SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – At smoke shops all across South Dakota, hemp-derived products are being sold that have the same psychoactive effects as what can be found at a medical dispensary. Members of the medical marijuana industry are calling foul saying that none of these products should be sold without a medical license.
They added the continued sale of these products is creating inequality in the industry.
“It does feel as though there is an unfair advantage,” Kittrick Jeffries said, Puffy’s Dispensary CEO.
“For us in the licensed medical cannabis industry, it makes it very difficult for us to compete,” Alan Welsh said, the Co-Owner of Dakota Herb.
Dakota Herb is a medical marijuana dispensary, their Co-Owner Alan Welsh is also a former South Dakota Highway Patrolman.
“I believe every bit of cannabis being sold in South Dakota that’s not being sold at a dispensary is a felony. It’s illegal distribution of marijuana,” Welsh said.
Welsh believes that smoke shops are not accurately representing the total amount of THC in their products, by not including THCA, which is that part that becomes active upon heating.
“If you think about prohibition in the 1930s, and alcohol is illegal, yet there’s a store on the corner