PIERRE — The South Dakota Legislature ought to legalize, regulate and tax leisure marijuana, based on a panel of lawmakers who’ve spent months learning hashish coverage.
The Marijuana Interim Study Committee wrapped up the work it started final spring Wednesday, when it formally adopted a suggestion to be despatched to the complete Legislature that will finish South Dakota’s prohibition on marijuana use, cultivation and gross sales. It additionally recommends establishing a 15% tax on the sale of hashish merchandise within the state.
“I am not a supporter of marijuana however I am attempting to ensure that if we will have it, we have an excellent, stable regulatory system that’s within the center someplace,” mentioned committee co-chair Rep. Hugh Bartels, R-Watertown. “That controls the product, makes certain it is protected, makes certain it stays away from our youngsters as a lot as we are able to, and that it pays for itself.”
Beforehand:Panel may scrap South Dakota medical marijuana program for outright legalization
The advice requires permitting dispensaries, testing and cultivation services to be licensed by the state whereas permitting native governments to ascertain restrictions and prohibitions of their very own. It might not enable rising of leisure hashish in personal residences.
The 15% tax fee being advisable mirrors what voters handed in Constitutional Modification A, the poll measure that sought to legalize leisure marijuana in November 2020 however is tied up in court docket following a authorized problem by a pair of South Dakota legislation enforcement officers and Gov. Kristi Noem.
Bartels was joined by 13 others on the 24 member committee in favoring the leisure marijuana suggestion, which initially additionally known as for getting rid of the medical marijuana program stood up by the Division of Well being in latest months.
Bartels and 4 different lawmakers who labored collectively to draft the suggestions argued {that a} medical program for adults would not be needed if leisure marijuana was authorized for all adults. However that a part of the proposal was scrapped early within the committee’s assembly Wednesday after hashish advocates in addition to some lawmakers voiced considerations about undermining work finished on medical marijuana coverage and guidelines by the state and the Legislature.
With a repeal of the whole medical marijuana legislation not being proposed, the committee continued labored into the night, listening to dozens of potential modifications the Legislature might think about making.
Extra:Pro-cannabis group working to give South Dakota voters another chance at legalizing marijuana
As an example, Rep. Fred Deutsch, R-Florence, filed greater than a dozen amendments forward of the assembly regarding medical marijuana – largely aimed toward tightening restrictions and bolstering little one security measures round hashish.
Ultimately, the panel OK’ed some suggestions like requiring somebody in search of a medical marijuana card to satisfy with a medical skilled in-person, including doctor’s assistants to the listing of medical suppliers who can authorize medical marijuana use and recommending a three-plant restrict for dwelling grown hashish by medical marijuana card holders.
They additionally rejected a proposal to superb medical card holders in the event that they switched medical suppliers however didn’t alert the Division of Well being, and one other that sought to make it a felony for somebody with out a medical marijuana card to obtain hashish bought at a medical marijuana dispensary.
The suggestions out of the interim committee require endorsement from the Legislature’s Government Board earlier than being formally launched in the course of the subsequent common lawmaking session on the Capitol.
