Gov. Kristi Noem says she'll veto a bill legalizing industrial hemp if it's introduced in the 2020 session.

Noem vetoed the hemp bill during the 2019 legislative session, and the showdown between Noem and the Legislature over the issue is setting up to continue into the 2020 session.

Noem took her industrial hemp opposition national on Tuesday, writing in a Wall Street Journal column, "If the issue comes up this year, I will veto it again."

The Legislature failed by only a few votes to override Noem's veto earlier this year and 11 legislators began meeting as the Industrial Hemp Study Committee in July to prepare for the 2020 session. House Majority Leader Lee Qualm, who leads the committee, said legislators will have another hemp bill ready for next session.

It's premature to say the Legislature will absolutely have the votes to override a veto on hemp in 2020, "but we will work very diligently to make that happen, if that's what we feel we need to do," said Qualm, R-Platte.

Sen. Jordan Youngberg, who sponsored the hemp bill in the 2019 session, pointed out that Noem sent 315 questions about industrial hemp to legislators to answer as they study the issue, but she doesn't seem open to hearing the answers. The legislators on the hemp study committee are asking the right questions, and officials should wait until the committee concludes its work, said Youngberg, who isn't on the committee.

"I think the governor has some valid opposition to it, she makes some valid points, but it doesn't seem to me that she wants to work on finding a solution," said Youngberg, R-Madison.

South Dakota, Idaho and Mississippi are the only states that haven't legalized industrial hemp. In her Wall Street Journal column, she continued to connect legalized hemp to legalized marijuana and implied that South Dakota will be the "control" in the country's "social experiment" of marijuana legalization, which she said will "end poorly."

Noem's spokeswoman Kristin Wileman said the governor is committed to South Dakota being the "prime example" of a state committed to fighting drugs and wants South Dakota to be ready to show other states that there is another way when they begin to see the social impacts of legalized marijuana.

"The pendulum on legalized weed will eventually start to swing back the other way," Wileman said. "The governor wants South Dakota to be part of the reason it does. For now, that means saying 'no' to hemp."

More:Gov. Kristi Noem: 'Legalizing industrial hemp legalizes marijuana by default'

Noem equates hemp with pot, but lawmakers disagree

Noem reiterated her argument equating legalized hemp with legalized marijuana in her Wall Street Journal column, but legislators say that they won't be legalizing marijuana with their hemp bill.

Noem wrote that she'll continue to oppose legalized industrial hemp until law enforcement can differentiate between marijuana and hemp, which contains less than 0.3 percent THC. She went on to argue that states with legalized hemp have legalized marijuana while law enforcement doesn't have the tools to test the plant's THC level.

More:South Dakota lawmakers take a lesson from Kentucky's hemp industry

Noem first raised concerns about the impact on law enforcement in February, saying that legalizing hemp while the state isn't ready would open the door to legalizing marijuana in South Dakota. She has more strongly connected hemp to marijuana in recent months, including in an August column, where she wrote that "legalizing industrial hemp legalizes marijuana by default."

Wileman explained, "With today's technology, legalizing hemp makes marijuana laws unenforceable. The difference lies in what to do with these facts."

Democrat Sen. Reynold Nesiba, the sole Sioux Falls legislator on the hemp committee, said that none of the legislators on the committee are interested in legalizing marijuana.

"Hemp and marijuana are very different plants," Nesiba said. "The states that we are modeling legislation on, like Kentucky, have not legalized marijuana recreationally or for medical marijuana."

Hemp is already federally legal nationwide, and law enforcement needs to address how it tests THC levels regardless of whether elected officials legalize hemp in South Dakota, he said. The state needs to stop handicapping farmers and producers from participating in a legal industry. Law enforcement will also be better off with a clear law and a licensing program for hemp producers and transportation, Nesiba said.

"Unfortunately, the governor is stonewalling and refuses to have an honest and open conversation with those of us in the Legislature," Nesiba said. "It would work a lot better if she would stop stonewalling and actually listen to people in her own party."

An allegation has continued to surface on social media since the 2019 session that Noem is opposing hemp because her husband can't sell crop insurance for it. Wileman said Noem's position on hemp is based on principled policy and has nothing to do with her husband's insurance business.

"Legalizing industrial hemp weakens drug laws," Wileman said. "It threatens the health and safety of the next generation."

Lawmakers look to change Noem's mind

The committee is working diligently to gather all of the information it can from other states that have legalized industrial hemp ahead of the 2020 session, Qualm said.

Noem submitted a list of 315 questions to the committee's leadership, saying in a statement that "we still have more questions than we have answers." Nesiba said he wants Noem to engage with legislators herself instead of sending them 315 questions and sending her cabinet secretaries —who are refusing to talk to their counterparts in other states about how they're handling hemp — to their meetings.

More:Why lawmakers are frustrated with S.D. officials' lack of hemp research

South Dakota lawmakers are looking to implement a hemp program that has a "very, very stringent permit process," and someone will still be liable for marijuana possession if he or she is caught with hemp without a permit to grow, process or transport it, Qualm said. He said he'd like to believe that legislators can change Noem's mind if they can sit down to discuss every aspect of it.

"I know she's drawn a line in the sand right now," he said. "And we'll see what we can do to change that line."