Alaska board to weigh rules for pot consumption at stores

Marijuana regulators in Alaska plan to considerrules this week for consuming marijuana products at authorized
retail pot stores a first among states that have legalized therecreational use of pot.

Late last year, the Marijuana Control Board voted to allow peopleto use marijuana at certain stores that will sell it. But rulessurrounding in-store use still need to be ironed out.

No licenses have been issued yet.

At its meeting in Anchorage on Wednesday, the board plans toconsider three sets of proposed rules for onsite consumption.Whatever is settled on is expected to be put out for public comment.

Board staff, board chair Bruce Schulte and board member PeterMlynarik each proposed a set of draft rules to be discussed. Schultesaid each is conservative in its approach and it will be up to theboard to pull something together from the proposals.

All three call for separation between consumption andnon-consumption areas, with varying details for how that would look.

Two, for example, propose a separation by a securable door.

Differences between the drafts crop up in areas such asquantities and whether to allow for marijuana purchased for in-storeuse to be taken off site if not fully consumed.

Concerns about timeline

Schulte said he expects some discussion Wednesday about thetimeline for approval of applications. He said concerns have beenraised about the schedule.

The board began accepting applications in February. A tentativetimeline has suggested the first licenses for cultivation andtesting could be approved in June, with the first retail and productmanufacturing facility licenses approved later in the year.

State lawmakers last week approved legislation allowing fornational criminal history checks for license applicants. That billwill go to Gov. Bill Walker for consideration. Cynthia Franklin,director of the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, said theimpact of waiting for that language has been "very minimal tonone" because few applications have gotten to that point.

One of her more immediate concerns is the level of officestaffing to handle the workload. She said the office doesn't haveenough staff and the idea of doing more with less is a fallacy.

"You cannot have a highly regulated industry where people arecarefully examining documents and then skimp on the number of peoplethat are available to do that and have the expectation that that isgoing to have no effect on the time that it takes to process theapplication," she said.