Viewpoint: Marijuana sales tax should stay with habitat programs

Les Castran

In 2020, Montana voters approved Initiative 190, which legalized recreational marijuana, established a tax on sales, and identified several publically-desired appropriations of that tax revenue.

One voter-approved annual appropriation was 37% to Fish, Wildlife & Parks Habitat Montana Program for habitat conservation. In 2021, through HB 701, 20% of annual recreational marijuana tax revenue was appropriated to Habitat Montana.

HB 701 also appropriated annual allocations of $6 million to Healing and Ending Addiction Through Recovery and Treatment (HEART),  4% each to state parks, trails and recreation, and nongame wildlife, 3% to veterans and surviving spouses, $300,000 to Department of Justice, and $150,000 to Board of Crime Control.  The remainder, approximately 60%, was appropriated to the state general fund.

Legislators recently introduced three bills that propose to eliminate appropriations of marijuana tax revenue dedicated to Habitat Montana and reallocate the funds to other programs.

SB 442 proposes to reallocate Habitat Montana funds to Department of Transportation for a new county roads maintenance program. HB 462 proposes to reallocate Habitat Montana funds to programs that generally fund correctional officers, addiction, and treatment. With the exception of the HEART appropriation, HB 669 proposes to reallocate appropriations to all of the voter-approved programs, including Habitat Montana, to the state general fund.

SB 442 and HB 462, while their proposed funding allocations certainly have merit, have pitted Montanans against Montanans in their attempts to redirect funding from Habitat Montana to other programs. Given the existing marijuana tax allocations and the state budget surplus identified by the Governor's Office, we feel pitting these programs against each other is unnecessary and better solutions exist.

Currently, 60% of marijuana tax revenue goes to the state general fund. Instead of robbing voter-approved appropriations from one good program to fund other good programs, we suggest reducing the marijuana tax revenue appropriated to the surplused state general fund and fund all programs currently being promoted in these bills.

We're asking legislators to leave existing voter-approved marijuana tax appropriations alone and fund the programs in SB 442 and HB 462, as proposed, by reducing the marijuana tax appropriated to the general fund.

This scenario would still appropriate 20% of the tax revenue to the state general fund. Lets fund all of these programs while assisting ongoing efforts to balance the state budget.

Les Castran is president of the Skyline Sportsmans Association