A new poll conducted by the Sioux Falls Argus Leader and KELO TV shows slim support for a constitutional amendment legalizing pot use for adults.
South Dakota voters overwhelmingly support legalizing medical marijuana.
It’s the first independent poll done on the ballot questions.
Six hundred and twenty five voters from across the state were reached by telephone from October 19th to the 21st.
Fifty-one percent say they support Constitutional Amendment A, while 44 percent are against it. Five percent are undecided and there is a margin of error of plus or minus four.
Amendment A would regulate and tax marijuana sales at 15 percent for adults 21 and older.
Drey Samuelson is the political director for South Dakotans For Better Marijuana Laws. He says they’re going to keep reminding South Dakotans of the economic benefits of marijuana reform.
Samuelson says that will free up law enforcement to focus on serious crime.
“Not victimless crimes that in the 11 states that have passed adult use reform are no longer crimes at all,” Samuelson says. “Perhaps most important, we will continue to remind South Dakotans that if they want to prevent the legislature from repealing medical marijuana—like it did with South Dakota anti-corruption act in 2017, when it repealed it a few weeks after it passed—they need to pass Constitutional Amendment A, which will protect it.”
The group campaigning against Amendment A say there’s good news in the poll—the race has tightened since a poll they conducted in June showed 60 percent of voters favored the initiative.
The president of No Way On Amendment A, David Owen, says voters are starting to view constitutional Amendment A separately from the strickly medical marijuana question.
“To link the two and suggest you have to vote for both for medical is just wrong,” Owne says. “So, when I see that spread, it encourages me to think that people are starting to view them separately. We think that’s key.”
Seventy four percent of South Dakotans polled say they support a medical marijuana program.
Lee Strubinger is the politics and public policy reporter for SDPB.
