Anchorage Press, 20 Jun 2013 – Alaska’s marijuana reformers are back, this time offering a wholesale legalization of the drug in a state once known as the most permissive in the nation when it comes to smoking pot. Last week the group called Campaign to Regulate Marijuana cleared its first hurdle with an approval from Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell to circulate a petition and put the legalization of pot on the August 2014 primary election ballot. If the petitioners are successful, voters will be asked to pass a seven-page law that legalizes and regulates the production, sale and possession of marijuana on a footing somewhat similar to alcohol. "The idea of this initiative is to treat alcohol and marijuana about the same," said Bill Parker, one of the initiative’s sponsors and a former member of the Alaska State House who debated marijuana policy in the 1970s and early 1980s.

Anchorage Press, 22 Dec 2011 – Alaska’s latest marijuana controversy doesn’t involve nitpicking the specifics of a search warrant or lofty arguments about how constitutional privacy rights apply when an Alaskan gets caught holding weed. Given the permissiveness of Alaska law, and the efficient homegrown marketplace, the controversy may not even be important in terms of an Alaskan’s access to weed. Instead, it’s about media, medical marijuana and one man’s access to media.