Florida legalization results as well as other states.

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Register to vote today to make your voice heard.

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An initiative to approve adult-use cannabis will appear on the ballot in South Dakota. Is the third time the charm? South Dakota voters will have a third chance to approve a ballot initiative to legalize adult-use cannabis, this time, Initiated Measure 29, which will appear on the 2024 general election ballot on Nov. 5.

On Monday, Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office validated a measure that will appear on the November general election ballot. The campaign collected 22,558 valid signatures, which is about 5,000 more than is required for ballot placement. 

“Secretary of State Monae L. Johnson announces that a petition submitted for an initiated measure was validated and filed by her office today,” a June 3 press release reads. “This ballot question would legalize the recreational use, possession, and distribution of marijuana. The title for the ballot question will be Initiated Measure 29.”

It will be the third time South Dakota voters have weighed in on the question to approve cannabis for adult use. The Associated Press reports that in 2020, voters passed a measure, Amendment A, to legalize adult-use cannabis. South Dakota’s voters approved an adult-use ballot initiative in November 2020 by a solid 54% margin, However, the referendum was reversed by litigation. The measure  was ultimately struck down in court. 

Voters tried once again, two years ago. The campaign’s second initiative in 2022 was rejected by voters by 52%. (A medical cannabis initiative that was also approved by voters in 2020 was not challenged.)

State leaders have stood in the way of cannabis reform, giving the agenda to legalize a fight. The push to strike down the amendment passed by voters in November was spearheaded by Gov. Kristi Noem. “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 in a statement. “We do things right—and how we do things—matters just as much as what we are doing.”

If passed, the bill would legalize adult-use cannabis for people 21 and older. Adults over 21 would be able to buy and possess up to two ounces of cannabis or 16 grams of concentrate, with a limit of six plants per person with a 12-plant maximum for a single household. In addition, possession of cannabis products cannot exceed 1,600 mg of THC.

The bill imposed a limit of 2 ounces of cannabis in forms other than concentrate or flower. The measure also allows cultivation of plants, with several restrictions. Proponents plan to work with the Legislature to implement business licensing, tax and other regulations, if passed.

Proponents remain hopeful that voters will approve the bill. “We firmly believe that South Dakotans deserve to make their own choices on how they live their lives, including the freedom to responsibly use cannabis,” Zebadiah Johnson, political director for the campaign to legalize adult-use cannabis, said in a statement.

Protecting South Dakota Kids chair Jim Kinyon said the state’s voters already had a say on the issue and rejected recreational marijuana back in 2022. He criticized supporters’ repeated efforts to put the issue to a vote.

“How many times does the state of South Dakota need to reject recreational marijuana before the industry will accept the decision of the state’s citizens?” Kinyon said.

“I expect that the industry will triple down on their money to try and sway and disuade voters,” Protecting South Dakota Kids chairperson Jim Kinyon said.

The Path to the Ballot

The road to the ballot is due to the efforts of advocates and canvassers who worked tirelessly. Last May, advocates in South Dakota turned in a batch of signatures to get the adult-use cannabis initiative on the ballot in November.

South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws (SDBML) collected signatures (initially a 29,030 count) and submitted them on May 7, which was the deadline set by the Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office. Out of that amount, 17,508 must be verified in order for the initiative to appear on the ballot. “Today is the culmination of seven months of hard work by advocates and volunteers across South Dakota,” said SDBML executive director Matthew Schweich. “We are very confident that we have collected enough signatures from registered voters to qualify for this November’s ballot.”

Achieving this goal was partially due to the secretary of state’s office approval to pay canvassers to pass out ballot material and collect signatures, in addition to the organization’s volunteers, in December 2023. The campaign material they passed out included the title and ballot description.

South Dakota voters will once again head to the polls to decide if the state will move forward and legalize adult-use cannabis. If passed, it would make South Dakota the 25th state to approve adult use.

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After a series of controversial remarks about alleged drug trade on reservations, three more Native American tribes in South Dakota banned Gov. Kristi Noem from setting foot on their reservations, bringing the total number of tribal reservations to ban her to seven. 

The Associated Press reports that tribes are reacting to remarks from the governor, essentially saying that their reservations are havens for drug dealers selling fentanyl and other drugs, and that tribal leaders are allegedly not doing anything about it.

“We’ve got some tribal leaders that I believe are personally benefiting from the cartels being there, and that’s why they attack me every day,” Noem said at a forum. “But I’m going to fight for the people who actually live in those situations, who call me and text me every day and say, ’Please, dear governor, please come help us in Pine Ridge. We are scared.’ ”

The rift between Noem and tribes in her state continues to divide the two.

Noem posted on X a video of Chris Hansen from TruBlu investigating the trade of fentanyl, which includes some footage from Native American reservations in South Dakota. “Tribal leaders should take action to ban the cartels from their lands and accept my offer to help them restore law and order to their communities while protecting their sovereignty,” she posted. “We can only do this through partnerships because the Biden Administration is failing to do their job.”

The Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock Sioux tribes already took action to ban her off their reservations. Last week, the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate (SWO) tribe banned Noem from their lands, and when the SWO tribe banned her, the 13,057 square-miles of South Dakota land held by tribal nations that have already banned here amounted to nearly 17% of the state’s total area. 

The Pine Ridge Reservation (Oglala Lakota) makes up 3,469 square-miles, while the Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota comprises 4,267 square-miles, and a portion of the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota comprises 2,530 square-miles. The portion of the Lake Traverse Reservation (Sisseton Wahpeton) in South Dakota is about 1,400-square-miles, and the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota comprises 1,391-square-miles.

The Yankton Sioux Tribe voted Friday to ban Noem from their land in southeastern South Dakota just a few days later. Since there are nine tribal reservations in the state, just a few other remaining Native American tribes in the state haven’t banned her yet.

It’s not the first time the tribes have been at odds with Noem. In 2016, the Dakota Access Pipeline protests at Standing Rock took place and again during the COVID-19 pandemic when state leaders set up coronavirus checkpoints at reservation borders to keep out unnecessary visitors. She was temporarily banned from the Oglala Sioux reservation in 2019 after the protest dispute.

Things in general haven’t fared well between South Dakota’s Native Americans when it comes to European contact. In 1890, soldiers from the United States Army shot and killed hundreds of Lakota men, women, and children at the Wounded Knee massacre—simply to stop a religious practice known as the Ghost Dance.

Noem as a Vice Presidential Running Mate

Noem was eyed as a potential Vice President running mate for Donald Trump, but her controversial comments could change that. Dallas-based political observer Cal Jillson said this tribal dispute hits different because Noem appears to be “stoking it actively, which suggests that she sees a political benefit.”

“I’m sure that Gov. Noem doesn’t mind a focus on tensions with the Native Americans in South Dakota because if we’re not talking about that, we’re talking about her shooting the dog,” Jillson told the Associated Press.

Last month, a clip from her new book No Going Back: The Truth on What’s Wrong with Politics and How We Move America Forward revealed that the governor gunned down her puppy dog when it proved incapable of being trained.

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” the South Dakota governor wrote in her new book, adding that the female dog had an “aggressive personality” and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant. This particular passage sparked outrage. Noem wrote about making “hard choices” like shooting Cricket, as well as a goat on her property.

“We love animals, but tough decisions like this happen all the time on a farm,” Noem posted on X in response. “Sadly, we just had to put down 3 horses a few weeks ago that had been in our family for 25 years.”

Noem’s new controversy with nearly every Native American reservation in the state is putting the public eye back on her remarks once again.

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Advocates in South Dakota recently turned in a batch of signatures to get their adult-use cannabis initiative on the ballot in November.

South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws (SDBML) collected 29,030 signatures and submitted them on May 7, which was the deadline set by the Secretary of State Monae Johnson’s office. Out of that amount, 17,508 must be verified in order for the initiative to appear on the ballot. “Today is the culmination of seven months of hard work by advocates and volunteers across South Dakota,” said SDBML executive director Matthew Schweich. “We are very confident that we have collected enough signatures from registered voters to qualify for this November’s ballot.”

On X, the organization expressed its excitement and confidence that they had collected more than enough signatures in order for the initiative to qualify.

Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota president Deb Peters also commented on the milestone with hope. “Things all seem to be moving in the right direction for South Dakota to finally win the freedom they voted for a few years ago,” Peters said. “At the federal level, things are moving towards a responsible rescheduling and dozens of states are seeing the tax benefits of recreational cannabis legalization. It’s inspiring to see this industry come together and work so hard. We’re looking forward to Election Day.”

If passed, the initiative would allow adults over 21 to buy and possess up to two ounces of cannabis (or 16 grams of concentrates), while also cultivating six plants per person (with a 12-plant maximum for a single household). Possession of cannabis products cannot exceed 1,600 mg of THC.

Meeting this goal was partially due to the secretary of state’s office approving the organization to pay canvassers to pass out ballot material and collect signatures, in addition to the organization’s volunteers, in December 2023. The campaign material they passed out included the title and ballot description.

Johnson’s office has until August 13 to validate the signatures, according to The Washington Post.

SDBML campaign director Matthew Schweich described South Dakota’s history with adult-use legalization as “turbulent,” but there are numerous reasons for voters to support the 2024 measure. “I think for me, the strongest reason at its core is that if we’re going to allow alcohol to be legal in our society, then it makes absolutely no sense to punish people for using cannabis because alcohol is more harmful to the individual and to society than cannabis,” Schweich said.

In 2020, voters approved an adult-use cannabis initiative (Amendment A) and a medical cannabis initiative (Measure 26). Shortly after the votes were tallied, Gov. Kristi Noem expressed her disappointment. “I was personally opposed to these measures and firmly believe they’re the wrong choice for South Dakota’s communities,” Noem said at the time. We need to be finding ways to strengthen our families, and I think we’re taking a step backward in that effort.”

In February 2021, the adult-use initiative was nullified in court for violating the single subject rule for amending the state constitution. “Amendment A is a revision as it has far-reaching effects on the basic nature of South Dakota’s governmental system,” said Judge Christina Klinger. “The failure to submit Amendment A through the proper constitutional process voids the amendment and it has no effect.” It was later struck down in the Supreme Court in November 2021 as well.

Advocates continued onward in 2022 with another adult-use initiative (Measure 27), however voters decided not to show support and it didn’t pass. Polls conducted prior to the vote suggested that 51% of voters were planning on voting against the initiative, while only 40% were planning on supporting it. Final tallies show that 52.92% voted no, while 47.08% voted yes.

The medical cannabis initiative was not challenged back in 2021, but it took a while for legislators to implement rules necessary to get the program up and running. Patients were finally able to apply for a medical cannabis card starting in November 2021. As of August 2023, the South Dakota Department of Health shared that it has issued 11,500 cards since 2021, with 6,000 cards projected to be issued in 2024. “We’ve doubled the amount that we were projecting to see in three years within two years,” said the state’s medical cannabis program administrator, Jennifer Seale.

Although progress has been minimal, there have been other small victories in South Dakota. In July 2023, two law enforcement officers were forgiven for their past cannabis use. The South Dakota Law Enforcement Officers Standards Commission heard their cases, although both applicants described their cannabis use as a mistake. “I’m not going to fabricate an excuse. It was a mistake. I was in college, my freshman year,” said applicant Kody Beckers. “Looking back at it now was a blessing in disguise for me. I turned my whole act around.”

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South Dakota members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, with a vote of 5-2, decided last Wednesday to postpone any additional proceedings regarding legislation (SB 82), which aims to limit the medical cannabis access to a sweeping number of patients, NORML reports. 

The proposed bill aimed to limit patients to receiving medical cannabis recommendations exclusively from their primary care physician or other healthcare providers suggested by their primary doctor. Any doctors who provided recommendations but did not comply with the bill’s strict criteria would have faced criminal charges.

As South Dakota Searchlight reports, out of nine bills proposed to modify South Dakota’s medical cannabis regulations in this legislative session in Pierre, seven are still under review. These include measures to increase the cost of dispensary licenses, authorize cops to search dispensaries, and require prescribers to inform a patient’s primary care doctor when they get their medical cannabis card.

According to Jeremiah Murphy, a lobbyist for the Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota, the good (if you can call it that), news is that of the nine bills, the shut down Senate Bill 82 was the most troubling. It would have made it significantly easier for doctors who offer medical cannabis as a treatment option to face criminal charges.

“Senate Bill 82 was absolutely the most critical threat out of what’s out there,” Murphy told South Dakota Searchlight. “They got a lot of feedback from patients on that one. They poked the beehive, and bees came out.” 

In his testimony, Murphy stressed that 30% of Americans do not have a primary care physician. 

The potential for criminal charges against doctors was a crucial consideration for Sen. Erin Tobin, R-Winner. Tobin, a nurse by profession and chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, also serves on the Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee alongside the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Jim Mehlhaff, R-Pierre. For Tobin, a major issue with the bill was its effort to legally define “primary care provider,” a term and profession that’s tricky to concretely specify due to the flexible nature of roles within our healthcare system. Some folks see specialty doctors for their primary care, others rely on clinics. Putting aside all the War on Drugs rhetoric within the bill, we simply don’t have a solid, organized enough health care system for it to make sense. 

Tobin challenged that should the bill pass, doctors who fall somewhere in the gray area, or would as a result, be quite hesitant to prescribe cannabis to patients who would otherwise benefit from it. “If there’s a questionable piece to this, doctors are just going to pull out,” Tobin noted.

Back in 2020, South Dakota’s electorate voted to legalize medical cannabis, as favored by 74% of voters. As often happens, in the year since, anti-cannabis lawmakers have put concerted effort into dialing back or revoking this law however possible. There are presently more than 13,000 residents who are officially registered with the state for medical marijuana access, and over 250 practitioners are authorized to provide cannabis recommendations.

Opponents additionally pointed to the lack of solid evidence suggesting that anyone is taking advantage of this current system. One must also keep in mind how it would impact the veterans, who often greatly benefit from cannabis for PTSD, who see a primary doctor through the Veterans Affairs Health System. VA doctors currently aren’t allowed to prescribe cannabis. This could be changing. 

As High Times reported, in June of 2023, the Senate Appropriations Committee passed a budget bill that incorporates an amendment permitting doctors from the VA to recommend medical cannabis to their patients in states where it’s legal. This amendment is now part of the sanctioned legislation set to finance the VA for the Fiscal Year 2024.

The amendment, approved through a voice vote and introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley, an Oregon Democrat, aims for outcomes similar to those in a House-reintroduced bipartisan bill. This bill has the support of Oregon Democrat Representative Earl Blumenauer and Florida Republican Representative Brian Mast, an Army veteran who lost both legs in Afghanistan. Blumenauer and Mast jointly serve as co-chairs of the Congressional Cannabis Caucus.

Senator Merkley explained that the recently passed measure in The Senate Appropriations Committee “simply says, in states that have a medical cannabis program, that a veteran’s doctor can talk to their veteran patient about the pros and cons of medical cannabis and fill out related paperwork should a veteran decide to participate in a state program where such paperwork is required.”

Back in South Dakota, it’s also important to understand the challenge faced by Native American citizens in finding a primary care doctor. Often, the only viable healthcare option available on these reservations are the physicians at the Indian Health Service (IHS). Similar to the VA, the IHS prohibits its doctors from prescribing medical cannabis, as it remains illegal under federal law. 

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The South Dakota Department of Health has issued roughly 11,500 cards since the medical marijuana program launched in 2021––shattering the department’s projections of 6,000 cards issued by 2024. 

“We’ve doubled the amount that we were projecting to see in three years within two years,” said Jennifer Seale, the administrator of South Dakota’s medical cannabis program, as quoted by the local news outlet South Dakota Searchlight.

Seale made the comments in testimony on Monday before the Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee in the state legislature. 

Members of the committee expressed concern at the ease with which patients have gained access to medical marijuana cards. 

One member of the committee, Republican state House Rep. Fred Deutsch, has been outspoken in his opposition to recreational marijuana legalization, while also criticizing what he believes is a lack of safeguards in the state’s medical cannabis program. 

“Doctors can make a hell of a lot of money just opening up their ‘Doc in a Box Shop,’ and that concerns me. 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,” Deutsch said in June.

Earlier this year, Deutsch obtained a medical cannabis card himself to demonstrate the ease of access.

“I support easy access to medical marijuana when doctors and patients follow the law. I now have a medical card because my doctor didn’t follow the law,” Deutsch said on Twitter in June.

At Monday’s hearing, Deutsch recounted the visit to the clinic that resulted in the medical cannabis prescription. Local TV station KELO provided details on Deutsch’s comments:

“[Deutsch] said he could clearly hear the conversations between the nurse practitioner and the people seeking cards. ‘There was no privacy whatsoever. HIPAA was out the door.’ According to Deutsch, the nurse practitioner looked at his medical records, noted that he had been in a traffic accident, asked whether he still felt pain, and certified him for a patient card for a year. Deutsch said he then asked her whether using marijuana could conflict with any of his current medicines, but she said he needed to talk to his primary doctor. She told him he needed to ask other questions of the shops that sell marijuana. After seven or eight minutes, the meeting was done: ‘I left feeling, ‘A hundred seventy bucks – there was no examination.’’”

In the state’s legislative session earlier this year, lawmakers considered a pair of proposals that would have imposed restrictions on so-called “pop-up” medical marijuana clinics, where patients can obtain a card with ease.

The two bills would have “made myriad changes to cannabis law in the state: banning certain advertisements for prescription services; requiring certain actions by doctors and other providers to establish a ‘bona fide’ relationship and allowing prescription to occur only in certain facilities, most of them related to medical care in some manner,” the Forum News Service reported at the time.

But both pieces of legislature were soundly rejected by the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee.

In January, South Dakota lawmakers approved a bill to widen the list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis treatment in the state. The legislation also shifted the authority to set those qualifying conditions from the South Dakota Department of Health to the state legislature.

Voters in South Dakota approved a measure at the ballot to legalize medical cannabis for eligible patients in 2020.

While the law officially took effect in 2021, the first state-licensed dispensaries opened for business last year. 

The state’s 2020 ballot also included a proposed constitutional amendment that would have legalized recreational cannabis in the state.

Although a majority of voters approved the amendment, it was later overturned by the South Dakota Supreme Court––a ruling that delighted the state’s Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, who spearheaded the lawsuit to get the law struck down.

But after the court’s ruling in 2021, Noem made a point to draw a distinction between the overturned recreational pot measure and the medical cannabis program.

“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.”

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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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Longtime pot opponent South Dakota State Representative Fred Deutsch (R-Florence) repeatedly worked hard to narrow the state’s medical cannabis system as much as possible, and now aims to test the system after getting a card himself. 

Who is this guy? Deutsch urged his fellow representatives to vote against a bill adding several qualifying conditions to the state’s medical cannabis program, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and fought against other provisions like popup clinics. Deutsch claimed that studies show cannabis leads to an uptick in suicide.

After a few past attempts to limit the state’s program failed, the representative wants to test the state medical cannabis system to see if he can find any flaws. Deutsch told The Dakota Scout that he obtained a South Dakota medical cannabis card, but not to buy cannabis.

KOTA reports that in an earlier interview, the Tea Party Republican expressed some of his concerns over the details of the state’s medical cannabis system.

“States are called the laboratories of democracy,” Deutsch said. So, each laboratory we can see the kinds of outcomes they’ve attained from the laws they’ve written.”

He continued, “Doctors can make a hell of a lot of money just opening up their ‘Doc in a Box Shop,’ and that concerns me. 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.”

Deustch also said that he aims to eliminate home growing altogether and only allow dispensaries to distribute, where cannabis can be tested and approved, to ensure that the black market is kept under control.

The vast majority of dispensaries—medical and adult-use—are checking patrons for ID. Data published in the journal Addictive Behaviors that adult-use retailers across five U.S. cities were in strict compliance with laws requiring patrons to show identification and proof of legal age.

South Dakota’s Road to Medical Cannabis

South Dakota stands out among other states’ because its adult-use cannabis law was approved and then overturned. South Dakota legalized cannabis for medical use in 2021, but cannabis can only be purchased by patients with medical cannabis cards.

Despite voting to approve a challenged adult-use cannabis bill two years earlier, for the second time, in 2022, voters in South Dakota rejected a measure to legalize adult-use cannabis.

“The voters said yes to establishing a medical marijuana system, and they said no to establishing a recreational marijuana system,” Deutsch said at the time.

In 2020, the South Dakota voters approved Initiated Measure 26 and approved medical cannabis with 69% of voters in favor of the measure. A majority of voters in South Dakota also approved a ballot measure to legalize adult-use cannabis. Constitutional Amendment A was approved with 54% of the vote, according to election records. However, a lawsuit filed last year by Gov. Kristi Noem and two highway patrol officers prevented the bill approved by voters from ever seeing the light of day. The South Dakota Supreme Court ruled on Nov 24, 2021, that the measure couldn’t be implemented because it violated a requirement that constitutional amendments deal with just one subject.

Since then, Deutsch has been working to narrow the scope of the state’s medical cannabis program.

Deutsch was prime sponsor of four medical cannabis bills seeking to add regulations and personally led the fight against popup clinics. But last February, the Senate Health and Human Services Committee rejected HB1129 and HB1172.

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An effort to rein in so-called “pop up” medical cannabis clinics in South Dakota was rejected by the state’s lawmakers on Wednesday.

The Forum News Service reports that the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted against a pair of bills that would have “made myriad changes to cannabis law in the state: banning certain advertisements for prescription services; requiring certain actions by doctors and other providers to establish a ‘bona fide’ relationship and allowing prescription to occur only in certain facilities, most of them related to medical care in some manner.”

South Dakota voters approved a ballot measure in 2020 that legalized medical cannabis treatment for qualifying patients. 

The new law officially took effect in 2021, and the first state-sanctioned dispensaries opened to customers last year. 

Since then, a number of “pop up” clinics have opened, offering medical cannabis prescriptions to patients in mere minutes. 

Supporters of the two measures rejected by the state Senate committee on Wednesday contend that those clinics are “allowing those seeking medicinal cannabis to earn their cards without the proper, professional examination inherent to the law,” according to the Forum News Service.

Both bills failed by “wide margins,” the Forum News Service reported, noting that opponents to the measures “said the increased oversight and potential punishments would have the consequence of hurting the rate of providers opting into the medical marijuana program, an already present difficulty in the nascent program that creates a hole filled by ‘pop-up’ clinics.”

“The program is brand new, and we don’t want to go backward with law by just saying, ‘We’ve got to stop this right now,” said state Sen. Erin Tobin, of Winner, as quoted by the Forum News Service. “Because I know it’s a problem. We’ll get there.”

But the chief supporter of the proposals said that the pop-up clinics “blur the line” between medical and recreational pot. 

A measure to legalize recreational cannabis was rejected by South Dakota voters last year.

“The voters said yes to establishing a medical marijuana system, and they said no to establishing a recreational marijuana system,” said state House Rep. Fred Deutsch, the supporter of the bills.

The Mount Rushmore State has had a complicated history with cannabis policy as of late. Despite rejecting last year’s recreational pot proposal, South Dakota voters had approved an amendment to end the prohibition on pot in 2020. 

But that amendment faced an immediate legal challenge led by the state’s Republican governor, Kristi Noem, and was ultimately struck down by the South Dakota Supreme Court in 2021. 

“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 of the court’s ruling. “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 state Senate voted last month to broaden the list of qualifying conditions for medical cannabis treatment.

Under the original statute, patients with the following would qualify for the treatment: A chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition or its treatment that produces one or more of the following: cachexia or wasting syndrome; severe, debilitating pain; severe nausea; seizures; or severe and persistent muscle spasms.

The measure passed last month would expand the list to include: Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or positive status for human immunodeficiency virus; Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; Multiple sclerosis; Cancer or its treatment, if associated with Crohn’s disease; Epilepsy and seizures; Glaucoma; or Post-traumatic stress disorder.

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