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LRC Considers Two Initiatives: Reduce Drug Possession from Felony to Misdemeanor; Reduce Drug Ingestion from Felony to Petty Offense

Or maybe the designation of “Plan B” should go to Mr. Payton Behrend, who beat the Marijuana Policy Project to the punch by two weeks in filing draft ballot questions with the Legislative Research Council to get the ball rolling on a new marijuana initiative petitions in case the Supreme Court finally nixes Amendment A.

Behrend emailed two proposed initiatives to the LRC on June 16. LRC responded to him on both drafts on June 25, a turnaround of eight working days, well within the fifteen workdays SDCL 12-13-25 gives the LRC to review and advise on draft initiatives. The measures themselves take only a minute to read; LRC evidently needed the extra time to cross-check Behrend’s second proposal with other statutes.

Behrend’s first initiative would amend SDCL 22-42-5 to reduce the possession of marijuana and all other controlled substances, Schedules I II III and IV, from felonies to Class 1 misdemeanors.

Behrend’s second initiative would amend SDCL 22-42-5.1 to reduce the ingestion of controlled substances from felonies to petty offenses.

So keep in mind: we’re not just lowering the penalty for having marijuana in your glove box or gullet. We’re talking every illegal drug: meth, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl, the works.

LRC notes that both measures could have a fiscal impact and thus will require them to review the final drafts when Behrend submits them to prepare a fiscal note. The fiscal impact would likely be positive for the state, reducing the cost of incarceration of all the druggies we now felonize. LRC also notes that changed ingestion from felony to petty offense will complicate references to the ingestion statute in laws pertaining to deferred imposition of sentence, driver licenses, and adjudication of delinquency that presume someone breaking the ingestion law will face criminal trial. Those complications don’t mean we can’t make ingestion a petty offense; they just mean that, if we enact the ingestion-as-petty-offense proposal, we’ll have to dive into those other statutes later and amend them for consistency. (Behrend could add amendments to those statutes to his ingestion initiative, but then I’ll but some Republican Governor would sic her lawyers on him for violating the single-subject rule.)

LRC sent Behrend their guidance on June 25. If Behrend is fast (and why wouldn’t he be, when his initiatives consist of only one paragraph each?), he may have already submitted his final drafts to the Attorney General and LRC for final review. Tick that clock for 60 days, and he could have responses by August 24, final petitions and supporting documents in to the Secretary of State by August 25, and real live initiative petitions ready to circulate at the State Fair the following week and on through two solid months of circulation around the state before the November 8 submission deadline.

Behrend’s proposed initiatives do raise an interesting question for folks who’d like to end the ineffective war on drugs: which petition would you rather circulate? Would you rather explain and solicit signatures for a complicated, 800- to 2000-word, multi-section initiative that focuses on easing penalties for marijuana alone, or would you rather carry two much simpler proposals—knock of the felonies, make possession a misdemeanor and ingestion a petty offense—that go beyond marijuana and invite a debate about (and opposition based on) all illegal drugs?

21 Comments

  1. Porter Lansing 2021-07-03 14:23

    Make hard drugs a misdemeanor?
    It should be a crime to suggest such a felonious attempt at chaos.

  2. Arlo Blundt 2021-07-03 14:38

    We need drug treatment on a large scale. Treatment is tough, but it works, people can change their behavior and escape narcotic drug use. Narcotics Anonymous is a very effective peer based treatment group. I don’t believe prison is a deterrent for people prone to drug addiction…probably has the opposite effect. Marijuana is a dangerous drug for people prone to addiction though I don’t believe its physically addictive. A psychological dependency to pot often leads to a poly drug addiction to alcohol. Alcohol is the prevalent drug of choice for marijuana users and is a tough, tough drug to kick.

  3. V 2021-07-03 15:30

    I agree Arlo. Save money from incarceration and use it for treatment. We all know that alcoholism and drug addiction are listed as a disease/disorder by the medical community. Let’s remember who does time in S.D. jails; people of poverty, people of color and those with priors. Professionals and people with insurance are likely to be offered treatment instead. Treatment, along with support groups like AA and NA works. It should be available to everyone.

    And if we’d all turn our judgement of addiction into compassion, it may help those individuals’ road to recovery.

  4. Mark Anderson 2021-07-03 17:03

    You know Americans could just look for success in other countries. Portugal has done well for a couple of decades after legalizing drugs. I know its a long shot to have Republicans look to other countries rather than Merica, but just saying.

  5. Francis Schaffer 2021-07-03 17:19

    Mark,
    Did Portugal legalize drugs or decriminalize them? I believe it is important in these discussions to have the terminology accurate.

  6. cibvet 2021-07-03 17:58

    If America was to kick their drug habit, would the republicans and fox news stop referring to all immigrants as drug dealers since there would be no reason to bring drugs here.

  7. grudznick 2021-07-03 21:30

    The LRC makes laws that are insaner than most. Why does the Council of Legislatures get to weigh in on policy decisions and make laws? This is how the insaner law bills get made. You libbies need to wake up to this.

  8. John Dale 2021-07-03 21:33

    We’re being invaded by initiatives.

    It’s obvious they are being used to teeter SD to a more “pure democracy”, which always sees the less capable eating the more capable because “equality”.

    In my view, you can say bye bye to initiatives.

    As I contemplate their use (abuse) in the modern day, I will not be surprised if an initiative is used to s-can initiatives forever in SD.

    Will we really look back on this fondly?

    I’m not so sure.

  9. John Dale 2021-07-03 21:35

    CC4L – “Let’s do this for the people!”

    MPP – “No! You don’t know what you’re doing, etc because we have this money that was made by selling out Jews to the Nazis!”

    Governor’s Office – “I just read a very interesting book about the Nazis, and I do not like them.”

    SD Legislature: “Hold my beer.”

    Good luck, Communists.

  10. grudznick 2021-07-03 21:43

    Mr. Dale, grudznick is on your board on this issue. Would you have a breakfast in Sturgis?

  11. John Dale 2021-07-03 23:27

    Mr. Grudznick – if you’re serious, I’m serious. You betcha! info at plains tribune dot com

  12. Eve Fisher 2021-07-04 09:49

    We need to get rid of the “ingestion law” because (1) South Dakota is the only state that has it, and (2) in order to prove that “ingestion” has occurred, SD law enforcement has used forced catheterizations (when breathalyzer tests didn’t show anything) in order to get proof of it. (In other words, law enforcement would decide that someone did use drugs and needed to be imprisoned, even when they passed a breathalyzer, and ordered them “restrained” – tied down – to have a medical person ram a tube up their penis or urethra to get a sample, and I hope that made you wince to read it.) This has since been declared unconstitutional, and rightly so.

    https://www.argusleader.com/story/news/crime/2020/09/16/federal-judge-settlement-forced-catheterization-urine-samples/5816358002/

    At some point, someone needs to present the costs of incarcerating people in prison for years for drug offenses (where they are certainly not receiving long, on-going treatment) v. actual treatment for addiction. Treatment is cheaper. Also, meth-heads do not get better in prison. And sooner or later, they will be released – and without treatment, they will be right back at it, in your town, in your neighborhood, etc.

  13. Lottie 2021-07-04 10:19

    Yeah i know too many young Native women thrown in for trying meth. & they have young children at home. When they are released they look for work with the title “Felon”. So sorry but the Law never Offered them any “Treatment”. Counselors say its so “expensive”. Judges dont listen even though the are living their own dream of home and family.

  14. Richard Schriever 2021-07-04 12:52

    It appears as though one of my distant cousins is trying to drag the state into the 21st Century – carrying on the tradition of that branch. Go Payton.

  15. grudznick 2021-07-04 17:27

    Ms. Lottie is righter than right. The demon weed leads people to the trying of the meth, and then they are wrecked forever.

  16. Porter Lansing 2021-07-04 18:10

    Let’s examine the facts.
    1. grudzie exaggerates far beyond the limits of believability
    2. (52 percent of Americans over 18) have tried marijuana at some point in their lives.
    3. (5.4 percent of the population) have tried methamphetamine at least once.
    4. 8 in 10 Americans (83 percent) support legalizing medical marijuana

  17. grudznick 2021-07-04 20:04

    3 in 10 red-blooded Americans support legalizing medical marijuana. You need to leave out the South Americans from your poll, Mr. Lansin.

  18. DaveFN 2021-07-04 22:11

    Note Eve Fisher

    Insertion into the distal end of the penis is necessarily insertion into the urethra, or so one would hope.

  19. Mark Anderson 2021-07-05 08:04

    Mr. Shaffer they did decriminalize, all drugs in 2001, medical marijuana was legalized in 2018. Sorry about my terminology, but drug use has gone down in the country. I still type up missives while having my evening beer on the porch.

Comments are closed.