Prospective marijuana business owner Bryant Thorp was the very first person in Alaska to get word that his cannabusiness application was complete, except for one thing — a background check that the state doesn’t have the legal authority to conduct.

In the Marijuana Control Board’s March 25 letter to Thorp the agency wrote that it couldn’t approve his application until his fingerprints were sent to the FBI for a national criminal background check.

“At this time, we are unable to do so,” wrote director Cynthia Franklin. That’s because the Legislature must write the provision into law, she wrote.

The language the marijuana board says it needs is sitting in House Bill 75, which has failed to pass both houses. On Tuesday, the Legislature appointed a conference committee — six legislators total — to try to reconcile the differing Senate and House versions of the bill.

The two versions are largely the same, but the Senate version contains a contentious measure to opt-out the unorganized borough from commercial marijuana, which has stalled the bill. [Read more at the Alaska Dispatch News]