Supporters of legalizing recreational marijuana in South Dakota, a mission with a checkered history, submitted thousands of signatures to election officials Tuesday in hopes of putting the issue back on the state’s November ballot. the conservative state.
Supporters of the initiative delivered approximately 29,000 signatures to the Secretary of State Monae Johnsonoffice. 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 Ohio in November 2023, but “no state has as interesting, as checkered or as turbulent a history as South Dakota,” said Matthew Schweich, director of South Dakota’s Campaign for Better Marijuana Laws.
Florida voters will decide this fall whether to legalize recreational marijuana. Similar measures are underway in other states, including North Dakota.
In 2020, South Dakota voters approved a medical marijuana initiative and also passed a measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana. But it was ultimately struck down when the South Dakota Supreme Court upheld a judge’s ruling that it violated a single-subject rule for constitutional amendments — a challenge launched by Gov. Kristi Noem. Supporters of the measure tried again in 2022, but voters rejected the proposal. In 2021, Noem sought to delay the legalization of medical marijuana for a year, a proposal that failed in the Republican-led legislature.
Schweich cites several reasons for supporting the measure, including that it would direct law enforcement resources elsewhere, increasing access for people who have difficulty obtaining marijuana patient cards medical and generate new tax revenues and new jobs.
“I think for me the most important reason is that if we allow alcohol to be legal in our society, 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.
Protecting South Dakota Kids, a nonprofit group that opposes marijuana legalization in the state, fought against the 2022 effort. The Associated Press left a phone message seeking comment on the 2024 initiative with the organization’s president, Jim Kinyon. In a pamphlet published in opposition to the 2022 measure, he wrote that legalization would “open the door wide to higher crime rates, suicide rates, traffic deaths, workplace accidents and to mental health problems.
The ballot initiative would legalize recreational marijuana for people 21 and older. The proposal calls for 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 business 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 have liked to write.”
“We are taking a conservative approach in response to this decision and are 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 prohibits the possession, distribution, and possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, with misdemeanor and felony penalties varying depending on factors such as the amount and second or subsequent convictions.
The federal government has proposed reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug, a move that Schweich said could help normalize the issue for some voters.
Schweich said the unique circumstances of the problem in South Dakota warrant the third attempt. He thinks the initiative has a better chance this year, when more voters are likely to vote for the president, and possibly weigh in on an abortion rights initiative that others hope will make it onto the ballot voting.
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