South Dakota

  • Hemp-sourced CBD: LEGAL

  • Marijuana-sourced CBD for medical use only: ILLEGAL

  • Marijuana-sourced CBD for recreational use: ILLEGAL

Along with Idaho and Nebraska, South Dakota has the strictest laws on cannabis in the country. Possession of just 2 ounces or less is a misdemeanor with up to a 1 year prison sentence and a $2,000 fine. The state doesn’t have a medical marijuana program or an industrial hemp pilot program.

In 2017, South Dakota passed SB 95, which requires medical CBD products to be approved by the FDA in order to be legal. Currently, Epidiolex is the only drug on that list.

The bill also removed CBD from the definition of marijuana and reclassified it as a Schedule IV controlled substance, instead of Schedule I. However, that still criminalized CBD in a way that contradicts the federal legalization of CBD sourced from hemp. In January 2019, South Dakota’s Health and Human Services Committee passed an amendment that clarified that possession of hemp CBD, without a prescription, is legal.