Valley pot debate gets rollin’

WASILLA — The first Alaska municipality to address marijuana directly will revisit the regulations it passed, while three other Valley cities prepare to begin the discussion.

In at least one case, debate appeared likely to focus on familiar issues related to commercialization of marijuana following the voter-approved legalization initiative in November.

The Wasilla City Council introduced a measure on a 4-1 vote designed to revise marijuana laws passed at its Feb. 23 meeting. Councilman Stu Graham, who authored many of the original provisions, cast the lone dissenting vote. The introduction did not require a motion for introduction, council members said, but a vote was taken anyway.

Councilman Brandon Wall, one of two council members who opposed the measures passed on Feb. 23, authored the revisions over concern that some provisions, in particular the ban on edibles and limits to quantity deemed legal to transport in vehicles, could invite expensive lawsuits.

“On the introduction, we’re not here to debate the language in the ordinance itself, but really just to determine if the subject matter merits the council’s time, and I believe that it does,” he said. “In the debate on 15-08 (the ordinance approved Feb. 23), what was lost in the discussion was the legal ramifications of the language used in the ordinance. And what was passed, in my opinion, sort of skirts the boundaries of what local control we are willing to exercise.”

Palmer officials also intend a broad-based discussion about potential marijuana ordinances in the city at a meeting of the Palmer City Council March 10.

As a starting point for discussion, two council members proposed draft ordinances for the city that include language that may be changed in the Wasilla ordinances.

Palmer provisions include:

• A ban on “any method to process oil or any substance from marijuana using an extraction method...”

• The ban also defines extraction.

• Anyone who violates the ban is subject to a fine.

The legislation also works to resolve the language conflict between “public places” and “in public” apparent from the passage of Ballot Measure 2, something state legislators have worked to resolve as well. It would also include language similar to that stricken from the first draft of Wasilla’s ordinances prohibiting use “on private property adjacent to a public place or private place of another without consent of the owner or person in control thereof.”

One of the draft legislation’s two authors, deputy mayor Steve Carrington, said he was opposed to the idea of edibles, which he said was a holdover from the days when carrying the plants or the processed plant was illegal.

“To me, if we’re getting into edible products, that was from when you’re trying to hide it (marijuana consumption),” he said.

Concerns about edibles — frequently used to dispense marijuana medicinally — are overblown, Carrington said, because laws governing medical marijuana are covered under a different section of Alaska law.

The proposed legislation was intended as a starting point, and not the final word, Carrington said.

“The intent is to have a couple meetings anyway,” he said.

A majority of voters in Palmer and Houston voted in favor of legalization. A majority of borough voters opposed legalization, including Wasilla residents.

Borough legislators had cleared a list of 14 names to be appointed to the borough’s 17-member marijuana advisory commission, according to assembly member Jim Sykes. He authored the ordinance proposing the idea of the commission, and said based on some testimony he’s heard from representatives of Colorado towns, concerns about marijuana in rural areas may be overblown.

One municipality in particular saw most of the additional costs imposed by legalized marijuana covered by incoming tax fees, according to Sykes.

“They had to add the equivalent of one and one half planners, and one and a half code enforcement,” he said. “Everything seems to be working out very well.”

Establishing clear areas of authority, for example, would be crucial, Sykes said.

“It’s coming into focus,” he said. “This is something that’s doable.”

Talk of marijuana rules also was on the agenda at a joint meeting of Houston city council and the city planning commission meeting Thursday evening, according to Mayor Virgie Thompson.

Marijuana regulation is “one of those things, when I was down in Juneau, the first thing I wanted to tell people is that it’s a local issue,” she said. “Don’t you screw up my ability to handle it on a local level.”

Houston officials would likely consider the idea of eventually requiring conditional-use permits for marijuana grows, Thompson said. However, for the moment, officials were content to allow the Legislature to sort things out.

“I don’t think putting the horse before the cart is that important,” she said. “Marijuana’s legal statewide. When it comes to the municipalities, once the Legislature starts going through and sorting stuff out, that’s when we’re going to determine what we want.”

Public input is crucial to the process, Thompson said.

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