The new Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota stands ready to help Governor Noem reclaim her pro-business attitude and help them help us to herbal remedies and higher GDP. This new corporate lobby sent me their press release yesterday:
A group of business owners, entrepreneurs, and advocates announced the formation of the Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota, an organization for medical and recreational cannabis businesses as well as ancillary businesses adjacent to the cannabis industry.
The CIASD Board is comprised of the following businesses:
- Deadwood Management
- FSST Pharms
- Johnson Properties, LLC
- Blau Ernte, LLC
- MedRec, LLC
- North Coast Cannabis Company, LLC
- SDMCS LLC
- Sozo SD, Inc.
The Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota Board issued the following statement:
“The Cannabis Industry Association of South Dakota is a group of business owners, entrepreneurs, and advocates who are working together to build a responsible and successful cannabis industry that serves the needs of medical cannabis patients and adult cannabis consumers, strengthens the state economy, creates jobs, provides new opportunities for existing South Dakota businesses, and generates tax revenue to fund schools and other public programs.
“Our top priority is to ensure that South Dakota’s new cannabis laws — Amendment A and Measure 26 — are implemented in a manner that establishes a fair and competitive cannabis regulatory system.
“We have been lobbying in Pierre to prevent damaging changes to Measure 26. We thank the South Dakota Legislature for ultimately rejecting legislation that would delay the implementation of the state’s medical cannabis program. Instead, they chose to honor the will of the people. We commend them for making that decision.
“We are hopeful and confident that Amendment A will be upheld by the South Dakota Supreme Court.”
The CIASD is accepting applications from new potential members. More information is available on the CIASD website (www.ciasd.com).
Ned Horsted will serve as the acting executive director of CIASD.
“I’m thrilled to help launch this organization,” said Horsted. “The policies established by Amendment A and Measure 26 will create new economic opportunities for South Dakotans and CIASD is going to ensure that the state fully realizes this potential.”
Blau Ernte LLC lists 705 North Sagehorn Drive, Hartford as its principal office. That’s former legislator and Republican PAC maven Deb Peters’s address, though the principal and the agent are Sioux City lawyers Camille S. Brown and Nikki K. Nobbe. Blau Ernte means Blue Harvest in German… hmmm… maybe Peters plan to peddle pot to calm down all those Blue voters and make money to keep South Dakota Red for another decade….
A different kind of Red/Green power comes from FSST Pharms, a cannabis company organized under the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe. FSST put $100K into the campaign for IM 26 and Amendment A.
Johnson Properties LLC is run by Justin J. Johnson of Sioux Falls, another big spender on the 2020 cannabis ballot questions.
Deadwood Management is a shell corporation organized in a Madison RV mailbox in 2016. Its president, Todd C. Smith, now lists the company’s address as an apparently empty lot at 21008 Two Bit Road, Sturgis. Smith and his secretary/treasurer Michele Ross appear to be California incorporators of other greenish businesses; maybe they are among the new entrepreneurs drawn to South Dakota by Governor Noem’s open-for-business posturing.
North Coast Cannabis Company has no papers in to the South Dakota Secretary of State yet; it may be this Ohio company… although this Colombian operation with that name has its own website.
Four of the companies—Blau Ernte, Sozo SD, SDMCS, and MedRec—have been formed in the last four months.
This is so nice to see, I haven’t partaken of the substance in decades. However, being busted for it in South Dakota pretty much ruined the career of one friend and hurt two others. Why, because some have always liked doing that sort of thing. At least now you don’t have to remember if was the third or fourth fence post from the end mile in the middle of winter and buy it in the middle of nowhere from people you don’t know and weave you way home.