1. How do you track changes rapidly and get that information to stakeholders?

The process of tracking how the Alaska Marijuana licensing process can be enriched and getting that information to all stakeholders requires the collection of adequate information. This information helps the policymakers make an informed decision whether or not to approve these changes and how such new changes can be incorporated into the current licensing guidelines and requirements with minimal disruptions (Blake & Finlaw, 2014). Although changes can have significant positive impacts on any project, it requires collective approval, incorporation, and smooth communication to all stakeholders (Brandenburg, 2018). Any new changes made in policy or plan must be accompanied by budget mishaps, resource allocation and delayed deliverables (Clarizen, 2015). Therefore, it is crucial to have a predetermined evaluation process containing all guidelines for new changes so that to ensure each stakeholder remain updated.

The first step is for the delegation to identify who constitutes the stakeholders of this licensing process. The success of any policy reform depends on how effective it is in meeting stakeholders’ needs. Martin, (2014) defines stakeholder of a project to any person who is directly or indirectly affected by the project. The identification of appropriate stakeholders requires in-depth research. For this study, the potential set of stakeholders may include the cannabis industry, cannabis prevention, government enforcement, regulatory officials, public health, and the end user of cannabis.

The second step will involve the determination of goals and priorities. After establishing a list of stakeholders, the delegation will identify their needs and preferences. Interviewing stakeholders can provide the most relevant information. Some of the stakeholders’ needs may not be effectively achieved. Such needs should be recorded in a separate manuscript to prevent misplacement of effort (Martin, 2014). Since some of these needs cannot produce an actionable outcome or create value addition to stakeholders, it will be significant to prioritize gathered information. The goals for Alaska’s cannabis legalization include the reduction of the black market, reduce cannabis-related crimes, reduce crime-charge impacts on the apprehended, improvement of product safety, and enhance the generation of tax revenue. The delegation will prioritize these goals to determine how taxation or other regulatory structure can be set up.

The third procedure is deciding how to convert a prioritized set of goals into measurable goals. One of the strategies of achieving this objective is by employing the principle of SMART. Prioritized goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (Martin 2014). Such a creation of goals speeds up the process of measuring them to ensure their completion and success. Finally, these goals can be executed by incorporating stakeholders and their needs. Identified goals or procedures will then be broken down into deliverables to understand how they translate into the desired outcome (Hickenlooper, 2014). This process will also involve stating when each deliverable will be due and procedures needed to achieve it.

Moreover, each deliverable needs will be transformed into obligations that will be performed to yield the required policy outcomes. All resources including human capital and time needed will be calculated and updated to determine the study timelines. Where there may be significant differences on the deliverable date from the expectations renegotiation on deadline, additional resources, or reduction of the project scope will be made. The entire process will be anchored on clear and open communication to all stakeholders. An effective reporting system will be provided to facilitate an informed decision-making process (Martin, 2014). All stakeholders will also be engaged to instill in them confident that the study achieves its primary goal. By so doing, stakeholders will feel that their interests are incorporated.

2. What is the best way to communicate in a rapidly changing environment?

Case studies from Colorado and Washington on the legalization experience provide some key lesson concerning how communication can be made in the current changing environment. Stakeholders in the two case studies stress the relevance of making the proactive investments required to develop an inclusive regulatory framework (Carnevale, Kagan, Murphy & Esrick, 2017). One of the critical lessons from these studies is that the regulatory framework should integrate the infrastructure required to address public safety and health issues. The legalization experience also emphasizes on the importance of identifying a clear goal or purpose that will drive the entire approach. Accordingly, the identification of policy goals ensures that the provided regulatory provisions yield a strategic consistency method as well as the procedures for monitoring and evaluating policy impacts and progress.

The development of a comprehensive cannabis regulatory framework cannot be achieved without reconciling medical and retail markets. In the case studies, stakeholders placed significant emphasis on the importance of differentiating between the use of cannabis as a recreational substance and as a medical substance. When used as a medicine, stakeholders approved that marijuana is treated as prescribed dosage, cultivation, distribution, and retail. Healthcare professional should play a key role in developing a regulatory system (Perlow, 2019). Since most medical distribution hubs are unregulated, there is a need that the regulatory system will align the pharmaceutical market with the retail market. The government and policy implementation stakeholders should set up a special endorsement permitting tax exemptions to the authorized medical users (Hickenlooper, 2014). There is also a need to consider lowering the minimum purchase age.

In spite of proactively identifying these issues, the stakeholders must ready to response to uncertainties. Hence, the framed regulatory system needs to be agile and flexible to adapt volatile and mitigate possible destructions. Also, gradual approaches and the reduction of restrictiveness of regulations is more achievable than tightening them. Therefore, the regulatory system should be designed, begin with, a more restrictive policy and later ease such restrictions. Legalization experiences have also revealed a concern about the high content of THC contained cannabis medical products and cannabidiol oils. The consumption of high levels of THC could have long-term health effects (Perlow, 2019). The problem of dosage and packing of edibles pose unanticipated outcomes for producers and consumers of unlicensed product format. Notably, many consumable goods have virtual form and concentrations to those of candy products. As a result, many youths are exposed to the risk of ingesting (Hickenlooper, 2014). Therefore, there is a need to support rigorous format regulations on products. Numerous format regulations can be considered such as inspection of product formats, limiting the concentration of THC, and imposing caring taxation based on THC content on products.

It may be agreed that preventing commercialization through active marketing, advertisements, and the promotion of cannabis could be the best way to communicate the regulatory framework in the changing environment. As it is seen with tobacco and alcohol commercialization, this policy is ideal in mitigating significant public health impacts (Spithoff, Emerson & Spithoff, 2015). The main areas of critical attention include stringent regulation of promotion and advertising, a rigorous state regulatory paradigm on distribution, and high taxation. Ideally, many corporate interests are motivated by supernormal profit and economic culture associated with this product. Studies have also shown a high rate of cannabis smoking is directly linked to market availability (Palamar, Ompad & Petkova, 2014). Therefore, the density of sales outlets in the state, and the location of these outlets close to schools should pose a significant concern among the stakeholders. Possible measures for this problem could be the capping of the number of issue licenses.

3. How does this industry operate with federal uncertainty?

Although marijuana businesses are considered illegal at the federal level, the cannabis industry is one of the growing commerce in some Alaska State. The industry is increasingly attracting more and more investors who are hoping to be among the first entrepreneurs to capitalize on the prospective high rates and growth (Hickenlooper, 2014). Many of these investors are confident that unexploited products or market could become more competitive in the future. Its success owes to its ability to utilize multiple technologies such as analytics, cloud, and internet of things. According to Uzialko (2019), many of the marijuana dealing agents and firms in Alaska pretends that they are working within the medical marijuana programs as the alternative to medical treatment of chronic pains, cancer, psychiatric illness, and neurological disorders.

The growing of grey market in Alaska is also linked to the illegal smuggling of unlicensed cannabis from neighboring states and country like Canada where the product is authorized for recreation use. According to Uzialko (2019), the cannabis industry in the U.S. is overgrowing into a big business. Billions of dollars are invested in the sector despite the continued federal prohibition. Although only ten states and Washington, D.C. have so far legalized the possession and uses of cannabis among licensed adult, another twenty-three more states are considering legalizing medical cannabis program. As the discussion of potential ending the Federal prohibition is before the House of Congress, prospects of the cannabis industry continue to revitalize.

The rapid growth over recent years is also due to the increasing number of jurisdictions legalizing the sale and use of marijuana. For instance, the legalization of medical cannabis in Canada prompted a considerable amount of firms and politician in the U.S. to join the markets. Many approaching investors were very keen on obtaining what they considered to be a big deal. The evolution of Canadian cannabis regulation to legalize it for recreational use prompted many companies are expanding into some of the states in the U.S. where such business and use of marijuana for medical and recreation purpose have been decriminalized, regardless of federal prohibition (Uzialko, 2019). However, investment in this industry is characterized by various uncertainty due to the continuous evolution of federal laws.

Notably, numerous businesses are operating within the cannabis industry which includes biotechnology, consulting services, cultivation and retail, cannabis extraction and products, holding companies, agricultural technology, auxiliary services, and industrial hemp (“Investing in the cannabis industry,” 2018).  From the legalization experience in both Washington and Colorado State, stakeholders expressed the lack of co-existence of medical and retail markets as the key challenge. In the two states, the pre-existing regulations on medicines create a dual standard system that contributed to the grey market that deals with production and distribution of the unregulated or authorized product (Blake & Finlaw, 2014). Therefore, while states may place quotas on the number of plants that approved person can grow, there is a high probability that these licensed people don’t adhere to these quotas. Instead, they produce goods for the grey market which in turns pose a high risk to public health.

Conclusions and recommendations

The process for marijuana licensing is often cumbersome since it requires specific requirements and procedures that may vary from one State to another. The current continuum between federal and state cannabis regulation policies are the reason behind disconnection between commercialization, decriminalization, legalization of marijuana, and other cannabis regulatory models between the federal government and state governments which have legalized cannabis use for the medical purposes, such as Alaska state.

From Washington and Colorado legalization experiences, there are various lessons that Alaska stakeholders can learn. The key messages are that if the state is deliberating on making reforms on cannabis regulatory policy it first need to identify the primary goals, use these goals to develop a regulatory framework, collect supportive data, and initiate public awareness (Pardo, 2014). It is also important to spend time and invest resources to make incremental reforms on the current cannabis regulatory system. The delegation will use the information from secondary data and on legalization experiences in Washington, Canada, and Colorado to contribute to the ongoing dialogue on cannabis regulatory system anchored on sound evidence. The principal goals of this regulatory framework include reduce the crime rate and promoting public health and safety. This paper recommends that conversation on cannabis policy in Alaska should start by defining fundamental problems the state sought to address and the determined goals.

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