Alaska regulators have approved the state’s first license for a legal marijuana business.
Approval of the application by CannTest LLC of Anchorage, a marijuana testing facility, was met by applause and cheers during the Marijuana Control Board meeting in Anchorage on Thursday. The approval is subject to the completion of local processes.
The application was among 30 up for consideration by the board, and the first taken up. One more application is for a testing facility. The rest are for grow operations.
The board hasn’t been able to have national criminal history background checks run while waiting to see whether a bill passed by the legislature authorizing those checks will be signed into law. But it decided to move ahead with considering applications in the meantime.
The board has taken a staggered approach to licensing, focusing first on grow and testing facilities to help ensure there will be legally grown marijuana available for when the first retail stores are authorized.
Cynthia Franklin, director of the Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office, has said that a crop life is estimated at 90 days, and regulators are looking at September to begin issue retail licenses.
