says the science is still unproven but “more than 100 families have relocated” to Colorado to try the special strand of marijuana grown to accentuate the chemical naturally found in the plant that reduces seizures:

The doctors were out of ideas to help 5-year-old Charlotte Figi.

Suffering from a rare genetic disorder, she had as many as 300 grand mal seizures a week, used a wheelchair, went into repeated cardiac arrest and could barely speak. As a last resort, her mother began calling medical marijuana shops.

Two years later, Charlotte is largely seizure-free and able to walk, talk and feed herself after taking oil infused with a special pot strain. Her recovery has inspired both a name for the strain of marijuana she takes that is bred not to make users high — Charlotte’s Web — and an influx of families with seizure-stricken children to Colorado from states that ban the drug.

The New Hampshire state legislature is also considering legalizing marijuana and the Oregon legislature is debating putting the question to the voters as a ballot initiative.

November 6, 2013November 6, 2013

Portland legalizes pot; Colorado to make $70 million in taxes

Rhode Island lost it’s chance to become the first place on the East Coast to legalize marijuana yesterday. Portland, Maine gets that honor after 70 percent of the voters passed a ballot measure that ends pot prohibition in Maine’s largest city.

“Most Portlanders, like most Americans, are fed up with our nation’s failed marijuana prohibition laws,” David Boyer of the Marijuana Policy Project told the Huffington Post. He’s right, according to a new Gallup poll that shows 58 percent of Americans favoring legalization. In total four cities, three in Michigan, voted to legalize marijuana.

But only Colorado approved a measure to profit wildly from legalization yesterday. That state expects to take in about $70 million a year from the new tax with about half being earmarked for education.

“Marijuana, Cheetos & Goldfish all legal in CO,” Governor John Hickenlooper tweeted. “Now we’ll have the $$ to regulate, enforce & educate.”

Activists and Rolling Stone magazine predict Rhode Island could become one of the next states to legalize marijuana as local legislators have been bringing up such legislation for the past several sessions.

What should we do with our new revenue?

November 15, 2012

RI Should Lead, Not Follow, On Pot Legalization

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Look around and you’ll notice the era of reefer madness is dying a slow death all over the country. Last week, Colorado and Washington became the first two states to to officially legalize it, as Peter Tosh might say. And yesterday Reason.com, somewhat fittingly, broke the story that RI state Rep. Edith Ajello plans to reintroduce a bill that would legalize and regulate marijuana much like alcohol. Maine is considering doing so too.

Oregon rejected a similar measure on election day, and the fairly conservative editorial page of the Oregonian quickly opined that the state legislature should pass the bill lest the state lose out on the business and tax opportunity to Washington – the same logic by which Rhode Islanders decided they didn’t mind casino gambling coming to the Ocean State, saying:

And if business booms at Washington’s pot shops, as expected? Our neighbor to the north will collect millions of dollars in new “sin” taxes, with much of the money coming from Oregonians who’d be happy to keep their business — and taxes — in state if given the opportunity.

There are far more tax dollars to be had by legalizing cannabis than through expanding gambling and the social ills are far, far less. Here’s hoping Rhode Island leads rather than follows on this one.

Here’s a short video of RI Future talking with Rep. Ajello last year about why marijuana should be taxed and regulated rather than remaining the purview of the black market.