Cannabis in South Dakota

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Cannabis in South Dakota

Medical cannabis has been legal since July 1, 2021. Voters approved Initiated Measure 26 in November 2020 to create a medical marijuana program. In the same election, Constitutional Amendment A would have legalized recreational marijuana, but a court ruled it unconstitutional in February 2021, and the state Supreme Court permanently struck it down on November 24, 2021, because it violated the single-subject rule for ballot measures.

Even with medical cannabis now legal, South Dakota’s cannabis laws remain very strict. Possessing any amount of cannabis products, including edibles, hash, or concentrates, can be a Class 5 felony, carrying up to 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

History in brief:
- Cannabis was banned in 1931, one of the strictest laws in the country for many years.
- It was briefly decriminalized in 1977 but that change was repealed soon after.
- Ballot measures to legalize medical cannabis failed in 2006 and 2010.
- In 2016–2018, activists tried again for medical cannabis, but did not succeed in getting enough signatures.
- Initiated Measure 26 (medical) passed in 2020 (69.9%), and Amendment A (recreational) also passed (54.2%) but was struck down in 2021 and remained illegal.

Recent developments:
- In May 2022, activists collected enough signatures to try legalizing marijuana again on the November 2022 ballot (Initiated Measure 27), but it was defeated (about 53% no) in the election.
- In 2015, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe planned to grow and sell cannabis on a reservation but destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of product due to ongoing legal uncertainties.