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South Dakota officials on Wednesday certified that activists turned in a sufficient number of signatures earlier this month to qualify a marijuana legalization measure for the November ballot<\/a>.<\/p>\n South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws (SDBML) needed 16,961 valid submissions to place their initiative before voters. Now, the secretary of state\u2019s office has confirmed that more than enough valid petitions were received and that the proposal will appear on the November ballot as Initiated Measure 27.<\/p>\n Matthew Schweich, campaign director of SDBML, told Marijuana Moment that he is \u201cvery happy\u201d that voters will get a chance to decide on the reform.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are extremely thankful to all the people who signed our petitions and all of our incredible volunteers who helped make this happen,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cAs required by South Dakota Codified Law \u00a7 2-1-16, our office conducted a random sample of the petition signatures and found 79.22 percent to be valid,\u201d stated Secretary Of State Steve Barnett said<\/a> in a press release. \u201cBased on the results of the random sample, 25,023 signatures were deemed valid.\u201d<\/p>\n South Dakota voters already approved legalization during the 2020 election, but the reform was\u00a0struck down by the state Supreme Court<\/a> following a challenge supported by the governor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n Schweich said that he expects voters to approve legalization again but that \u201cwe cannot be complacent and we must run a very strong campaign\u201d in order to ensure another victory.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I am confident that we can win again and I believe that we will exceed the 54 percent that achieved in 2020,\u201d he said. \u201cOur goal is wot win by more than we did in 2020.\u201d<\/p>\n Following the court ruling that invalidated the earlier ballot box win, activists decided to take a two-track approach to the policy change in 2022, both working with legislators for a legislative reform while separately collecting signatures for the ballot initiative if lawmakers failed to act.<\/p>\n While they would have preferred lawmakers to enact the policy change, that did not pan out this session. The House\u00a0rejected a Senate-passed legalization bill<\/a> in March, effectively leaving it up to activists to get on the ballot again.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s what the campaign\u2019s marijuana legalization ballot\u00a0initiative<\/a> would accomplish if approved by voters:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The measure would allow adults 21 and older to purchase and possess up to an ounce of cannabis. They could also grow up to three plants for personal use.<\/p>\n It also lays out civil penalties for violating provisions related to issues such as public consumption or growing more plants than permitted.<\/p>\n Employers would specifically be allowed to continue enforcing workplace drug policy prohibiting cannabis use by workers.<\/p>\n State and local governments could continue to ban marijuana activities made legal under the initiative in buildings \u201cowned, leased, or occupied\u201d by a governmental body.<\/p>\n The measure does not touch on regulatory policies concerning taxing cannabis sales, licensing or equity.<\/p>\n We did it! We qualified our cannabis legalization initiative for the 2022 ballot. Thank you to everyone who made this possible. We are Initiated Measure 27! Yes on 27!<\/p>\n \u2014 Matthew Schweich (@mhschweich) May 25, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n SDBML\u2019s 2020 success at the ballot was overruled by the state Supreme Court as a result of a legal challenge funded by Gov. Kristi Noem\u2019s (R) administration. The court ruled that the measure violated a single-subject rule for ballot initiatives.<\/p>\n Prior to the general election, the campaign will be focusing efforts on defeating a separate constitutional initiative, Amendment C, that would require at least 60 percent of voters to approve a ballot measure, instead of a simple majority. The proposal was placed on the state\u2019s June 7 primary ballot by an act of the legislature.<\/p>\n A Marijuana Interim Study Committee, headed by legislative leaders, was established last year to explore cannabis policy reform, and the panel ultimately recommended that the legislature\u00a0take up legalization this session<\/a>. The House-defeated legislation was one of the direct products of that recommendation.<\/p>\n \u2014 Even if the legislature had enacted the bill,\u00a0 however, the governor would have likely posed a threat. She\u00a0declined to rule out vetoing the legalization legislation<\/a>\u00a0on the day it passed the Senate in February. She also confusingly questioned voter support for the reform despite the fact that they approved it at the polls two years ago.<\/p>\n Noem\u2019s office also recently suggested that the activists behind that voter-approved initiative\u00a0should pay the administration\u2019s legal fees of the lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0that invalidated the will of voters\u2014a proposal that the campaign called \u201cridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n While a recent poll found that most South Dakota voters approve of Noem\u2019s job performance overall,\u00a0just 39 percent approve of her handling of marijuana legalization<\/a>, with 51 percent disapproving. The governor is up for reelection this year.<\/p>\n Noem has consistently faced criticism from advocates and stakeholders over her early opposition to cannabis reform.<\/p>\n She released an ad ahead of last year\u2019s election\u00a0urging residents to vote against the legalization initiative<\/a>\u00a0that ultimately passed, 54-46 percent.<\/p>\n More recently, however, the governor seems to be trying to associate herself with the implementation of a separate medical cannabis legalization initiative that voters also overwhelmingly approved in 2020, despite having opposed the proposal in the run-up to the election.<\/p>\n After regulators approved rules for the medical marijuana program in September, Noem said her administration \u201cis fully on board to make certain South Dakota continues to implement the most responsible, patient-focused medical cannabis program in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n Noem tried to get the legislature to\u00a0approve a bill to delay implementation<\/a>\u00a0of the medical cannabis program for an additional year, but while it cleared the House, negotiators were unable to reach an agreement with the Senate in conference, delivering a defeat to the governor.<\/p>\n In response,\u00a0her office started exploring a compromise last year<\/a>, with one proposal that came out of her administration to decriminalize possession of up to one ounce of cannabis, limit the number of plants that patients could cultivate to three and prohibit people under 21 from qualifying for medical marijuana.<\/p>\n Marijuana Is Now Legal In Rhode Island, With Governor Signing Bill To End Prohibition<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post South Dakota Voters Will Decide On Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure In November<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
South Dakota officials on Wednesday certified that activists turned in a sufficient number of signatures earlier this month to qualify a marijuana legalization measure for the November ballot. South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws (SDBML) needed 16,961 valid submissions to place their initiative before voters. Now, the secretary of state\u2019sContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":54879,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54878"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54878"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54880,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54878\/revisions\/54880"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54879"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: South Dakota Voters Will Decide On Marijuana Legalization Ballot Measure In November<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"