{"id":38121,"date":"2018-11-05T12:07:00","date_gmt":"2018-11-05T21:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/two-years-on-alaskas-marijuana-industry-keeps-growing\/"},"modified":"2018-11-05T12:07:00","modified_gmt":"2018-11-05T21:07:00","slug":"two-years-on-alaskas-marijuana-industry-keeps-growing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/home\/two-years-on-alaskas-marijuana-industry-keeps-growing\/","title":{"rendered":"Two years on, Alaska’s marijuana industry keeps growing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alaska’s marijuana industry is continuing to grow, new tax figures from the Alaska Department of Revenue show.<\/p>\n

Two years after the opening of the state’s first retail marijuana store, 119 taxpayers remitted $1.5 million to the state of Alaska in September, the department said in its monthly update<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The state’s first sales of recreational marijuana to the general public were on Oct. 29, 2016 in Valdez. (A Fairbanks store had a soft opening the night before.)<\/p>\n

Each month since October 2016, the state has reported more taxpayers than the month before, even if tax collections rise and fall.<\/p>\n

In Alaska, taxes are paid at the wholesale level, as cannabis moves from grower to retailer or manufacturer. Bud or flower is taxed at $50 per ounce, malformed buds are taxed at $25 per ounce, and other plant parts are taxed at $15 per ounce.<\/p>\n

September collections were down about $60,000 from August, the state reported, but continue an upward trend. January was the first month to report more than $1 million in taxes remitted to the state; every month since March has been above $1 million.<\/p>\n

Kelly Mazzei, the state’s excise tax director, said by email that October collections, when finalized at the start of December, could reach $1.8 million, setting a new record.<\/p>\n

To date, marijuana growers have paid $17.2 million in taxes, the state report indicates.<\/p>\n

In September, 1,529 pounds of bud were transferred from growers and 1,077 pounds of trim were sold.<\/p>\n

\n

\u2022 Contact reporter James Brooks at jbrooks@juneauempire.com or 523-2258.<\/b><\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

October collections might set a new record. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":426,"featured_media":38122,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":9,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,4],"tags":[487,249,230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-38121","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-home","category-news","tag-cannabis","tag-marijuana","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38121","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=38121"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38121\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38121"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38121"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38121"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=38121"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}