{"id":8599,"date":"2018-12-30T13:54:54","date_gmt":"2018-12-30T13:54:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=3305372"},"modified":"2018-12-30T13:54:54","modified_gmt":"2018-12-30T13:54:54","slug":"almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish\/","title":{"rendered":"Almost half of Colorado\u2019s marijuana money can go wherever lawmakers wish"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>Dr. Nicole Tartaglia can sense when the question is coming.<\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0Children\u2019s Hospital Colorado pediatrician has worked with children on the autism spectrum for almost 15 years.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"related right\">\n<p><em>On Jan. 1, 2014, Colorado became the first U.S. state to allow legal recreational marijuana sales. It was sold to voters as a way to fix up crumbling schools, but that\u2019s only the start of where the hundreds of millions of tax dollars has gone, according to Denver Post reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll ask if they have any other questions,\u201d Tartaglia said. And there\u2019s a pause before one of the caregivers blurts out the question they\u2019ve been holding back since stepping into the room: Could marijuana help my child?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFrom a basic science perspective, there are a lot of reasons to hypothesize why it would be helpful,\u201d Tartaglia said.<\/p>\n<p>At its most basic level, autism is a spectrum of disorders that affect brain development, and researchers like Tartaglia suspect that cannabidiol, more commonly known as CBD, could help correct some of the dysfunction in a child\u2019s system that causes symptoms like irritability, speech impairments, anxiety and seizures. But there\u2019s been \u201cvery limited research\u201d into how effective CBD products are \u2014 leaving doctors and families to navigate these decisions with anecdotal stories gleaned from friends and internet groups.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"embed-youtube\">[embedded content]<\/span><\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s where Colorado\u2019s Marijuana Tax Cash Fund, an account filled by tax revenue from the sale of medical and recreational cannabis, can help. The Colorado Department of Health and Environment offers money from that fund to researchers who want to investigate the therapeutic uses of marijuana in rigorous, random control trials. In November, the agency awarded Tartaglia and her team $1.35 million for a three-year study on how CBD affects children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really feel that as a state we have a responsibility to give back to our Colorado community, as well as the national community, and answer these important research questions,\u201d Tartaglia said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/CD31POTTAXCASHFUND.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"lazyautosizes lazyload alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"390\" height=\"949\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish.png\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish.png 620w,https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/CD31POTTAXCASHFUND.png?fit=310%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 310w\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Her grant is just one of more than 60 different ways state lawmakers spend Marijuana Tax Cash Fund dollars across the state. Most of the money goes out through competitive grants, and unlike the BEST or Public School funds, lawmakers gave themselves broad authority to decide how to spend MTCF dollars.<\/p>\n<p>The fund is the largest pool of marijuana tax revenue in the state. Colorado collected\u00a0$251 million during fiscal year 2017-2018, and 49 percent of that went into the Marijuana Cash Tax Fund. Three funds that support K-12 education received a collective $98 million, $16.7 million went to local governments and $12.4 million went into the general fund.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/leg.colorado.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/fy2019-20_marbrf.pdf\">State law technically allows<\/a> the General Assembly to appropriate its tax fund money for any purpose, but state legislators created a set of \u201callowable purposes\u201d such as mental health treatment, marijuana research and law enforcement training and to provide services to school-age children. Each year, lawmakers tinker with the cash fund by running bills to create new grants and by adjusting how much marijuana money, if any, goes into programs they created in previous years.<\/p>\n<p>In 2018, for instance, they set aside $1.48 million that local police districts can apply for if they lost money because of a series of reforms the state made to civil forfeiture laws.\u00a0(Civil asset forfeiture is when law enforcement seizes money and property\u00a0that\u2019s suspected of being tied to a crime, sometimes before anyone is charged.)<\/p>\n<h2>Early literacy grants show results<\/h2>\n<p>One of the tax fund\u2019s success stories is the early literacy grants. They last for three years and give local school districts the money to choose from a list of approved materials, coaches and teacher training programs designed to raise reading scores for kids in kindergarten through third grade.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe made almost a 10-point increase since before the grant, which is really pretty fabulous,\u201d said Cary Palumbo, the executive director of elementary education for Pueblo City Schools.<\/p>\n<p>Palumbo was the principal at Ben Franklin Elementary when the state awarded her nearly $262,000 for the 2017-18 school year. It was a huge opportunity, she said. The school serves students who come from lower-income families; nearly 82 percent of her kids received a free or reduced-cost lunch that year. And the state had been threatening to close Franklin just a few years earlier because of poor student performance.<\/p>\n<p>Palumbo bought a coaching package from a company called Growing Educations Practices with her school\u2019s grant money, which included a \u201cmini-academy\u201d for teachers during the summer, one-on-one coaching, data analysis, monthly school visits and lesson plans.<\/p>\n<p>When the kids left school in the spring, 86 percent of them were reading at their grade level or above.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s the highest scores we ever had,\u201d Palumbo said. \u201cI even looked in the archives. It\u2019s the highest in the history of the school, as far as I know.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And the kids didn\u2019t fall victim to the summer slide \u2014 the loss of skills that sometimes happens during a child\u2019s summer break.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe lack of a slide is even a bigger deal,\u201d Palumbo said. \u201cThey normally lose 15 to 20 percent of the skills. It\u2019s like starting over year after year.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In her new role with the district, Palumbo sent the grant application to all her elementary schools and encouraged them to apply. She admitted, though, that it\u2019s a little weird that a person smoking a joint in Denver right now could be partly responsible for teaching her students the alphabet next year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHere\u2019s the thing: If it has to be legal, education might as well be the beneficiaries of that,\u201d Palumbo said. \u201cI\u2019m not going to say that it doesn\u2019t bother me. But when I see the good things happening for kids, that\u2019s the one way I can, in my own mind, justify it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish-1.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"lazyautosizes aligncenter lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish-1.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"666\" height=\"474\" data-sizes=\"auto\" data-src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish-1.png\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/almost-half-of-colorados-marijuana-money-can-go-wherever-lawmakers-wish-1.png 620w,https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/CD010119MJREVENUE.png?fit=780%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 780w,https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/CD010119MJREVENUE.png?fit=810%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 810w,https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/www.denverpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/CD010119MJREVENUE.png?fit=630%2C9999px&amp;ssl=1 630w\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Pueblo City Schools isn\u2019t the only district to show success from its early literacy grants. Nearly one in four kindergarten students at Aragon Elementary school in Fountain started last year with a \u201csignificant reading deficiency,\u201d\u00a0Colorado DOE spokesman\u00a0Jeremy Meyer wrote in an email.\u00a0\u201cBy the end of the year, only 4 percent were in that category.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the Moffat County School District saw the percentage of their kindergarten through third-grade students who read well below their grade level at the beginning of the school year drop from 31 percent to 21 percent.<\/p>\n<p>Colorado\u2019s Department of Education awarded slightly less than $4.4 million in early literacy grants for the 2017-2018 school year. That\u2019s about 20 percent of the money the department gets from the Marijuana Tax Cash Fund. The rest went to grant programs for school health professionals, drop-out prevention, marijuana education materials and school bullying. The total amount the state spends on education is about $7 billion \u2014 which means MTCF contributes about 0.3 percent of overall funding.<\/p>\n<p>Even if every single marijuana tax dollar the state collected went to education, it would amount to only 3.6 percent of the annual education budget.<\/p>\n<p>Marijuana tax dollars, though small when compared to the overall cost of Colorado\u2019s government services, do have one outsized impact: Pushback from voters when public entities try to raise taxes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have recreational marijuana in Colorado, and we tax it,\u201d Moffat County School District Superintendent Dave Ulrich said he hears frequently. \u201cHow could it possibly be that the school is underfunded?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>His district receives money through the early literacy program, and he\u2019s happy to have it. But it\u2019s a one-time influx of money for a specific purpose. The grants are not ongoing sources of revenue, and some of the programs require local taxpayers to raise a certain amount of matching funds.<\/p>\n<h2>Keeping youth out of trouble<\/h2>\n<p>Another reason it can be hard to see the impact of Marijuana Tax Cash Fund dollars is because millions backfill existing programs that would have otherwise been cut. The fund supports\u00a0at least five programs that were previously funded by\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2017\/12\/28\/colorado-using-pot-tax-money-to-save-programs-funded-big-tobacco\/\">a settlement with tobacco companies<\/a>. These include programs for drug and alcohol abuse, mental health services for adult and juvenile offenses, and several local public health agencies.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe have gotten that $100,000 diversion grant for years and years,\u201d said Lori Mueller, the executive director for <a href=\"https:\/\/youthzone.com\/\">YouthZone.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Colorado\u2019s Ninth Judicial District contracts with YouthZone, a Glenwood Springs-based nonprofit, for its juvenile diversion services. These are six- to 12-month programs for kids\u00a0between the ages of\u00a010 and 17 who commit low-level crimes and don\u2019t have a criminal record. The programs keep the kids out of juvenile detention centers and hopefully from committing crimes in the future.<\/p>\n<p>YouthZone has won awards at the state and local level for decades, but the amount allocated by lawmakers has stayed relatively flat. The only new marijuana money YouthZone has received since voters legalized recreational cannabis is a $28,000 grant to help kids who use marijuana.<\/p>\n<p>YouthZone uses that grant to pay for a few days of community service where kids clean cages at the local animal shelter, build homes with Habitat for Humanity or assist local maintenance crews.<\/p>\n<p>Mueller would love to do more to curb youth marijuana use; 50 percent of the kids who come through her door use the drug regularly, she said.<\/p>\n<p>The total amount awarded for the Tony Grampsas Youth Services Program for the prevention of youth marijuana use in the 2018-19 fiscal year was $1.37 million \u2014 almost the same amount as the grant Tartaglia received to study cannabidiol treatments in children with autism spectrum disorder.<\/p>\n<p>CDPHE did get an additional $9.4 million for its substance abuse prevention programs.<\/p>\n<h2>The path to answers for parents<\/h2>\n<aside class=\"related right\" \/>\n<p>Tartaglia\u2019s patient trial is tentatively scheduled to start during the summer of 2019. She plans to spend the first part of the new year finalizing the source of her CBD and waiting for the federal Food and Drug Administration to give her the green light.<\/p>\n<p>She\u2019s optimistic the data she collects will give her better answers to the questions parents ask her at the end of their appointments. Will CBD help with anxiety? Could it help my daughter communicate better? Will it stop his seizures?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPeople hear a lot of positive, anecdotal experiences on Facebook groups or support groups,\u201d Tartaglia said. \u201cWe hear those stories, and we use that to build our hypotheses, but we need to make sure it\u2019s done in a rigorous and placebo controlled way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This trial, the doctor is sure, will be marijuana money well spent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><\/div>\n<p>The Marijuana Tax Cash Fund is the largest pool of pot money in the state, and there are more than 60 different ways state lawmakers spend those dollars across Colorado. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1228,5062,531,52,330,8003,7193,7337,6907,6811,6857,1547,8042,7279,6813,77,6815,5667,6858,9,5019,441,8038,1,3,2379,61,1736],"tags":[3798,5063,3105,2632,2908,8043,7197,7338,6909,6816,6859,4115,8044,7282,6818,2655,6820,5673,6860,5022,3015,8039,4974],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8599"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8599\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}