The Marijuana Control Board held its final day of meetings in Fairbanks on Friday, talking about on-site consumption.
One of the first amendments that the board had entertained, in anticipation of the legislature passing a non-smoking work place law, was to have a different location, a part from a retail store, for customers to consume their marijuana products.
The board discussed what security measures should be required if this were to be put into place.
The main concern of the Board’s Chairman, Peter Mlynarik, was for the employees who would have to monitor patrons consuming marijuana.
“I guess I would reiterate my concerns about second-hand smoke and what alleviates the person that has to be there who doesn’t have the choice in his employment, to have to be exposed to second-hand smoke. And one of our warnings says it impairs judgment. You’re asking this person to be a judge to people who are consuming and what… You know there aren’t studies that say how that affects a person, so how much impairment is okay for that person to still work at this job. Depending where this person is standing, if he’s next to ventilation, anything. And so you’re putting a person in a position that we’re requiring them to have, but then saying that their judgment could be impaired. I have a hard time with that.”
During the meeting, board member Loren Jones had questioned how long customers would be allowed to use these onsite consumption facilities.
Board member Brandon Emmett, reminded the board that marijuana is not like alcohol and should be treated differently.
“People who cunsume cannabis it’s a generally a very social but also very mellow experience for most consumers and so something that a lot of cannabis consumers like to do is smoke, or eat an edible and sit and play a video game or play board games or chill and do something that’s very relaxing until they sober up and then leave after having that experience. It’s much different with alcohol where you go somewhere and your intention is to consume to get intoxicated you keep going and going and going until you get rowdy and crazy. That generally doesn’t happen with marijuana”
After applying a variety of amendments, the final decision resulted in the board approving a draft of Onsite Marijuana Consumption to be sent to the public for public comment.
credit:webcenter11.com
