The Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe became last week the first South Dakota American Indian tribe to approve marijuana legalization. The approval came via the tribe’s executive committee voting on Thursday to adopt a legalization ordinance.
The tribe’s reservation is located in South Dakota, a state that still outlaws medical and recreational marijuana.
The new ordinance allows recreational marijuana use by people who are at least 21 years old. Medical marijuana use is an option for people of all ages, including minors with a doctor’s recommendation and the supervision of a parent or guardian. The Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe is thus joining the 23 states, the District of Colombia, Guam, and Puerto Rico that have legal medical marijuana and the four states — Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, and Washington — and DC that have legal recreational marijuana.
The marijuana legalization ordinance may be read here. It is in some ways toward the restrictive end of the forms of legalization so far adopted in the developing patchwork quilt of marijuana laws in America. Consider, for example, that the ordinance allows possession of marijuana only in designated areas and does not allow individuals to grow marijuana at home.
Watch here a KSYF-TV report discussing the marijuana ordinance and including some seemingly less than celebratory reactions to the ordinance from Flandreau Mayor Mark Bonrud and South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley:
