Alaska's Example: cirtually Legal Marijuana for 35 years

Warning, hope for state in Alaska pot protection

Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

If Californians want a glimpse of how the landscape might look should a November ballot initiative to legalize marijuana pass, they could turn north.

They would see complication. And a cautionary lesson. And maybe hope for those who want pot smoking legitimized.

For 35 years, it's been virtually legal in Alaska, with its fiercely frontier mentality, to smoke marijuana at home and grow small amounts there - currently up to 1 ounce - just as proposed in California's Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act.

It's the most liberal pot policy in the nation, made that way under a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court ruling that said that what a person does in his home is protected under an unusually strong privacy provision in the state's Constitution.

Both sides look to Alaska

Californian advocates point to Alaska as proof that pot can be legal for recreational use with no catastrophic consequences to society. Opponents counter that the state has long had one of the highest substance abuse rates in the nation.

"Alaska's been a big social laboratory for 30 years, and we've shown that there has been no big crime surge because of marijuana use in the home," said Bill Parker, 65, one of the founders of Alaskans for Rational Marijuana Policy, a group formed this month to push for full legalization of pot.

"I think it's a great example for California."

A former state legislator and a retired deputy state prison commissioner, Parker said he regularly smokes marijuana. But his group's argument for stripping away the core remaining regulations against pot in Alaska goes further than simple enjoyment.

Snipped from SF Chronicle>>