GOVERNOR HOPES TO RE-CRIMINALIZE POT

Approach: Murkowski Looks to Lawmakers After 30 Years of Decisions By
Courts and Voters.

Stymied by the courts, Alaska's governor is looking for other ways to
toughen Alaska's antimarijuana laws.

Pot laws are looser in Alaska than just about anywhere else in the
country. Possessing small amounts of the drug for personal use is a
privacy right protected under the state's constitution, the Alaska
Supreme Court has upheld. Alaska is one of 11 states that allows the
use of medical marijuana.

Republican Gov. Frank Murkowski wants state lawmakers to
re-criminalize the drug, asking them to consider evidence of the
marijuana's dangers that he contends should trump the right-to-privacy
rulings.

The "Alaska Supreme Court has shown an unwillingness to reconsider the
latest scientific evidence on the harmful effects of marijuana,"
Murkowski wrote to state Senate President Ben Stevens in introducing
his proposed legislation. "A rational evaluation of marijuana's
harmful effects must occur, and the Legislature should do that -- not
the courts."

The state's marijuana laws have been shaped by 30 years of court
decisions and voter referendums. In 1975, the state Supreme Court made
it legal for adult Alaskans to possess a small amount of marijuana in
their homes for personal use in the case of Ravin v. State.

In 1990 a successful voter initiative criminalized all amounts of pot.
Then in 2003, the Alaska Court of Appeals reversed that in the case of
North Pole resident David Noy. The court said privacy rights
guaranteed in the Alaska Constitution can't be taken away by voters or
legislators.

The Supreme Court declined the state's request last September to
reconsider the Noy case, setting the legal possession limit at 4
ounces of marijuana.

Bill Satterberg, the Fairbanks attorney who filed the Appeals Court
petition in the Noy case, says the debate has swung from one side to
the other, but the appellate court's decision in Noy strikes a balance.

And in November, a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana and
possibly tax it similarly to alcohol and cigarettes failed to pass,
with 44 percent of the vote.

"I think the pendulum has swung to too permissive. The (legalization
initiative) was too permissive, in my opinion," Satterberg said. "Then
it swings the other way, and it is too restrictive."

Murkowski's bill would make possession of 4 ounces of marijuana or
more a felony and possession of up to 4 ounces a misdemeanor.

Current law makes it a misdemeanor to possess up to a half-pound of
marijuana.

But most importantly, one of the bill's authors contends, going
through the Legislature will allow a weighty body of evidence on the
dangers of marijuana to be entered into the record.

The state can take the record of evidence back to the courts, where
such information was missing when earlier rulings were made, said Dean
Guaneli, chief assistant attorney general.

The hearings spurred by the bill will allow the state to enter
evidence that marijuana poses a threat to public health "that
justifies prohibiting its use and possession in this state, even by
adults in private," the bill's language says.

That way, the courts will be able to look at that evidence the next
time the privacy issue is considered in a marijuana case.

"The first thing the courts do is look to the legislative record,"
Guaneli said. "If the legislative reasons are better, the courts'
constitutional analysis will change."

Satterberg said he doubts the state's efforts to re-criminalize
marijuana are a good use of resources, saying there are better things
to do than debate marijuana's effects. The bill, if it passes, would
raise police and court costs and make instant felons out many Alaska
residents, he said.

But he can see the Murkowski bill passing through the Legislature.
Lawmakers may be reluctant to be seen as coming out in favor of drugs,
he said.

"The problem is, it's a mother, God, apple pie thing," he
said.

Tim Hinterberger, a University of Alaska Anchorage professor and one
of the campaign organizers of the failed initiative to legalize
marijuana, said lawmakers should consider that 134,647 voters
supported the measure in November.

"I'm hopeful that our legislators are a bit more in tune with the will
of the people than that," he said. "I don't think the momentum is on
the side of returning to prohibition."

Guaneli said he believes Murkowski's bill will pass and be upheld in
the courts, ending the state's 30-year debate over privacy and pot.

"I think once the courts say the Legislature has good grounds for
doing this, the issue will be put to rest," he said.