Erika Merklin’s marijuana cultivation facility “Resurrected Dreams” is the first Haines license to be completed by the state agency overseeing licensing. The Haines Borough Assembly voted during its Tuesday regular meeting to provide “no objection” to Merklin’s license.
The Alcohol and Marijuana Control Office notified the borough in early January of Merklin’s complete application. The assembly is responsible for providing input to the state as it considers license applications.
Assembly members Heather Lende and Brenda Josephson said they felt uncomfortable “recommending” the state approve the license, but didn’t have any objections to it.
Merklin’s cultivation facility will be located on Chilkat Lake Road.
“I plan to grow as much as my space will allow,” Merklin said. “The flowering room is approximately 24 feet by 22 feet. I do have a buyer that wants to purchase all that I produce and that’s been a really great relationship to cultivate.”
Merklin has dabbled in the gardening business and said she enjoys being an herbalist and a botanist.
“I used to produce wild crafted herbal teas under the name ‘Alaska SuperNatural Teas,’” Merklin said. “Nettle and dandelion just aren’t cash crops. I’m a vegetable ‘farmer’ and kale and cauliflower don’t pay the bills either. Maybe, just maybe, I could finally have a cash crop.”
Merklin named her business Resurrected Dreams, in part, after her father. He was arrested in Pennsylvania in the late 80s for growing marijuana and served five years in prison.
“That had a pretty big impact on my early adult life,” Merklin said. “It was dark and shameful and now (marijuana) is legal and medicinal. It’s politics. It’s economics. (It’s) freedom.”
Attorney General Jeff Sessions in early January rescinded the Cole Memorandum, an Obama administration directive that had the Justice Department place a low priority on marijuana enforcement. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.
Sessions’ policy will let U.S. state attorneys decide whether or not they want to pursue enforcement.
Merklin said she hopes the state and the borough will support her business in spite of Sessions’ new directives.
“If I’m going to enter the ranks of ‘organized crime,’ I hope, if ever they kick at my front door, the organizations demanding a cut off the top of my business earnings will offer allegiance and protection,” Merklin said.
The state taxes growers $50 per ounce of cultivated marijuana and the borough assembly recently approved a $5 excise tax per ounce grown in the borough.
Five other Haines applications, including three retail marijuana store licenses and two additional cultivation licenses, are in various stages of review at the state level.