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LEDOUX: KELLY'S AMENDMENT TO POT BILL WILL NOT PASS

JUNEAU - The head of a House committee that has spent much of the session reviewing marijuana said an amendment pushed through by a Fairbanks senator to ban all marijuana concentrates in 2017 will not survive in her committee.

Anchorage Republican and House Judiciary chairwoman Rep.  Gabrielle LeDoux said a controversial amendment authored by Sen.  Pete Kelly isn't what Alaskans voted for when they passed Ballot Measure 2.

"I would not go in that direction," she said.  "To me, it is very important to adhere to the will of the people, and the people didn't say 'Let's have concentrates for two years and then two years later we'll stop being able to use them.' That was not the initiative."

The House Judiciary Committee held a handful of joint sessions with the Senate Judiciary Committee as the two worked through Senate Bill 30 and its House companion, House Bill 79.

The bill produced by the Senate Judiciary Committee was dramatically rewritten by the Senate Finance Committee and saw more than 20 amendments last week, including Kelly's amendment.

Kelly's amendment was the last amendment offered and would re-criminalize all marijuana concentrates - including edibles - as soon as the two-year constitutional protection for voter-approved initiatives expires.  There's also concerns among legislative aides that the amendment would actually go so far to ban anything with tetrahydrocannabinols, commonly known as THC, the main psychoactive ingredient found in leafy marijuana.

Kelly pitched the amendment as protecting children from high-dosage marijuana.

LeDoux agreed with the sentiment but said she believes children can be protected through regulation, such as requiring childproof containers and limiting serving sizes.

"You don't want marijuana gummy bears," she said.  "You don't want things that are specifically intended to hook kids on marijuana.  You want things like childproof containers.  But we're not exactly sure what that looks like, so that's why we have regulations."

But just when LeDoux's committee will get its turn to take on Senate Bill 30 is increasingly unclear.

The Senate Finance Committee had been scheduled to wrap up work on the completed bill Saturday, but the meeting was delayed nearly five hours before finally being canceled.

In the weekly Senate majority news conference, Senate Finance Co-Chair Sen.  Anna MacKinnon said there are a few cleanup amendments that are being worked on not related to Kelly's amendment, but with the budget and confirmations hearings she said it could be a week before there's time for the committee to bring the bill back.

MacKinnon broke with her co-chair Kelly on the amendment, voting against it.  She agreed with LeDoux that concern for safety is valid but that Kelly's amendment wasn't the appropriate method.

"We're all united that concentrates can hurt kids," she said.  "I personally thought it should wait for the regulatory bill."

As for the Legislature's ability to get the bill to Gov.  Bill Walker's desk before the end of session, MacKinnon said she had hoped to give the House sufficient time to review the bill but admitted "they might need to start having those conversations now."

LeDoux's House Judiciary Committee hasn't be sitting idle for the last two months.  It has held plenty of meetings, including one where the Juneau Police Department and legalization advocates brought in examples of marijuana, including a baggie containing an ounce of leafy marijuana and marijuana concentrates like hash oil.

"I think education never hurts anybody," she said, adding that two members had never seen marijuana in person before.

"I went to Berkeley, obviously I've seen marijuana," she said.  "There are probably very few people in this building who have never seen marijuana in its weed form, but I've never seen hash oil."

LeDoux added that, until doing work on the issue of marijuana legalization this session, she just thought of edibles as the "Alice B.  Toklas brownies," named after the partner of Modernist author Gertrude Stein, not the more concentrated forms prevalent in the Lower 48.

The Feb.  24 legalization date for personal use has passed "and Western civilization did not fall apart because we do not have a marijuana bill on the books," she said.  "I'd rather see no bill than the form that it is in the Senate right now."