Cannabis Revenues Now Funding Education Programs
"A couple years ago, these are dollars that would have been going to the black market, drug cartels. Now money that was used to fund drug cartels is being used to fund college scholarships.”
And that's not all, says CBS News: "In the Denver metro area, the town of Edgewater gets 20% of its total sales tax from marijuana sales. The town of 5,300 plans to spend $1.4 million in pot tax revenue on repaving 12 miles of streets and replacing the old city hall with a new $10 million complex. The new city hall will include a police station and library to be finished by 2018."
"Adams County has earmarked more than $500,000 for scholarships for low-income students.... In Aurora, the money earmarked to help the homeless will be used to purchase two vans for local nonprofit outreach groups to use to transport people to shelters and for other needs... Another $2.8 million will go toward bonds for a new recreation center in the growing southeast part of Aurora."
In 2016-17, lawmakers approved $900,000 to pay for bullying prevention programs, another $900,000 to programs to prevent students from dropping out and $4.4 million for another competitive grant program helping kids learn to read.
"The [Colorado Department of Education] is offering new grants up to $40,000 per school per year for bullying prevention. ""As far as we know, we're the only state that is providing such significant funds to prevent bullying in schools," said Dr. Adam Collins, bullying prevention and education grant coordinator for the CDE.