South Dakota: Lawmakers Reject Legislative Efforts to Restrict Medical Cannabis Access

State lawmakers have rejected a series of legislative proposals that sought to curtail how and where patients could access and use medical cannabis.

Specifically, members of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted 4 to 2 against House Bill 1004, which sought to repeal provisions from the state’s voter-approved medical cannabis law that permit qualified patients to home-cultivate personal use quantities of the plant. House members had previously advanced the bill by a vote of 41 to 29.

Two other bills seeking to amend the state’s nascent medical cannabis law failed to advance out of the House. House Bill 1095, which sought to allow local governments to prohibit medical cannabis establishments, was defeated on the floor by a vote of 33 to 31. House Bill 1094, which sought to add additional restrictions regarding where patients could legally possess or use medical cannabis, was similarly killed on a floor vote.

The introduction of these bills bills was among the latest actions taken by lawmakers to undo voters’ actions on Election Day, when they approved a pair of ballot initiatives legalizing marijuana for both medical and adult-use purposes. Following a legal challenge spearheaded by Republican Gov. Kristi Noem, justices on the state’s Supreme Court struck down the adult-use legalization measure as unconstitutional. The Governor’s office did not similarly challenge the medical marijuana vote. Nonetheless, lawmakers have made several efforts to weaken the voter-approved measure. Last year, House lawmakers voted to delay the law’s implementation; however, that effort failed when House and Senate lawmakers failed to come to an agreement on conflicting provisions in the bill. Then in September, a Study Committee recommended that legislators move to eliminate language from the law that permits patients to grow up to three marijuana plants.