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LAWMAKERS SAY THEY WILL BE WORKING ON POT BILL PAST FEB.  24

JUNEAU - With 10 days before marijuana becomes legal through November's voter initiative, a senator working closely on legislation intended to smooth out legal gray areas in criminal law says the bill won't be in place before Feb.  24.

After a lengthy Senate Judiciary Committee meeting that touched on a wide array of topics, Sen.  John Coghill, R-North Pole, said several issues still need to be addressed, including medical marijuana, marijuana concentrates, local option control of marijuana in rural communities, and how penalties for minors possessing and consuming marijuana will be handled.

"We're not going to get it passed by the 24th," he said.  "But if we can get it by the next month or so, then police can know what's coming."

That's because the scope of the bill has changed quite a bit since it was introduced.

The bill had been intended to be fast-tracked to get on the books before some parts of Ballot Measure 2 take effect, allowing people 21 and older to possess and transport up to 1 ounce of marijuana as well as allowing limited growing at home.

The initial form of the bill had kept many existing criminal laws in place and would have left it up to people, if charged, to prove they were within the protection of Measure 2.  That provision ended up being highly unpopular both with legalization advocates and state officials.

The bill was sent back to the drawing board after its first meeting and took two weeks to be revised.

The new version, at more than 90 pages and with 160 sections, addresses the major concern of overburdening the law-abiding public but creates a number of other conflicts.

Tracy Wallenberg, a deputy public defender with the Alaska Public Defender Agency, said the limit of 4 ounces of marijuana in the home set by the landmark Alaska Supreme Court decision in Ravin v.  State would conflict with the ability of people to have multiple plants.

The way Wallenberg and others have described the interplay between Measure 2 and other rulings is that Measure 2 allows for the transportation of marijuana outside of the home in quantities up to 1 ounce, while Ravin and the growing provisions allow for much more in the home.

"We're just going to stay out of that," Coghill said later, saying he intended to remove any reference to limits on the amount of marijuana a person can have in the home.