MMOC, Oct. 13, 2026: Attorney General’s Office on Federal Rescheduling (Transcript)
Meeting: South Dakota Legislature, Medical Marijuana Oversight Committee (MMOC), Second Meeting, 2026 Interim, Room 362, State Capitol, Pierre
Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2026 (10:00 AM CT). This was the committee’s only October 2026 meeting.
Agenda item: 10:05 AM, “Federal Re-Scheduling Discussion,” Grant Flynn, Attorney General’s Office
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxM8IMWsWk0 (SDPB YouTube upload, posted Oct 16, 2026; 5:23:16 long)
Agenda: https://mylrc.sdlegislature.gov/api/Documents/307903.pdf
Related document: AG Official Opinion 26-06 (Oct 6, 2026), posted in the committee documents: https://mylrc.sdlegislature.gov/api/Documents/308377.pdf
Official audio (SDPB): https://sdpb.sd.gov/sdpbpodcast/2026/interim/mmo10132026.mp3. Note: its timestamps do NOT match the YouTube video’s (the gap grows from about +12 s to about +1 min over this segment), so use the YouTube times below.
Segment: 00:05:29 to 00:40:38 of the YouTube video (about 35 minutes)
Speakers: Asst. AG Grant Flynn; Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair); Sen. John Carley (Vice-Chair); Rep. Bobbi Andera; Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member)
Method: Machine transcription with a local Whisper model (faster-whisper medium.en, run twice, with targeted re-runs where the first passes dropped audio). Cross-checked against a third-party transcript (Pierre Review) and then reviewed by hand. I lightly removed filler words (um/uh). [word?] means uncertain; [inaudible] means not heard; text in [brackets] is an editorial note or citation. Speaker labels come from the chair’s recognitions and the speakers’ own introductions on the audio. Verify quotes against the recording before publishing.
――――――――――――――――――――
[00:05:29] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): And with that, we’ll go ahead into our first presenter. So I believe we have Mr. Grant [Flynn], the Attorney General’s Office, for the federal— to discuss the federal rescheduling discussion. Good morning, sir. Thank you. Please identify yourself. Just a reminder, all questions go through the chair. Thank you.
[00:06:00] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Good morning, Madam Chair, members of the committee. My name is Grant Flynn, and I’m an Assistant Attorney General with the South Dakota Attorney General’s Office.
[00:06:17] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Last month, members of this committee contacted the Attorney General’s Office for a legal opinion on the impact of the federal government’s rescheduling of marijuana to a Schedule III controlled substance and what impact, if any, that change would have on South Dakota’s medical marijuana program.
[00:06:36] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: So certainly keeping in mind and with respect to the procedures of this committee, as I would do if I were in court today, I have prepared a presentation, but just like as if I were in court, I always prefer a hot bench or a more conversational, you know, sort of approach. So if at any point there’s questions, please don’t hesitate to stop me, to interrupt me, you know, if you want to discuss things. Otherwise I, as an attorney, there’s no sound sweeter than that of my own voice, so I will fill up as much blank time as you give me.
[00:07:16] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: But in response to the committee’s request, myself along with several members of the Attorney General’s Office’s team reviewed the recently proposed or changed federal rules, recently implemented changes to the federal rules, and then compared those to our own medical marijuana statutes in [SDCL] 34-20G as well as our criminal statutes in [SDCL] 22-42.
[00:07:41] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Oh, I’m so sorry. Have I been talking that whole time without my microphone on? Wonderful. Well, thank goodness. [microphone issue; the preceding remarks were picked up at low volume]
[00:07:56] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: But so it was certainly a valuable and educational exercise for us because, you know, this isn’t an area that we delve into a lot, because our state has very qualified and capable people, including this committee, to make sure that the medical marijuana program is running smoothly and as it was intended to. But it is valuable for us to— and me personally— to have this understanding. So I’m grateful for the opportunity.
[00:08:24] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: As we noted in the opinion that we provided to the committee members, because federal law, or the new federal rules, explicitly accommodate South Dakota[‘s?] medical marijuana program[s?], and partially it appears, based on the rules that were implemented, that part of the purpose of this program was to get federal law more in line with many of the state marijuana programs or medical marijuana programs. The federal rules, or the information published by the feds when it talks about— in the Federal Register, sorry— they talk about the expansive frameworks that the states and their medical marijuana programs have set up.
[00:09:12] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: And so it appears that rather than continuing to be in conflict with those, where, you know, the feds schedule marijuana as a Schedule I substance which has no medical purpose, they recognize that— I think they said about 40 states now have enacted some type of medical marijuana program, and recognize that that’s something that they should probably start to accommodate, I guess, if not get a little bit more in line with.
[00:09:39] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: That being said, the AG’s opinion focused solely on the rescheduling, as was requested by the committee members in the email provided. So is there remaining uncertainty around marijuana in general, whether it’s recreational or medical, and how that interplays with federal law and state law? Absolutely. As with any area of the law, it has to be interpreted, right? The first step is that the laws get enacted or the rules get put in place. The next step is, if there’s challenge or debate as to implementation, then the courts take a look at those. But on the very front edge, as we are with some of these things, some of that case law interpretation is yet to develop. But in general, it appears that the federal rules and the Federal Register are attempting to accommodate programs like South Dakota’s.
[00:10:31] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: So, as everyone here knows, the medical marijuana program was initiated with IM 26 during the 2020 election. The program has evolved a little bit over the course of its existence, but it also has remained the same. One of the things I took a look at as I prepared for this was just exactly what changes have been made. Currently, Chapter [34-20G?] has about 92—
[00:11:32] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Pardon me. Can we— is it working now? Wonderful. Okay, sorry about that. So ultimately, again, assuming my count is right, about 12 statutes that existed when IM 26 was passed have been repealed. Approximately 11 new ones were added. Currently, from the Department of Health’s numbers, there’s around 19,800 approved patients on the medical marijuana program, and about 19,100 of those are South Dakota residents. So only about 600 are non-residents.
[00:12:15] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: When we talk about the interplay between federal and state law, most commonly what we end up talking about is the Supremacy Clause and the concept of federal preemption. And that arises from the constitutional principle that federal law is the supreme law of the land. However, the way that the federal versus the state governments were granted power is very different, right? The U.S. Constitution gives the federal government specific authority to do specific things: here’s a list of stuff that you can do. And then it reserves the rest of the regulation of our society to the states. Likewise, our state constitution provides a limit on powers, right? Here’s a list of things that you cannot do. And then presumptively anything that you’re not forbidden from doing, the legislature is capable of doing.
[00:13:13] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: So, preemption can exist in essentially three ways. Express preemption, where the federal government says, we’re in charge of this, and the states don’t get to have a say, or they have to do what we’ve said, or they at least have to rise above the floor that we’ve set. And typically, that has to be done pretty explicitly. The federal government says, this is ours. Another way that they can do that is sort of through implicit, or what we call field preemption, which is that Congress’s regulatory scheme is so pervasive as to make reasonable the inference that Congress left no room for the states to supplement it. And then finally there’s conflict preemption, which just means that the federal law is in direct conflict with what the state law says, and so in that contest, if there’s a tug of war, federal law wins.
[00:14:11] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Here, we don’t have any of those preemption concepts that have been satisfied, because the federal rules, as they’ve been enacted in the Federal Register, specifically accommodate the state medical marijuana programs. So assuming those state programs are willing to jump through the hoops that the federal government has set up to make sure that they’re properly registered, then the new federal scheduling will accommodate those programs. So there’s some additional steps that have to be taken, but ultimately, the states were reserved the authority to [regulate?] health, safety, welfare, and morals, those traditional police powers. The federal government has not expressly [preempted?] or so completely occupied the field that the states have left no room, because, in fact, it has set forth a framework for the state programs to be essentially kind of validated or recognized under federal law. So we have none of those conflicts.
[00:15:20] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: The DEA rescheduled marijuana through its authority under the Controlled Substances Act. The questions that the committee presented, although there were several of them, you know, when we looked at them, essentially it sort of distilled down into kind of one primary question, right? How is what the federal government did going to have an impact on what we do every day through our medical marijuana program? And I believe that the short answer to that, from the research that we, you know, that we conducted and what we found, was that the federal program specifically accommodates this. It acknowledges that— you know, at least that’s part of the thought process for why these changes were made— was to allow for a little bit more consistency between federal law and state law. And so there’s really no, you know, no conflict as everything exists currently.
[00:16:16] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: How the legislature chooses to address that, or how they want to change that, is certainly a policy decision that falls with the legislature. That’s outside of what the Attorney General’s Office’s, I think, sort of scope of authority is. You know, we certainly have our opinions and policies that the Attorney General supports, and things that we’ve joined both, you know, locally and nationwide as far as setting those policy positions.
[00:16:54] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: I believe one of the questions that the committee had was, one, what statements or, you know, what actions are the Attorney General’s offices across the country taking to, you know, to implement the new federal rescheduling? And another one was just sort of some opinion questions about how the Attorney General’s Office, you know, views, or whether or not we have an opinion on certain changes. And so we have submitted some of those policy positions. We’ve signed on to a couple letters, you know, to Congress. One, you know, we signed a letter where we were initially opposed to the rescheduling to Schedule III. The South Dakota Attorney General’s Office and several others said, you know, we’re not sure this is a great idea, because we’re a law enforcement entity, right? And so that’s our position as far as, you know, marijuana overall.
[00:17:57] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: But again, that goes as far as how much influence that opinion can have. Once the vote is taken and, you know, and the policy is enacted, then it’s the Attorney General’s responsibility to enforce the law, whatever the policymakers determine that that law should be. So we have, you know, weighed in. We’ve also weighed in on the closing of the hemp loophole in, you know, under the 2018 Farm Bill and under, you know, the other federal laws, which I’m sure this committee is very familiar with, and all those, you know, kind of unsanctioned— in my— well, I guess I shouldn’t accuse my whole office— I call them the diet weed products, you know, the ones that you can buy at the smoke shops and things like that.
[00:18:42] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: You know, so we’ve taken policy positions on those matters, but overall, the Attorney General’s Office has not really gotten involved with the medical marijuana program, because quite simply, it’s not criminal in nature. You know, this is a regulated health care program. Our Department of Health has very, very capable folks. In fact, they just poached one of our attorneys not too long ago, and so, you know, I know that they have good people over there who are working on this program, Secretary Magstadt and all of her staff. So it’s just not something that we have occasion to get involved in, you know, save an investigation into something that’s going on outside the scope of what’s permitted under the program.
[00:19:25] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: And I think that was another question that, since I brought it up, I can just touch on really quickly, was, you know, additional enforcement actions that have been taken by the Attorney General’s Office. There was a very— I guess I shouldn’t say very public, but there was several investigations of smoke shops that the Attorney General’s Office engaged in last summer that got a certain amount of attention, and so the question, I think, was posed: have we done anything else in that vein? You know, has that project continued? And there have not been any significant updates. We certainly continue to enforce the law, you know, whenever it’s been broken.
[00:20:10] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: But I think the intent was, and I think what we said at the time, was that those raids, or investigations, or whatever they might be, were intended to sort of be a blueprint or a formula for how local entities could enforce against those smoke shops if they chose to do that. Generally, the statutes that they were violating, you know, unless they were selling to folks who were underage, were, you know, were misdemeanors, and typically the Attorney General’s Office doesn’t investigate a lot of misdemeanors. We do those bigger, you know, high-level felony investigations and things like that. And so [generally?] being the marijuana police across the state was not something that we ever intended to take on. It was just to say, you know, this is a problem. We’re not— it’s being kind of enforced differently depending on the location, the city or the county or that kind of thing. So here’s a way, if you want to go in and enforce these laws against these places, that you can do that, and you can do that effectively, and you can get convictions for that. But again, that was not something that was ever intended to be kind of a permanent component of our repartee, I guess.
[00:21:21] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: So that’s essentially what I had prepared for you folks. If you have any questions, I will certainly do my best to answer them.
[00:21:33] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Madam Chair?
[00:21:35] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Yes, go ahead and introduce yourself.
[00:21:36] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Good morning. Thank you for your time. Kasey Entwisle, patient representative. I’m just curious about the criminal status, if the AG’s office is going to change some of the laws for the people of South Dakota. Right now, I believe they face felony charges if they’re in consumption of an oil-based cannabis product, and the chief of police testified that the stores also were just getting misdemeanors, and there seems to be some confusion there.
[00:22:09] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Thank you so much, Mr. Chair— or Madam Chair. I’m sorry. I sincerely apologize. I promise you the only reason I did that is because my email came from Senator Carley, and so that’s where my [discourse?]— I’ve been married for about 15 years, so I’ve gotten good at those saves over the course of time.
[00:22:31] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Ms. Entwisle, my first response to your question would be that the Attorney General’s Office doesn’t change the law at all, right? That’s not something that we have the capacity to do. That’s with the legislature to take care of. Now, I’m not aware that we have any intent to, you know, to make any changes to those laws, but the confusion or the difficulty in prosecution when it comes to felonies versus misdemeanors, you know, in the marijuana space, has existed for a long time.
[00:23:01] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: You know, South Dakota is unique because, one, we don’t schedule marijuana, right? It’s not a Schedule I through V anything. It’s just its own deal under [SDCL] 22-42. And so then— but what we do schedule is tetrahydrocannabinol, right? We schedule that in [SDCL] 34-20B, and we have listed that as a Schedule I controlled substance. And there has been some debate about those statutes over the years and whether or not that statute includes naturally occurring tetrahydrocannabinol. Does it only include synthetic or manufactured tetrahydrocannabinol? To my knowledge, there’s not been a, you know, on-point guidance from the Supreme Court on that case, I think just because they’ve procedurally not ever, you know, kind of made it to that point.
[00:23:51] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: But so we don’t— I mean, as far as I know, we have no intention of going in and trying to amend those statutes. But the discrepancy about prosecuting, you know, extracts as felonies versus, you know, marijuana as a misdemeanor and those kind of things, those have existed, I think, for a long time in our statute, and they’re just kind of open to interpretation.
[00:24:20] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Madam Chair?
[00:24:21] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Yes, you have a follow-up.
[00:24:22] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): I mean, maybe just a question for you. The Attorney General’s Office stated that they provided an opinion to the committee. Is that going to be on record? Did we receive that opinion? I have not laid eyes on that opinion.
[00:24:38] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): This would be in the committee documents [for you?].
[00:24:42] Sen. John Carley (Vice-Chair): Madam Chair.
[00:24:43] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Senator Carley, go ahead.
[00:24:44] Sen. John Carley (Vice-Chair): Thank you. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, that letter would be placed in the documents by the LRC staff. Just a couple quick follow-ups. Thank you, Mr. Flynn. Maybe a two-part question. One, since there’s still some discussions of how this implementation on the federal level will happen from Schedule I and Schedule III, is your office going to kind of keep aware of and watch what finally happens in the implementation, and kind of just stay lightly aware of kind of how that eventually gets implemented, and perhaps in the future provide any further feedback? And then the second question is if the AG office has looked at— I believe the South Dakota Department of Health proposed some amendments to some of the rules. So have you guys looked at that? Have you had any feedback, or support, or questions on that? So kind of two-part question there.
[00:25:41] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Certainly. Madam Chair, Senator Carley, I appreciate the question. As far as, will we continue to sort of monitor the lay of the land? Absolutely. Because that’s what we do on a lot of different levels, right? Not only will we continue to do that from the policy perspective, which is the part that I’m more involved in, of just kind of monitoring, you know, the positions that our state, other states have taken on these things, and, you know, how the law has evolved from an enforcement standpoint. You know, we have lots of involvement with federal law enforcement and task forces, especially in the drug space and things like that. So from a law enforcement standpoint, we can’t not stay updated on those things. It’s an absolute necessity from an enforcement standpoint. But likewise, from a policy standpoint, we’re always going to need to be watching this conversation for exactly the reasons that we talked about, right? That it’s going to continue to evolve, it’s going to continue to change, and we have a responsibility to be a part of that conversation to the extent that’s appropriate.
[00:26:51] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: [The] second part of your question, I believe, was about the Department of Health rules. We do not routinely monitor other agency administrative rules. There’s just not someone in our office— you know, we have attorneys who are assigned to different state agencies. And so every state agency has, you know, sort of a contact person within the— excuse me— within the Attorney General’s Office that they can reach out to, or at least they have the option of one. I guess I shouldn’t say every, because that will come back to bite me. But for the most part, you know, if they want to— if any agency wants to have a contact person here. So I can’t say whether anyone in our office, you know, worked with the Department of Health or communicated with them as, you know, as these rules were in development or things like that. Again, we generally, you know, don’t follow those as a matter of practice unless there’s something that directly involves us.
[00:27:45] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: And, again, we specifically have not done that with regard to medical marijuana, because that’s a Department of Health program that’s well overseen and well regulated, and we just have faith in the competent subject matter experts who are over there who are making these decisions. So if they had questions for us, we would certainly be happy to assist with those in any way we could, but no. And I did take a look at the rules package this morning. I flipped through it. I hadn’t looked at it until the committee members brought it to my attention this morning. But having looked at it, I don’t have any concerns about the changes that they’re making.
[00:28:24] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Madam Chair?
[00:28:25] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Yes[, Ms. Entwisle?].
[00:28:26] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Thank you. One more question. I don’t know if I just misunderstood this, but because of the rescheduling that President Trump is doing at the national level, I know that South Dakota, we still have scheduling one— sorry, Kasey Entwisle, patient representative. Lord. Anyway— right? Scheduling three is happening, right? Our state statutes in South Dakota still say Schedule I. Is your office going to edit that to the new recommendations for scheduling three? Or how would that work, I guess?
[00:29:04] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: It’s— Madam Chair?
[00:29:06] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Yes, go ahead.
[00:29:07] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Thank you. Grant Flynn from the Attorney General’s Office. Ms. Entwisle, so a couple things. One, South Dakota does not schedule marijuana as a Schedule I right now. Never has. Again, it’s not scheduled at all. It doesn’t exist in I through V. It’s sort of its own animal, criminally regulated through South Dakota Codified Law, Chapter 22-42. So we don’t have it, you know, we don’t have it scheduled.
[00:29:31] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: With regard to the scheduling of controlled substances, those are set forth in [SDCL] 34-20B, Chapter 34-20B. And every year— I take that for granted; maybe there’s a year that they won’t have to, but I doubt it— the Department of Health brings a bill amending the list of scheduled drugs to, you know, if there’s things that need to be added, isomers, salts, you know, all those kind of different things, or as, you know, the chemists of the underworld, you know, change one, you know, one carbon atom, then it becomes a different thing. And so they work very, very hard to keep up with that. And to the best that we’re able, again, we don’t interfere with their statutes, and if we have concerns about scheduling, we would work with the Department of Health to make that a part of what they do.
[00:30:20] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Again, at this point, we don’t have any intent to make that change, because, again, from the medical perspective, I think that’s squarely within the Department of Health and your folks’ role overseeing the medical marijuana program. And from, you know, outside of that, outside of the medical marijuana program, we want to keep it exactly where it is: regulated as it always has been, and criminal to use and possess unless you go through the proper channels.
[00:30:51] Rep. Bobbi Andera: Madam Chair.
[00:30:52] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Representative Andera, go ahead.
[00:30:54] Rep. Bobbi Andera: [Representative Andera?], thank you very much. The question I have is that we have approximately 19,000 people who are currently participating in this program, and is the Attorney General’s Office going to be putting out some clarification information on this? Because there’s a lot of people out there asking these questions about, if this goes through this scheduling, then how is that going to affect me? Just for purposes of a public, you know, understanding. And if you’re not going to do it, are you going to be working with the Department of Health to put something out there for the people who depend on this program?
[00:31:41] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Madam Chair, Representative Andera, thank you again for that question. I’m not aware of any plans to provide that guidance. Again, I think— I don’t know to what degree the Department of Health communicates with those 19,000 participants on a regular basis. I assume there’s a mechanism for that to take place, but I don’t know if that’s the case. So I don’t know if there’s an intent on that end to address that at all.
[00:32:12] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Again, from our perspective, one, I’m not aware that we’ve gotten many questions on this issue, so I just don’t know that there’s a burning need. Certainly the Attorney General’s Office is happy to take questions if folks— you know, if we’re— to the extent that we’re able to. You know, citizens call us every day with questions about how to interpret a particular statute, and while we can’t give them legal advice, we certainly do our best to, you know, to try to guide them, or this is the part of the law you need to look at, or this is, you know, a potential way to read this. So we would be happy to answer those.
[00:32:45] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: I believe that there have been instances in the past, on separate issues that have, you know, nothing to do with marijuana, where the Attorney General’s Office has done, like, press releases or something like that, just to say these kind of changes have been made, or this is something to put out there. But I think the other difficulty there would be, I’m not 100 percent sure what that press release would say, because we don’t think anything has changed, right? So it would just be a release that says the feds did this, but I don’t think it affects your program. And so there’s always the risk that that creates more confusion than, you know, than what it solves.
[00:33:22] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: And so I think at this point, our intent is just to continue to answer those questions on a case-by-case basis when they come up, as opposed to, you know, sending out a, you know, something statewide. But if that need arises, I’m confident we’d be open to having that conversation, whether it’s with the Department of Health or this committee or whoever else, if that’s something that would be more beneficial than harmful. But it’s not something that I’m aware that we’re talking about.
[00:33:50] Committee member (unidentified): Thank you.
[00:33:52] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Madam Chair, Kasey Entwisle, patient representative.
[00:33:57] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): I’m sorry, one moment. I think we have limits. I have a question for Mr. Flynn. Real quick— I’ll let you go. This one time.
[00:34:06] Kasey Entwisle (patient representative, committee member): Patients, patients, patients, right? This is what this program is about. Big topic on— this triggered my memory when you had spoke on that big topic, big topic on guns. Scheduling three, obviously guns are off the table. As a patient registering for the state of South Dakota program, we have a little pop-up menu that says that if we register, our gun violations could be in effect, or something to that nature. I work with the veterans; that’s been a huge topic for everybody. I’d love your opinion as the Attorney General’s Office on how we can educate people on that, since it is a scheduling three now and we are moving forward with this plant-based medicine.
[00:34:44] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Madam Chair[, …] Ms. Entwisle[?], I guess I don’t know that I have an opinion on that. Again, part of what concerns me about what you’re recommending is ostensibly— and this is a conversation that I have to have with folks often who call our offices— we want to be helpful, and we want to be educational and informative, but also, I can’t be your lawyer. You know what I mean? And so I can’t— I’ve told folks before on the phone, you know, at some point, your issue could potentially take you to court. And if you’re standing in front of a judge saying, well, Grant Flynn at the AG’s office told me, it’s not going to do you a whole lot of good. Nobody cares what I think.
[00:35:33] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: So, you know, that, I think, becomes one of the struggles with what you’re talking about: everybody’s situation is different, and everybody’s situation is unique, and for every, you know, piece of general advice or guidance you try to put out, there’s going to be some exception or, you know, some change to that. And so that’s why, if anybody’s listening, my encouragement would be to contact your own attorney, to contact a private attorney, or to do your own research, or to reach out to, you know, to some kind of legal aid or advocacy organization for patients and say, hey, you know, I need someone who can give me some advice, that if I do have to go to court, if I do get in trouble for possession of a weapon or something like that while I have a prescription or while I’m in possession of marijuana, I have someone who can go advocate for me and help me, because the AG’s office can’t do that on an individual basis.
[00:36:25] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Mr. Flynn— the chair, Representative Garcia— I have a question. I’m trying to stay on task, but this is more of a public safety, but also pharmacist, angle. Do you know from the AG’s department, or could you enlighten me on, are there any barriers that prevent the pharmacists from being able to participate in this program and manage? I know that you might have received something on the email from some of the pharmacists, but I am as well, and I’m just concerned. They are the most educated in this area. Is there any way, with the codified law that it exists now, a possibility of amending what exists, for the safety of the people? Because they are the ultimate educated ones on this drug, on this service.
[00:37:11] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Madam Chair, thank you for your question, and you have successfully stumped me. I really don’t have an answer to that question off the top of my head. I’ve not done the research. What I can tell you is that based on the research that I have done, I’ve not seen any— well, that’s not true. The way— see, this is why I shouldn’t guess. I really don’t know. And I would be happy to research that question for you and come back to the committee with something that, you know, is a little bit more well thought out. And I’m sure there’s folks in this room who can answer that off the top of their head.
[00:37:57] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: The thing that immediately pops into my mind is that under [SDCL] 34-20G, dispensaries are specifically regulated, right? They have certain rules that they have to follow. I have not compared what those rules are to the rules that a pharmacy has to follow. Or, you know, at the very least, I would think a pharmacy would also have to get licensed under the 34-20B[?] or 20G chapter as a dispensary, as well as being a pharmacy. Is there anything within all those statutes that specifically conflicts, that prevents that from happening? I don’t know. But I think that would be the very first threshold: you would just have to jump through the hoops to do both things. Do you want to fix that to make it just one thing? You know, again, that’s within the province of the legislature. So I don’t know if there’s anything that would prevent that from happening or not.
[00:38:53] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): So just so I could hear you correctly: so there is a possibility it could be amended, because the pharmacists are state and federally licensed. So there is a way that you’re thinking— well, [you’d?] probably have to give more thought, but comparison, I get [the?] analysis of what you’re saying. But is it a possibility? Because, again, it’s the safety of the public, right? That’s my concern.
[00:39:16] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: Madam Chair, sure[?]. And, of course, I should have started my previous comments with: I think this is the most appropriate question for the Department of Health and the Board of Pharmacy. They’re the folks who regulate the pharmacists, and they’re the ones who have a good working knowledge of how pharmacists are, you know, and pharmacies operate, and how they’re regulated and all those kind of things, which I certainly do not.
[00:39:39] Asst. AG Grant Flynn: As far as the conflict between state and federal law, again, the Federal Register comments and the federal rules seem to be very deferential to the state programs, and so they’ve sort of said, you guys have done a good job setting these up; we’re going to try to figure out a way that they can continue to function. So I don’t know that you would have any, you know, any specific federal conflicts. And as far as state law goes, you guys can change state law to say whatever you want, as long as it doesn’t, you know, violate the federal or state constitutions. So the legislature could certainly look at doing those things. But yeah, I have not— I could not competently speak on the specifics of that, and I’ve probably gone far farther than I should have.
[00:40:27] Rep. Josephine Garcia (Chair): Thank you very much. I appreciate your time. Thank you for answering all the questions as well. We’ll [have to?] take a short break, because we’re having some technical— 30 seconds for technical difficulties. [Recess; meeting resumes at approx. 00:41:31 with Sen. Carley introducing the next presenter, Dr. Bertha Madras. End of AG segment.]
Leave a Reply