Vote 'No' on marijuana, Medicaid

Next week we will be called upon to cast two extremely important votes. One will determine whether South Dakota goes down the road of legalizing marijuana. The other vote will change our Constitution and determine whether we take a major step toward socialized medicine.  

The marijuana industry plans to make BILLIONS of dollars at the expense of our kids, grandkids, and our society. The drug cartels welcome legalization because it gives them all the cover they need to see an increased customer base and allows them to move drugs without detection. This absolutely IS NOT about helping veterans or people with aches and pains or saving time charging people with marijuana crimes. That was two years ago when ‘medical marijuana’ was approved by the voters. And, it’s not about increasing the tax revenue. Remember how the lottery was going to take care of all of our school funding needs?

Compare this effort to what has happened in Colorado, Washington and Oregon. They have seen a spike in illegal marijuana use, increase in traffic fatalities that are the direct result of driving under the influence of marijuana. They estimate their spending on costs associated with marijuana as $4.50 for every $1 of tax revenue. And that is just the financial cost without considering how many families are devastated by the personal impact upon their family members. Emergency departments are daily seeing overdoses specifically from marijuana due to the extremely high content of THC in the edibles and in the smoking material.

This “recreational” marijuana is all about greed with no sense of care or concern about the victims of drug use.  Those victims are not just the naïve user, but the other victims are you, your family, those who no longer get paid for services, no longer get child support, those who are on the receiving end of car crashes, those who are the victims of robbery, and the list goes on. This isn’t ‘ditch weed’ with a low THC content, but it is the high-test drug. The illegal market oftentimes laces it with other chemicals such as fentanyl, which will either kill or dramatically increase the addiction. And, there is no way to identify whether something has been grown ‘legally’ or whether it has been ‘taxed’.  

The marijuana issue isn’t about ‘personal choice’, it’s about drug trafficking and greed.  It’s not good for South Dakota. Please vote NO on IM27.

Medicaid

Don’t be deceived, the proponents of expanding Medicaid are playing on our misplaced sense of compassion, but what isn’t being discussed is the true cost to the state once this is in place. In addition to that, are you and I responsible for everyone else’s healthcare? AND, they aren’t telling you the truth about the cost of Medicaid expansion in year three and beyond. In fact, IF Medicaid is expanded, you CANNOT reverse it, AND it would become part of our South Dakota Constitution. The cost is primarily carried by the state after the second year.  This isn’t ‘free’ federal money. This would consume our own state revenues. 

I have served on the Joint Committee on Appropriations for the past two years and we have heard these Medicaid discussions for many years prior to that. Sadly, the key in politics seems to be that you keep asking and asking and asking until you wear down your opposition. Then, you finally get what you originally wanted, and sometimes more. In this case, there is also BILLIONS of dollars on the line. (FOLLOW THE MONEY!)  That’s why the proponents are so well funded and are appealing to our South Dakota quality of helpfulness.  

Do you realize that it would be cheaper for the state of South Dakota to buy health insurance for all of the possible recipients than it would be for us to sign onto Medicaid expansion? We are already spending about 40 percent of our budget on Health and Human Services related matters. In Europe they spend as much as 70 percent of their budgets on healthcare. We don’t want to go there. Follow the money and you will see that this isn’t about helping people, it’s about lining pockets of those in the healthcare industry through your tax dollars.

Please VOTE NO on marijuana and Medicaid.  

Go to www.sdlegislature.gov to see what else is coming up in state government in the days ahead.