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41 Alaska B. Rag 1 (2017)

handle is hein.barjournals/askabar0041 and id is 1 raw text is: Status of marijuana law confused by election By Jason Brandeis Ever since the Alaska Supreme Court's 1975 decision in Ravin v. State, the legal status of marijuana in Alaska has resided in a gray area. Ravin established a stark contrast between Alaska's tolerance and re- spect for adult marijuana use and the federal government's strict pro- hibition on the same conduct. By the time Alaskans voted for statutory marijuana legalization in November 2014, Ravin's holding was seen by many as mostly symbolic, and real legalization was thought to involve a regulated commercial industry with retail stores like those already oper- ating in Colorado and Washington. The Colorado and Washington models crystallized the confusion: Marijuana use was simultaneously legal under certain state laws but criminalized under federal law. With a growing number of states adopting a more permissive approach by al- lowing adult use, medical use and commercial sales of marijuana, the federal government was forced to respond, which it did by issuing the Cole Memo. Modern marijuana legaliza- tion in the United States survives largely by the grace of this 2013 Department of Justice policy direc- tive. The Cole Memo de-prioritized federal prosecution of certain mari- juana crimes, identified areas for increased vigilance, and reflected the view that states should continue acting in their traditional role as laboratories for democracy, where- by they could experiment with novel marijuana legalization protocols. The memo established a fragile truce between the states and the federal government, and though just a policy that could be reversed Writers workshop lures Alaskan to follow Hemingway to Cuba Story and photos By Dan Branch I attended a week-long writer's conference in Havana, Cuba, offered by Santa Fe Photographic Work- shops. They had us staying in a con- vent in Old Havana. The nuns were nice even though they insisted on serving us Swedish style breakfasts. The lighter, Cuban fare would have served us better in the warm climate. Lee Guthind, editor of Creative Nonfiction, who was once called the godfather of the genre by Vanity Fair magazine, was our workshop leader. I'm in the Miami Airport with a bunch of writer types. In an hour we will board a flight to Havana. The other writers seem nice, even inter- esting but I'm still uncomfortable. We have been warned about zika and denge fever. On my doctor's ad- vice, I've been vaccinated against typhoid. I carry a copy of my pass- port signature page to produce when agents of Cuba's communist govern- ment bang on my bedroom door at 3 a.m. I read that the food will be poor and the water undrinkable, but thanks to a recent visit by then President Obama the people will be welcoming. A child of the Cold War, I try to suppress the image of beard- ed men in jungle-green mufti yelling Yankee go home! A Cuban family takes the last empty seats in the boarding area. The oldest, a woman with granny clothes and coifed silver hair drops into a wooden rocking chair that I hadn't noticed before. Her daugh- ters, one dressed in conservative de- partment-store church clothes and the other in tight and shinny jeans and top, sit next to her. Their fa- ther carefully doles out micro cups of Cuban coffee to grandma and his daughters. They take seconds to down the thick, black stuff. The man acts with the care of a priest at a funeral. I hope that a country that encourages men to have such gentle manners won't offer much danger for this aging American tourist. Even though we had been warned to expect a grilling from government agents, I quickly clear customs without having to explain that while I will attend a Havana writer's conference, I am a tourist, not a writer, to avoid being taken away for special treatment. I don't even have to convince them that the antibiotics in my carry-on bag will not be sold on the black market. At the airport, I exchange $300 dollars for the CUC's that tourists must use as currency in Cuba - the equivalent of an average Cuban's annual salary. Now I am worried that with so much in my wallet, I'll attract thieves on the Havanaz streets like a salmon egg draws at- tention in a trout stream. Before our first morning's walk we learn that more visitors suffer injury from stumbling than from in- sect borne illnesses or violent crime. Once out in the Cuban sunshine, I can't appreciate the crumbling beau- ty of the pre-revolution mansions lining Havana's narrow streets for fear of stepping into an unmarked hole in the sidewalk, falling into open construction pit, or being run Continued on page 15 What Alaskan isn't going to check out the fishing in Cuba? v' \ \\\\ \\\~4 ~ M/-A I Continued on page 22

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