All but two parts of Alaska’s rules governing commercial marijuana were approved by the state government Friday, with one section addressing criminal background checks and another providing exceptions to marijuana testing for growers in rural areas struck down by the state Department of Law.

Lieutenant Gov. Byron Mallott signed Alaska’s first commercial marijuana regulations on Friday, but regulators and legislators now face a headache from the FBI.

In a memo dated Jan. 20, Senior Assistant Attorney General Steven Weaver wrote the executive director of the Alaska Marijuana Control Board to say that in order for the FBI to perform background checks on prospective marijuana entrepreneurs, the Alaska Legislature needs to pass a law requesting such checks.

According to the FBI’s interpretation of federal law, “specific authority (must) be expressed in a state statute to require fingerprinting and the use of Federal Bureau of Investigation records,” Weaver wrote.

The City of Ketchikan will not prohibit retail marijuana businesses within city limits.

The Ketchikan City Council, by a 3-2 count at its meeting Thursday night, voted down an ordinance in second reading that would have temporarily prohibited such businesses.

Council members Judy Zenge, KJ Harris and Julie Isom voted against the ordinance, while council members Bob Sivertsen and Dick Coose voted in favor. Council members Dave Kiffer and Janalee Gage were not at the meeting. Kiffer voted against the ordinance at the council’s Jan. 7 meeting but had previously supported prohibition, while Gage voted in favor of prohibition both earlier this month and in late 2015.

Aspiring marijuana businesses in the Kenai Peninsula Borough may face only a few additional requirements on top of the state’s regulations.

After many months of deliberation, many amendments and dozens of public comments, the borough’s Marijuana Task Force arrived at a set of recommendations for the borough assembly at its Wednesday meeting.

The requirements the task force members changed were to increase the setback for marijuana establishments from schools, increase the number of hours retail stores must be closed for business and specify that the only prohibited odor outside marijuana establishments is that of marijuana itself.

A ban on marijuana bars and social clubs and random marijuana testing for pesticides or other harmful substances at retail stores are among the more contentious elements of Anchorage’s draft cannabis business license regulations released this week.

Anchorage officials have been developing a local license for marijuana businesses as a way to give local government more control over enforcement. But industry leaders have said a local license would be redundant to a state license and overly burdensome, and have promised to fight it in the coming weeks.

When Gov. Frank Murkowski stepped before the Legislature in 2003, facing a $500 million shortfall, he announced: “What is our plan for increasing revenue? Well, ladies and gentlemen, in a single word, ‘oil.'”

In time, that single word did lead to higher revenue, but not because of higher oil production. Alaska raised oil taxes just before worldwide conditions produced price increases that no one believed possible.

As Murkowski gave way to successors Sarah Palin and Sean Parnell, the state treasury filled with the billions that are now draining at thousands of dollars an hour with nothing to stem the flow.

Most people in the world are familiar with Amsterdam's coffeeshop; where cannabis can be bought and smoked without fear of arrest (and if you don't you're on the right site!), however the same type of experience could soon be available in the USA.

In Alaska adult use of cannabis is already legal, the third state to do so. Alaskans 21 and older can possess up to one ounce of cannabis, grow up to six marijuana plants (with no more than three flowering), as well as being able to possess any amount of cannabis produced by those plants! This came into effect on February 24, 2015.

The Anchorage Assembly on Tuesday night approved a ballot measure that will ask voters in April whether marijuana retail sales should be taxed, starting at 5 percent.  

The ballot measure would authorize the Assembly to increase the tax up to 12 percent without going back to voters again, but only once every two years and by a maximum of 2 percent each time. For the first three years, the revenue would fall outside the city tax cap.

After nearly an hour of debate, the Assembly voted 9-2 to approve the measure, with Patrick Flynn and Amy Demboski in opposition.

During the hearing, several industry representatives voiced concern about the structure of the tax and the city’s assumptions about needing a tax to cover enforcement costs.

Alaska is poised to become the first U.S. state to allow cannabis consumption in businesses open to the public. The Alaska Marijuana Board has been hard at work drafting regulations, and cafes could become part of Alaska's cannabis culture as soon as this summer.

Clubs for medical patients in Alaska have existed in a legal gray area for some time and began springing up after the state legalized medical marijuana in 1998. The medical rules were ambiguous, and combined with a lack of regulatory oversight allowed social clubs with onsite consumption to fly under the radar. They operate in a sort of loophole: Patients in Alaska are allowed to grow cannabis and consume it in private, which proponents say allows for clubs open only to members, not the public.