Alaska Governor Forms Marijuana Tax Force To Study Changes To Taxes And Regulations

“In the past seven years Alaska’s marijuana industry has flourished but is still considered a new and evolving industry in Alaska.”

By Kim Jarrett, The Center Square

A 13-member committee will study Alaska’s recreational marijuana taxes, fees and regulations.

Gov. Mike Dunleavy (R) issued an executive order Wednesday establishing the Governor’s Advisory Task Force on Recreational Marijuana that will study the state’s seven-year-old marijuana industry. Alaskans approved recreational marijuana in 2014.

The state charges a $50 per ounce excise tax on marijuana sales from warehouses to retailer. The tax brought in $30 million in fiscal year 2021, Dunleavy said. That is three times the amount the state collected in 2018.

“In the past seven years Alaska’s marijuana industry has flourished but is still considered a new and evolving industry in Alaska,” Dunleavy said in a statement. “As we would expect to see with any new industry, concerns have been raised about the structure the industry has been operating under.”

The committee will include the commissioner of the Department of Revenue or a designee, the commissioner of the Department of Commerce, Community and Economic Development or a designee and the director of the Department of Natural Resources, Division of Agriculture.

The other ten slots will come from the Alaska Marijuana Control Board, an official from a city, borough or municipality that allows recreational marijuana, a marijuana cultivator, a marijuana manufacturer, a marijuana retailer, three others from the marijuana industry and one public member.

The committee will hold monthly meetings and submit a final report on January 13 of next year, according to Dunleavy’s office.

This story was first published by The Center Square.

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