Alaska rule would limit cannabinoids to licensed grows, approved hemp

Marijuana and marijuana products sold in Alaska's licensed stores would have to draw all of their cannabinoids, not just THC, from cannabis grown at a state-licensed Alaska cultivation facility, under a draft regulation the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development has put before the Marijuana Control Board. The one exception: a manufacturer could blend in a hemp product approved by the Alaska Division of Agriculture.

The draft, 3 AAC 306.901, says marijuana and marijuana products "may only include cannabinoids derived from cannabis cultivated in a cultivation facility licensed under this chapter." The department calls the section clarifying language meant to ensure the cannabinoids in products sold here actually come from Alaska.

Current rules already require a license to grow marijuana for sale to a marijuana establishment, aside from personal home grows allowed under state law. But they don't spell out where the cannabinoids inside a manufactured edible or concentrate must originate.

That gap has worried the industry for a while. Licensed operators told the board at its September 2025 meeting in Anchorage that cheap out-of-state hemp-derived THC was undercutting Alaska-grown cannabis. At a Kodiak Island Borough work session on July 16, 2026, cannabis business owner Janice Stevens said the licensed market is "already competing with manufactured psychoactive substances which can be sold to anyone anywhere, and non-regulated dealers who again sell to anyone anywhere, compromising public safety with the risk of cross-contaminated substances."

The Division of Agriculture already declines to endorse hemp products containing delta-9 THC or lab-modified cannabinoids such as delta-8 THC-O, THCP and HHC.

The draft isn't law yet. It carries a blank effective date and a conforming change to the civil fine schedule at 3 AAC 306.840(a). Proposed marijuana rules are published on the Alaska Online Public Notice System, with copies available from the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office.