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Dr. Torian Easterling is Senior Vice President of Population and Community Health and Chief Strategic and Innovation Officer at One Brooklyn Health and a former First Deputy Commissioner and Chief Equity Officer in the City’s Department of Health and Sanitation.

In 2023, New York’s legal cannabis industry generated nearly $16.3 million in revenue, a figure that is expected to grow significantly as more dispensaries open across the state and the market matures.

This revenue will help support necessary infrastructure, especially in cities that have chosen to open recreational dispensaries. This revenue will also help achieve one of the main goals of the Marijuana Regulation & Taxation Act (MRTA) – strengthening the state’s economy.

However, there is currently no clear plan for how these revenues would support the MRTA’s other goal: reinvesting in the communities most affected by cannabis prohibition.

New York’s approach rightly focused on individuals or families convicted of a cannabis-related crime, giving priority to those most harmed and providing them with greater access to the cannabis dispensary application process.

But thousands more individuals and families have been harmed by cannabis prohibition than people who have the permits to open or operate a legal cannabis dispensary, or even want to. We must ensure that we do more to right the wrongs that have been done to Black and brown communities by cannabis prohibition.

One way to do this is to create programs that specifically invest revenue from the legal cannabis industry in the neighborhoods and communities most affected by the racism that still permeates drug policy.

While New York likes to be a leader, we can also be at the forefront and learn from others in other cases. New York can look to and learn from the success of other states that have invested cannabis revenues in specific neighborhoods.

Minnesota has pledged to invest $15 million in communities most affected by cannabis prohibition. The money won’t be disbursed until 2026, but the legal framework can be replicated in our state.

And in Evanston, Illinois, the city has passed a “real estate reparations tax.” Revenue from the two distribution centers will be distributed to people affected by the “harms of slavery and institutional racism.”

Reinvesting these cannabis revenues in select communities will not only close the racial wealth gap, but will also have a direct impact on the racial health gap. According to Basset and Galea, the evidence suggests that reparations or reinvestment in the community should be a public health priority and can help eliminate racial health disparities.

In New York, this could mean using revenue from the cannabis market to build affordable housing, an issue the state has already linked to health consequences. Other experts have also suggested that revenue could be reinvested in mental health services, such as mobile psychiatric crisis units.

Deploying mobile mental health crisis units or peer navigators with first-hand experience in communities harmed by cannabis prohibition represents a long-term investment in a critical area of ​​public health that is most often underfunded. Or, put more simply, that revenue can be used to increase Medicaid reimbursement rates and improve care for patients using Medicaid, or contribute to much-needed funding for social care hospitals in Black and brown communities.

Cannabis tax revenue in New York could be a significant and much-needed source of revenue, but to achieve the goals of the MRTA, we cannot distribute that revenue equally.

New York State must target its reinvestment strategy and reduce both the racial wealth gap and the racial health gap. This must be a priority as our elected officials distribute funds from the first years of appropriations.