Pubdate: Wed, 05 Feb 2014
Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Copyright: 2014 The Anchorage Daily News
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Author: Michelle Theriault Boots

ALASKA MOVES ANOTHER STEP CLOSER TO AUGUST MARIJUANA-LEGALIZATION VOTE

Alaska moved one big step closer Tuesday to a public vote on
legalizing marijuana.

On Tuesday, a ballot initiative campaign to decriminalize and regulate
pot reached the signature threshold necessary under state election law
to put the issue on the Aug. 19 primary ballot.

If the measure passes, Alaska would become the third state in the
nation, after Colorado and Washington, to allow cannabis for
recreational use.

Backers modeled the proposed initiative after Colorado's new law,
which regulates and taxes marijuana similarly to alcohol.

Alaska's Campaign to Regulate Marijuana reached the signature
threshold on Tuesday morning, when totals posted on the Alaska
Division of Elections' website showed that 31,593 valid voter
signatures had been counted. State election law requires 30,000
signatures. Ballot initiative backers also met a requirement to gather
signatures from voters in at least 30 of 40 House districts.

"They have hit the magic numbers," said state elections director Gail
Fenumiai.

Nothing is official quite yet.

First, workers must examine the remaining 5,000 signatures and Lt. Gov
Mead Treadwell must sign certification paperwork, Fenumiai said.
That's expected to happen next week.

Reaching the signature requirement was the last major hurdle to
getting the question on the Aug. 19 primary election ballot.

There, Alaskans will decide on legal pot along other big questions for
the state, including a controversial oil-tax referendum, an initiative
that would require legislative approval for future large-scale mines
in the Bristol Bay region and potentially a boost to the minimum wage.

All that -- plus a contested U.S. Senate race primary -- could draw
large numbers of voters, said Ivan Moore, an Anchorage pollster and
campaign consultant.

"The primary election is looking at being one of the highest turnout
primaries we've had ever, I think," he said.

It's not clear how that will play for the marijuana
question.

But in Alaska as in the rest of the United States, attitudes toward
legalizing the drug have dramatically softened in recent years.

In a 2004 Ivan Moore Research poll that asked if pot should be
decriminalized, only 38 percent of Alaskans said yes. By 2010, the
number jumped to 43 percent when Alaskans were asked if pot should be
legalized. A 2013 poll by the North Carolina-based Public Policy
Polling firm on behalf of the Marijuana Policy Project found that 54
percent of Alaskans polled would vote yes on a ballot initiative.

"There has been phenomenal change," Moore said.

So far, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana has mostly been funded by
the Marijuana Policy Project, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit that
is the largest marijuana policy reform group in the country.

The group has contributed $1,000 in cash and $3,757 in services and
other in-kind donations, according to Alaska Public Offices Commission
campaign disclosure reports. Four individual donors had contributed a
total of $1,800 as of Jan. 11.

Backers argue that pot should be legalized and regulated in a manner
similar to alcohol, with local communities retaining the ability to
opt-out.

So far, most of the campaign's energy has been spent on gathering
signatures, said spokesman Taylor Bickford, who works for Strategies
360, a Seattle-based public relations and consulting firm with offices
in Alaska and throughout the West that's managing the initiative effort.

Campaigners handed 48,000 signatures to the Division of Elections on
Jan. 8.

About 79 percent of signatures counted so far have been found
"qualified" by state rules, said Fenumiai.

Past petitions have had signature acceptance rates of between 80
percent and 89 percent, she said, putting the marijuana initiative at
the low end of the spectrum.

"The bottom line is we exceeded the required number of signatures,"
Bickford said. "You don't get bonus points for having a higher
validity rate."

Most of the 8,485 signatures found "unqualified" by the state are
considered invalid because the signers couldn't be identified as
registered voters, Fenumiai said.

A national anti-legalization group headed by Patrick Kennedy has said
it plans to campaign against the ballot initiative.

Smart Approaches to Marijuana, like its opponent the Campaign to
Regulate Marijuana, appears to be selling its side of the issue as the
only approach compatible with the Alaskan value of
independence.

"Smart Approaches to Marijuana has been approached by Alaskan
activists who don't want to see the safety problems and burdensome
government regulation that would come with legalization," wrote
spokesman Kevin Sabet in an email Tuesdsay.

Sabet wouldn't say who those Alaskan activists were. Plans will be
announced later this spring, he wrote.

Bickford said that argument won't far.

"I don't think Alaskans are going to have a member of the Kennedy
family from the East Coast telling us how to live our lives," Bickford
said.
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MAP posted-by: Matt