Legalized Medical Marijuana Back On Track For South Dakota
It's been a marijuana roller coaster in South Dakota. Back in November of 2020, the citizens of South Dakota voted to legalize marijuana for medical and recreational purposes. Both measures were set to go into effect on July 1st of 2021.
And just as many businesses were gearing up to accommodate the sale of legalized pot in South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem had Pennington County Sheriff Kevin Thom and South Dakota Highway Patrol Superintendent Rick Miller file a petition questioning the legality of the legalization.
On Wednesday the South Dakota legislature couldn't agree on a reworking of the HB 1100 bill and they unanimously decided that that legislation should be allowed to die. House Bill 1100 would have pushed back the timeline for the legalization of medical marijuana until early 2022.
That means that Initiated Measure 26, which legalizes medical marijuana will again be on track to take effect on July 1, 2021.
Recreational marijuana however is still being tied up in court after a South Dakota judge struck down the voter-approved constitutional amendment after Governor Kristi Noem's administration challenged it.
It's been reported that in 2020 Colorado's income from legalized recreational marijuana sales topped $2 billion. Colorado's weed sales in 2019 were north of $1.7 billion and in 2018 surpassed$1.5 billion.