SIOUX FALLS - As Sioux Falls officials highlighted their public safety concerns today, some also broached the topic of recreational marijuana.

South Dakota voters will head to the polls in November to decide on the issue with Initiated Measure 27, but if it was up to Mayor Paul TenHaken or Minnehaha County Sheriff Mike Milstead, cannabis would not be legal beyond medical use.

“If we think that legalizing marijuana in the fall is going to lead to a safer community then we have another thing coming,” TenHaken said.

There are three “myths” people will hear coming from the IM 27 camp, TenHaken said.

One is that South Dakota prisons are full of marijuana convictions, which is not accurate, TenHaken said.

PINE RIDGE, S.D. — In a growing number of U.S. states, people can both drink alcohol and legally smoke recreational marijuana. In others, they can use alcohol but not pot. But on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, the opposite is true: Marijuana is legal, but booze is banned.

Citizens of the Oglala Sioux Tribe overwhelmingly voted in 2020 to legalize recreational and medical marijuana on their sprawling reservation, which has prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol for more than 100 years.

Unity Rd., the national cannabis dispensary franchise from Item 9 Labs Corp., is opening medical cannabis establishment, in South Dakota on July 27 with local entrepreneurs, B.J. Olson and Adam Jorgensen.

The new shop is located in the Sioux Falls suburb of Hartford at 404 West Opal Lane. (Benzinga)

South Dakota state officials announced on Wednesday that an initiative to legalize recreational cannabis has qualified for the ballot for the November general election.

The South Dakota Secretary of State announced on Wednesday that a ballot measure to legalize cannabis for adults has received enough verified signatures to qualify for the November election, giving the state’s voters another chance to legalize recreational pot at the ballot box. Secretary of State Steve Barnett also announced that the proposal sponsored by the group South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws (SDBML) will be titled Initiated Measure 27 for this year’s general election.

A New York-based software company will help South Dakota's cannabis industry and its regulators monitor the flow of marijuana in the state's legal market.

The Department of Health this month finalized a contract with Metrc, which will provide exclusive seed-to-sale tracking for the state as a medical marijuana program is implemented.

Using what's called "radio-frequency identification (RFID)," Metrc will monitor and record the life stages of all cannabis plants and the products they eventually end up in, a process called for as a public safety precaution within the voter-approved initiated measure that legalized medical marijuana.

The six bills bring a host of changes to the new cannabis law in South Dakota, including one that places a limit on the number of plants a patient can grow.

South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem last week signed a number of bills dealing with the state’s fledgling medical cannabis program that voters approved at the ballot in 2020.

Noem’s office said Friday that the first-term Republican had “signed six medical cannabis and hemp bills into law,” and that implementing those measures “will be part of Governor Noem’s focus on implementing a safe and responsible medical cannabis program that is the most patient-focused in the country.”

South Dakota’s Medical Cannabis program is slowly rolling out across the state, but as cards are being issued, dispensaries are still in short supply.

Right now the Native Nation’s Dispensary in Flandreau is still the only supplier in the state, but the owners of Hometown Bud just broke ground on a new national franchise in Hartford.

“After several years of planning, we’ve gotten to this point where we’re able to break ground and bring a business to Hartford,” B.J. Olson said. 

B.J. Olson and his best friend and business partner have spent years figuring out how to get into this new industry.

Voters in South Dakota may have another crack at legalizing cannabis this year—unless lawmakers there do it first.

A bill to legalize recreational pot for adults narrowly advanced in the South Dakota legislature last week, winning approval in the senate by just a single vote. The legislation would bring some redemption to advocates who have been in a tug-of-war battle with the state for the last two years to end prohibition and finally get legal sales in the state. 

In 2020, 54 percent of South Dakota voters approved Amendment A, which would have legalized recreational marijuana, in addition to hemp and medicinal cannabis, within the state. (That same year, an even larger majority of voters passed a separate ballot measure that legalized only medical marijuana.)