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 This poses unique hurdles for entrepreneurs hoping to capitalize
on an Alaska move to legalize recreational marijuana, and who seek
to grow and process products to be marketed across the state, much
of which is accessible only via transport links policed by U.S.
agencies and governed by federal law.
To get around such obstacles, some investors say they plan to launch
location-specific seed-to-sale businesses, hoping to avoid blatant
federal violations as well as the hazards of moving about in a vast,
often bitterly cold state.
"With the risks along the way as far as law enforcement and the
elements, most people believe it's the smartest thing to do," said
Charlo Greene, a prominent pro-cannabis activist who plans an
Anchorage seed-to-sale business.
Reflecting a rapidly shifting legal landscape for marijuana, voters
in four U.S. states have opted to legalize recreational pot since
2012, most recently in Oregon and Alaska, even as it remains illegal
under federal law.
President Barack Obama's Justice Department has cautiously allowed
the experiments to proceed, saying it would look to prosecute a
narrower range of marijuana-related crimes, such as sales to
children. But that could change if a more conservative President is
elected in 2016, when Alaska's pot shops are likely to open.
 Alaska pot entrepreneurs say they are wary of relying solely on
federal discretion in a state so dependent on air and sea transport.
Some 80 percent of communities are inaccessible by road, including
Juneau, the state capital.
Juneau resident Ben Wilcox, who wants to ship pot to a nearby
community by ferry and plane, said pot delivery is written into the
voter-backed law and is crucial to meeting statewide demand and
growing business.
Ben Adams, an attorney, said he has advised potential Alaska
investors to confine their businesses to one locale: "If you're
growing it and dispensing it in one place, it doesn't matter if that
place is off the road system."
Colorado and Washington have had fewer such quandaries because
product is widely transported by road links policed locally,
although one business group said some pot is taken to market on
Seattle-area ferries.
A Seattle-based spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration
said there have been no arrests for pot transport by licensed
commercial businesses.
"Alaska is going to raise a lot of public policy questions in terms
of this federal-state relationship that either haven't come up or
will never come up in other states," said Brookings Institution drug
policy researcher John Hudak.
TESTING THE WATERS
Alaska has long had looser marijuana rules than many other states.
Four decades ago, the Alaska Supreme Court ruled that possessing
small amounts of cannabis at home was protected by privacy rights.
In 1998, voters approved medicinal pot but blocked dispensaries.
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Libertarian-minded residents have long taken their pot on
puddle-jumper planes, snow machines, ferries and boats, just as they
have done with alcohol banned in some communities, state police
said. "The federal government doesn't [mess] with us out here,"
said John Bouker, a Dillingham pilot who shuttles villagers on
errands and state troopers to crime scenes in the highway-free
Bristol Bay area.
"Our problem out here is the alcohol, the heroin, not the pot," said
Bouker, 49, who has occasionally noticed the scent of a stash in his
Cessna.
But questions remain over the extent to which businesses will use
federally policed paths to take pot to retail shops, and how often
federal agents will intervene, if at all.
State rulemakers will take months to weigh the issue, with
anti-cannabis community and tribal leaders already urging
restrictive zoning and local bans.
Alaska Airmen Association spokesman Adam White said pilots should
"be extremely careful with what they transport in their aircraft."
The U.S. Coast Guard warns that pot remains illegal on ferries, and
the Transportation Security Administration, which runs checkpoints
at more than a dozen Alaska airports, said agents would alert local
police to any pot found.
Police decide whether to make arrests. But DEA agents are stationed
alongside police at larger airports, such as Anchorage, and could
take an interest in big stashes of commercial weed, a TSA spokesman
said.
"The ball is in the state's court to set up their own regulatory
scheme and see how it operates," U.S. Attorney for Alaska Karen
Loeffler said. "If we end up with a marked public safety problem,
like we have with heroin these days, obviously we will work jointly
with our partners to deal with it."
(Additional reporting by Dan Wallis in Denver; Writing and
additional reporting by Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Eric
Walsh)
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