Recently in South Dakota, two law enforcement officers were forgiven by the South Dakota Law Enforcement Officers Standards Commission for cannabis use. According to the South Dakota Searchlight, the commission made decisions on more than a dozen pending certifications and recertifications, of “officers, canine units, and reciprocity for out-of-state or Indian Country officers seeking state certification.” Many “officer hopefuls” attended a commission meeting on July 12 to make their case.

The first was Officer Kody Beckers, who previously pleaded guilty to possession of THC wax when he was a freshman in college in 2015. “I’m not going to fabricate an excuse. It was a mistake. I was in college, my freshman year,” Beckers said. “Looking back at it now was a blessing in disguise for me. I turned my whole act around.”

He earned his undergraduate degree at Minnesota State University, and later earned a law enforcement certification at Alexandria Technical and Community College. “I wanted to find a way to obtain my sense of purpose in helping people,” Beckers continued. 

South Dakota law prohibits the commission from certifying officer applicants who have pleaded guilty to a felony, however exceptions can be granted “for those given a suspended imposition of sentence in the state,” wrote the South Dakota Searchlight. 

After discussing if the commission has the power to certify Beckers, they agreed to do so. “I think that this is an appropriate consideration for this board,” said commission member Tom Wollman. “We have pretty clear authority under our state law. It gives us that discretion.” 

The second case pertained to a current sheriff’s deputy, Alicen Fladland, who will still be allowed to be certified as an officer even though she has a registered tribal medical cannabis card with the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe to manage pain she experienced following her knee surgery in 2022. “I am an honest and hard-working person and I will do whatever I can to improve our community,” Fladland said.

According to Hank Prim, law enforcement trainer for the Division of Criminal Investigation, also spoke in support of Fladland’s case. “She was honest on her application,” said Prim. “Had she not been honest on her application, there’s a good chance that the law enforcement commission would not have known about it.”

Many Native American tribes have begun to legalize medical and/or recreational cannabis on tribal land, and benefitting from sales. The Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe was one of the first in the U.S. to legalize medical cannabis after the Department of Justice’s Cole Memorandum was issued in 2014, and it was also the first dispensary to open in South Dakota.

However, last year the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe told AP News last year that police have arrested more than 100 people who had medical cannabis cards and were buying cannabis at their dispensary. The tribe has issued approximately 8,000 medical cannabis cards to both tribe members, as well as non-tribe members.

According to Flandreau Police Chief Zach Weber, these arrests are valid according to the South Dakota Department of Public Safety and attorney general’s office. “If they have a tribally-issued card and they are non-Native American, we seize the card and any of the marijuana products that they would have,” Weber said.

Recreational cannabis is currently illegal in South Dakota, and although many advocates have worked to get legalization on the ballot, it has failed twice so far. 

In June, South Dakota State Rep. Fred Deutsch said he was going to get a medical card just to test the medical cannabis system, although he also said he didn’t plan to buy any cannabis. Previously, Deutsch urged other representatives to vote against a bill that would expand the list of qualifying conditions for eligibility. “Doctors can make a hell of a lot of money just opening up their ‘Doc in a Box Shop,’ and that concerns me,” Deutsch said. “That should concern everybody. I mean, come on. If we’re talking about medical marijuana, we should allow people that really need it to have access to it, and we should prevent people that don’t need it from getting access to it as well.”

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It has been more than a year since the new medical cannabis law in South Dakota officially took effect, but there are still no state-approved dispensaries serving patients.

That is about to change.

Next week, when Unity Rd. opens its doors in Hartford, South Dakota––a town of about 3,300 located just outside Sioux Falls, the state’s largest city––it will make history as the first state-licensed medical cannabis dispensary in the Mount Rushmore State.

“We were really pushing hard to get that number one on the door to be the first legal, state-issued license,” B.J. Olson, one of the co-owners of Unity Rd., told the Argus Leader newspaper. “That doesn’t happen, unless you have your foot on the gas from the beginning.”

“We bought the property, we began building the building with no piece of paper, and worst case, we decided we’re gonna build a beautiful structure to lease to somebody and best case, we’re going to be the first dispensary in the state,” said Adam Jorgenson, the other co-owner.

According to the Argus Leader, “Unity Rd. is a franchise and also has shops in Oklahoma and Colorado.”

Voters in South Dakota overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure in 2020 that legalized medical cannabis treatment in the state.

The law officially took effect on July 1, 2021, well before the state had begun issuing licenses for would-be dispensaries. But members of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe opened a dispensary shortly after the official start date last summer, bringing tension between the tribe and the state.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and other state officials have said that they will not recognize medical cannabis cards issued to individuals who are not members of the tribe.

The Argus Leader reported that, as of February, “the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe [had] issued about 8,000 medical marijuana cards to tribal and non-tribal members,” and that, “although several county- and city-level law enforcement agencies and state’s attorneys have eased up on arrests and prosecutions for possession of small amounts of marijuana all together, others, like the Flandreau Police Department are not honoring some tribal-issued medical cards.”

The tribe said at the time that more than 100 people who had been issued tribal medical cannabis cards had been arrested since the dispensary opened last July.

Unity Rd. will “offer a number of products including flower, vape cartridges, topicals, pre-rolls and edibles,” according to the Argus Leader, although initially “only flower will be sold, but the business expects to add products in a couple of weeks.”

The state’s medical cannabis law has faced a sluggish rollout. As of April, there were barely 400 patients who had been enrolled in the program, while only 90 doctors statewide were allowed to approve the use of medical cannabis for their patients.

South Dakota voters also approved an amendment in 2020 that legalized recreational cannabis, but that law was ultimately overturned by the state Supreme Court after it drew a legal challenge by Republican Gov. Kristi Noem.

Noem, a possible 2022 GOP presidential contender, celebrated the ruling.

“South Dakota is a place where the rule of law and our Constitution matter, and that’s what today’s decision is about,” Noem said at the time. “We do things right—and how we do things matters just as much as what we are doing. We are still governed by the rule of law. This decision does not affect my Administration’s implementation of the medical cannabis program voters approved in 2020. That program was launched earlier this month, and the first cards have already gone out to eligible South Dakotans.”

South Dakota will have another shot at legalizing recreational cannabis this fall, however, with a new measure qualifying for the November ballot.

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South Dakota only has one medical cannabis dispensary. To make matters worse, some customers there are still getting busted for pot.

That is according to the Argus Leader, which reported last week that “officials with the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe said that more than 100 people who’ve been issued tribal medical marijuana identification cards have been arrested since the tribe opened South Dakota’s first-ever cannabis store last year.”

The tribe opened the dispensary on July 1, 2021, when the new law officially took effect. No other dispensaries opened on that official start date, however, creating a gray area between the state and tribe.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem and her administration has said that the state would not recognize medical cannabis cards issued to individuals who are not members of the tribe.

According to the Argus Leader, “the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe has issued about 8,000 medical marijuana cards to tribal and non-tribal members,” and “although several county- and city-level law enforcement agencies and state’s attorneys have eased up on arrests and prosecutions for possession of small amounts of marijuana all together, others, like the Flandreau Police Department are not honoring some tribal-issued medical cards.”

“They’re taking the cards and handing out fines,” Tony Reider, chairman of the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe, told the newspaper. “But most we don’t know about, because most people are just paying the fines.”

The continued arrests typify what has been a fraught 15 months since South Dakota voters passed a pair of measures in the 2020 election to dramatically reform the state’s marijuana laws.

Voters there approved both a constitutional amendment to legalize recreational pot, as well as an initiated measure to allow medicinal cannabis.

But only the medical law still stands, with the South Dakota Supreme Court ruling in November that the recreational amendment was unconstitutional, as it violated the state’s “one subject” requirement for constitutional amendments.

Chief Justice Steven Jensen ruled that Amendment A featured “provisions embracing at least three separate subjects, each with distinct objects or purposes,” noting that the state constitution “not only includes a single subject requirement but also directs proponents of a constitutional amendment to prepare an amendment so that the different subjects can be voted on separately.”

The decision upheld a lower court’s ruling from earlier in the year, which came after Noem and a pair of law enforcement officials challenged the amendment.

After the state Supreme Court’s ruling on the day before Thanksgiving, Noem struck a celebratory note.

“South Dakota is a place where the rule of law and our Constitution matter, and that’s what today’s decision is about,” she said in a statement at the time. “We do things right—and how we do things matters just as much as what we are doing. We are still governed by the rule of law. This decision does not affect my Administration’s implementation of the medical cannabis program voters approved in 2020. That program was launched earlier this month, and the first cards have already gone out to eligible South Dakotans.”

The Argus Leader reported that South Dakota taxpayers will be footing the $142,000 in legal costs associated with Noem’s recreational pot challenge –– an expense that the governor believes should be shouldered by the advocates behind the amendment.

For Noem, a potential 2024 Republican presidential candidate, the cannabis dispute has represented a rare political misstep. A poll last year found that only 39 percent of South Dakota voters approve of her handling of the recreational pot matter, while 17.8 percent said they somewhat disapprove and 33.4 percent said they strongly disapprove.

Those numbers stand in sharp contrast to her overall approval rating of 61 percent.

The medical cannabis program, meanwhile, has slowly taken shape. Enrollment for eligible patients began in November, while state-recognized dispensaries may open later this year.

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