Alaska proposes letting one marijuana caregiver serve multiple patients

Alaska is proposing to let a single medical marijuana caregiver serve more than one patient, in the first update to the state's rules since voters approved medical cannabis in 1998.

The Department of Health posted the changes Friday. They would repeal the section limiting a caregiver to one patient, and stretch the registry ID card to two years from one. The current rule already allows a shared caregiver in cases of hardship, hospice care, or patients living in the caregiver's home; the change drops the requirement to ask permission first.

There's a wrinkle the notice doesn't address: state law still says a caregiver can serve only one patient at a time unless they're closely related, no further than a first cousin. The regulation can be rewritten, but the statute above it hasn't changed, and neither the notice nor the draft explains how repealing the rule squares with the law.

The longer card raises a similar question. State law requires patients to resubmit updated paperwork, including a signed physician's statement, every year to keep the card valid. A two-year card doesn't obviously fit a yearly renewal requirement, and no rule carrying out that annual duty appears in the draft.

The draft also drops the requirement that applicants give a Social Security number, and loosens the department's duty to convene a review group when someone petitions to add a qualifying condition, changing "will" to "may."

The concern isn't new. When the Legislature rewrote the law in 1999, then-Attorney General Bruce Botelho warned the governor that a caregiver serving several patients "would be allowed to possess one ounce plus six plants for each patient, thus allowing large growing operations." The notice doesn't revisit that.

Comments are due Nov. 6, and an online hearing is set for Oct. 29.