South Dakota’s MMOC Board Is Political Theatre And Needs Disbanded

South Dakota’s MMOC Board Is Political Theatre And Needs Disbanded

By Jason Karimi | WeedPress

February 24, 2026

South Dakota’s Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee (MMOC) has always looked more serious on paper than it has been in practice. Now the House has voted 41–26 to move HB 1160, the bill that would repeal it, and that vote is less a surprise than a confirmation: the committee became a stage prop in a larger political fight, not a durable patient-centered governance tool.

South Dakota Lawmakers Vote To Eliminate Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee

HB 1160 is simple and blunt. It repeals the statutes that created the MMOC, defined its structure, and assigned its duties. The bill text shows the committee was designed as an 11-member body with lawmakers plus representatives from medicine, law enforcement, counseling, and one qualifying patient. It was supposed to evaluate patient access, dispensary effectiveness, pricing, testing capacity, security safeguards, and broader medical/clinical issues, while seeking input from patients and other stakeholders. On paper, that is broad oversight authority. In practice, it became a political theater venue.

That disconnect is the core problem.

The state already has a Department of Health to administer the program. The Legislature already has committees, hearings, and direct lawmaking power. So what did the MMOC become? A symbolic “watchdog” layer that often functioned as a pressure valve for anti-program sentiment—an arena where people could posture, signal concern, and float restrictions without directly owning the consequences in the main legislative process. That is not patient protection. That is procedural drama.

Even supporters of repeal are describing it in bureaucratic terms. Reporting on the House vote notes Rep. Tim Goodwin’s argument that the committee may have made sense during startup after the 2020 voter approval, but now acts as an unnecessary layer because the Department of Health and Legislature can handle the program directly. That rationale matters because it implicitly admits the MMOC’s original justification expired.

And the timing matters too. The latest push to abolish the committee comes after months of friction and after a November meeting where the committee reportedly approved 11 motions—mostly seeking tighter regulations—without publishing them in advance or taking public comment on each motion. If true, that is exactly the kind of process that makes a body look less like patient oversight and more like managed optics. It reinforces the view that the committee had become a venue for policy signaling rather than transparent problem-solving.

Meanwhile, the real policy questions are still sitting there, unresolved.

Patients do not need another performative oversight body. They need reliable access. They need stable rules. They need regulators and lawmakers focused on product availability, costs, testing, and continuity of care—not a recurring spectacle where “oversight” is used as a political brand while the same fundamental issues remain. The original statutory mission of the MMOC was supposed to cover these things. The fact that the committee is now on the chopping block suggests it failed to establish itself as the place where those concerns were meaningfully addressed.

The broader lesson is bigger than one board: South Dakota’s medical cannabis politics still has a habit of substituting structures for solutions. Create a panel. Hold a hearing. Issue motions. Signal concern. Repeat. But patients do not live in headlines or committee packets. They live in the consequences of delay, uncertainty, and regulatory churn.

If the MMOC is repealed, the state loses a committee. Fine. What it cannot afford to lose is focus.

The serious policy work now is not “Who sits on the board?” It is:

• whether the Department of Health is making the program function predictably,
• whether legislators are addressing actual access and cost issues,
• and whether patient interests are being represented in outcomes, not just in committee membership charts.

South Dakota does not need more marijuana theater. It needs adult governance.