News: South Dakota House of Representatives Passes Amended Version of HB 1100
On February 25, 2021, House Bill 1100 was passed by the South Dakota House of Representatives in a 40-28 vote. Now it heads to the South Dakota Senate.
Before HB 1100 was passed, SDBML’s proposed compromise (HB 1100G) was introduced by Representative Jamison but rejected in a 41-27 vote.
Statement from Melissa Mentele, New Approach South Dakota executive director:
"House Bill 1100, as amended by Speaker Gosch, has unfortunately been passed by the South Dakota House by 40-28. Now it heads to the Senate.
"Those 40 Representatives just voted to extend the criminalization of medical marijuana patients for another six months, adopt major delays that push implementation deadlines to Spring of 2022, and empower Governor Noem and her allies to rewrite the law next year.
"We are disappointed but we know that we have 70% of voters on our side and we can still prevail. We will now turn our attention to the South Dakota Senate. This is not over."
This is a list of State Representatives who voted in favor of HB 1100:
Representative David Anderson
Representative Hugh Bartels
Representative Doug Barthel
Representative Rocky Blare
Representative Kirk Chaffee
Representative Roger Chase
Representative Fred Deutsch
Representative Caleb Finck
Representative Tim Goodwin
Representative Spencer Gosch
Representative Lana Greenfield
Representative Jon Hansen *
Representative Charlie Hoffman
Representative Kevin Jensen
Representative Chris Johnson
Representative Chris Karr
Representative Lance Koth
Representative Trish Ladner
Representative Sam Marty
Representative Liz May
Representative John Mills
Representative Rhonda Milstead
Representative Paul Miskimins
Representative Will Mortenson *
Representative Tina Mulally
Representative Marty Overweg
Representative Carl Perry
Representative Kent Peterson
Representative Sue Peterson
Representative Tony Randolph
Representative Rebecca Reimer
Representative Lynn Schneider
Representative Tamara St. John
Representative Larry Tidemann
Representative Richard Vasgaard *
Representative Mike Weisgram*
Representative Marli Wiese
Representative Mark Willadsen
Representative Dean Wink
Representative Nancy York
* These four Representatives voted in favor of the final version of HB 1100 but before that, they voted in favor of the compromise bill we proposed (HB 1100G). We are very disappointed in their final vote on HB 1100, but we appreciate their decision to support the compromise.
Here is how the House voted on HB 1100G and HB 1100:
As posted on SDBML Facebook (2/26/21)
There are a few State Representatives that deserve to be called out.
Representative Nancy York.
She voted NO on the compromise. She voted YES on HB 1100. She told numerous constituents that she would oppose HB 1100. It's very disappointing that she chose to mislead her constituents.
Speaker Spencer Gosch
He voted NO on the compromise. He voted YES on HB 1100. He was the sponsor of the bill. Gosch said: “We want to put it into effect for them so that it works the way it needs to work so that they don’t get in trouble." So...Speaker Gosch claims he wants to stop people from getting in trouble. That's difficult to believe given that his bill will delay the start of legal protections that would stop medical marijuana patients from getting in trouble.
Representative Steven Haugaard
He voted NO on the compromise. He voted NO on HB 1100. It is our understanding that he voted NO on both bills because he would prefer even longer delays to implementation. Haugaard said: “Who’s really gonna benefit from this? There’s gonna be a few people that truly have medical conditions that will benefit from it. The ones who are really gonna benefit from this are the drug cartels.” So...he thinks our modest demand that the bill include legal protections for medical marijuana patients and a reasonable implementation timeline is going to benefit drug cartels? The 80s called -- they want their delusional drug war rhetoric back.
Representative Kevin Jensen
He voted NO on the compromise. He voted YES on HB 1100. Jensen said: "They voted for medical marijuana; they didn't vote for the details." So...that's how ballot initiatives are going to be treated in South Dakota now? Politicians get to decide whether or not South Dakota voters understood the details of a ballot initiative?
As posted on SDBML Facebook (2/28/21)
Don't give up.
We understand why people are frustrated and angry. We understand why some of you are tempted to throw in the towel. But keep this in mind -- our pressure on the House resulted in real concessions on HB 1100 (see image). While we didn't get the full compromise, we still made progress.
Now we have the opportunity to make further improvements to the bill in the Senate. We need to ensure that medical marijuana patients are granted legal protections starting July 1 of this year.
The deadlines in HB 1100 (as passed by the House) are still worse than those included in Measure 26. These delays are unjustified and harmful to patients. But without all of your hard work, they would have been even longer and even more damaging.
We're going against a Governor who is determined to trample on the will of the people by repealing, replacing, or severely delaying all of the policies in Amendment A and Measure 26. Unfortunately, a significant number of legislators are willing to follow her lead. The 2021 legislative session was always going to be a tough fight.
However, we have the will of the people on our side. In the end, we will prevail. But it won't come easy. We need to keep working hard. Email and call your State Senator today. Get five other people to do it. Go to www.sdmarijuana.org for all the details
With regard to Amendment A, we remain confident that the South Dakota Supreme Court will make the right decision. However, we didn't expect the Governor's lawsuit to make it this far or generate such large legal bills for SDBML. Unlike Governor Noem, we can't use taxpayer money to pay our lawyers. We're going to be announcing a new fundraising drive very soon and we'll need your help.
Thank you, everyone, for your hard work and dedication. We need to do everything we can over the next several days to persuade the Senate to do the right thing and ensure that legal protections for medical marijuana patient take effect on July 1, 2021, as approved by voters in November. Let's keep working.
Further reading:
House approves medical marijuana legislation; Senate to consider measure next
Rapid City Journal, February 25, 2021