The Alaska cannabis industry has a new gun in town.
Rose Law Group, an Arizona business law firm, has sent an attorney to the Last Frontier to represent marijuana industry interests, including lobbying during the 2016 legislative session.
The move is a new stage in development for Alaska cannabis businesses. Much of the current legal representation for industry leaders draws from criminal practice, rather than business.
This includes Lance Wells, an Anchorage attorney who represents marijuana club Pot Luck Events and who started the Alaska Cannabis Law Group LLC in partnership with attorney David Schlerf. California criminal and medicinal marijuana attorney Ben Adams has branded himself “Alaska’s pot attorney,” and has aggressively courted industry since Nov. 2014.
Jana Weltzin, a Fairbanks native who recently moved to Anchorage from Rose Law’s Scottsdale, Ariz., headquarters, said her firm has what Alaska’s budding industry needs most: business expertise and political savvy.