Black people were most likely to be harmed by some of the strictest criminal marijuana laws in the country before pot was legalized in Arizona, studies show.
But when the state recently announced the first nonprofits to receive millions of dollars in grants generated from marijuana taxes, community leaders were upset to see hardly any Black-led or Black-serving groups among the recipients.
“It almost feels like you’ve been hit in the face with a pie,” said Darren Chapman, CEO and founder of the nonprofit Tiger Mountain Foundation, which was turned down for a grant.
The Justice Reinvestment Fund was created under the law passed by Arizona voters in 2020 that legalized recreational marijuana for adults over 21.
The fund distributes a portion of marijuana taxes to nonprofit groups to reduce rates of arrests and incarceration, which can negatively affect people for the rest of their lives by making it harder to rent or get hired, and help people get their lives back on track.
In part, the law defined “justice reinvestment programming” as “services for economically disadvantaged persons in communities disproportionately impacted by high rates of arrest and incarceration.”
Chapman thought his organization was a strong match for a grant. The group operates community gardens in south Phoenix and mostly serves low-income Black people and Latinos, many of whom were previously incarcerated.
It’s important to have organizations that are representative of the people they serve because those groups are more likely to understand their clients’ needs, Chapman said.
“We’re out here grinding every day dealing with re-entry issues, especially as it relates to skewed, archaic laws, like the marijuana laws before they were amended,” Chapman said.
Before Arizona legalized marijuana for recreational use, possession of any amount of marijuana without a medical marijuana card was a felony offense. Many of the people who work for or are served by Chapman’s group, including him, experienced being charged with a felony for marijuana possession, he said.
Data shows that people of color — Black people, Latinos and Indigenous people — were most negatively affected by the enforcement of Arizona’s marijuana laws.
But Black people were impacted the most — by marijuana laws specifically and the criminal justice system in general.
In “both rural and urban areas of Arizona, Black Arizonans are, proportionate to their population size, most likely to be arrested for drug crimes and incarcerated for all crimes,” according to a 2022 Justice Reinvestment Data Landscape Summary report by the Tucson firm LeCroy & Milligan Associates.
Latinos in Arizona are next most likely to be arrested for drug crimes and incarcerated for all crimes, the report found. Latinos also constitute the largest absolute number of arrests and the second largest racial/ethnic group in terms of total number in Arizona prisons, the report said.
Indigenous people are more likely than white Arizonans but less likely than Black people and Latinos to be arrested for drug crimes but more likely to receive prison time for drug crimes than Black people or Latinos, the report said.
In addition, a 2020 report by the American Civil Liberties Union found that Black people were three times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Arizona than white people.
A separate 2020 ACLU of Arizona report that looked at people prosecuted by the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office found that Black people spent 844 days on probation for the charge of personal possession of drug paraphernalia, about three months longer than white people for the same charge. Black people spent on average 698 days serving time for this charge, almost two months longer than white people, the ACLU of Arizona report found.
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Why racial disparities persist in drug prosecutions
One of the reasons for the disparities is explicit or implicit bias by the police, said Jared Keenan, legal director of the ACLU of Arizona. He noted that the 2020 ACLU of Arizona report also found that white people were more likely to have criminal cases dismissed.
“They certainly police certain communities, including Black and brown communities, much more aggressively than they do white communities,” Keenan said. “So even though white people use marijuana — and other drugs, frankly — at the same rates as Black people,” police are not targeting them. “And if police aren’t targeting them and arresting them, prosecutors aren’t prosecuting them, so all of these things play into why you end up with these troubling racial disparities.”
Possession of marijuana was the number one offense prosecuted in Maricopa County, so the impact on people of color, particularly Black people, but also Latino and Indigenous people, was enormous, Keenan said.
“There were a number of provisions, specifically designed … to undo, as much as one can undo, the harms caused by years and years of marijuana criminalization,” Keenan said of the Arizona law legalizing recreational marijuana use.
Growing up in south Phoenix, Chapman said, he routinely saw police arresting people for using marijuana or using marijuana laws as a pretext to stop people on the streets.
“Marijuana being demonized was just another way of arresting even more people in a feeding frenzy of over-arresting in our community,” Chapman said.
Of 18 groups receiving funds, only one led by Black people
Proposition 207, the ballot measure that made recreational marijuana legal for adults over 21, was also called “The Safe and Smart Arizona Act.”
It directed the state to create the Justice Reinvestment Fund, which receives a portion of the millions generated in recreational marijuana tax revenue.
In 2023, taxable sales of marijuana totaled nearly $1 billion. The state collected more than $233.6 million in total sales and excise marijuana taxes, according to the Arizona Department of Revenue.
The Justice Reinvestment Fund received a total of $16.6 million in 2023, according to the Arizona State Treasurer. Some of that money is distributed to nonprofits through Justice Reinvestment Fund grants.
At the end of December, the Arizona Department of Health Services, which administers the Justice Reinvestment Fund, published a list of 18 nonprofits selected to receive a total of $7.2 million under the first round of funding.
The grants are intended to distribute marijuana taxes to programs that offer substance abuse prevention and treatment, provide workforce and economic development in communities disproportionately impacted by high rates of arrest and incarceration, address the underlying causes of crime, restore civil rights and help expunge criminal records.
Of the 18 groups allocated grants, nine are led by people of color, and 10 will serve communities of color, according to data released by the Arizona Department of Health Services.
But just one of the 18 groups selected to receive a grant is led by Black people and predominantly serves Black people, according to community leaders and a review of grant applications released to The Arizona Republic.
That group, Our Sister Our Brother, received slightly less than $150,00, the lowest amount awarded to any of the 18 groups, an analysis of data provided by the state shows. Other groups received funding up to $500,000.
Our Sister Our Brother is a program run by the First Institutional Baptist Church in Phoenix. The Justice Reinvestment Fund dollars will be used to hold an expo to provide resources to people who have previously been incarcerated or involved in the criminal justice system, according to the group’s grant application.
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Did grassroots groups struggle to break through?
Before the launch of the first grant application round, the state held a series of listening sessions to gather input about how the money could be used to keep people out of the criminal justice system and help people after arrest or incarceration.
During these sessions, members of the Black community complained that Black people have been largely shut out from getting social equity licenses to operate marijuana dispensaries in Arizona. They expressed hope that nonprofit groups that serve Black people would also not be slighted in the Justice Reinvestment Fund process. But that is what happened, they say.
“There are just so many layers of this, and it just keeps happening,” said Jerry McPherson, former director of economic development for the Greater Phoenix Urban League. “Time and time again, the state … had the opportunity to do right, and right our wrongs, and really repair some of the damage that was done.”
McPherson helped organize five listening sessions. He also served on the Justice Reinvestment Fund application review committee. He stepped off the committee when he became managing director of the Phoenix office of Per Scholas, a nonprofit group that helps people from underrepresented groups get tech jobs. The group applied for a grant before McPherson became managing director but was not selected.
McPherson said he believes grassroots Black-led and Black-serving groups that applied for grants and deserved to receive funding were overlooked in favor of larger groups with better grant writing abilities.
He also believes that the overall amount of money being distributed to groups through the Justice Reinvestment Fund program is a drop in the bucket, considering the way Black people and people of color generally were disproportionately impacted by the enforcement of marijuana laws and the huge sums of money Arizona is now raking in through the sale of pot, he said.
“There are organizations that are already well financed, that already have sufficient resources to operate, and yet they’re tapping into this minuscule sum of money,” McPherson said.
State official: ‘Very open’ to refining the application process
The Arizona Department of Health Services is also troubled about the lack of Black-led and Black-serving groups selected to receive grants, considering data showed Black people are disproportionately arrested for marijuana offenses and disproportionately incarcerated for all offenses, an official said.
But this was just the first round of grants, and the department is taking steps to improve the equitable distribution of grants in the future, said Siman Qaasim, the department’s assistant director of policy and intergovernmental affairs.
“We want those most impacted by this issue to be the beneficiaries of these grant programs,” Qaasim said.
Qaasim acknowledged grassroots organizations are often at a disadvantage when applying for grants compared to larger organizations, which may have resulted in fewer Black-led and Black-serving organizations receiving grants.
The government is prohibited by law from providing help directly to grant applicants, Qaasim said. But the state did develop a list of resources that could assist in applying for grants, she said.
In addition, the state was “extremely intentional” in informing nonprofit groups that serve diverse communities about the grants, she said.
“We blasted that over and over, this is an opportunity, it’s coming up,” Qaasim said. In the end, 52 applications were submitted.
The state is now gearing up to award the second round of Justice Reinvestment Fund grants in late June or early July. The next round of funding will be about $13 million, Qaasim said.
The state is re-examining the process for awarding grants, she said.
“We are definitely taking a hard look and trying to see what we can do to change the grant process so that it’s more accessible,” Qaasim said.
The state has scheduled a meeting Feb. 21 with nonprofit groups to gather more information on improving the process. The state plans to invite groups that received grants in the first round to share application tips, Qaasim said.
The state is also encouraging grassroots groups to partner with larger groups and apply jointly, Qaasim said.
“I think we could have done better, to be honest,” said Qaasim. “But it was round one, and we’re looking at — and we’re very open to — what can we do differently.”
Where is the Justice Reinvestment Fund money going?
The Arizona Department of Health Services allocated about $7.2 million to nonprofits in its first Justice Reinvestment Fund grantmaking round. Here’s where the money is going and how it will be used.
Arizona Democracy Resource Center — $296,108
The Second Chance Legal Clinic provides legal services to help people involved with the criminal justice system get jobs.
Arouet Foundation — $296,109
The Economic Prosperity Center helps women exiting prison reintegrate into the community.
Axio Community of Recovery — $280,983
The ACR Re-entry Empowerment Program provides recovery support services to people recently released from the criminal justice system.
Cihuapactli Collective — $498,138
The Tonalpahqui Community Mental Health Support Program provides mental health and sobriety services to urban Indigenous people.
Constructing Circles of Peace — $500,000
The Restorative Justice Pretrial Program helps people successfully comply with pretrial release conditions.
Friendly House — $166,666
The Workforce Development Resource Navigation Initiative provides job training and skills to help people become self-sufficient.
Hushabye Nursery — $295,969
To provide substance use disorder services to mothers of babies born with Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome, the name given to problems experienced by newborns exposed to drugs in utero.
Jobs For Arizona Graduates — $500,000
JAG Career and College Readiness Program helps prepare young people to graduate from high school, attend college and get jobs.
Just Communities Arizona — $481,146
The Community Safety Incubator Project will invest in services and projects that solve problems in underserved neighborhoods in the Tucson area.
Northland Family Health Center — $296,109
The Northland Family Help Center provides shelter and services to unhoused children and youth in the Flagstaff area.
Our Sister Our Brother — $148,049
To hold an expo to provide resources to people who have previously been incarcerated or involved in the criminal justice system.
Persevere — $500,000
Project Engage helps incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people launch careers in the tech field.
Phoenix Indian Center — $500,000
The Culture is Resilience, Culture if Prevention program provides services to reduce incarceration among urban Indigenous youth.
Regional Center for Border Health Inc. — Parker — $500,000
The Coming Home Initiative in Parker will operate seven tiny homes, providing transitional housing and services.
Regional Center for Border Health Inc. — Yuma — $500,000
The Coming Home Initiative in Yuma County will provide workforce development and other services to people released from prison.
Southern Arizona Legal Aid Inc. — $487,435
The Clean Slate Restorative Justice Program will help people with criminal convictions restore their rights and expunge their criminal records.
Stuck Community Acupuncture Inc. — $499,118
Project PINS Mobile AcuDetox will provide mobile detox and substance use dependency services to people in rural parts of Coconino, Navajo and Yavapai counties.
The Bambi Fund — $499,983
The Hustle House promotes entrepreneurship, economic self-sufficiency and other services to people of color and LGBTQ+ people impacted by incarceration.
Reporter Ray Stern contributed.
Daniel Gonzalez covers race, equity and opportunity. Reach him at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8312.
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