Authorities, businesses weigh in on marijuana law change

PALMER — Shortly after the Nov. 4 election results became public, the phone at the University of Alaska Fairbanks cooperative extension began to ring.

The majority of the new callers were asking for tips on how to grow marijuana, said Stephen Brown, the extension’s district agricultural agent.

“When the ordinance passed, our phone rang off the hook for two days,” he said.

The calls created a dilemma for the extension, which has extensive connections to the United States Department of Agriculture. The federal government still categorizes marijuana as illegal, and providing that information could land them in trouble. So they politely declined to provide the information, though the extension has always received calls they strongly suspect involve marijuana, Brown said.

“When we get a call from somebody growing hydroponic tomatoes in December, and they don’t want to provide us a tissue sample, it’s pretty clear they’re not talking about tomatoes,” he said.

The rush of calls led to a discussion among faculty about whether any agency tied to federal money could provide information to someone who was growing marijuana in accordance with state laws without jeopardizing any federally provided resources.

Beside jokes about being the “cool” extension — regional offices in the state apparently weren’t deluged with similar calls — the discussion lead assistant professor Cathryn Dodge to author a peer-reviewed paper on the subject matter, due out Dec. 18 in the Journal of Extension.

Among the issues central to the debate: could Dodge teach a person who announced they were planning to sell marijuana how to make an effective business plan? Would professors end up in a situation where the “m-word” is forbidden in class?

“It’s a weird, nebulous place to be,” she said, adding that, considering medical marijuana is allowed in Alaska and pre-ballot-initiative state law seems to allow for the possession of small amounts of the drug, “marijuana’s been legal in our state for decades.”

In order for the business to really be considered a success story, there must be a way to draw new income into the state, which could be difficult given restrictions on using federally funded transportation to move product as well as Alaska’s remoteness, Dodge said.

The academic debate was just the latest chapter in the tangled web of connections between Valley agriculture and illicit marijuana growth.

Brown often finds himself talking to people on the recreational drug side of the fence in passing. For example, during a conversation on a plane flight, Brown encountered a marijuana grower who began critiquing extension literature on hydroponic cultivation. Another time, Brown was volunteer teaching gardening to inmates at Goose Creek Correctional, and he mentioned the long-known practice of “distressing” plants, or subjecting them to adverse conditions to encourage them to bloom.

“All of the sudden, a light bulb went on,” Brown said. “One of the guys said ‘Oh, is that why you have to spray the buds with Freon?’”

A recent forum at the Alaska Municipal League on the ballot issue was well attended. At a summer agricultural forum with U.S. Sen. Mark Begich, the subject dominated discussion, according to Brown.

“There are some very upstanding individuals in the community who want to grow marijuana,” he said.

While academics try to balance federal and state concerns about legalized marijuana, local business owners and representatives from state agencies have long found themselves in similarly perilous waters. Given the wide swings in sunlight, and constraints on growing in Alaska, crop fields are frequently grown in hydroponic setups — where the roots are bathed in water instead of soil — before being transplanted into a garden, a process known as “season extension,” Brown said. He’s sometimes called to consult with hydroponic set-ups seized in drug busts that end up being used in local schools.

The advent of legal marijuana could lead to an uptick in grow light sales at places like Alaska Jack’s Hydroponics and Gardening Supply or Far North Gardening. Or it could mean lean times for garden supply outlets. Jack Maxwell, who owns one store in Palmer and another in Anchorage, is waiting to see.

If the Alaska Legislature allows marijuana growth on an industrial scale, it could harm his business, according to Maxwell. He said if large-scale farms enter the market people could potentially forego gardening, and buy straight from distributors.

“Then, maybe you’ve knocked 100 people out of jobs,” he said.

Grow lights can be used to grow anything, Maxwell said. For example, his two stores compete every winter to see who can grow the best tomatoes using artificial lights.

“We have quite a few up here that grow vegetables,” he said. “You might suspect somebody is growing marijuana, but you don’t know that for sure. I suspect that they make up a fair share of revenue.”

Some people have become more open since the law’s apparent passage, Maxwell said.

“More and more people have got their medical cards,” he said. “There’s more and more people getting their cards. Obviously, if people are interested and they feel more relaxed about that subject they’re more willing to talk about it. They’re definitely coming out more and more.”

While the law has been approved, meaning possession and transportation provisions could go into effect as early as late February 2015, a regulatory schema for its public sale may take longer, said Palmer District Attorney Roman Kalytiak. In the meantime, the Division of Law, like the Division of Agriculture and Division of Public Safety, is waiting for governor-elect Bill Walker to take the reins at the state level before making hard and fast determinations, Kalytiak and representatives from those departments said. Until the law takes effect, no changes to enforcement or prosecution of drug offenses will be made, Kalytiak said.

“I don’t think this law is retroactive,” he said. “I haven’t heard of an of us changing the way we do business.”

Some provisions of existing law will carry forward, Kalytiak said. For example, possession is still illegal for children and adults less than 21 years old. Likely short term considerations will probably focus around sixth-degree drugs misconduct — also known as ‘simple possession,’ unlike ‘possession with intent to distribute,’ for example — though those cases already don’t involve a lot of legal resources, Kalytiak said.

“If you look at our cases, especially the bigger cases we have, I don’t think marijuana enforcement was necessarily a priority so much … I don’t think it made up a huge number of cases,” he said.

And while justice is reportedly blind, district attorneys can see just fine, Kalytiak said.

“All prosecutors need to pay attention to what are the needs of the community, because those people are going to be our jurors,” he said. “Looking at the results, and the percentage that voted for and against it, that could be interesting because it gives us a feel for the what the public attitude is.”

His office has already focused on burglaries, theft, and crimes against people, Kalytiak said. Other law enforcement agencies have moved in a similar direction, he said.

“I think some of the enforcement efforts in the last number of years have shifted to meth and heroin and prescription pill use and abuse,” he said. “Because of that shift, I think law enforcement agencies have found those things that contribute more to burglary and thefts, because there’s definitely a connection between them.”

If law enforcement experience in Colorado and Washington state is any indicator, one aspect of the war on drugs likely won’t change. Spokespeople with the Washington State Patrol, the Colorado State Patrol, and the Denver and Seattle police departments all said not a single drug dog had been retired as a result of legalization there.

Dogs still smell marijuana and still point it out to their human partners, but if the amount they find is within legal limits, officers simply return it, said Seattle police Detective Patrick Michaud.

“We handle that on the back end,” he said. “The dogs are going to take some time to handle not hitting on marijuana..”

That could be read as good news, since drug dogs on average cost $9,000 each and require weeks of training before they’re allowed to hit the streets — meaning Alaska’s five single-purpose detection dogs and five dual-purpose detection and patrol dogs could cost a total of $90,000, plus months of training, according to figures provided by the Alaska State Troopers.

Alaska officials were still getting a read on how the law change will affect enforcement issues, said Alaska State Troopers spokeswoman Elizabeth Ipsen.

“We are still evaluating what impacts, if any, the passing of the initiative will have on our K9 program,” she said.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269 or brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com.