Peter Harriman

pharrima@argusleader.com

The effort to make marijuana legal for medical use in South Dakota will go on this year without one of the cause's prominent organizers and activists.

Emmett Reistroffer says he will be moving to Denver by the end of December to take a job in Colorado's marijuana industry.

But at a South Dakota Medical Marijuana Summit on Saturday in Sioux Falls, Reistroffer told about two dozen medical marijuana proponents and a handful of people who attended to learn about the issue that the best chance to make cannabis a legal medical drug is to use the initiative process to get the question on the ballot in 2016, a presidential election year, when voter turnout will be great.

By then, Reistroffer said, he hopes to be armed with experience learned from growers and distributors in Colorado that he can use to help make the case for legalizing marijuana in South Dakota.

"I hope to give back to South Dakota," he said.

In the interim, "it does make me sick to leave," he acknowledged. "I've got so much skin in the game. But I'm really comfortable the movement is in the right hands."

Reistroffer has been instrumental in organizing two previous ballot initiatives. In 2006, medical marijuana lost by just 4 percent, before being turned back by 32 percent in 2010. That is a setback Reistroffer attributes to the Tea Party uprising four years ago and the fact both medical marijuana and a smoking ban were on the ballot. "It sent a conflicting message."

The first effort in the U.S. to make medical marijuana legal took place in San Francisco in 1991 when a city ballot measure calling for hemp-based products to be made available for medical prescription in California passed with a large majority. In 1996, California did become the first state to legalize the drug. It permitted medical patients to grow marijuana they had been prescribed by a doctor.

Oregon, Alaska and Washington quickly followed in 1998, eliminating state criminal penalties for the possession of marijuana used for medicinal purposes.

By the time Reistroffer and fellow activists pushed a measure before South Dakota voters in 2006, 11 states had some version of legalized medical marijuana, and the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church that year approved a resolution supporting access to medical marijuana with a doctor's prescription.

Now, 23 states and the District of Columbia allow the legal use of marijuana for medical treatment after Maryland, Minnesota and New York adopted such legislation this year.

Colorado, Washington and Oregon have gone on to approve recreational use of marijuana.

The American Medical Association does not endorse the use of marijuana to treat medical conditions. But it does call for studies to determine if marijuana or its compounds have legitimate medical uses that should prompt the federal government to reclassify marijuana. Currently it is a Controlled Substances Act Schedule 1 drug. It is considered to have a high potential for abuse and no medical value. Schedule 2 and Schedule 3 drugs do have demonstrated medical uses and are viewed as being less at risk for abuse.

While there is an absence so far of clinical studies showing marijuana has legitimate medical uses, there is a growing body of anecdotal evidence it does, as more and more states make it legal for their residents to use marijuana to treat chronic pain, multiple sclerosis symptoms, mental health issues, seizure disorders, Crohn's disease, the debilitating effects of chemotherapy and other conditions.

At the Sioux Falls summit, several people told stories about their own medical issues they said marijuana could alleviate or is already alleviating since they are using it without legal authority to do so.

Joy Tuscherer said she has battled MS since 2002. She takes a number of publicly subsidized expensive drugs. "You would not believe what my drug bills are." But not until she began using marijuana was she able to get consistent sleep, a measure of relief from chronic pain and return of her appetite.

"How many things have to be wrong with me before I can have a compassionate medication?" she said of legalizing medical marijuana.

Melissa Mentele founded the South Dakota Family Coalition for Compassion several years ago after she suffered a shoulder injury and subsequent surgery left her with a rare condition, reflex sympathetic dystrophy. It is characterized by nerve pain on the order of an amputation without anesthetic, Mentele said. Eighty percent of people with the condition eventually commit suicide, she said. They are unable to deal with the pain. "I live this way every day."

A Colorado clinic is having success using marijuana to treat the condition. With a family in Sioux Falls, though, Mentele said she cannot simply pack up and head west. "South Dakota needs to change its laws."

Mentele's organization is compiling narratives from people who have successfully used medical marijuana or who would like access to it. She is especially focused on children. Young people less than a year old to 18 with epilepsy could experience as much as an 80 percent reduction in seizures with the use of medical marijuana, she said.

Jessie James wants to use medical marijuana to relieve the crushing pain of endometriosis, a hormonal and immune system disease. "I feel like I have barbed wire wrapped around my abdomen," and Pat Lynch, who has dealt with MS for 25 years said marijuana relieves the spasms he suffers without the lethargy he experienced from Valium. "It worked, but I could hardly function throughout the day on Valium," he said.

"I started medical marijuana. My doctor is aware and supports what I am doing."

Casey Tempel and Sara Egge attended the summit to learn about the potential for medical marijuana to treat their four-year-old daughter Jamie's epileptic seizures. Tempel said he understands skepticism about marijuana's medical value, and he is sympathic to concerns about abusing the drug. "I'm going into the medical field. Do I want somebody smoking marijuana to work on me?"

But he wants to see the clinical trials take place that will either disprove marijuana has a legitimate medical use or show that it can help people like his daughter.

With fellow medical marijuana activists like Turcherer, Mentele, James, Lynch and Ryan Gaddy in the audience, Reistroffer laid out a two-stage strategy at the summit Saturday. Between now and mid January, he said, supporters will try to solicit House and Senate sponsors to introduce in the South Dakota Legislature bills legalizing medical marijuana.

"I don't think we can get a bill passed," Reistroffer admitted. But an effort in the Legislature this session lays the groundwork for a petition drive next spring to get the approximately 30,000 signatures necessary to bring medical marijuana before voters again in 2016.

"It builds momentum," he said. "It gets lawmakers on their toes to answer hard questions."

If he is right about the Legislature, "great. We'll be back in this room in March," when the legislative session concludes, starting a petition drive.

"It gives us a full year to educate and campaign. "We can correct lies. Share stories," Reistroffer said.

At least one of the people he is trusting to carry the medical marijuana message forward after he leaves South Dakota was eager to take up the challenge.

"We're going to win next time," Tuscherer promised.