Alaska's recent legalization of recreational marijuana means that America's last frontier was among the country's first states to tell residents it's OK to fire up the bong.

But marijuana sales won't become legal until May 2016, giving the state's financial institutions, including credit unions, more than a year to decide what role, if any, they want to play in serving what will inevitably be a budding crop of marijuana-based business enterprises.

Alaska voters on Nov. 4, 2014, gave the high sign to AS17.38, also known as Proposition 2, allowing state authorities to tax and regulate the production, use and sale of marijuana. Initial oversight was given to the Alaska Alcohol Beverage Control Board, which was allowed nine months after the law's effective date of Feb. 24, 2015, to develop regulations governing marijuana-related entities and other aspects of the newly-formed industry.