South Dakota Thinks about Giving Industrial Hemp a Try

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Some South Dakota lawmakers are attempting to overcome perceptions about hemp's familial ties to marijuana to explore the crop's economic potential with a bill patterned after North Dakota's industrial hemp law.

The South Dakota bill has a House committee hearing Tuesday.

Republican Representative Mike Verchio is the proposal's main House sponsor. He says cultivation of the plant could be good for economic development if misconceptions about hemp are fixed.

But, advocates in South Dakota acknowledge they have difficult ground to till.

Law enforcement isn't expected to welcome the proposal, which Governor Dennis Daugaard (DOO'-gahrd) has called "a distraction."

The South Dakota bill restricts the allowable content of THC for industrial hemp. It would allow people to apply to the state Department of Agriculture for a license to grow industrial hemp.

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