The Legislature’s Rules Review Committee in South Dakota has OK’ed most of the 124 pages of proposed regulations for medical cannabis from the state Department of Health.
The lawmakers began work at about 10:45 a.m. Monday and the panel’s final vote came at about 4:20 p.m. The final vote was 4-1.
“I just want to say, on the whole, the work that the department has done here is exceptional,” Representative Jon Hansen, the panel’s chair stated. “For them to come in and with just a flair of expertise present this rules package in a way that undoubtedly took hours and hours and hours of work and expertise behind the scenes to get to this point, I just really commend the department for their work on this.”
Senate Democrat leader Troy Heinert was the vote against. “As I talk to people across the state they wanted it legalized, taxed and done. I think we’ve made it more difficult than we had to,” he said. He added, “From our side of the aisle, we’re all about freedom.”
The lawmakers sent some medical marijuana rules back to drawing board on several provisions of proposed rules for the state’s new medical marijuana program.
Committee Chair Sen. Jean Hunhoff, R-Yankton said time was of the essence in setting up the rules by a statute-determined deadline later this fall.
