The Baltimore City Council unanimously voted Monday to create a new commission that will oversee the funds received from the statewide Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund. It makes Baltimore City the first community in the state to start formally creating a process for those reparations.
The newly approved 17-member body, all but one of whom will be appointed by the mayor, will decide how to invest that funding. As per the legislation, introduced by Council President Nick Mosby and Councilmember Kristerfer Burnett, the commission will focus on providing supplemental funding for local programs that focus on low-income communities. It will also make recommendations to city administration with ideas on how to “repair the damage done by structurally racist and white supremacist policies” towards minority communities in Baltimore from cannabis prohibition and resulting incarceration.
On May 3rd, Governor Wes Moore signed legislation into law that will allow some funding from the sale of recreational cannabis to go towards communities that were “disproportionately” impacted by the War on Drugs. It’s unknown yet how much money will be allocated towards Baltimore City. The city and each county is able to create their own process for using those funds. The law does not specifically mention racial groups.
“ I think most can look at the numbers and determine that African Americans in the state of Maryland were impacted gravely by the War on Drugs, particularly these cannabis policies,” said Mosby. While the state law does not specifically mention race, the Baltimore City law requires commissioners to have an understanding of systemic racism and the disparate impacts of drug laws on African American and other minority communities.
By state law, a “disproportionately impacted area” is a geographic area that has more than 150% of Maryland’s 10-year average for cannabis possession charges. Counties and Baltimore City will receive money proportionate to the number of cannabis possession charges in that county relative to the total charges in the state between the dates of July 1, 2002 and Jan. 1, 2023.
