Alaska Senate Bill 73 Seeks to Overhaul Marijuana Taxes, Sen. Matt Claman Leads

(ALASKA) — Sen. Matt Claman introduced Alaska Senate Bill 73 to overhaul marijuana industry taxes and registration rules, as lawmakers weigh whether the state’s cannabis tax structure still works for businesses and for revenue.

Claman, a Democrat, sponsored the bill as Alaska’s legal marijuana market reports pressure from tax delinquencies, closures and competition from illegal sales, while the state counts on cannabis revenue as part of its broader budget picture.

Alaska Senate Bill 73 proposes reforming marijuana establishment registrations, providing tax exemptions for qualified small businesses, and restructuring marijuana taxes.

Claman introduced SB 73 on January 24, 2025, during the 34th Legislature’s 2025-2026 session. The measure arrived as operators and some lawmakers argued that the existing approach, built in the early legalization era, taxes cultivation in a way that does not respond to market pricing.

Senate Labor & Commerce moved SB 73 forward on February 12, 2025, with a mixed committee report that signaled both support and unresolved concerns.

The committee report listed 2DP (Do Pass: Sen. Bjorkman, Sen. Gray-Jackson), 2NR (No Recommendation: Sen. Merrick, Sen. Yundt), 1AM (Amendment: Sen. Dunbar). It also advanced with fiscal notes from CED, COR, DOH (multiple), REV, and DPS.

After clearing Labor & Commerce, lawmakers referred SB 73 to the Senate Finance Committee, which often serves as the decisive gatekeeper for tax and fee legislation.

A hearing on SB 73 was scheduled for March 6, 2025, at 9:00 AM AKST in Senate Finance Room 532, with streaming on AKL.tv. Committee materials framed the hearing as covering marijuana tax and registration issues alongside other topics, offering a venue for amendments and input from industry participants.

SB 73’s focus on marijuana taxes comes against a baseline that is unusual in the U.S., with Alaska relying on a weight-based wholesale excise tax assessed on cultivators rather than a structure that rises and falls with retail prices.

Industry participants have argued that a tax tied to weight can squeeze legal operators when wholesale and retail prices drop, because the tax bill does not adjust in step with market shifts. Supporters of a different tax base have also argued that changing the structure could alter incentives tied to compliance and pricing, though lawmakers have differed on how to balance market stability with revenue reliability.

The debate has also unfolded amid claims that the legal market competes with lower-priced illicit sales. The pricing gap has been cited in comparisons that put legal retail prices at $250–$300/oz versus $100–$150 on the black market.

Delinquent tax accounts have become a central indicator in the push for reform, with nearly 60 cultivators owing over $3M, figures that lawmakers and industry participants have pointed to as a sign of strain.

Delinquency matters beyond the unpaid balances because it can shape enforcement, licensing stability and business planning across the supply chain. It also has implications for whether the state can count on cannabis as a dependable annual revenue source.

Closures have added to the sense of urgency. The industry estimated 25+ business closures in 2023, suggesting a legal market that some participants see as fragile even as consumer demand persists.

Revenue concerns have extended beyond late payments. A projection cited in the push for changes warned of a $10M annual state loss by 2026, raising the stakes for lawmakers who must decide whether adjustments would preserve or reduce collections.

SB 73 entered a policy environment that already saw regulatory changes intended to lower operating costs, even before lawmakers settled on tax restructuring.

Regulators lowered licensing fees on May 29, 2025, a move that provided some relief but did not directly change the tax bill faced by cultivators and other licensees. Fee reductions can cut fixed costs, but they do not address how marijuana taxes respond to market conditions.

Another change targeted cultivation operations. Alaska removed the 50-plant batch limit for clones and cuttings on April 25, 2025, eliminating a constraint that operators said affected how they could scale propagation and plan production.

Those regulatory actions have fed into legislative arguments in competing directions. Some participants have cited the changes as proof that policymakers recognize strain in the legal market, while others have argued that fee and rule adjustments should be allowed time to work before lawmakers take on a deeper tax rewrite.

SB 73 has not been the only vehicle for marijuana taxes in the 2025-2026 session, and its path through Senate Finance has unfolded alongside House bills that offered different approaches and different political tradeoffs.

House Bill 91, reintroduced by Rep. Ashley Carrick, a Democrat from Fairbanks, pursued a combination of short-term excise tax relief and a longer-term shift toward a retail-based approach, while allowing for local add-ons in concept.

HB 91 passed House State Affairs but stalled in House Finance after an April 30 hearing, amid budget concerns. That stall highlighted a recurring problem for cannabis tax legislation: lawmakers can agree that businesses face pressure, but dividing lines sharpen when proposals appear to reduce state revenue in the near term.

House Bill 94, introduced by Rep. Frank Tomaszewski, a Republican from North Pole, proposed exemptions for small cultivators from the existing structure while also moving toward a retail-based model in concept.

House Labor & Commerce held HB 94 on March 3 without advancing it, leaving SB 73 as one of the prominent remaining vehicles for debate over marijuana taxes and registration rules, even as other bills lingered in committees.

The competing proposals have mattered to SB 73 because legislators often borrow language, concepts and guardrails from parallel bills, especially once a measure reaches a finance committee where fiscal notes and revenue assumptions become central.

Ideas developed outside the Legislature have also shaped the conversation. A 2022 Governor’s Advisory Task Force ordered by Gov. Mike Dunleavy recommended moving away from the existing weight-based structure and toward a sales-tax model, while also suggesting how the state could allocate cannabis revenue.

The task force recommendations included prioritizing revenue splits for recidivism reduction, the general fund and substance abuse treatment. Those priorities signaled a policy argument that cannabis revenue should serve both broad budget needs and targeted programs tied to public health and public safety.

Even when lawmakers do not adopt task force language verbatim, such packages can influence the range of options considered in committee and the terms of compromise, including which programs receive protection if lawmakers change how marijuana taxes are collected.

Statewide debates also run into a state-versus-local reality, where municipalities can layer their own retail taxes and earmark proceeds for local services, complicating how lawmakers talk about “cannabis revenue” as a single pool.

Statewide, cannabis generates ~ $25M+ annually, and Alaska has collected ~ $150M since legalization. Those figures make marijuana taxes a meaningful, if not dominant, part of the state’s revenue picture.

Anchorage provides a prominent example of local reliance. The city collects ~ $5M from its marijuana retail sales tax alone, supporting 57 shops, and voters approved dedicating that local revenue stream to childcare and early education.

Mayor Suzanne LaFrance proposed a $2M grant to the Anchorage School District’s daycare for at-risk 4–5-year-olds, with a focus on social/emotional development, literacy and health. The proposal described a one-year term that would be renewable, and the Anchorage Assembly took it up for consideration on March 3, 2026.

That Anchorage program operates at the municipal level, separate from state-level tax overhaul bills such as Alaska Senate Bill 73. The policy tracks also differ in what they target, with state proposals focused on wholesale excise design and industry registration rules, and Anchorage’s approach focused on how to earmark local retail receipts.

Supporters of local dedication have treated the Anchorage model as a way to convert a volatile policy debate into a stable funding stream for visible services. For state lawmakers, it also creates a parallel set of stakeholders—parents, school district officials and city leaders—who may watch state cannabis policy for indirect effects on the market that produces local receipts.

Local program administration remains a practical question for residents. Proposals referenced licensed and inspected daycare, with state regulation through DOH as a baseline expectation for public confidence.

Descriptions of the program emphasized an “at-risk, low-income” focus, while sliding-scale income and work requirements were not specified in the proposal language summarized in the available details. Residents seeking the exact eligibility and application steps would need to confirm them through Anchorage officials and the school district.

The next chapter for SB 73 remains centered in Senate Finance, where tax bills typically face the most detailed scrutiny and the tightest set of fiscal constraints.

Amendments in Finance could determine whether Alaska’s cannabis tax rewrite focuses on rates, collection mechanics, exemptions, or registration rules, and whether lawmakers try to merge ideas from SB 73 with concepts advanced in HB 91 or HB 94.

With Anchorage and other local governments tying marijuana revenue to programs such as childcare and early education, lawmakers weighing Alaska Senate Bill 73 face a debate that reaches beyond marijuana taxes and into how the state and its cities plan for services built on cannabis receipts.