THE RAPID CITY SENTINEL

Rapid City’s Hemp Crackdown Was Already Underway. Now It’s Part of a National Fight.

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by

DawnSherine Bernard
in , ,
Seal of the State of South Dakota

Rapid City, SD. — When South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley signed onto a 35-state coalition letter this week urging Congress to keep a stricter federal definition of hemp in place, it read like a routine statehouse press release — one AG among three dozen, weighing in on a Washington fight over a 2018 Farm Bill loophole.

But in Rapid City, that fight isn’t abstract. Two local smoke shops have already been charged this year for selling products regulators say cross the same line the AG’s letter is fighting to keep drawn — the latest step in more than a year of steadily escalating local enforcement that has nothing to do with what Congress ultimately decides.

The federal letter

Jackley’s office joined attorneys general from 34 other states and territories in an Aug. 4 letter to congressional leadership, thanking lawmakers for closing what the letter calls a loophole in the 2018 Farm Bill that let unregulated, intoxicating hemp products spread nationwide.

The letter urges Congress not to delay, weaken, or repeal the redefinition Congress passed in November 2025, which caps total psychoactive cannabinoid content in hemp products and folds in isomers — like delta-8 and delta-10 THC — that the original 2018 law never addressed.

Jackley’s office framed the ask around consumer protection. “Reopening the loophole increases youth access to intoxicating hemp products,” Jackley said in a statement announcing South Dakota’s participation.

The law was already stricter here

What the letter doesn’t mention is that South Dakota doesn’t need Congress to act at all. State lawmakers closed their own version of the loophole two years ago.

House Bill 1125, passed in 2024, bans the sale of chemically modified hemp cannabinoids — delta-8, delta-10, THC-O, HHC and THCP — outright, regardless of what the federal definition says about total THC content.

It also separately bars selling industrial hemp intended for smoking at all. The law took effect July 1, 2024, and carries misdemeanor penalties of up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

That means the practical stakes of the federal fight, for South Dakota retailers, are smaller than the coalition letter might suggest. Whatever Congress decides about the national definition, South Dakota’s ban already stands on its own.

A bipartisan fight, not a clean one

The 2024 debate over HB 1125 didn’t split cleanly along party lines. Rep. Brian Mulder, R-Sioux Falls, introduced the bill in its broadest form. On the House floor, Rep. Oren Lesmeister, D-Parade, won an amendment narrowing it to cover only lab-modified compounds, arguing a blanket ban would hurt small hemp growers and retailers. The House then passed that narrower version unanimously.

The Senate reversed course. Sen. Brent Hoffman, R-Sioux Falls, restored the bill’s stricter original language in committee. On the floor, Sen. Ryan Maher, R-Isabel, tried to revive Lesmeister’s narrower approach and failed, then cast the lone vote against the bill’s final passage.

Maher argued the ban would flood the market with soon-to-be-illegal inventory and undercut business owners who’d invested in the state, telling colleagues the state likes to advertise itself as open for business “until we don’t like that business.”

The House concurred with the Senate’s stricter version, and Gov. Kristi Noem signed it into law.

The local enforcement timeline

Rapid City-area enforcement has built steadily since the law took effect:

  • June 10, 2025 — The Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office sent a first warning letter to local smoke and vape shops, putting retailers on notice that compliance was their responsibility.
  • Late July/August 2025 — The Pennington County Sheriff’s Office, Rapid City Police Department, and State’s Attorney’s Office jointly conducted compliance checks at eight area shops, purchasing hemp-derived products for lab testing. Results later showed some products exceeded legal THC limits despite being labeled and marketed as compliant.
  • September 2025 — A separate statewide sting led by the Attorney General’s office resulted in misdemeanor charges against shop owners in five cities, including Rapid City’s ZyGlam Smoke Shop.
  • March 23, 2026 — Following a second round of notices, the Pennington County State’s Attorney’s Office charged two more Rapid City businesses, Smoke Solutions and Chasing Clouds, with violating SDCL 38-35-21 — selling industrial hemp for smoking — in connection with pre-rolled hemp products.

Statewide, more than 100 charges have been filed under the law since it took effect, according to the state’s Unified Judicial System.

Both sides of the enforcement question

Pennington County State’s Attorney Lara Roetzel has framed the approach as incremental rather than punitive, saying the office wants retailers to use each notice as a chance to review inventory and reach full compliance before enforcement escalates.

The retailers’ side of the argument was made most clearly during the legislative fight itself — both by lawmakers like Maher and Lesmeister, who worried about the impact on small business owners and growers, and by a Vermillion vape shop manager who warned during testimony that a ban could push demand toward unregulated, unlicensed sellers instead of eliminating it.

What it means going forward

For Rapid City retailers, a few things are now reasonably clear:

  • Compliance checks are not a one-time event. Local law enforcement has signaled it intends to treat hemp inventory checks as routine, comparable to existing alcohol and tobacco compliance sweeps.
  • The federal fight over the hemp definition is largely beside the point locally. Even if Congress reopens the loophole nationally, South Dakota’s ban on modified cannabinoids and smokable hemp products stands independently.
  • Compliance is harder to verify than it sounds. The county’s own account of last summer’s checks noted that flagged products had been labeled and marketed as compliant despite testing over the legal limit — meaning retailers relying on supplier paperwork alone may not actually know what they’re selling.

Information regarding the disposition of both cases is still being investigated.

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