With Carroll County’s revenue from a state tax on recreational marijuana starting to accumulate, officials scheduled a public hearing for Oct. 16 to determine how to best utilize these funds at Thursday’s meeting of the county Board of Commissioners.
Carroll currently has $1.9 million in tax revenue at its disposal, and could start distributing these funds to community nonprofits as soon as Jan. 1, 2026.
But the discussion reignited some past tensions among the county commissioners — a group that has, at times, been morally opposed to the use of cannabis tax revenue.
“I don’t like the law,” said Ken Kiler, board president. “But we need to remember that the majority of Carroll voted for it, and that’s who we represent.”
In Maryland, all recreational marijuana sales are taxed at 12%. About a third goes into the Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund, which supports communities disproportionately affected by prior cannabis prohibition enforcement. Revenue from the fund is distributed to each Maryland county based on how many people were arrested for possession of cannabis in that county before it was legalized.
According to a review of government data by the American Civil Liberties Union, Black people are three times more likely than white people to be incarcerated for cannabis use, even though they use it at similar rates.
For the Community Reinvestment and Repair Fund, counties have to use the money toward addressing issues among residents who have been unequally targeted for cannabis use. The state also allows counties to put cannabis tax revenue money back into zip codes where more people were historically arrested for cannabis use. Carroll County only has one such zip code, 21157.
In community surveys conducted by the county’s grants office, residents said they most wanted to use the money for housing, behavioral health care, workforce development and childcare. The grants office has proposed offering a total of $1.35 million in grants for community nonprofits to apply for, and opening applications for these grants in October.
Tax revenue from cannabis sales in Maryland has also steadily declined over the past two years since recreational cannabis was legalized. With the trend expected to continue, Grants Manager Corey Hardinger said the county grants office wanted to hold off on spending the extra $600,000 from the state fund.
“I think we all anticipated that when it first became legal, a lot of people may decide that they wanted to go try it out,” Hardinger said. “Revenue has decreased, and it will probably level off at some point. So we certainly don’t want to over-commit.”
Because Carroll County has a poverty rate below the state average, it has struggled to get funding to put toward issues like housing and childcare among low-income residents, said Celene Steckel, the county’s director of citizen services.
“We could help support these funds, which would be a win for our community, with this amount,” Steckel said.
Still, Commissioners Susan Krebs and Joseph Vigliotti brought up the fact that recreational cannabis is not federally legal, despite being fully legal in Maryland and more than 30 states. In 2024, the county board of commissioners voted 3-2 to accept money from the cannabis tax revenue, with some members insisting that it was morally wrong to use funds collected from the sale of drugs.
“The number one investor in the marijuana industry is big tobacco… and they are specifically targeting certain populations in certain communities,” said Vigliotti, who voted against accepting the tax revenue in 2024. “To me, there’s a kind of moral dis-incongruity between targeting a community, and then the money that you’re extracting from this community you’re using to turn around, to try to better the community.”
Krebs, a former state delegate, said she’s found the progression of cannabis regulation “mind-boggling.”
“They just want us to spend money on these people that were disproportionately impacted for whatever — we have one zip code,” Krebs said. “If we’re going to collect the money and we’re going to spend it, I believe we should be doing it on prevention and discouragement, just like we do with the Cigarette Restitution Fund.”
Hardinger pointed out that the Carroll County Health Department has its own programs geared toward drug education and prevention.
Kiler, who voted in favor of accepting cannabis tax revenue in 2024, reminded commissioners that the meeting was “a motion to hold a public hearing, not just a banter about whether marijuana is good or not.”
Members of the public are encouraged to attend and voice their opinions on how the county should use the tax revenue.
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