A South Dakota legislative panel advanced two bills on Friday aiming to better inform patients about federal restrictions on firearm ownership for people who use marijuana. One would require that medical cannabis patient applications include a written warning about the gun ban, while the other would mandate that informational signs be posted on-site at dispensaries while instituting daily fines for businesses that don’t comply.
Lawmakers in the state’s House Judiciary Committee approved both proposals, unanimously passing the measure to include a written warning on patient applications and voting 8–4 on requiring dispensary signs.
Both bills were introduced earlier this month, led by Rep. Kevin Jensen (R) in the House and Sen. Jim Stalzer (R) in the Senate, with multiple additional co-sponsors.
Jensen began his comments to colleagues at Friday’s hearing by saying he wanted to make it “perfectly clear that nothing in this bill precludes anyone from getting a medical marijuana card or using the card for whatever purposes.” But he pointed to federal rules prohibiting unlawful users of marijuana from obtaining guns, which he noted stretch back to 1968.
Pointing to a release from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) official in St. Paul regarding Minnesota’s legalization of adult-use cannabis, Jensen said federal law “does not provide any exception” for state-legal medical or recreational use.
“People are just totally unaware, and they could get caught,” Jensen admonished. “I almost hate to say this, but right now, if under Biden’s administration they wanted to enforce this law universally across the country, they would probably have 40 million people that they could arrest and confiscate all their firearms and ammunition.”
“That law already exists. If they enforced it right now, that could happen,” he added. “But that’s kind of a side note. The main issue with this bill is just a notification.”
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