Officials in California said that they had given out $15 million in grants to help local efforts to make the marijuana industry more fair, according to a report by Marijuana Moment.
Through the Cannabis Equity Grants Program for Local Jurisdictions, the funds were given to 16 cities and counties across the state. This was done by the Governor’s Office of Business and Economic Development (GO-Biz). Late last year, people were able to start applying for the program.
This is part of California’s plan to use tax money from cannabis to pay for new and existing programs to help people who have been unfairly hurt by the drug war.
The grants for this fiscal year range from $350,000 for the county of San Diego to $1,996,487 for the city of Oakland.
In 2021, GO-Biz started taking applications for the program’s first round of grants. A total of $35 million was made available to cities and towns across the state. The most money that can be given this year and next is $15 million.
Last year, the department gave out $35.5 million in grants for community reinvestment. The money came from taxes on sales of recreational marijuana.
Last year, GO-Biz said that they had given 78 grants to organizations across the state to help with economic and social development in places where the war on drugs has had a big impact. From 2021, when the state gave about $29 million to 58 nonprofit organizations through the CalCRG program, both the amount of money and the number of people who got it went up.
