Alaska’s Marijuana Control Board found its hands tied Thursday as it rejected the establishment of marijuana clubs.
With clubs not covered by last year’s voter-approved legalization law, board members reluctantly voted 3-1 in favor of a regulation banning them. If that prohibition is confirmed at the board’s meeting in November, it would leave marijuana consumers with no legal place to use marijuana outside of private homes.
“I was advocating for this type of business,” board chairman Bruce Schulte said. “Unfortunately, now with the benefit of a more detailed legal interpretation, we’ve learned we can’t craft those regulations.”
According to the Alaska Department of Law, the initiative legalizing recreational marijuana included mechanisms for the production and sale of marijuana, but it did not include protections for consumption outside the home. “This board does not have the authority to craft any regulation … unless it’s authorized by statute,” assistant attorney general Harriet Milks told the board. “That’s just the way it has to work.”
The board’s vote outraged supporters of a legalized marijuana industry. One offended person, listening in on the teleconferenced meeting, blasted a recorded message across the open telephone line for several minutes before board employees were able to mute the line.
Clubs’ proponents say they are the marijuana equivalent of bars. The state contends that because sale and consumption cannot happen at the same location, clubs are closer to “bottle clubs,” which are banned under state law.
In the weeks before the board’s two-day meeting began in Anchorage, it received dozens of written comments from Alaskans on the issue of clubs. All but two were in favor of their establishment.
Wes Schacht of Fritz Creek is a member of the Kachemak Cannabis Coalition and submitted one of those letters.
He has worked with cannabis clubs in British Columbia and said they are safe, regulated places. “It wasn’t like a ‘Cheech and Chong’ movie; it was regulated well,” he said by phone after the vote.
In opposition was Peter Haeussler of Chugiak, who wrote that he worried that clubs would “leave people in a state where they need or desire to travel after getting high.”
“This has been arguably the most popular and controversial section (of regulation) that we have looked at,” said board member Brandon Emmett.
Emmett cast the sole vote against the ban. Board member Loren Jones, a member of the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly, abstained from the vote, citing a conflict of interest. The Assembly had sent a letter to the board asking for the opportunity to decide for itself whether clubs are located in Juneau.
Board members Peter Mlynarik, Mark Springer and Schulte voted in favor of the ban.
At Thursday night’s Juneau Marijuana Committee meeting, Mitch Knottingham had short words to say about the decision.
“I think it’s moronic,” he said.
Ben Wilcox, speaking before Thursday’s municipal meeting, said: “It’s like anything else, people aren’t going to not do it.” He said he thinks it should be left up to municipalities to decide.
The ban was only one of several regulations examined by the state board before it concluded its work Thursday. Another contentious topic was the exact wording of warning labels that will be placed on marijuana products.
“As long as everybody’s equally unhappy, then I think we’ve nailed it,” Schulte said at the close of the meeting.
The regulations approved Thursday must go through another round of public comment and board approval before they become final. A two-day hearing to collect public comment is scheduled for Oct. 15-16 in Anchorage.
Information from comments on those dates will be incorporated into a final draft to be considered by the board Nov. 20.
The voter-imposed deadline for completion of the regulations is four days later. The application process for the first retail marijuana licenses is expected to begin in February, and the first licenses may be issued as soon as May.
