TOUGHER MARIJUANA RESTRICTIONS ADVANCE

Legislature: Bill Would Also Require Signing of Logbook to Buy
Ephedrine-Based Drugs.

JUNEAU -- A legislative conference committee on Wednesday denied one
last attempt to remove tougher restrictions on marijuana possession
from a drug bill before approving a final version of the measure.

The bill is meant to curb the manufacture of methamphetamine and give
the state the legal artillery to overturn Alaska Supreme Court
decisions that have made the state's marijuana laws among the most
lenient in the nation.

The final bill now goes back to the House and Senate for ratification
before heading to Gov. Frank Murkowski for his signature.

The conference committee of six House and Senate members made only
two significant changes to the bill: requiring a customer to sign a
logbook before buying a medicine with an ephedrine base, such as
Sudafed; and making it illegal to sell those ephedrine-based drugs to
anybody under 16.

Ephedrine-based drugs are a precursor to methamphetamine manufacture.
The logbook requirement would mirror a provision in the federal Patriot Act.

The Senate Finance Committee had rolled into the House
methamphetamine bill Murkowski's priority marijuana measure that
added harsher penalties for possession of the drug.

The Republican members of the conference committee voted Wednesday
against separating them into separate bills again. Sen. Con Bunde,
R-Anchorage, said the overall goal was to reduce the number of
impaired people in society.

"Whether they're high on meth or stoned on pot, it's the same to me,"
Bunde said.

Sen. Hollis French, D-Anchorage, attempted to remove from the bill a
list of legislative findings that say the marijuana available today
is much more potent than that of the 1960s and 1970s, and that it may
be addictive.

The findings are meant to be used in an attempt to overturn a
31-year-old Supreme Court decision that allows small amounts of
marijuana in Alaska homes -- an amount that was later set at 4 ounces.

French said those findings could not be considered scientific proof,
as they were contested by scientists in committee hearings.

He failed to get the votes needed to strike the findings from the bill.

French also tried unsuccessfully to amend the bill to make legal
small amounts of marijuana for personal use in a residence, saying it
was a question of the right to privacy in the home.

That amendment also failed, with Bunde saying the amount of a drug a
person possesses should not matter -- the drug is still illegal
whether it's an ounce or a pound.

The bill is House Bill 149.