Election 2020

South Dakota votes to legalize marijuana for people over 21

By Rob Price , Haven Orecchio-Egresitz ,and Madison Hall
 
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South Dakota has voted to legalize marijuana use for adults. 

Constitutional Amendment A, which passed with 53.4% of the vote, "legalizes the possession, transportation, use, and distribution of marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia by people who are 21 or older."

The summary text for South Dakota's Constitutional Amendment A reads as follows:

This constitutional amendment legalizes the possession, use, transport, and distribution of marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia by people age 21 and older. Individuals may possess or distribute one ounce or less of marijuana. Marijuana plants and marijuana produced from those plants may also be possessed under certain conditions.

The amendment authorizes the State Department of Revenue ("Department") to issue marijuana-related licenses for commercial cultivators and manufacturers, testing facilities, wholesalers, and retailers. Local governments may regulate or ban the establishment of licensees within their jurisdictions.

The Department must enact rules to implement and enforce this amendment. The amendment requires the Legislature to pass laws regarding medical use of marijuana. The amendment does not legalize hemp; it requires the Legislature to pass laws regulating the cultivation, processing, and sale of hemp.

The amendment imposes a 15% tax on marijuana sales. The tax revenue will be used for the Department's costs incurred in implementing this amendment, with remaining revenue equally divided between the support of public schools and the State general fund.

Judicial clarification of the amendment may be necessary. The amendment legalizes some substances that are considered felony controlled substances under current State law. Marijuana remains illegal under Federal law.

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Rob Price
Rob Price was a senior correspondent at Business Insider, based in San Francisco. He wrote investigations and long-form features about platforms, people, and power in Silicon Valley.His stories variously led to attorney general investigations, large-scale internal reviews at major tech companies, high-profile personnel departures, citation by state and federal lawmakers, and the closure of a well-funded startup. His 2022 story on the Bitfinex hack is being adapted into a feature film, and in 2024 he received an SPJ NorCal Excellence in Journalism award for his reporting on AI and relationships.Rob's scoops and exclusive stories were cited by The New York Times, Bloomberg, the BBC, Associated Press, Reuters, CNBC, Politico, The Guardian, Axios, and many other national and international publications. His writing has also been published in or syndicated by The Washington Post, The Independent, Vice, Slate, and elsewhere, and he appeared on CNN, the BBC, CBS, Reuters, ABC Australia, and other broadcast media to discuss technology, business, and culture.He worked for Business Insider from 2015 to 2025. Prior to joining the features team, Rob covered Facebook and Silicon Valley, and before that wrote about tech business, policy, and the gig economy in London. Between September and October 2019, he was acting executive editor for Business Insider's UK bureau. He also sat on the board of directors for the San Francisco Press Club, the leading non-profit media advocacy group in the Bay Area, and was a volunteer crew member at the Marine Mammal Center, the world's largest animal hospital for marine mammals. You can contact Rob Price via email at robaeprice@gmail.com, or +1 650-636-6268 (Signal / WhatsApp / Cell). Selected stories:— They spoke out against their employer. Then they were hit with trade secrets suits.— The rise of 'shadow stand-ins'— App, Lover, Muse: Inside a 47-year-old Minnesota man's three-year relationship with an AI chatbot— Deel Speed: The inside story of a $12 billion HR startup's breakneck growth— Private islands, flying cars, and psychedelic parties: Inside the wild post-Google lives of Larry Page and Sergey Brin— 'I want your Instagram account': First came the threatening texts, followed by the SWAT teams. Then someone wound up dead.— Inside Iconiq: How Mark Zuckerberg's banker built a secret Silicon Valley empire and made billions— Gaia was a wildly popular yoga brand. Now it's a publicly traded Netflix rival pushing conspiracy theories while employees fear the CEO is invading their dreams— A drunken late-night assault allegation has roiled the secretive world of Mark Zuckerberg's private family office. Personal aides are speaking out about claims that household staff endured sexual harassment and racism from their colleagues.
Haven hedshot
Haven Orecchio-Egresitz
Haven Orecchio-Egresitz was the senior editor overseeing Business Insider's legal affairs team. The team, which consists of several of the most senior reporters in BI's global newsroom, led the charge in covering Donald Trump's many legal issues, including his four criminal cases. As a senior criminal justice reporter at Insider's New York office, Haven wrote an award-winning six-part series on the US mental health system failures that led to police shootings of people in crisis; uncovered how a yoga guru to Hollywood elite operated an abusive international cult; reported from the NY federal court where R. Kelly was found guilty of sex crimes; and covered the Minneapolis trial of ex-officer Derek Chauvin. "Deaths in the Family," a year-long project she worked on with the Investigations Team, is the most comprehensive look at rising homicidal violence against transgender people in the US. Haven also covered Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine and the plight of refugees from the Ukrainian border in Beregsurany and Budapest. Haven previously worked on the crime, legal affairs, and investigations beats at several newspapers in Massachusetts. While working at the Cape Cod Times, and later The Berkshire Eagle, her reporting won awards from the New England Newspaper and Press Association.Before that, Haven worked as a metro correspondent at The Boston Globe and contributed to the paper's Pulitzer Prize-winning Marathon Bombing coverage.Haven is passionate about public records, government transparency, and bagels. ExpertiseTrauma reporting, legal affairs, criminal justice, policing, courts, extremism, cults, and breaking news. Popular articles 'Love us in private and kill us in public': How transphobia turns young men into killers5 moms whose sons were killed after they called 911 for help now live with the consequences of a failed mental health system that uses police as a crutchThe Proud Boys chairman says members of the extremist organization are running for office — and you might not know if you're voting for oneSome police chiefs genuinely want to fire their bad apples. Their department's history can make that almost impossible.Before the sudden death of its leader, Ra Ma Yoga Institute was accused by some former members of being a cult. What happens now?For 48 hours a Ukrainian family walked through rubble and scorched earth to a new life
Madison Hall
Madison Hall
Madison was a Data Reporter for Business Insider. She is an avid fan of visualizing data and information into fun and new ways. In 2019 she was awarded "Best Information Graphic" by the Missouri Press Association for her infographic on phage display research completed by Nobel laureate, Dr. George Smith. In 2022, Digiday named her the "Journalist of the Year."A Houston native, she loves watching Houston sports and eating tamales and Tex-Mex. She graduated from the University of Missouri in 2019 with a degree in Data Journalism. She once successfully caught a field goal in an SEC game.Examples of her work:
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