in our Spotlight on Business Report will the state raise taxes on cannabis Advocates and members of New Jersey's cannabis Regulatory Commission are debating whether to increase what's known as the social Equity excise fee it's a tax on every ounce of recreational Cannabis sold with the money steered toward social Equity projects in neighborhoods most affected by the War on Drugs with the industry booming Progressive groups say the time is now to raise more money for that mission While others argue a high tax will hurt the market Ted Goldberg has the [Music] details I think it behooves us to get this right the Cannabis Regulatory Commission is taking a smoke break on raising the social Equity excise fee or SE charged on each ounce of cannabis I think this would afford the commission more time to gather more information to speak to more stakeholders and organizations who represent the businesses and the people who will be directly impacted by this decision the CRC had considered raising the sea from a buck 24 per ounce to $30 per ounce during a virtual meeting Wednesday but they say they'll mull it over a bit longer that money is specifically earmarked to go back to communities that have been most harmed by the War on Drugs folks that have been traditionally disenfranchised the sea has changed each year that Canabis has been sold in New Jersey and it's raised about $5.5 million so far by law 15% of that money is dedicated to underage deterrence while the rest is allocated by Statewide and local leaders let's say your community needs after school programming that money could be used to fund that or maybe a scholarship fund or maybe that money could be used for Grant programs for minority owned businesses that might need additional additional reinvestment this is necessary to ensure the Investments are so desperately that are desperately needed to repair and restore impacted communities are done in a meaningful and substantive way this is a very targeted fee on cultivators which tend to be as far as industry goes larger and wealthier parts of that industry and New Jersey is actually one of the lowest taxed cannabis Industries in the country right now Advocates say the sea needs to be raised to help communities adversely affected by the War on Drugs at the time the SE was set purposefully low in order to allow the new industry to grow with a promise that a higher fee would be implemented in the future to meet the need for Meaningful Community reinvestment My Hope Is that um when you know the final decision is made that we will not be leaving millions of dollars on the table that should be invested back into black and latinx communities that have borne the brunt of the drug war others argue that cannabis in New Jersey is already too expensive and that raising the sea would aggravate customers and make it harder for people trying to break into the industry you can't kill this Golden Goose right now because this tax this thief tax at the $30 rate would decimate the racial and social Equity that you built and what it would do is absolutely exacerbate the problems of the Legacy Market one of the greatest successes that New Jersey has had the fund is great um well intended I can understand certainly a modest increase if you went from a dollar 24 to 250 or even $5 dollar the feeling back to the consumer would be negligible but to go to a 23 100% increase right now is the absolute wrong time even the CRC concedes that small businesses could face obstacles that would be easier for big business I'm concerned for all of our businesses but our small businesses our businesses that are just on boarding our new cultivators um this decision can be devastating and what we've already heard um from businesses access to Capital is so hard to come by the sea is predicted to bring in about $2.5 million over fiscal year 2024 with possibly much more money raised in the future off the backs of buyers and sellers in New Jersey's cannabis market for NJ Spotlight news I'm Ted Goldberg [Music]