Alaska’s Marijuana Control Board will hold a special meeting Tuesday to consider re-tightening restrictions on Outside investment in Alaska’s new marijuana industry.
On Friday, the board finalized 133 pages of regulations for the industry, including an item that defines an Alaska resident as anyone who meets Alaska’s voter registration requirements. That’s important because other regulations limit Alaska marijuana businesses to Alaskan investors — a move intended to prevent criminal involvement in the industry.
The voter registration requirement is a much looser limit than three others rejected by the board on Friday, and it has raised some concerns.
“We’re reconsidering the issue,” said board chairman Bruce Schulte by phone. “The (definition) that we settled on could be problematic for staff. It could put a big burden on them.”
As adopted, the voter registration requirement would allow Outside investors to open Alaska businesses if they simply use an Alaska address as their official residence and don’t register to vote in any other state. Cynthia Franklin, executive director of the board and in charge of implementing the regulations, said checking every license applicant for voter registration in 49 states is probably too time-consuming for her staff.
On Friday, the board voted 3-2 to approve the voter registration definition of Alaska residency toward the end of a long day of discussion. MCB member Brandon Emmett suggested the definition verbally, and the board passed it without seeing a paper copy of the definition.
“I’m a big fan of written amendments; that’s why I showed up with 21 of them,” Schulte said.
After considering the issue after the Friday vote, Schulte decided to call Tuesday’s meeting.
The board had a voter-imposed deadline of Nov. 24 to finalize regulations and turn them over to the Alaska Department of Law for review. The MCB must begin accepting license applications on Feb. 24 and start issuing licenses in late May.
Schulte said he doesn’t think Tuesday’s meeting will affect that schedule. “We’re not going to touch anything else,” he said.
Harriet Milks, in charge of reviewing the regulations for the Department of Law, agrees. “Given the subject matter … I would not anticipate that it would delay the Department of Law’s review.”
