Alaska voters will decide the fate of initiatives at the ballot box this summer which would legalize recreational marijuana use in Alaska and raise the state’s minimum wage to $9.75 an hour by 2016. Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell’s office announced Wednesday afternoon that the two initiatives had been certified at appear on the ballot in August’s state primary elections. Supporters of each initiative had turned in more than 40,000 signatures in support of placing them before voters. The marijuana initiative suggests a tax of $50 per ounce, or roughly 20 percent of what Anchorage police and Alaska State Troopers say is a street value of $300 to $350 an ounce. It also allows individual communities to forbid marijuana sales, mirroring existing “local option” state laws governing the sale of alcohol. If approved, the minimum wage initiative would raise the wage to $8.75 an hour in 2015 and another dollar an hour a year later, with the amount adjusted by inflation after that point. A minimum provision would keep Alaska’s minimum wage at least $1 an hour above the federal equivalent.
Alaska's primary elections will take place Aug. 19.