Is weed legal in Alaska?

Recreational status

Recreational cannabis is legal in Alaska. (AS 17.38.020 Personal use of marijuana)

Legal here reaches the adult rather than the shop, and no card, registry or doctor stands between you and a licensed counter. The ceiling on what an adult may hold sits in the same statute that grants the permission, so the two arrive together.

Medical status

A full medical cannabis program runs in Alaska, serving patients the program registers. (AS 17.37.010 Registry of patients and listing of caregivers)

Patients may also be served by a registered primary or alternate caregiver, who must be at least 21 years old and, under AS 17.37.010, may generally serve only one patient at a time.

Registering adds a caregiver, and it does not widen what a patient may hold. Alaska keeps that relationship one to one: a listed caregiver must be 21 or over and may generally stand for a single patient at a time.

Hemp-derived products

Alaska permits the sale of hemp-derived products and limits which ones. (AS 03.05.076 Industrial hemp)

AS 03.05.076(g) caps industrial hemp products intended for human consumption at 0.3 percent delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and (b)(4) lets a registrant retain and recondition hemp testing between 0.3 percent and one percent. The section otherwise governs registration and production of industrial hemp as an agricultural crop.

Alaska measures hemp by a laboratory number for delta-9, so two items that look alike in a store can fall on opposite sides of the cap. A grower registered with the state may recondition a crop testing a little above it, which is a step in the field and not a class of product on the shelf.

Home cultivation

Alaska allows an adult to grow up to 6 plants at home. (AS 17.38.020 Personal use of marijuana)

The six-plant, three-mature limit is per person; no more than 12 plants total, six of them mature and flowering, may be present in a single dwelling regardless of the number of adults living there. Plants must be grown out of public view, secured against unauthorized access, and grown only on property the cultivator lawfully possesses or with the occupant's consent, under AS 17.38.030.

Six is per person and the dwelling caps the total at 12, so two adults under one roof reach the ceiling and a third adds nothing. Alaska also requires the garden to be out of public view, secured against anyone who should not reach it, and grown on ground you lawfully hold or the occupant agrees to.

Possession and purchase limits

The possession limit, as Alaska states it: One ounce or less of marijuana. (AS 17.38.020 Personal use of marijuana)

AS 17.38.020(2) separately allows possessing the marijuana produced by a person's own plants, without a stated weight cap, on the premises where the plants were grown. Registered medical patients and caregivers are held to the same one-ounce and six-plant aggregate under AS 17.37.040.

On buying, Alaska states: A retail marijuana store may not sell to any one person per day more than one ounce of usable marijuana, more than seven grams of marijuana concentrate for inhalation, or more than 5,600 milligrams of THC in combined sales of marijuana and marijuana products. (3 AAC 306.355 Limit on quantity sold)

A store's day is capped three ways at once: by weight, by concentrate meant for inhalation, and by total milligrams of THC, and whichever cap fills first ends the purchase. What your own plants produce is counted separately on the premises where they grew, so the ounce is not the measure of a harvest sitting at home.

Minimum age

You must be 21 or over to buy without a medical card. (AS 17.38.020 Personal use of marijuana)

Alaska sets no minimum age for a patient. (AS 17.37.010 Registry of patients and listing of caregivers)

AS 17.37.010(c) lets an adult patient, or a parent or guardian of a minor patient, apply for the registry, so a patient of any age may be registered. The only age in the section, at least 21 years, is a requirement for a caregiver, and AS 17.37.050, Medical use of marijuana by a minor, is repealed.

Alaska's registry and its shop counter answer to different ages. A parent or guardian applies for a minor patient, the caregiver who acts for that patient has to be 21 or over, and the only lawful counter in the state is one that turns away anyone under 21.

Where you can buy

You can buy lawfully from a licensed recreational dispensary. (AS 17.38.070 Lawful operation of marijuana-related facilities)

Registered patients may also receive marijuana through delivery by their registered caregiver under AS 17.37.040, which affirmatively bars sale or distribution to any other person; that is a caregiver-to-patient transfer, not a licensed dispensary channel, so it is not counted among the purchase channels here.

One kind of counter serves everyone in Alaska, patients included, so there is no separate medical storefront to look for. A registered caregiver may deliver to the patient they are listed with, and that is a private handover rather than a shop you can order from.

The Alaska store list names every licensed location this site holds a record for.

Federal law applies here too, and it is not the same. Read what federal law says about weed.