UPDATE
the mayor’s office and portland city council committed 100% of cannabis taxes — $3M+ — redirected from portland police to ongoing investment in black and brown communities.
a community-led coalition will decide how to invest the cannabis taxes in portland communities to repair harm.
to quote dr. martin luther king, steps toward “human progress” are made only because of “the tireless exertions and passionate concern of dedicated individuals” thank you PDX for the collective persistent effort toward progress.
Defunding without investment is not social justice. Harms must be repaired.
When Portland City voters approved the 3% sales tax on cannabis in November 2016, you intended your taxes to repair harms in the black and brown communities not fund more arrest and harm.
Expected to be adopted on June 17, the current proposed budget defunds the police of $15M, but committed less than 10% ($1.4M) to black and brown communities. Millions were allocated to “general fund,” which means money could be used for any purpose now or in the future – including police.
Hold the City accountable to repair harms in black and brown communities. For three years, cannabis taxes have increased police budgets and amplified damage. If all City cannabis taxes collected since 2017 were invested in black and brown communities, it would total more than the $15M defunded.
TAKE ACTION
Demand the City of Portland:
- Invest $15M in ongoing funds starting this year to Black and Brown communities, and ensure 100% of all future City cannabis taxes collected are invested in Black and Brown communities – the communities most harmed by cannabis criminalization.
- Give Portland community members input and official oversight on the investment of all funds.
- Hold City accountable to goals for effective use of funds and to ensure funds directly benefit Black and Brown communities.
While the Black community should set the goals, below are NuLeaf Project’s recommendation for priority investments.
Hundreds of years of over-policing and a racist, unequal justice system has led to the financial decline of Black and Brown people in the U.S. – African-Americans, Native Americans, and Latinx have less than 10% of the wealth of whites, are more likely to be houseless, and are least likely to have a college degree. City and state governments have heavily funded policing in black and brown communities, but not schools and education, affordable housing and homeownership, and commerce development.
We believe investments should be made in:
- Housing programs for stable housing and homeownership
- Commerce development, including small-business resources and entrepreneur development
- Early childhood education investments, 3rd grade to Pre-K, including high-quality daycare
The fact that cannabis was outlawed and criminalized for so long is a huge contributing factor to the disproportionate number of black people in jail. Now that it legal in Oregon, the city should be redistributing the proceeds back to the communities that need it by providing additional economic opportunity, instead of agencies that continue to violate these communities with impunity.
I am urging you to route increased funding from cannabis taxes to black and brown communities instead of to transit and “public safety” – a euphemism for police. Portland is projected to gain $4.7 million dollars in cannabis sales taxes. This money could go a long way towards helping our most vulnerable residents.
I am a Portland resident and especially in light of recent events strongly urge the reallocation of cannabis tax funds to go to helping the communities most adversely affected by criminalization for so long, and not the police force that has carried out these unfair policies.
Thank you.
Cannabis shouldn’t fund arrest, harassment, and incarceration.
I demand more of the taxes from marijuana to be invested in black and brown communities. The police already have enough funding and are clearly doing more damage than good. Please re-evaluate how much gets put towards the uplifting of suffering communities.
The City of Portland’s cannabis tax revenue ought to be going toward repairing the harms disproportionately inflicted on communities of color during the failed War On Drugs. That’s what the City Commission voted to do, but instead the money is supplementing the budgets of the same law enforcement agencies who inflicted those very harms on those very same communities, and whose increasingly militarized presence is further contributing to the brutalizations of black and brown bodies at the hands of law enforcement.
Funding the police means taking money and resources from our communities, especially black and brown communities. This is not something we support.
Put our money back into the communities who need it most!
the city of portland’s a historically terrible record of municipal financial support of communities of color&wheeler if he’s commonsense’ll put way more than a paltry $1.4 million to the black community,as well as more to other communities of color…NO cannabis tax funding to police@all!…=^.^=
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