I'm kind of a news geek and search like a mofo for any mj news I can find and I gotta say I'm impressed with the Fairbanks News Miner's coverage. ADN too, but I expect excellence from them. Speaking of though I think the ADN's reporting on cannabis has been pretty good when done by reporters Laurel Andrews and Molly Dischner. Their Cannabis North column that answers reader submitted questions is a bit flat. He goes very in depth but his tone is annoying and his jokes bomb.
ANYWAY, the FB paper has a good story updating what's happenng in Juneau. Its long but worth reading if you're interested in a glimpse of how your legislators are dealing with cannabis. Most impressive to me is the ABC board chair Cynthia Franklin, she really seems committed to managing cannabis like alcohol and has a way easier time doing it than the meddlesome legislators.
http://www.newsminer.com/news/alaska_news/alaska-house-passes-bill-setting-up-marijuana-control-board/article_dc178dd6-e310-11e4-b187-536c63cc385f.html
Alaska House passes bill setting up Marijuana Control Board
JUNEAU — Time might be running out for most of the Legislature's many bills on marijuana, but the House on Tuesday passed a bill to create a board tasked with pot regulations.
In a 25-15 vote, the House approved House Bill 123 to create the Marijuana Control Board as outlined by the voter initiative that legalized marijuana last fall.
The board was outlined as an option for the Legislature in Ballot Measure 2, which legalized personal possession of marijuana and created a roadmap for commercial marijuana sales.
The bill would set up the board with shared staff with the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which is the default body in charge of forming regulations and has already begun work on those regulations.
Ballot Measure 2 requires the state to adopt regulations by November and begin issuing licenses by May 2016.
The Marijuana Control Board would have five volunteer members—one from public safety, one from public health, one from rural Alaska, one working in the marijuana industry and another from either the general public or actively engaged in the marijuana industry.
The board would cost the state about $1.5 million a year and add four more employees — a business registration examiner and three investigators who would also work on alcohol regulations.
Fairbanks Democratic Rep. David Guttenberg said he supported Ballot Measure 2 because "it was time to move into the real world." He said he initially supported the Legislature taking a strong role in deciding the outlines of regulations but that so far he's been unconvinced that the Legislature is up to the task.
"This body has troubled me in its decision-making process on this issue," he said.
Rep. Steve Thompson, a Fairbanks Republican who co-chairs the House Finance Committee, urged support for the bill both to meet the will of the voters as well as to help control the cost of regulation.
"This is important to get into place at this time, and, if we don’t, we’re going to have a real problem," he said.
Some of the strongest support for the bill was put forward by Rep. Benjamin Nageak, D-Barrow. Nageak said that people act very differently while using alcohol and marijuana and said there should be separate systems in place to regulate them.
"(With alcohol) you start beating your wife, your kids, you start abusing people. That's a completely different kind of high that we're talking about. You ever been around high people? They make you laugh," he said. "I mean, geez, every time I see someone high, I want to go over because I'm going to laugh. I don't want to go over to someone who's drunk and have them start abusing me."
The second-term rural Democrat generated the most laughs when he said bluntly, "I'd much rather be around happy people than unhappy people."
Still, many legislators opposed the bill out of concern that it doesn't specifically bar felons or people with drug misdemeanors from holding a marijuana license or working at a marijuana business.
Anchorage Republican Rep. Bob Lynn had proposed an amendment that would have prevented people with a felony conviction or a drug misdemeanor in the past five years from owning or working at a marijuana business. The amendment failed 26-14.
It was a sticking point for at least half a dozen legislators who cited the failure of the amendment when standing up to speak in opposition to the bill itself.
"I think that’s a really good policy," said Rep. Mike Hawker, R-Anchorage, "but I am horribly afraid that by us rejecting it that it will be taken as a statement of affirmation that we want felons to be able to own marijuana establishments."
In a later floor speech, Anchorage Democratic Rep. Max Gruenberg pointed out that case law has firmly established that rejecting one measure may not be misconstrued for support of the opposite.
After the floor vote, Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Director Cynthia Franklin said she intends for marijuana's felony regulations to be the same as what is currently in place for alcohol license owners.
Currently, anyone with a felony in the last 10 years does not automatically qualify for a license. But she said the board does have flexibility to look at extenuating circumstances, like the person going through rigorous treatment over many years, and grant a license.
The state doesn't have a blanket ban on employees with a criminal record working at alcohol establishments.
Rep. Gabrielle LeDoux, an Anchorage Republican who as the chairwoman of the House Judiciary Committee has led the discussion on marijuana laws, pointed out that those issues are being addressed by the alcohol board. She said putting it into law is onerous.
"That’s why we have boards, so we don’t have to stick everything into the statute," she said, adding that even if the board exercises its flexibility to allow the rare felon a license that "I don't see that as the end of the world."
There was some talk after the floor session about voting on the bill under reconsideration Wednesday with the intention of offering a tailored version of the felony amendment.
The revisited amendment would only ban a felon from obtaining a marijuana license and would not affect employment. Still, after the floor vote that change didn't appear to make any difference for members who had opposed the first version of the amendment.
After Wednesday's reconsideration vote, the bill will move over to the Senate. The Senate version of the bill currently has three committee referrals, but some in the chamber's leadership have expressed interest in getting it into law before they are scheduled to gavel out this weekend.
Contact staff writer Matt Buxton at 459-7544. Follow him on Twitter: @FDNMpolitics.
