Pubdate: Sat, 07 Sep 2013
Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Copyright: 2013 The Anchorage Daily News
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Author: Richard Mauer

ALASKANS MAY GET CHANCE TO 'JUST SAY YES' ON MARIJUANA BALLOT MEASURE

For more than 30 years, Alaska's libertarian streak made it the only 
state in which it was legal, under some circumstances, to smoke 
marijuana just for the fun of it.

Then along came voters in Colorado and Washington state. Last year, 
both states passed initiatives legalizing pot and setting up rules 
for production, sales and taxation.

Now backers of a similar initiative here say they are close to giving 
Alaskans the same opportunity to just say yes. They're nearly halfway 
to reaching their goal of getting 45,000 signatures by Dec. 1, about 
15,000 more than the number needed to put the measure on the 2014 
primary election ballot, according to Timothy Hinterberger, the 
measure's main sponsor.

The initiative would add a new seven-page chapter to Alaska's statute 
books, making it legal for adults at the age at which they may buy 
beer to also possess up to an ounce of pot anywhere, except where a 
property owner banned it. It would set up a state regulatory body to 
oversee cannabis farms, dealers and advertising, and ensure that 
products don't end up with juveniles or on the black market. The 
initiative would impose a $50-an-ounce excise tax that would be 
collected between the greenhouse and the store or factory.

Employers would still be able to ban smoking or possession at work 
and prevent employees from being high on the job. Driving under the 
influence would still be illegal, and local governments could outlaw 
pot growing and sales -- but not possession -- by local option. 
Police officers would have to stop their current practice of seizing 
small amounts of marijuana when they encounter it. The measure would 
authorize retail pot shops but not dope dens, parlors or bars.

"In a free society, prohibition of popular substances is just bad 
public policy," Hinterberger said.

Since Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell ruled June 14 that the initiative could 
proceed to the signature-gathering phase, the measure has been 
gaining support, Hinterberger said. Momentum accelerated, he said, 
with the announcement Aug. 29 by the U.S. Justice Department that it 
wouldn't enforce federal drug laws against possession, production and 
sale of pot in states where it was legal and where well-managed controls exist.

"I've had a lot of people talk to me about that since then," 
Hinterberger said. "I think that shows that we are on the right track 
in thinking that things are really changing, both in federal policy 
as well in public sentiment. It eliminates one of the arguments you 
sometimes hear against an initiative like ours -- it doesn't matter 
what we do locally as a state because the feds will still step in."

The Justice Department "guidance" to its 93 U.S. attorneys, including 
Karen Loeffler in Anchorage, notes that Congress "has determined that 
marijuana is a dangerous drug and that the illegal distribution and 
sale of marijuana is a serious crime that provides a significant 
source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises, gangs and cartels."

But the advisory directed local federal law enforcement officials to 
focus on big priorities, not simple possession or legalized marijuana 
grow and sale operations. Those priorities include preventing pot 
from falling into the hands of youngsters, targeting criminal 
traffickers, and preventing cultivation on public lands or the 
possession of pot on federal property, including military bases.

In the cases of states that have legalized pot, the Justice 
Department expects them to block interstate sales, the guidance said. 
If states fail to enact "robust" enforcement of marijuana 
restrictions, the Justice Department said it would challenge them in 
court and bring criminal prosecutions under federal law.

Loeffler said the U.S. attorney's office in Alaska already focuses on 
the big trafficking cases and ignores small possession crimes unless 
related to another violation, like a felon in possession of a firearm.

"We don't have the resources or the time or the priorities to 
prosecute simple possession and use of marijuana -- we never have, 
just because we have other things to do," Loeffler said.

RIGHT OF PRIVACY VS. WAR ON DRUGS

Alaska's story on marijuana has been one of twists and turns, with 
alternating efforts at liberalization and recriminalization, 
depending on the mood of the day.

In 1972, as the youths of the '60s who hadn't dropped out were 
becoming young professionals, Alaska voters overwhelmingly passed one 
of the most important amendments to the state constitution: a 
guarantee of the right of privacy. Four months later, Homer resident 
Irwin Ravin arranged for police to bust him with two joints in his pocket.

Ravin, who died in Anchorage in 2010 at the age of 70, became 
synonymous with marijuana liberalization when the Alaska Supreme 
Court dismissed his case in 1975. Making Alaska the only state with 
legalized marijuana, it ruled 5-0 that the state law banning 
possession violated the newly approved right of privacy, at least for 
small amounts in a person's home. The state could still bar use of 
pot in public or by minors, the court said, and could restrict sales 
and the quantity that a person could possess.

It took the Legislature seven years to figure out how to implement 
that decision. In 1982, it set the legalized "small amount" at 4 
ounces or four plants; anything more than that was a misdemeanor.

Soon, however, the "War on Drugs" raging in the rest of the United 
States came to Alaska. The state Senate, then dominated by 
Republicans, urged complete recriminalization. The House, run by 
Democrats, stymied their efforts. Frustrated by gridlock, opponents 
of legalization sponsored a ballot measure in the Nov. 6, 1990, 
general election that restored criminal penalties to possession of 
any amount. It passed with 54 percent of the vote, 105,263 to 88,644.

Few prosecutions were brought under the law, however. Superior courts 
rejected it as a violation of the Ravin decision, but it didn't reach 
an appellate court until 2003, when the Alaska Court of Appeals 
agreed it was unconstitutional. The Alaska Supreme Court refused to 
hear any more of it, letting the Court of Appeals decision stand.

THE LAW NOW

Meanwhile, in 1998, a medical marijuana initiative took nearly 59 
percent of the vote, making Alaska the sixth state to allow people 
with serious diseases to register for legal pot to control nausea and 
pain. But unlike some states that allowed "dispensaries" to flourish 
as de facto pot markets, Alaska never provided a legal means to 
obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Buoyed by their success on the medical marijuana initiative, 
supporters tried for full-scale legalization in 2000. But they 
proposed a ludicrously broad measure that suggested paying 
reparations to anyone busted for marijuana and requiring the state to 
expunge the records of anyone charged criminally for pot. Some 
experts thought the law would have required even the Supreme Court to 
erase all references to the name "Ravin" in its decisions. The 
initiative failed, getting less than 41 percent of the vote.

A more limited legalization measure in 2004 again failed, but by a 
closer vote, 44 percent to 56 percent.

Gov. Frank Murkowski, in office from 2002 to 2006, said he was 
determined to overturn the Ravin decision and proposed that the 
Legislature pass a new law criminalizing all possession and issue 
findings describing the danger of even small amounts. The law passed 
in 2006 and just as quickly a Juneau Superior Court judge struck it 
down. The Alaska Supreme Court, though, said the judge acted 
prematurely -- she had ruled before anyone had been busted.

Apparently no one has since. So that's where the law stands now: A 
ban on possession of small quantities is written into law but the law 
is clearly unconstitutional, said Joshua Decker, acting executive 
director of the ACLU of Alaska.

"The Legislature did try to pare back Ravin but that's not how it 
works in our democracy," Decker said. "Courts get the last word in 
defining constitutional rights and Ravin was a constitutional 
decision, so that's not something the Legislature has the ability to 
overrule or restrict."

Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew said that while possession of 
marijuana remains against the law, "the Ravin decision effectively 
blocked the state from prosecution of simple possession of less than 
four ounces." If officers encounter a small quantity, they'll seize 
it as contraband and the department will eventually destroy it, Mew said.

State law enforcement officials didn't respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for Gov. Sean Parnell said he likely would not comment 
on the ballot measure.

"The governor doesn't weigh in on initiatives," said the spokeswoman, 
Sharon Leighow.

Sen. Hollis French, a Democratic candidate for governor in 2014 and a 
one-time prosecutor, said he was leaning against the initiative.

"If I had to vote today, the former prosecutor in me would vote no," 
he said in a email. "The Washington and Colorado experiments with 
legalization may shed more light on the question in time for the vote 
next August."

Independent gubernatorial candidate Bill Walker, a long-term 
Republican, said he opposed the measure.

"My conservative values don't take me there," he said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom