Proposals To Crack Down on ‘Pop Up’ Weed Clinics Rejected by South Dakota Lawmakers
High Times

An effort to rein in so-called “pop up” medical cannabis clinics in South Dakota was rejected by the state’s lawmakers on Wednesday. The Forum News Service reports that the state Senate Health and Human Services Committee voted against a pair of bills that would have “made myriad changes to cannabis law in the state: banning certain advertisements for prescription services; requiring certain actions by doctors and other providers to establish a ‘bona fide’ relationship and allowing prescription to occur only in certain facilities, most of them related to medical care in some manner.” South Dakota voters approved a ballot measure in 2020 that legalized medical cannabis treatment for qualifying patients.  The new law officially took effect in 2021, and the first state-sanctioned dispensaries opened to customers last year.  Since then, a number of “pop up” clinics have opened, offering medical cannabis prescriptions to patients in mere minutes.  Supporters of the two measures rejected by the state Senate committee on Wednesday contend that those clinics are “allowing those seeking medicinal cannabis to earn their cards without the proper, professional examination inherent to the law,” according to the Forum News Service. Both bills failed by “wide margins,” the Forum News Service reported, noting that opponents to the measures “said the increased oversight and potential punishments would have the consequence of hurting the rate of providers opting into the medical marijuana program, an already present difficulty in the nascent program that creates a hole filled by ‘pop-up’ clinics.” “The program is brand new, and we don’t want to go backward with law by just saying, ‘We’ve got to stop this right now,” said state Sen. Erin Tobin, of Winner, as quoted by the Forum News Service. “Because I know it’s a problem. We’ll get there.” But the chief supporter of the proposals said…

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