After months of debate, South Dakotans will get the chance to decide the fate of a statewide smoking ban. The American Cancer Society announced Thursday that there will be no appeal of last week's judges ruling.

The smoking ban will be decided during the general election on November second of next year. But now, supporters of that ban have officially kicked off their campaign.

It was approved by South Dakota lawmakers, challenged by petitions, then those petitions themselves were even challenged and finally, after a year of uncertainty, a judge ruled that South Dakotans could vote whether the state should go smoke free. Now, the American Cancer Society says they won't appeal that decision, clearing the way for a public vote.

"We're going to move forward with the statewide ballot campaign basically. We're going to use the Great American Smokeout as our jumping off point for launching the statewide campaign," Erik Gaikowski of the American Cancer Society said.

That means, their campaign starts today, and with the fate of the smoking ban out of the courts and going to the people, the American Cancer Society says they feel the ball is now in their court.

"We feel pretty strong. Our support is very strong statewide," Gaikowski said.

But because the smoking ban will be decided by the people, the overall outcome is not yet known, however, one thing is certain, this is uncharted territory for South Dakota, and a much different path than smoking bans have taken in other states.

"Most of the time it passes the state legislature and that's that. But with our ability to do initiations and referendums in South Dakota, that was just part of the idea," Gaikowski said.

The attorney for the bar and casino owners who worked to put the issue to a statewide vote says all they've wanted all along, is to get the issue into the hands of voters.