{"id":32615,"date":"2018-01-22T18:58:00","date_gmt":"2018-01-23T02:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/north-slope-police-chief-named-to-marijuana-board\/"},"modified":"2018-01-22T18:58:00","modified_gmt":"2018-01-23T02:58:00","slug":"north-slope-police-chief-named-to-marijuana-board","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/north-slope-police-chief-named-to-marijuana-board\/","title":{"rendered":"North Slope police chief named to marijuana board"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Walker has appointed North Slope Borough Police Chief Travis Welch to a vacant position on the Alaska Marijuana Control Board.<\/p>\n

The board, which regulates Alaska’s commercial marijuana industry, gathers in Juneau this week for a three-day meeting starting Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Welch’s appointment was announced Friday by the governor’s office of boards and commissions.<\/p>\n

When the Empire on Monday asked for a list of other applicants, it was told it would have to file a state records request. That request has been made.<\/p>\n

Welch has worked for the North Slope Borough Police Department since 2008 and lives in Utqiaġvik. He replaces Soldotna Police Chief Peter Mlynarik, who resigned his position on the board<\/a> after U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions withdrew a legal memo that has guided the federal approach toward marijuana enforcement.<\/p>\n

Recreational marijuana has been legalized in multiple states, but it remains illegal at a federal level.<\/p>\n

After Sessions’ action, Mlynarik said the marijuana industry was no longer legitimate. Mlynarik also had concerns with the quality of state marijuana testing.<\/p>\n

The state accepted applications for two weeks after Mlynarik’s resignation and appointed Welch the day after the application period closed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Bill Walker has appointed North Slope Borough Police Chief Travis Welch to a vacant position on the Alaska Marijuana Control Board. The board, which regulates Alaska’s commercial marijuana industry, gathers in Juneau this week for a three-day meeting starting Wednesday. Welch’s appointment was announced Friday by the governor’s office of boards and commissions. When […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[249,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-32615","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-marijuana","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32615","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/426"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32615"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32615\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32615"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32615"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32615"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=32615"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}