While Alaska has voted to legalize the recreational use of marijuana, it remains illegal to smoke marijuana in any of the public places in the state, authorities said.

Alaska becomes the third US state to officially legalize the recreational use of marijuana on Tuesday but anyone who will be caught smoking weed in public will be fined up to US $100, said the police in Anchorage.

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Starting Tuesday, Alaskan of legal age can keep, use, transport, grow and give away marijuana. The regulation and taxation of the state's marijuana market will only start by 2016 at the earliest.

That means marijuana possession is no longer a crime under Alaska's law but enjoying it in public entails a US $100 fine.

For a long-time pot smoker, the public smoking ban is fine and the legalization will stop a lot of people from getting arrested for nonviolent crimes.

The clause that bans smoking marijuana in public, however, has not been fully defined and different communities across Alaska are adopting their own interpretation of the regulation.

In Anchorage, Police Chief Mark Mew said his officers will be strictly enforcing the public marijuana smoking ban. People who will smoke in their porches will also be apprehended if they live next to a park, he said.

In North Pole, officials agreed that smoking marijuana outdoors is allowed if it is done on a private property and does not create a nuisance.

The legalization of marijuana use in Alaska may be cause for celebration but the backers of the initiative warned marijuana enthusiasts to keep their cool and not get too excited.

"Don't do anything to give your neighbors reason to feel uneasy about this new law. We're in the midst of an enormous social and legal shift," organizers wrote in the Alaska Dispatch News, the state's largest newspaper.

Alaska now joins Washington state and Colorado to officially legalize recreational marijuana.

TagsAlaska Marijuana, Legal Marijuana, Alaska, marijuana