COURT KEEPS POT REGISTRATION REQUIREMENT

Charles Rollins is running out of legal options.

The Alaska Supreme Court again rebuffed the North Pole resident's attempt
to overturn the registration clause in the state's medical marijuana
statute, sidestepping the issue altogether and answering Rollins' petition
with a simple vocabulary list.

After Rollins, who says he does not smoke marijuana, originally challenged
the voter-approved initiative because of his concerns for users' privacy,
the court ruled against him. Rollins refiled, saying that the court had
stigmatized him by referring to him as a potential user.

Rather than overturning their previous ruling, the court simply replaced
all personal pronouns and nouns in its previous ruling and reissued it
Friday. That ends Rollins' current legal fight, but that doesn't mean he's
done.

Rollins said he has other options. One is to use the existing case but
change the emphasis. In his first case, Rollins argued that the
registration requirement violated privacy rights in the Alaska
Constitution. He could reargue the case as a violation under the U.S.
Constitution.

Or, he said, he could try his hand at initiative writing to get his own
measure on the ballot to addresses his concerns without limiting access to
legitimate medical marijuana use.

Ballot Measure 8, an initiative that made Alaska one of the first states in
the country to approve of limited legal marijuana use, was ratified by
voters in 1998. To legally use marijuana with a doctor's permission,
though, patients are required to register with the Department of Health and
Social Services.

Rollins' fear is that the register will become an easy point for
harassment, a feeling he said has been proved in at least one instance he's
aware of. He believes there's only one way to stop that from happening.

"Either a well-written medical (marijuana law) or just a general
legalization," he said.