Later this year Alaska voters will have the chance to legalize marijuana, like Colorado and Washington did in 2012. The vote was recently moved from the August primary to the general election on Nov. 4.
The more than 30,000 signatures needed to get the initiative on the ballot were submitted in February and certified by Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell.
The initiative, organized by the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana in Alaska, would establish a marijuana industry, allow for possession of up to one ounce and home culitvation (six plants), and tax the production from grow to store at $50 per ounce.
Alaska's marijuana law is currently muddled. In 1975, the state's Supreme Court made it legal to possess up to four ounces in private. In 1990, a ballot initiative overturned that decision. In 2003, an appellate court ruled the 1990 reversal was unconstitutional.
Medical marijuana passed in Alaska in 1998, but a vote to legalize it for recreational use failed in 2000.
Update: Also in 2014, Oregon will vote to legalize marijuana.
The MPP predicts California, Arizona, Nevada, Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Hawaii will also move towards legalization by 2016.
