Alaska News

Legalization Day: What the first day of legal pot means for Alaska

On Monday, Alaska Dispatch News put out a call on Facebook for people to come forward and email us what Feb. 24 means to them. That day, in case you've been living under a rock with a set of headphones and a playlist of binaural soundscapes since November, is the day that Ballot Measure 2 took effect. Limited personal use, possession and cultivation of cannabis is now legal here.

So far, no one has sent us anything.

At first I thought it might mean a troubling lack of reflection on a clearly significant day in Alaska's legal and social history. But I know there's interest and deep thinking about the topic out there. We've received dozens upon dozens of questions for our new Q&A column, Highly Informed. Readers are sending probing questions, and their interest has been genuine, consistent and strong.

Alaska has already become the third state in the U.S. to unequivocally legalize recreational marijuana. That in itself is pretty historic.

The lack of response could mean many things. People may still not be ready to connect themselves to something so many people still look askance at. It could also be that legal pot is no big deal for most Alaskans -- just business as usual in the Great Land, perhaps. Alaska has after all been called "America's marijuana capital" in national outlets for its lax laws, and we consistently rank among the highest per-capita in national surveys of cannabis use. All that means Alaskans have plenty of practice at keeping things on the down-low, so to speak.

Alaska's history with the herb aside, laws against recreational cannabis are still in place at the federal level, and in the majority of U.S. states. Laws against cannabis are being prosecuted and punished in an inequitable manner all around the country, just as they have for decades. And the consequences for those minor charges still end up damaging people far more than use of cannabis does.

All this for a substance recently found to be far less deadly than other legal substances, and which our government has classified with prejudice for decades as one of the most addictive and least useful controlled substances. It's important that we take a moment and recognize that people all around the U.S. are still being fined and charged, arrested even, for simply possessing small amounts of cannabis.

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But in Alaska, no more. And on Thursday in our nation's capital.

Feb. 24 represents another chip taken from a pillar of hypocrisy central to our country's drug laws. For Alaska, it means blessed clarity to a messy collection of laws and court decisions which until recently have stood as the most liberal official treatment of cannabis in the country. It means we have started on the path toward squaring up our laws and our actions. Alaska's words and deeds regarding cannabis will eventually match.

The nation's eyes are now on Alaska. We're joining Colorado and Washington, and Oregon is right there too. We are the first so-called "red state" to legalize recreational pot.

Maybe what has just happened is just beginning to sink in. There are, after all, still nine months of rulemaking to conduct, and officials say retail sales won't be able to begin until mid-2016 at the earliest. But the question is still smoldering in my mind. What does Feb. 24 mean to Alaskans?

On Feb. 22, two days before the initiative took effect, according to a Trooper dispatch someone was caught on the Seward Highway possessing marijuana, which was confiscated.

The dispatch says that the person was not impaired, and was caught with less than 1 ounce, the new legal limit for personal possession while out and about.

The dispatch did not say how old the person was. Did not give the person's name or gender.

The dispatch says a charge of Misconduct Involving a Controlled Substance 6 was forwarded to the district attorney. That charge may be pursued against that unnamed offender, but I seriously doubt it.

And since there was no identifying information published in the dispatch about the person charged, there's no way to find out whether charges get filed unless Troopers answer our specific inquiry. Which they may not find time for. If they do, we'll update this space.

So one of the last people ticketed in Alaska for possessing an ounce or less of cannabis may end up going unnamed and uncharged.

That means a great deal to me.

Scott Woodham is an opinion pages editor and Highly Informed columnist at Alaska Dispatch News.

The views expressed here are the writer's own and are not necessarily endorsed by Alaska Dispatch News, which welcomes a broad range of viewpoints. To submit a piece for consideration, email commentary(at)alaskadispatch.com.

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