The Last Frontier is at the forefront of the marijuana legalization movement after Alaska on Tuesday became the third U.S. state to allow the recreational use of the drug.

The Associated Press reported it remains illegal to smoke marijuana in public, and police in the state's largest city, Anchorage, are ready to start issuing $100 fines to offenders. When Alaskans approved the initiative allowing pot use last November, however, they failed to define what "in public" meant -- a question the alcohol regulatory board plans to address in a Tuesday emergency meeting.

For the time being, communities have adopted their own standards.

In Anchorage, Police Chief Mark Mew noted that people should not consume marijuana on their porches if they live next to a park, for example, and that his officers will be strictly enforcing the public-smoking ban.

In North Pole, a suburb of Fairbanks, on the other hand, smoking outdoors on private property will be tolerated as long as it does not create a nuisance, according to local officials.

What is clear across the state is that as of Tuesday, adult Alaskans can keep, use, transport, grow, and gift pot, though a regulated and taxed market will not start until 2016 at the earliest.

Anyone aged 21 or older can possess up to an ounce of marijuana and can grow up to six marijuana plants, three of which can be flowering. Buying and selling the drug, meanwhile, remains illegal, and private exchanges are allowed only if no money is involved, Reuters detailed.

The 49th state joins Colorado and Washington, where recreational use is also legal as a result of a coalitions among libertarians, rugged individualists and small-government Republicans.

Supporters say the measure reflects a sense of personal freedom that resonates with residents of Alaska, a state with a libertarian streak, according to Reuters. And Tim Hinterberger, who chairs the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, praised the new regulations.

"Alaska now has some of the most sensible marijuana laws in the nation," Hinterberger said in a statement.

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