(C) South Dakota Searchlight
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'Twilight Zone' could await if South Dakotans approve marijuana measure • South Dakota Searchlight [1]
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Date: 2024-10-31
It’s like something out of the “Twilight Zone”: Imagine a world where marijuana is legal, but there’s no one who can sell it to you. You’ve entered a place where the will of the people bumps up against the ideals of the Legislature. You’ve entered … South Dakota.
This state may be headed to the Twilight Zone if Initiated Measure 29 is approved by voters. The measure allows the possession of up to 2 ounces of marijuana and six marijuana plants. There are also provisions that allow the possession of marijuana edibles and cannabis concentrates.
The measure calls for the transfer of marijuana “without consideration.” That means someone has to give it to you for free. Maybe your friend with six marijuana plants will be nice enough to give you a little. There will be no legal marijuana sales — except through the existing medical marijuana program — until the Legislature takes action to authorize retail sales.
The candidates, the ballot measures, and the tools you need to cast your vote. SD Votes: 2024
Advocates for legalizing the sale of recreational marijuana learned a harsh lesson in 2020 with the passage of Amendment A. That marijuana omnibus amendment contained everything you’d ever want to know about recreational marijuana and medical marijuana — how to sell it, how to tax it and how to regulate it. (Voters that same year also approved IM 26 which legalized medical marijuana.)
The South Dakota Supreme Court found that Amendment A ran afoul of the state law requiring that ballot issues must have only one subject. While voters liked the measure, the Supreme Court was right; Amendment A was overflowing with subjects.
That’s why IM 29 is such a scaled-back version of the ballot measure approved in 2020. If voters approve of it, regulation and taxation will be left up to the Legislature. And that’s where IM 29 could be quickly snuffed out.
South Dakota’s Legislature is skewed heavily toward the Republican Party. After November’s election, it may tip even more precariously to the right.
After the last legislative session, a group of veteran lawmakers said they weren’t running for office again. In the primary, a group of incumbents who had the bad luck to vote for a bill regulating but not banning carbon dioxide pipelines were defeated. The victors tend toward membership in a wing of the Republican Party that puts the ultra in ultra-conservative.
It’s easy to imagine that some of these newbies will be elected by virtue of calling themselves Republicans. Others will just glide into the Capitol unopposed because the state’s Democratic Party has once again failed to field enough legislative candidates.
The action, or likely inaction, of the 2025 Legislature on IM 29 was broached in a recent South Dakota Searchlight story. “You have a conservative Legislature,” said Rhonda Milstead of Protecting South Dakota Kids, which opposes IM 29. “Why would they set up a retail market for something they didn’t want in the first place?”
Why, indeed, unless driven by the will of the people.
If the will of the people isn’t enough to spur them to action, maybe legislators would be persuaded by money. A fiscal note on 2020’s Amendment A said licensing fees, sales taxes and a 15% excise tax would generate $29.3 million in 2024. Lawmakers will face another dip in state revenue if IM 28, which would eliminate the state sales tax on groceries, is approved by voters. South Dakota teacher salaries are ranked 49th in the nation, again. A new source of revenue might look pretty good to legislators who take balancing the state budget seriously.
One of the things being taken seriously in the run up to the election is the opposition to IM 29. Milstead laid it out at a debate about recreational marijuana: “This drug brings more poverty, more crime, more mental health issues, more youth at risk, more violence, more addiction.”
Make no mistake, Milstead’s comments sound familiar. They reflect what opponents of the state’s lottery have been saying since 1986. In that year, the state’s voters backed an amendment that created the lottery. Even with those continual cautions about the evils of gambling, legislative appropriators have no problem plugging the lottery’s $178 million into the state budget each year. If they can sleep at night after helping to unleash the hell of gaming addiction on South Dakota for the past 38 years, they should have no problem helping the state make some money off the sale of pot, if that’s what the people want.
Of course, lawmakers may not be faced with that decision. An October South Dakota News Watch/Chiesman Center for Democracy poll found 51% of voters opposed, 44% of voters supportive and 5% undecided on IM 29.
Given those poll numbers, it’s hard hard to imagine a world where South Dakota voters endorse recreational marijuana, though it has happened before. It’s also hard to imagine South Dakota’s Legislature, top-heavy with Republicans — some of whom think Donald Trump is too liberal — following the will of the people and setting up rules for the lawful sale of marijuana.
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