VIEWPOINT | South Dakota Legislature's anti-cannabis crusade hits five year mark

Guest column by John Batteen, Faulk County medical cannabis patient

I’m a self employed software developer, and a medical cannabis patient. I’m currently working on software that runs grocery stores. I use cannabis to treat the pain from my autoimmune disease.

On Oct. 22, 2025, the South Dakota Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee held a meeting in Pierre. The Chairwoman of the panel, Rep. Josephine Garcia, opened the meeting with assurances they were not tasked with determining if a medical cannabis program should exist in the first place. Unfortunately what followed were hours of horror stories from out of state speakers.

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