South Dakota Mobilizes to Reform Marijuana Laws

The people of South Dakota have called on lawmakers to end marijuana prohibition and create a medical marijuana program for patients with serious health conditions. Those demands have fallen on deaf ears. Our coalition of patients, families, and other allies has formed to give voters an opportunity to make a change.

“Among those pushing for medical cannabis is George Hendrickson. He points to son Eliyah Hendrickson, a 7-year-old with floppy hair whom his father calls ‘a total heartbreaker.’ The first five years of Eliyah’s life included myriad visits to doctors who tried to figure out why he had trouble breathing, why his arms and legs would spasm uncontrollably, why he would have clusters of seizures and why, as his father put it, he was a ‘drooling, bumbling mess of a child’ who would spend all day playing with a spinner toy. Eliyah was eventually diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare form of epilepsy.”

Read the full Associated Press story about the formation of South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws here.