Governor Kristi Noem worked harder to fight medical marijuana than she did to prevent coronavirus. Now that the Legislature has rejected her delay of the voter-approved Initiated Measure 26 and put South Dakota back on track to make medical marijuana legal on July 1, Governor Noem is taking her coronavirus approach to IM 26, portraying it as a big mess for which she has no responsibility:
Come July 1, state government gets responsibility for day to day regulation of medical marijuana in South Dakota. But Governor Kristi Noem isn’t sure how to keep the program funded in the years ahead.
“I don’t know yet,” she told reporters Thursday, in response to a question from KELOLAND News about whether marijuana sales can be taxed. “That’s an honest truth. I don’t know. And that’s why we wanted time, we wanted time to look at what was happening in other states. There’s no other state that has stood up a medical marijuana program this fast before — except Oklahoma, and it’s a mess” [Bob Mercer, “Noem: Sales Tax Doesn’t Cover Medical Pot,” KELO-TV, 2021.03.11].
You wanted time, Kristi? You had time. You had since June 2019 to read the proposal medical marijuana advocates had submitted to the Attorney General for review. You had since the November election to dispatch your brain trust to talk to advocates, patients, doctors, pharmacists, law enforcement, and governors in other states to identify needs and write a plan. Instead, you spent the winter abusing your power and cooking up constitutional pretzel arguments to block recreational marijuana in court. You spent the last month lobbying legislators hard to sabotage IM 26; if you’d put the same effort into collaborating with the stakeholders, you’d have a medical marijuana policy right now. You could show everybody that you’re a better policymaker than whoever messed things up in Oklahoma, that you’re kind of chief executive who can respond to unexpected changes, navigate complicated issues, and turn the will of the people into helpful policy, the kind of Governor who might be really good at another job….
And hey, who says Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program is a mess? Two years in, the only mess Oklahoma’s seeing appears to be a mess of cash:
“Really taking a look at the tax numbers over that time, climbed really steadily, and reached a peak of $5.5 million in that excise tax collection in June of 2020,” says Dr. Kelly Williams, the interim Director at the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority. “Just a year before, in June of 2019, we only had $2.1 million in excise tax collection.”
In all, Dr. Williams says the OMMA brought in $50 million through the 7% excise tax last year, a record and more than doubling 2019’s total. And those sales also accrued more than $71 million in sales tax revenue for individual cities and communities.
“The sales tax revenue that has come into these smaller communities especially, or the larger cities even, has helped sustain those budget issues that they would have faced otherwise,” said State Representative Scott Fetgatter (R-Okmulgee).
The agency also saw its patient count surpass 370,000, nearly 10% of Oklahoma’s entire population, and passed 10,000 commercial licensees.
“Given the number of patients we have, it’s really unlikely that anyone doesn’t know someone who has their patient card,” says Dr. Williams. “And the number of referrals that have been written certainly indicate that physicians are seeing this as a viable referral that they can write” [Dan Snyder, “As Medical Marijuana Booms in Oklahoma, Could Recreational Program Be Next?” KOKH-TV, 2021.02.11].
Some Kansas observers view Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program as exemplary for a rural state with farmers eager for diversified income streams:
So instead of looking to Ohio or Missouri, Gov. Kelly should cast her gaze south. Oklahoma hosts one of the country’s most successful medical marijuana programs. Voters approved medical marijuana in 2018 — the same year as Missouri — and the state now leads the country in patient enrollment rates. Oklahoma has licensed more than 2,000 dispensaries, 6,500 cultivators and 1,200 processors.
As a result, Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program generates significant tax revenue — approximately $120 million in 2020. That’s double the amount from the state lottery and far greater than the roughly $15 million in marijuana taxes brought in by Ohio, a state with triple Oklahoma’s population. (And no, robust patient enrollment has not resulted in the collapse of productive society.)
With a similar agricultural profile to Kansas and large numbers of rural cultivators, Oklahoma also demonstrates the folly of proposed rules that would restrict Kansans to processed marijuana products. Instead, the state should be seeking ways to expand the involvement of Kansas’ farmers and rural communities, including exploring legal avenues to directly connect cultivators and patients.
The key to Oklahoma’s success has been setting clear and manageable rules for stakeholders (patients, providers and businesses), making licensing fees affordable and allowing competition to build a robust market. In other words, the type of regulatory system that leads to efficient outcomes for taxpayers, patients and producers. Oklahoma’s system is not perfect, and time will tell whether the state’s implementation of a seed-to-sale tracking system will be a success. But the paradigm of a broadly functioning, accessible system free of excessive barriers to entry is one Kansas would be wise to emulate [Benjamin Schwab, associate professor of agricultural economics at Kansas State University, “Gov. Kelly Needs to Get Medical Marijuana Right in Kansas. Don’t Make Ohio’s Mistake,” Kansas City Star, 2021.02.11].
Oklahoma’s medical-marijuana success appears to have come from adopting exactly the laissez-faire, open-for-business attitude that Governor Noem usually gives as her calling card:
The rollout of statewide medical and recreational marijuana programs typically is a grindingly slow process that can take years. Not so in Oklahoma, which moved with lightning speed once voters approved medical cannabis in June.
The ballot question received 57 percent support and established one of the nation’s most liberal medical pot laws in one of the most conservative states. Six months later, the cannabis industry is booming.
Farmers and entrepreneurs are racing to start commercial grow operations, and the state is issuing licenses to new patients, growers and dispensary operators at a frantic pace. Retail outlets opened just four months after legalization.
…“I think we really are the wild, wild West in many respects,” said attorney Sarah Lee Gossett Parrish, whose firm in Norman represents several cannabis businesses. “Here in Oklahoma, we’re a pretty independent constituency. We are primarily a red state, but we don’t like a lot of government controls” [Sean Murphy, “Oklahoma Quickly Becoming Medical Marijuana Hotbed,” AP, 2018.12.22].
I understand your angst, Kristi. At some point in the middle of every marijuana-related article I write, I think, Good grief, why do I have to waste all this time writing about pot, when I could be writing about something I’m really interested in, something I think is a heap more important to the good of the Republic? I’m not even an elected official, Kristi, but we both serve the public. We both sign on, you more than I, to do not just what we want, but what the people want.
The people want medical marijuana. Quit your griping and foot-dragging and make it happen.
Griping is what she does best. It’s a page out of the Trump playbook.
It seems Americans Governor AKA South Dakota Governor Noem has hit the Peter Principle, in that, she rose to her level of incompetence. I think that moment was November 2018. She is stumped with no trump. Americans Governor has staff mapping out a run for some higher office in 2024 not to be bothered with governing little old stepping stone South Dakota. The next tack is to delay putting into place the needed state mechanisms, regulations and policies to carry out the will of the people. Her will vs the voters will, don’t we just kicked that mindset out of the White House in November 2020. Heck even her 1 party in control gummed up the legislative process with Measure 26 proving if it isn’t taking away a citizen’s right they flounder… it’s like watching a person struggle in a wet sack trying to get out with both ends ripped open. The Washington handlers are ill equipped to run a state, even little old South Dakota with one party in control, as they are campaigners. Selling glossy posters in Texas isn’t the same as good governance in little old South Dakota.
Republicans believe that pot will turn their state blue.
“Republicans believe that pot will turn their state blue.” Yep, Mark, I believe you may have hit that nail.
Over its ignoble history of attempting to wipe out one of the most useful plant species on Earth, the government has accused pot of making suburban kids kill their grandparents with meat cleavers, making people become complacent and lazy, making people become communists, and generally making people do stuff that threatens the republic.
Why should it not think it’ll turn folks into Democrats?
South Dakota’s reefer madness is the root cause, not governor Noem. But now at least we have something to work with for those wanting the dignity of using a treatment of their choice. As you know, I was against both initiatives inasmuch as I want less regulation, not more. It’s tough to say if this overregulation will be a step in the right direction or not, but time will tell. In the meantime, it appears as though we have some work to do in terms of getting to full legalization. But not much.