Bizarre South Dakota Law Casts Doubt Over Tribe’s Plan for a Cannabis Resort

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A strange South Dakota law is drawing renewed attention this year amidst confusion over how Native tribes can grow and distribute cannabis. Passed in 2001, the South Dakota law prohibits the “internal and physical possession, distribution, and manufacture of marijuana” by all non-Natives within the state, with exceptions for Natives consuming on tribal land.

The law was challenged and brought to the Supreme Court back in 2004, when police stopped a man in traffic, found him in possession of a scale, and pressured him into consenting to a urine test. He failed the test and was slapped with a criminal charge for internal possession.

The court has traditionally held that once a substance is consumed, it no longer falls under the realm of “possession.” But the South Dakota legislature explicitly amended the law with a new definition of a controlled substance to make prosecuting for internal possession possible.

In the face...

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