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Here's an interesting piece of the Alaska marijuana legal status. We just voted to legalize recreational marijuana use, which includes growing and selling marij

• deleted 12y ago
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  • jonnathanson 12y ago
    IANAL, but as far as I am aware, international borders fall under federal jurisdiction, not state. U.S. Border Patrol is a federal organization, for instance. Since marijuana is still illegal under federal law, I'd imagine that Alaska state law couldn't protect you in the event of a seizure. I don't have any personal experience attempting to bring weed across a federal border point, but my gut tells me it's not a great idea. Feds are still gung-ho about enforcement. In a federal trial, penalty for possession (any amount) is a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $1,000 fine and 1 year in jail. (Open to correction, enhancement, or clarification from anyone who is a lawyer, and/or who has experience in these matters).
    • mikestew 12y ago
      No need to be a lawyer, Washington residents have already been told not to try and bring back any BC bud across the border. EDIT: because one is entering the U.S. where it is illegal, not WA where it is legal. Once past the US border, one is then in the weed-friendly state of WA. /EDIT Conversely, our neighbors to the north have made it a point to remind WA residents that weed is still illegal in Canada. Source: stuff I tripped across while looking up border crossing procedure for a recent trip, which I could probably find again if I had to.
    • kissickas 12y ago
      Sorry, I deleted my comment. It was originally asking about commerce across the border to Canada. I deleted it because I just discovered that it's technically illegal in Canada; thought it was less murky than it is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_Canada https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_C...
    • phantom784 12y ago
      I'm curious as to how the Washington-Oregon border will be treated, since both states now have legal marijuana. Will the states allow marijuana from the other to cross over? Does "crossing the state line" make it easier to enforce federal anti-drug laws?
      • JoeAltmaier 12y ago
        Does the federal govt monitoring the border become a friend of local ganja producers, effectively protecting the market for local growers?
      • jonnathanson 12y ago
        I really doubt there will be much trouble moving weed between WA and OR. Even during the period when it was legal in WA and illegal in OR, OR police pretty much turned a blind eye to interstate "tourists" on suspiciously short trips across the border and back. Now that both states have legalized weed, this will be even less of an issue. And the likelihood that you run into a federal officer while crossing the WA/OR border is pretty slim.
        • maxerickson 12y ago
          I guess the only times (in recent history anyway) that states vigorously defend their borders is when it impacts their tax revenues. Are there big differences in how Washington and Oregon are taxing marijuana?
          • jonnathanson 12y ago
            Not sure. I have heard, interestingly enough, that there are federal taxes on the sale of marijuana. Which is weird, given that the federal government does not legally recognize one's right to buy or sell marijuana. These federal tax burdens are quite high, if the media reports are accurate: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/03/irs-limits-profits-marijuana-businesses/18165033/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/03/irs-lim...
• kyleblarson 12y ago
  As a Seattleite I was optimistic things might change at the federal level when Obama appointed Kerlikowski as drug czar, given his experience as police chief in what even in 2009 was a very cannabis friendly city. I guess I was just another sucker for hope and change that never materialized.
  • munificent 12y ago
    The US government is a pretty big boat and takes a while to turn around. You have to have patience and a longer view, but change does happen. In 2012 it was two states. Now it's four. We're getting there.
    • lisper 12y ago
      Exactly. Ten years ago gay marriage was illegal in all but one state. Now it's legal in all but 15, and even that number is shrinking rapidly.
    • Alupis 12y ago
      The issue at the Federal level is not too long ago the US went around bullying UN nations into signing a unified drug treaty which is in effect for I believe 90 years. The idea was that if all countries agree on banning certain drugs, it can have a more unified effort in eradicating said drugs. It mostly targeted hard drugs, but marijuana is also named in the treaty. It would be very difficult for the US to back out of or alter the very treaty we pressured most of the world into signing not that long ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_Drugs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_D...
      • anigbrowl 12y ago
        That's a very good point - it's the basic reason that Obama can't 'end the drug war with a stroke of his pen' as some people seem to imagine, because treaties ratified by the US have almost constitutional standing in legal terms, and need to be formally derogated rather than legislated away. While the US could certainly do so without suffering meaningful sanctions or major geopolitical harm over the long term, indifference to treaty obligations is often the hallmark of an insular political viewpoint - but then such people also tend to be uninterested in the ramifications for international trade and cross-border institutions in the first place. That said, the SCND dates back to 1961 which was 53 years ago, and those countries which have openly stepped back from full compliance with it such as Portugal and Uruguay don't seem to have incurred any disadvantage or sanctions worth talking about, though you might argue that they had little or no political capital to lose in the first place. I do think there's a global shift towards looking at drug abuse and addiction as public health issues rather than moral vices, so while there's pressure form some quarters to maintain or strengthen anti-drug enforcement there's also pressure to adopt more utilitarian policies focused on harm minimization and demand management. I think the convention will not be explicitly derogated any time soon, but will rather be allowed to become a dead letter through diminished contributions of fiscal and political capital for enforcement, while being nominally and loudly upheld by more authoritarian regimes as both a blunt instrument in trade negotiations and as a proxy for the rule of law.
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• jdmichal 12y ago
  I didn't think drug enforcement was a duty of the Coast Guard. Usually anything related to cargo and crew is the CBP's responsibility, while the Coast Guard is about safety (life-jackets and -boats, certifications, search and rescue, etc.).
  • dghughes 12y ago
    It's a drug and you're in or operating a vehicle I'd say it's no different than having an open bottle of alcohol. Police in my province have been trained to spot DUI of drugs (besides alcohol) mostly pot since it seems many people think it's OK to drive stoned.
    • birken 12y ago
      Having an open bottle of alcohol and drinking it is legal on a boat. You just can't be intoxicated.
  • mbillie1 12y ago
    In the Gulf of Mexico and the area around Florida, the Coast Guard does an enormous amount of drug-traffic-policing.
    • jdmichal 12y ago
      Looks like there's a wide swathe of "homeland security" missions on top of the more traditional missions I was aware of, deemed "non-homeland security": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard#Missions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard#Missi... I wonder how this all interacts with the CBP.
  • webnrrd2k 12y ago
    Around here, Southern California, the Coast Guard regularly does drug interdiction duty. The boating safety stuff is usually done by the Harbor Patrol/Sheriff's Department.
  • benologist 12y ago
• robg 12y ago
  By air, as at airport security, has been policed as a local issue, not federal.
  • mason55 12y ago
    Correct - if you're flying intra-California you are free to carry your medicine with you on the plane for example.
  • quux 12y ago
    Once the plane leaves the ground it enters federal jurisdiction and medical marijuana is contraband. I learned this during training for my pilot's license. One of the examiners in my area liked to ask candidates about this during their oral examinations and all the instructors knew to make sure their students knew the right answer :)
• Shivetya 12y ago
  Didn't DC just vote to legalize it, you just cannot buy or sell it. Here is to hoping the next big issue after marriage equality if fixing our drug laws, which are more damaging than many will admit and far too profitable to law enforcement and the prison industry.
  • metrix 12y ago
    Profitable? It costs the state a lot to hold a prisoner.
    • chaostheory 12y ago
      Yes but you're forgetting that there's a private prison industry. A lot of states have outsourced it. I feel that's what Shivetya was alluding to.
    • techpeace 12y ago
      I believe they're referring to the private prison industry, which makes a pretty penny off locking up non-violent drug offenders. Their trade organization listed liberalizing drug laws as a potential threat to their bottom line in their last annual report, so we can expect that they will fiercely lobby against anything happening at a federal level.
      • waterlesscloud 12y ago
        I feel like this situation is overstated a lot. Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons, which could be a problem, but it's not the massive number that is often implied.
        • smtddr 12y ago
          That's still 8% too much. That still means there are millionaires out there lobbying to keep drug laws as is so they can keep filling their prisons. And the other 92% of prisons probably have a ton of people behind bars due to drug laws because of the 8% of prisons that lobby for & profit from them.
• rickdale 12y ago
  Wait until the pressure grows and then the coast guard will change their stance to, "we follow the local laws". This happened with the TSA in states with medical marijuana, even in Alaska. States rights, the fact that the people voted for it, is going to play a huge role going forward.
• Alex3917 12y ago
  While this may technically be true, in practice the feds aren't going to charge you for personal possession unless they're specifically targeting you for some other reason. IIRC the feds usually don't charge you unless you have more than 100 kilograms.
• smsm42 12y ago
  It just boggles the mind how perversely government logic looks here. So Alaskans say: we are OK with people using marijuana, we see no problem with it. And then the Feds come and say - well, we are still going to arrest and imprison you if you do it, despite the clear will of the people of Alaska, because we can. We know we don't actually change anything as we absolutely can not prevent people of Alaska from using marijuana, but we still will prosecute random people unlucky enough to be caught by us in Alaska while doing the thing completely legal and OK in Alaska, because that's what we do.
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  • TylerE 12y ago
    This cuts both ways.... do you really think, that, say, Mississippi, should be able to inact anything 51% of the voters vote for? It'd be back to the Jim Crow days.
    • smsm42 12y ago
      We're talking not about "anything". We're talking about specific thing where the law enforcement enforces arbitrary prohibition against the will of the same people they pretend to protect. Comparing this to Jim Crow laws makes no sense - Jim Crow laws limited people's rights, legalization expands people's rights. Jim Crow laws was an arbitrary governmental restriction, legalization removes the arbitrary governmental restriction. If anything, you should be asking what if the Feds had Jim Crow laws and some state would say they would not support it anymore - is it good for Feds to try and force them to still abide by such laws? Not that there is absolutely any evidence theres even 10% of voters in Mississippi - let alone 51% - that would really support instituting Jim Crow laws now. For starters, 37.5% of Mississippi population is African-American, and it would require 88% of white vote to achieve 51%. Are you seriously claiming 88% of Mississippi white population - I assume you don't go as far as assuming African-American citizens of Mississippi want to introduce Jim Crow laws - are not only fervently racist, but actually want Jim Crow laws? Any data to back that ridiculous assumption?
• Mandatum 12y ago
  Local hydroponics would work fine here. Energy is Alaska cheap, a local store can setup a hydroponics shop pretty easily. Why import?