Anchorage, AK: State bureaucrats announced this week that proponents of a statewide initiative seeking to remove criminal and civil restrictions on the use, possession, distribution, and cultivation of marijuana turned in sufficient signatures to qualify for this November’s electoral ballot. If passed, the proposal would amend Alaska’s criminal code so that persons 21 years or older “shall not be prosecuted or denied any right or privilege, nor be subjected to criminal or civil penalties for the possession, cultivation, distribution, or consumption” of marijuana.
Alaska voters previously approved an initiative in 1998 legalizing the medicinal use of marijuana under a doctor’s supervision. However, in 2000 they rejected an initiative that would have legalized the possession, use, and sale of marijuana.
Earlier this year, The Alaska Court of Appeals ruled that adults may legally possess up to four ounces of marijuana within the privacy of their own home. The Appeals Court based its decision in that case on a 1975 state Supreme Court decision holding that the right to privacy in the state Constitution precludes any penalty against private use and possession of marijuana by adults. Their decision also struck down a 1990 state initiative that attempted to recriminalize marijuana, on the basis that the initiative-passed statute conflicts with the state Constitution.
For more information, please contact Keith Stroup, NORML Executive Director, at (202) 483-5500. Text of the Alaska initiative is available online at:
http://www.freehempinak.org/hemp2002.htm