Get ready for this fall, because the out of state pro-pot groups aren’t just pouring money into South Dakota, they’ve broken a dam loose to pouring big money into the state. In looking at their campaign finance filing, they clearly opened up their checkbooks in 2019 to get their measure on the ballot:
sd4betterpotlaws_sdcfdisclosure by Pat Powers on Scribd
South Dakotans for Better Marijuana Laws took in $874,595.94 from the Washington DC based New Approach PAC, as well as a few other minor donations from in and out state sources, and dropped $877,323.94 into the petition signature gathering phase of their campaign to put recreational pot use in the State Constitution.
I suspect the cash dump is only going to get bigger from here.
UPDATE:
If you’re wondering about the Medical Marijuana petitioners, clearly the people from out of state carried them given what was reported as an in-kind donation from the recreational pot people to the medical pot people:
$252k of donated signature gathering makes that fairly obvious.
The tide has turned on this issue, nationwide and even here in good old fashioned South Dakota. Recreational won’t pass this year but medical will pass in a near landslide.
As a Republican, I get so gosh-darn annoyed having to constantly hear Kristi saying “We’re going to go after the ‘next big industry’ and bla bla bla freaking BLA.” WAKE UP KRISTI. Marijuana IS the next big industry. We are an agricultural state. We could have paved the way in hemp production and led the market. We can still do that with marijuana. Yet she tries SO Hard to prevent progress.
What medical bill…there are only 2 recreational bills….read the details…its a recreational bill masked as a medical…
Vote no on both
Vote yes on both.
The only people in favor of these recreational marijuana bills are Big Marijuana and a few local potheads, who are typically young. You only have to look at the almost $1,000,000 in political funding to know this is not driven locally. This means it’s driven by big companies who stand to benefit from legalized marijuana. Once legalized for ”medical purposes” there will be doctors available to write a prescription for any excuse. At that point everyone will recognize it’s a sham and the State and legislature will be seduced by the promises of taxes On marijuana, for various pet projects that they couldn’t get funding for prior.
Better than writing meth and opioid perscriptions.
Better than writing meth and meth prescriptions, really?
Doctors already acknowledge that marijuana damages teenage and young adult brains. I don’t believe smoking marijuana is better than smoking tobacco. So what’s better?
I would take marijuana any day over tobacco, alcohol, and prescription drugs.
Mike, “the only people” who support medical marijuana are what I predict will be 60% or more of all voting South Dakotans. You’re wrong on this issue, and you’re on the wrong side of history.
“The wrong side of history” is not an intelligent claim. I’m guessing you are a proud progressive.
Michael, what does the label progressive have to do with marijuana? This is going to be voted on by the people of SD. Labels don’t mean anything anymore.
I’m a Republican and even I think you’re on the wrong side of history. Prohibitionist.
Marijuana should have been legalized 60 years ago.
WRONG.
Marijuana should have never been legally dictated one way or the other to begin with.
Thank goodness for direct democracy, the people’s last defense against the nanny state. Reefer madness is a thing of the past. Some of you cry about the effect marijuana has on young people in their development, but if your sentiments your true and if this were literally anything other than the culture war flashpoint it is for you, you’d be out there beating the temperance movement drum putting an end to alcohol, nicotine, and the like. Hey! How bout instead of using the power of the state to control individuals, we provide people with information so they can make their own decisions at the end of the day. Such weird hypocrisy from a lot of you.
So, direct democracy is $1,000,000 of outside money flowing into South Dakota to buy a change in our laws? Thanks, I had no idea that’s what it was.
Mike makes a good point. Marijuana should still be legalized, however. Democracy sucks. I don’t get the proper medicine i need because the majority of people (who don’t know 2% of the information I do) are afraid of a f**king plant. Democracy sucks.
Thanks. I also think medical marijuana should be legalized, for real medical use, not wide open medical malpractice marijuana prescribed by pot doctors. Unfortunately, any legitimate use for marijuana will be held hostage by Big Marijuana as a rationale for the approval for recreational use, because that’s where the dollars are.