Medical marijuana advocates in South Dakota have less than 30 days to collect nearly 14,000 approved signatures to get the measure on the 2020 ballot.
New Approach South Dakota director Melissa Mentele is leading the effort and says the state has some of the strictest cannabis laws in the nation. Mentele believes South Dakota residents should have the ability to manage their own health without relying on pharmaceuticals.
This is the third time Mentele has tried to get medical marijuana on the ballot. She says her group needs 17-thousand signatures, but is trying to collect 30-thousand after having thousands of signatures invalidated in previous attempts.
Another advocacy group is collecting signatures for an initiative that would go beyond legalization of medical marijuana and amend the state’s constitution to legalize both marijuana and industrial hemp.
Gov. Kristi Noem has said she believes legalization of marijuana in other states will end badly and vetoed a bill earlier this year that would have allowed farmers to grow hemp for industrial purposes.
A recent study by the F-B-I shows about 14% of South Dakota’s more than 63-thousand arrests in 2017 were for drug offenses. Based on population, that made the state the nation’s front-runner for the number of drug arrests in 2017.
