Stop South Dakota legislators from chipping away at the medical marijuana program!

Another harmful bill is headed to the Senate committee that defeated the bill to repeal South Dakota’s entire medical program once cannabis is rescheduled. The South Dakota House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill to remove medical patients' affirmative defense, and it has crossed over to the Senate.  

If you live in South Dakota, ask your senator to preserve the affirmative defense for medical patients!

Sixty percent of South Dakota voters passed the state’s medical cannabis initiative, which allows patients to raise a defense in court if they have a practitioner’s recommendation — even if they are not registered. HB 1065 would strip away this defense, so only registered patients could avoid a conviction. As an attorney testified at a hearing on the same bill last year, this defense is rarely used, in extreme cases.

The next steps will be a hearing in the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. It is extremely important for lawmakers to hear from you. Last session, this bill died by only one vote.

The purpose of the current law is to protect those who need it most from being convicted for using cannabis for medical purposes — folks who use marijuana to alleviate their PTSD, chronic pain, epilepsy, and other qualifying conditions, and who have a doctor’s recommendation.