PIERRE, S.D. (KELO) — The South Dakota secretary of health is still studying her cards on what’s next for the few medical-cannabis regulations that didn’t get a green light from the Legislature’s Rules Review Committee last week.
State law allows a rule-making agency such as the South Dakota Department of Health to amend its proposals and submit them a second time to the legislative panel, without holding a second public hearing. Secretary Kim Malsam-Rysdon didn’t say for certain Monday what her department will do.
“Having the overwhelming majority of our proposed administrative rules approved, we will now go back and consider our next steps with the handful of rules that were reverted to our department,” she told KELOLAND News.
The legislative committee voted 4-1 for nearly all of the 124 pages of regulations proposed from the department. The panel has one meeting, on November 1, left on its 2021 schedule.
As of Monday, nine state government departments already had public hearings set in the coming weeks on rules proposals that, once passed by the agency, board or commission, would then go before the legislative committee that day.
Malsam-Rysdon said Monday that her department would post on its medical cannabis website all information and text regarding potential changes to the proposals that the rules panel reverted.
She said the department remains “committed to delivering a safe and efficient medical cannabis program for South Dakota.”
The six that weren’t accepted were:
People certified to grow cannabis at home could have only three marijuana plants, unless a physician specifically recommended more (proposed rule 44:90:02:03). IM 26 set a three-plant minimum for home-grown.
Eight debilitating medical conditions (44:90:13:01) necessary to qualify for a medical-cannabis card (1) Acquired immune deficiency syndrome and positive status for human immunodeficiency virus; (2) Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis; (3) Multiple sclerosis; (4) Cancer or its treatment, if associated with severe or chronic pain, nausea or severe vomiting, or cachexia or severe wasting; (5) Crohn’s disease; (6) Epilepsy and seizures; (7) Glaucoma; and (8) Post-traumatic stress disorder.
A ban against broadcast and print advertising (40:90:10:17).
Requiring deliveries to retail outlets be pre-packaged (40:90:10:01).
No cardholder may possess more than four grams of concentrated cannabis with a THC content of greater than 60 percent and in smokable form (40:90:02:18) and the related warning that possessing more than four grams was illegal (40:90:10:14)
