Wasilla weed debate still smoldering

WASILLA — The commercial marijuana issue may be settled for now in Wasilla, but debate over the topic isn’t.

In interviews this week, Wasilla City Council members said concerns about sustainability and safety led them to ban marijuana sales in the Valley’s largest city, while potential business owners decried the move as short-sighted and ill-informed. And at least one pastor said a brief mention about the issue had led congregants to turn out in support, and may have caused some public pushback on the church’s Facebook page.

The council voted 5-0 on Monday to outlaw commercial sales and cultivation of marijuana. In 2014, Alaska voters legalized commercial marijuana, but local municipalities have the option to ban sales of the plant in their community. The prospect of a city council vote on the issue drew dozens of supporters and opponents to speak at Monday’s council meeting.

Council members Gretchen O’Barr, David Wilson, and Brandon Wall each said this week they felt accepting sales tax revenue — Wasilla’s primary means of funding, alongside federal and state funds — for a product that was still illegal at the federal level could create the possibility federal authorities could seize city property, for example. Council members argued the inability of federally chartered financial institutions to accept marijuana funds would hamper retail, and the accumulation of cold hard cash from sales could prove too tempting a target for criminals.

A no vote was as much a referendum on the possibility of an alternative form of financial system as it was about the possibility of legal marijuana sales, Wilson said.

“I think that the industry hasn’t answered a lot of questions that people have in terms of safety, in terms of money, just the financial aspects of it,” he said.

Wilson said he talked to members of the banking industry and would-be cannabis entrepreneurs about the situation, and no one had been able to point out a way forward. Business owners would thus find themselves paying employees through the use of pre-paid financial instruments, Wilson said.

“It leads to not best practices in accounting,” he said.

Officials were willing to let Houston, where marijuana retail sales will likely soon become legal, after voters there rejected a ban in October. The state has yet to finalize regulation for marijuana sales, meaning there are not yet any legally sanctioned pot retailers in Alaska.

Wall admitted marijuana’s potential revenue power, even if he couched enthusiasm about that aspect of marijuana legalization carefully.

“The bottom line is, I did not see a big win for the city of Wasilla to open up retail sales now,” he said. “Maybe in the future, that might be awesome … not awesome, but that might be a good idea.”

Differing state federal laws meant any industry would be at the whims of federal authorities, Wall said. For now, federal authorities are willing to turn a blind eye to the issue.

“What happens with a Trump administration, a Clinton administration, a Cruz administration?” he asked, referring to three of the leading candidates for U.S. president.

Wilson and Wall said they both felt Houston was a suitable laboratory for marijuana businesses, and they were open to revisiting the issue if Houston was successful.

The ban also clashed with Wall’s personal philosophy of small government.

“If you would have told me five years ago that I would vote no on this, I would have laughed in your face,” he said.

All three council members said they’d be open to a medical dispensary instead, based on sympathy for people who testified that marijuana use had improved their lives, or helped them face down severe medical conditions.

Wall put that responsibility back on state officials. Current regulations don’t allow for a separate medical dispensary business in a distinct category.

“It’s hard to look the guy that uses marijuana for PTSD, that served our country, in the face, and tell him no,” he said. “That sucks like you can’t believe.”

O’Barr bristled at comments online suggesting the retail ban would cause a flourishing black market.

“People made comments like ‘Wasilla just made meth legal,’” she said. “That’s an abrasive thing to say.”

O’Barr also questioned whether allowing legal sales would shut down the black market.

“I don’t see how someone who’s already got a successful black market business would pay for a license,” she said. “Why would they?”

Council members Stuart Graham and Tim Burney, the two other votes on the ban did not return phone calls seeking comment. Coucilwoman Colleen Sullivan-Leonard was not present at the meeting.

‘Cannabust?’

By contrast, business owners said city council members were ill informed about the consequences of marijuana use, and that extends to business owners like Rachel Lake, who sells White Rhino-brand vaporizers. She saw a possible opportunity for synergy between her devices — which include some devices used to consume oils and waxes — and retail marijuana outlets, which now likely won’t come to pass.

Lake also distributes some cannabis to veterans free of charge through the Cannacare organization, and said consumers could benefit from an educated, consumer-focused perspective.

“It would be nice to be able to tell people that they have somewhere to go, someone knowledgeable to help them,” she said.

The vote pulls one option off the table for businesses, said Sara Williams, chair of the borough’s marijuana advisory board.

“So it’s either Houston, who is very supportive of the new industry, or Anchorage for safe and semi-supportive local governments,” she wrote, in response to an e-mail seeking comment.

Williams and other industry advocates pledged to campaign to convince voters ahead of a Nov. 8 vote which would eliminate the unincorporated areas of the Mat-Su Borough as potential options for marijuana businesses. And a shrinking pool of available real estate could open up construction opportunities.

“We have been in contact with a real estate development company that wants to build a cannabis complex in Houston, and so real estate development is likely,” she wrote.

At the same time, obstacles to development remain, Williams said.

“The need for capital has been affecting the industry from the day the Marijuana Control Board banned out-of-state investment,” she wrote. “Local Alaskans with a dream of entering the cannabis industry are finding themselves unable to do so because they cannot find in-state money.”

That puts previously moneyed Alaskan elites, and those with social connections to elites, ahead of the curve, she said. Still, the obstacles should only slow development in the industry, not end it, Williams said.

“The local bans, zoning and financing restrictions will place challenges on the industry and limit the number of start-ups from day one, but it will not deter the industry,” she wrote.

Hard sell

While policy makers and economic leaders may eye cannabis as a part — however small — of the equation for economic development, they face opposition on cultural and religious grounds. Many of those who spoke out at Monday night’s meeting were members of the King’s Chapel congregation. The pastor there, the Rev. Dan Bracken, said he only mentioned the vote in passing at a Sunday sermon, and planned a formal spiritual reflection on the subject for the future.

Bracken said he draws his opposition to marijuana straight from the Bible, particularly references to intoxication, which he and others interpret to prohibit Christians from supporting marijuana. For him, the line is simple, and immutable.

“What I am vehemently opposed to is to is having retail shops where people can openly buy, smoke and use, and grow facilities, because I think it’s going to affect our community,” he said.

The danger was in basing laws not on God, but on human reason, Bracken said.

“Man is not the measure of all things, nor can he determine right from wrong himself,” he said. “As a Christian, from a Christian viewpoint — and of course, that’s the viewpoint you’re getting from me — it’s not subjective.”

Asked about non-Christian members of the community, Bracken adopted the same arguments city council members made about the statewide vote in November 2014, which showed Wasilla voters against legal marijuana by four percentage points.

“The majority of voters didn’t want and that’s it,” he said.

Even so, Bracken said he’d like to see some medical availability for those in pain.

The church’s Facebook page was bombarded with rude comments, pornographic images, and less graphic images of gay culture, Bracken said, and Bracken said he disabled the rating system for the church’s page after its 5.0 rating plummeted to 4.7 very quickly. None of the vandalism Bracken referenced was apparent on the site’s Facebook page Friday afternoon. Bracken said he was undeterred by the criticism of his church’s opposition to legal marijuana.

“We’ve gotten pushback,” he said. “Any small group of people, if they scream loud enough, they can determine where our country goes. I’m not going to ride off quietly.”

Contact reporter Brian O’Connor at brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com