WASHINGTON — Last week, the Obama Administration's Justice Department announced it would no longer prosecute users and suppliers of medical marijuana — as long as they're complying with the law in Alaska and 13 other states where medicinal pot use is legal.

But prosecutions have never been much of an issue in Alaska, where voters in 1998 passed a ballot measure that allows people who obtain permission from a doctor to possess and use marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Only about 200 people currently have permission to use medical marijuana in Alaska. And since the law took effect in 1999, the state of Alaska hasn't prosecuted a single case connected to the medical use of the drug, said Bill McAllister, a spokesman for Attorney General Dan Sullivan.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Anchorage also hasn't ever prosecuted any cases in Alaska connected to the use or possession of medical marijuana, said spokesman Chuck Farmer.

Most of the cases have been in California, where within weeks of Obama's inauguration, federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided several pot dispensaries in Los Angeles. Those raids and others in California led some to question whether the Obama administration's drug enforcement policies had changed much from the Bush-era policies.

The memo released this week, however, seemed to add some clarity, said national advocates for more liberal marijuana laws.

"They've decided to stand down on the state laws," said Allen St. Pierre of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, NORML.

In Oregon, Washington and Alaska, there simply aren't any dispensaries, and that lack of retail availability changes the dynamic and doesn't lend itself to raids, St. Pierre said. For that reason, it simply isn't on the radar of local law enforcement, either.

"We won't be open to the kind of nonsensical fraudulent use they have in California," said Lt. Dave Parker of the Anchorage Police Department.

In Alaska, anyone who wants to use marijuana to help treat an illness must get a prescription from an Alaska-licensed doctor, said Phillip Mitchell, who oversees the state's medical marijuana registry for the Bureau of Vital Statistics within the Department of Health and Social Services.

The patient must have a "chronic or debilitating disease" that the physician certifies would be alleviated by medical pot. The diseases include cancer, glaucoma, positive HIV status, AIDS, severe pain, severe nausea, seizures and multiple sclerosis.

Those who obtain the prescription can then apply to the registry. The number of people on the registry has fluctuated, beginning with 28 in 1999 and 228 this year. They must reapply every year.

Anyone on the registry may posses up to 1 ounce of marijuana in a usable form, and up to six plants. No more than three of the plants can be producing or flowering at any time.

There is nothing in state law noting how people are supposed to obtain medical marijuana, Mitchell said, and there are no dispensaries. It's also not as though people can pick it up at their local pharmacy.

"That's caused some grief for people who've moved here from California," Mitchell said. "They get quite upset and angry, and it's hard to get them to understand that we're just a very different state up here."

However, as both state and federal prosecutors noted, they've never pursued a case involving medical pot.

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