Sooner or later, anyone hoping for a permit to grow, test, manufacture or sell marijuana products in an Anchorage neighborhood will need to meet face-to-face with neighbors -- and sooner may be better.

Neighborhood groups and community councils have no regulatory authority to block a proposed marijuana business or require certain conditions. But Anchorage Assembly members, who do have the regulatory authority, have said they plan to take those sentiments into account as Alaska continues on the path to commercial marijuana. And industry representatives have taken note.

[continues 1305 words]

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department has to back off of state medical marijuana laws and hemp research, according to riders tucked into the recent 2016 spending bill -- but many federal obstacles remain as legal marijuana gets off the ground in Alaska.

Congress agreed to $1.8 trillion in tax and spending legislation on Friday, a bill that carries the government through the end of September 2016. It included several rehashed provisions regarding marijuana, but some issues of key interest to Alaska's legalization efforts -- particularly related to veteran care and banking -- remained on the sidelines.

[continues 1231 words]

Nathan wonders something that a few other people have asked about too: "My understanding is that it is currently illegal to consume or possess any amount of marijuana within 500 feet of a school zone, regardless if you're on private property or not. I have a two-part question. 1. Will the law allow people to consume marijuana in their private residence, regardless of where it is in relation to a school zone? 2. Will businesses be allowed to sell marijuana within 500 feet of a school zone?"

[continues 1099 words]

"Board OKs pot use at retail stores" was the Nov. 21 headline in the Alaska Dispatch News. But the Marijuana Control Board still "considers illegal" cannabis social clubs where someone brings their own cannabis products to consume.

The position of the Kachemak Cannabis Coalition is: Social clubs are beyond the jurisdiction of the Marijuana Control Board.

The Alaska Department of Law and Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott now must decide whether social clubs lie within the jurisdiction of the Marijuana Control Board. Principles of the Alaska Constitution govern the key issue of cannabis social clubs.

[continues 133 words]

KETCHIKAN (AP) -- A Ketchikan council member plans to ask for reconsideration of the city's recent pot shop vote.

Members voted 5-2 to prohibit retail sales of marijuana within the city limits. The council can prohibit retail pot sales by passing an ordinance opting out of the retail sales portion of the state's voter-approved marijuana law, Ballot Measure 2, the Ketchikan Daily News reported.

Councilwoman Julie Isom says she voted to prohibit retail sales, but later heard from residents who said they weren't aware of the vote. The agenda said there would be a "discussion of whether to allow retail marijuana businesses within city limits."

[continues 142 words]

Anchorage Assembly members are proposing an April ballot measure to create a 5 percent tax on future retail marijuana sales.

Ernie Hall, chair of the Assembly's committee on marijuana regulation and taxation, said Friday the marijuana sales tax should cover the costs of enforcement and oversight when the state starts licensing marijuana businesses in May.

"We've got new expenses the city's got to cover," Hall said. "We've got to generate the revenue to be able to do it."

[continues 319 words]

KETCHIKAN (AP) - Retail marijuana shops will not be allowed to open within Ketchikan city limits.

Thursday's 5-2 vote came after public comment and a 20-minute discussion, the Ketchikan Daily News reported.

Councilman Dick Coose voted in favor of the measure. He said residents can still grow and share their own marijuana if they are at least 21 years old, but that the city does not need to make the substance readily available by allowing shops.

"I recognize the voters did it to themselves," he said. "Well, sometimes, the voters don't always get it right, and this is one of them. I think it's wrong, because there's too many dangers out there. If the people are going to smoke it, they've got that opportunity."

[continues 133 words]

This week "Peabody" wonders, "If someone was robbed for marijuana, how would law enforcement officers choose to respond, if at all?"

After polling Alaska's major law enforcement departments, the conclusion is pretty clear. If your legally compliant home garden or pot stash is robbed, pinched, cropped or burgled, you should not fear legal repercussions by reporting (unless you have other dirt going on), and officers will investigate your complaint like any other property crime. But that's not to say everyone will suddenly feel entirely comfortable identifying themselves as cannabis growers or victims of theft. People are still free not to report crimes for whatever reason they wish.

[continues 1206 words]

Reversing an earlier decision, Alaska's Marijuana Control Board restored more stringent residency requirements for those hoping to take part in the state's commercial cannabis industry during a brief meeting Tuesday morning.

The amendment adopted Tuesday reverts Alaska residency requirements to Permanent Fund dividend eligibility, which, among other qualifications, requires a person be physically present in the state.

After little discussion, the amendment passed unanimously.

The decision comes after much back and forth regarding how the fledgling legal cannabis industry should take shape in Alaska.

[continues 548 words]

FAIRBANKS (AP) - A marijuana club that allows consumption but not sales quietly opened this week in Fairbanks, and its owners say they are operating within state law.

Coffee and doughnuts were out for customers at The Higher Calling Club, which opened Monday in a remodeled former wine bar downtown, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported. Patrons could sit on overstuffed couches or use a foosball table.

"We're going to have the whole cafe feel to it is what we're looking for," said Marcus Mooers, who owns the business with his wife, Megan. "As you can see, we're trying really hard not to just run some kind of stoner slum house."

[continues 200 words]

The Marijuana Control Board will meet again to take a look at Alaska residency requirements after an 11th-hour change to its rules was met with shock and concern by both the state and industry supporters.

On Dec. 1, the board "will discuss and may amend residency requirements" that were adopted last week, the board announced in an email.

While marijuana businesses must be 100 percent Alaska-owned, on Friday the board changed the definition of what it takes to qualify as an Alaskan.

[continues 313 words]

The board tasked with writing rules for Alaska's recreational marijuana industry voted Friday to allow people to use pot at certain stores that will sell it, a first among the four states that have legalized the drug.

The 3-2 vote by the Marijuana Control Board also changed the definition of the term "in public" to allow for consumption at some pot shops, none of which are open yet. Colorado, Washington and Oregon have legalized recreational marijuana but ban its public use, including in pot stores.

[continues 320 words]

At the end of an all-day meeting Friday to craft Alaska's first regulations over the cannabis industry, the state Marijuana Control Board adopted new rules that could blow the door wide open to Outside investment.

Marijuana businesses must be 100 percent Alaskan owned, but the definition of what makes an Alaskan was changed from matching what is needed to receive a Permanent Fund dividend to matching voter registration requirements, which is far easier to achieve.

Assistant Attorney General Harriet Milks called it a "sea change" that could "upend the whole program."

[continues 819 words]

The Marijuana Control Board voted to allow consumption of marijuana at retail stores, which, if approved by Lt. Gov. Byron Mallott, would make Alaska the first state to permit a regulated area for marijuana consumption outside of a person's home or other private spaces.

The change allows for people to buy marijuana at a retail store and consume it in a designated area on the premises.

The board voted 3-2 in favor of the amendment, with Loren Jones, public health board member, and Peter Mlynarik, the public safety board member, dissenting.

[continues 392 words]

JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - The board tasked with writing rules for Alaska's recreational marijuana industry voted Friday to allow for people to use pot at certain stores that will sell it, a first among the four states that have legalized the drug.

The 3-2 vote by the Marijuana Control Board also changed the definition of the term "in public" to allow for consumption at some pot shops, none of which are open yet.

Colorado, Washington and Oregon have legalized recreational marijuana but ban its public use, including in pot stores.

[continues 65 words]

In a commentary printed Nov. 11, I wrote about the broken structure our addicts face when they enter the criminal justice system. But the question still remained, "How do we fix it?"

While the United States is still warehousing drug addicts in prisons and watching them come in and out of what has become known as the "revolving door," many countries are starting to look to decriminalization to solve this problem.

Related: Heroin story underscores need for Alaska to treat addicts, not imprison them Mat-Su grapples with lack of detox options as heroin use rises

[continues 736 words]

PALMER -- Despite what one Alaska state trooper described as "a huge rise in heroin" in recent years, Alaska's fastest-growing region has no place where addicts can undergo detox when they make the hard choice to get clean.

That's according to panelists at a substance abuse forum hosted by the Mat-Su Health Foundation and attended by about 130 people at Mat-Su College's Glenn Massay Theater Monday night.

Detox is the process of clearing the chemical dependence on drugs or alcohol from an addict's system. Most experts advise doing it under medical supervision. Symptoms of heroin withdrawal can include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea or seizures -- none generally considered life-threatening in the way alcohol detox can be. Many addicts end up detoxing in jail after getting arrested on drug-or alcohol-related crimes.

[continues 870 words]

Back in my misspent youth, I was a registered nurse for a nanosecond. Then I realized that real nurses had something I didn't have ... a desire to be a nurse.

So I got out of the profession. But before I did, I spent more than my fair share of nights in the emergency room of Long Island College Hospital, a hospital that handled some of the meaner streets of Brooklyn. Overdoses were pretty much a daily routine.

On the weekends, overdoses became something close to a marathon.

[continues 634 words]

Part of an occasional series

In emergency medicine, naloxone is as close to a miracle drug as they come.

Usually sold under the name Narcan, the medication can instantly yank a person near death out of an opiate overdose.

Paramedics around Alaska use it almost daily to revive overdose patients they encounter slumped in cars, on couches or in public bathrooms. In Anchorage alone, firefighters administered 352 doses last year.

Some in Alaska think the medication should be in the hands of more people, so families and friends of addicts are equipped to quickly stop overdoses themselves. They envision a world where Narcan could be picked up at the drugstore and stored in a heroin addict's bathroom cabinet, the way the family of someone suffering from a severe peanut allergy might keep an EpiPen around.

[continues 883 words]

Regarding Mike Dingman's op-ed (ADN, Nov. 11), Alaska needs to get legal marijuana sales up and running. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows states with open medical marijuana access have a 25 percent lower opioid overdose death rate than marijuana prohibition states. This research finding has huge implications for states like Alaska that are grappling with prescription narcotic and heroin overdose deaths.

California physicians documented the substitution effect long before the JAMA research. Legal marijuana access is correlated with a reduction in alcohol and opioid abuse. Marijuana is incapable of causing an overdose death. Not even aspirin can make the same claim, much less alcohol or opioids. The phrase "if it saves one life" has been used to justify all manner of drug war abuses. Legal marijuana access has the potential to save thousands of lives.

- - Robert Sharpe, MPA

Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy Washington, D.C.

[end]