Advocates for legalizing recreational marijuana in South Dakota, a mission with a checkered history, sent thousands of signatures to election officials Tuesday, hoping to once again put the issue on the conservative state’s November ballot.
Supporters of the initiative delivered around 29,000 signatures to the Secretary of State Monae Johnsondesk. They need 17,508 valid signatures to get on the November ballot. Johnson’s office has until August 13 to validate the signatures.
Twenty-four states have legalized recreational marijuana, including in November 2023 in Ohio, But “no state has as interesting, difficult or turbulent a history as South Dakota,” said Matthew Schweich, director of the South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws campaign.
Florida voters will decide whether we will legalize recreational marijuana this fall. Similar enforcement efforts are underway in other states, including North Dakota.
In 2020, South Dakota voters approved a medical marijuana initiative and also approved a measure that would legalize recreational marijuana. But the latter was finally slaughtered when the South Dakota Supreme Court upheld The judge’s decision that violated a single-subject rule for constitutional amendments – a challenge started by Governor Kristi Noem. Measure supporters I tried again in 2022, but voters defeated the proposal. In 2021, Noem tried to delay legalization of medical marijuana for one year, one proposal that died in the Republican-led Legislature.
Schweich cites several reasons for supporting the measure, including that it would allow law enforcement resources to be directed elsewhere, increase access for people who have difficulty obtaining medical marijuana patient cards, and generate new tax revenue and jobs.
“I think, for me, the strongest reason is that if we are 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 the society than cannabis,” Schweich said.
Protecting South Dakota Kids, a nonprofit group that opposes marijuana legalization in the state, fought the 2022 effort. The Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment on the 2024 effort with the organization’s president, Jim Kinyon . In a pamphlet issued in opposition to the 2022 measure, he wrote that legalization “would open the door to higher crime rates, increased suicide rates, traffic deaths, workplace injuries, and mental health problems.”
O electoral initiative would legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older. The proposal sets possession limits of 2 ounces of marijuana in a form other than concentrated cannabis or cannabis products, as well as 16 grams of the former and 1,600 mg of THC contained in the latter. The measure also allows the cultivation of plants, with restrictions.
The measure does not include commercial licensing, taxation or other regulations. Schweich said the single-subject rule at the heart of the 2021 court ruling tied his hands “in terms of writing the kind of comprehensive policy that I would like to write.”
“We are taking a conservative approach in response to this decision and not taking any risks,” he said.
Supporters of the measure, if successful, plan to work with the Legislature next year to pass implementing legislation “that will clarify the missing pieces,” he said.
South Dakota outlaws possession, distribution and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, with varying misdemeanor and felony penalties based on factors such as quantity and second or subsequent convictions.
The federal government proposed reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a movement Schweich said it could help normalize the issue for certain voters.
Schweich said the unique circumstances of the issue in South Dakota warrant a third attempt. He thinks the initiative has a better chance this year, when voters will likely turn out in greater numbers to vote for president and, possibly, to weigh in on a decision. abortion rights initiative that others hope to enter the polls.
