Tuesday recreational marijuana became legal in Alaska. By
Tuesday night Anchorage police had arrested three people for smoking it in
public.
In more than 40 years of life in Alaska I had only heard of
one other arrest for smoking pot in public and that was Irwin Ravin who toked up in
the police station wanting to be arrested so he could begin the legal action that led to the first legalization of
marijuana in the state. That legalization allowed a personal amount based on
protection of the individual's right to privacy derived from an Alaska Supreme
Court decision.
According to the new law, officials have nine months to come
up with permanent regulations regarding sale and use of weed. In the meantime
local officials have been passing a hodgepodge of regulations allowed by the
original ballot measure that let municipalities opt out of some provisions of
the law, particularly involving growing and sale. Meanwhile no one can sell it
and no one is allowed to buy or barter for it.
For instance, in Wasilla, you can't bake pot into brownies.
Apparently you can bring in brownies baked somewhere else. Also there is some
confusion as to how much a person can transport. According to the law an adult
may have one ounce in possession. However in Wasilla if the police pull over a
car with four people in it, there can only be two ounces in the car, not four
ounces, one for each individual. A fun aspect of the Wasilla rules is you have
to cease immediately if your smoke bothers someone else. Mind you probably half
the houses in Wasilla have wood stoves and there has never been an uproar over
that smoke.
Anchorage also has adopted some regulations one of which
doesn't allow the reduction into oils. Another is the restriction against
smoking in public along with a long list of what constitutes a public place.
The problem with all this, what is bothersome, is establishing
how marijuana will be allowed has been left up to people who have opposed legalization
for years, people in city councils, city assemblies and people in the state
legislature. Voters passed the referendum
by a large margin but it seems now the politicians will whittle it down until
there is little freedom left.
A side benefit, and part of the winning argument, has been
that legalizing marijuana would eliminate a number of arrests for minor non-violent violations that lead to
backlogs in courts and overcrowding in prisons, along with the costs of those
results, and also allow police to focus on more serious and violent crimes.
It may have been the letter of the law but certainly not the
spirit for police to actually target people smoking in public, which they
obviously did the Tuesday marijuana was first legal. What's amazing is given
the celebratory nature of the day they couldn't find 100 people to put in jail
for OMG toking up in public. And can anybody doubt with the three arrests that
day that police weren't looking for smokers to bust? Consuming alcohol in
public is also a crime. How many people drinking in public did the police
arrest that same day?
It remains to be seen what the legislature and then local
government will come up with for regulations, but if they are anything like what
has been adopted so far legal marijuana isn't going to be as legal as what
people imagined when we voted. Instead the old paranoia will continue as you
light up and then wonder if you are on the right side of a city border, or if you
have more than an ounce, or if this place is public and any of a dozen, maybe
hundreds of nitpicking restrictions apply. And rest assured taxpayers will foot
the bill for prosecution and incarceration of the violators.
It's really about time these obstructionist tea bag politicians started paying attention to their constituents and serving the public rather than the vested monied interests. Instead of looking for all the ways they can find to
slow progress, these elected officials need to heed the desires of the
public and look for ways to make legalization work with the least amount of
restriction possible. Taxing legal sellers could go a long way toward
bolstering weakened government budgets if they do.
Meanwhile police could stop targeting smokers and look
toward serious crimes.
Or maybe we'll just have to go have a drink to celebrate.
Comment from Facebook:
Tim, we're both familiar with the lovely purple haze
that hung permanently over Talkeetna and Trapper Creek during the mid 70's and
80's...and thickened to an impenetrable fog over Town Park on warm summer
nights...and especially on Blue Grass weekends...good days...and better nights.
A time when a major economic engine in this Valley was pot cultivation and sled
dogs. I smile to think of do-gooder politicians who have no experience of that
once parallel universe trying to organize the new law out of existence. They're
doomed to fail. I
might just reallocate garden space this summer...cut back on veggies. Got any
good seed? – Joe May
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