Wasilla city council bans marijuana edibles, smoking clubs

WASILLA — The city council voted 4-2 to approve a heavily amended ban on some forms of marijuana use within city limits.

When an hours-long public hearing and deliberations on the measure originally authored by councilman Stu Graham ended, council members had struck a provision for personal possession, meaning previously included limits on possession within the city limits now conform to state statutes. A change to transportation rules allowing two ounces per person in a motor vehicle failed, leaving a prohibition on more than two ounces in a vehicle. A ban on edible manufacturing survived intact, despite public testimony urging its removal. A provision that previously would have forced smokers indoors has been amended to allow users to smoke on their private property outdoors.

Council members Brandon Wall and Colleen Sullivan-Leonard voted against the measure.

Several community members repeated concerns that the prohibition on “edibles products, marijuana extracts and/or concentrates” constituted government overreach, particularly because the predominant smokeless uses of marijuana are for medicine.

For example, Jessica Spence told the council that her 12-year-old-son, suffers from multiple medical conditions, including cluster seizures. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, she is personally opposed to recreational drug use, including coffee, she said.

However, given the combination of cluster seizures and a heart defect, the family is forced to keep large amounts of valium in the house to treat the conditions, which carries with it an associated overdose risk, Spence said.

“Marijuana, cannabis, could be our only hope at controlling his seizures, besides possible brain surgery,” she said.

In the most substantial addition to laws proposed with the specific intent of legislating the issue before provisions of Ballot Measure 2 take effect today, non- profit smoking clubs are banned. City council members alluded in discussion to problems involving smoking clubs in Anchorage. The vote banning them in Wasilla came down to a 3-3 tie, forcing Mayor Bert Cottle to cast the deciding vote on the matter. Cottle voted to include the inserted ban on smoking clubs into the full measure.

A provision that would have set a Nov. 24, 2015 “sunset clause” for the law was not passed, making this the effective law of the land indefinitely, though several members said the council would likely revisit sections in the future.

City council member concerns revolved around labeling for products made with marijuana and concentrates, as well as safety.

“If they do go down to the store to buy some other kind cookies, it’s going to have every single thing down to the grams and the carbohydrates and everything in it,” said councilwoman Gretchen O’Barr. Councilman Clark Buswell agreed.

“A brownie, anything like that’s going to be so tempting, I could see a child taking it to school, even, sharing it with his friends, and not even realizing what’s in it,” he said. “I see the same thing as an issue with all pharmacology. You have a pharmacist who puts on the label the grams of the different products are.”

Other city council members said issues about the ingredients in the edibles.

“So the question, I guess, is: does Mr. Buswell’s wife label the bread that she makes with the calorie content or the fat content or any of the contents of that bread before you give it to Mr. Buswell to eat? We’re not talking about what’s sold in stores. We’re talking about what someone makes in the privacy of their own home. That’s where we need to draw the difference here,” Wall said.

He also expressed concern about enforcement.

“We’re not Big Brother,” Wall said at one point during the edibles discussion.

Proposal author Graham ended up defending not only provisions of the measure, but also the idea that legislation was immediately necessary. Council member Colleen Sullivan-Leonard had asked that question, saying the state and borough are wrangling over the subject.

“I’m not going to support this ordinance at this time, and the reason being is that there’s so much more information that we need prior to bringing forth legislation,” she said. “I think this is premature. I think this is the cart before the horse.”

A committee might be necessary to examine numerous issues arising from legalization, Sullivan-Leonard added.

Council members shouldn’t wait for the state to act first, Graham said.

“I couldn’t disagree with you more,” he said. “I don’t think the time is now to sit on our haunches and wait for someone else to do something. The time is now for us to act, for us to take our responsibilities and move forward with those in such a way that we establish the building blocks that we need to move forward. By not acting, we’re not moving forward, and as of tomorrow, we’re moving backward.”

Discussions about legal marijuana have been ongoing since at least the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington in 2012, Graham said.

“This is not something that has not been studied,” he said. “This is not something that is new to us. This is something that has been well-studied and well-discussed. The campaign to pass Ballot Measure 2 was over a year long. When I say ‘we,’ I don’t mean just the members of the council, I also mean you out there, the audience.”

The ordinance eventually passed Monday night was designed to serve as a “stepping stone” toward commercialization, Graham said.

Most common official estimates put full commercialization as much as a year to several months distant.

“What we’re talking about now is how much marijuana can you have in your house, how much marijuana can you have in your car, where can you smoke marijuana,” Graham said. “That’s what we’re dealing with today.”

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