A South Dakota Senate committee is approving a change to the state’s felony level ingestion charge.
South Dakota is the only state in the county with a felony level charge for ingestion of a controlled substance.
A new bill reduces that charge to a misdemeanor for the first two offenses in 10 years. The third charge in that time frame would be a class 6 felony.
State Sen. Tamara Grove, R-Lower Brule, is the prime sponsor of the change. She said the current law is not working.
“We’re not having big treatment and all that kind of stuff within the prison system,” Grove said. “Really, what we’re doing is taking people at their lowest point in life, throwing them into cages and we’re saying, ‘Now, get better.’”
Grove said cost is another issue.
Corrections officials say there are on average about 200 offenders in prison with ingestion as their highest charge. It costs the state roughly $30,000 a year to incarcerate someone. That amounts to $6 million dollars annually.
For years, state lawmakers have resisted changes to the state’s ingestion law.
The Senate Judiciary Committee passed the bill by a vote of five to one. It now heads to the full Senate for a vote.
