Alan Welsh wasn’t just a cop. He was a Very Important Cop. The kind of cop who gets a legislative commemoration for an outstanding career upon retirement.
Now he grows marijuana for a living.
Alan Welsh during his days with the South Dakota Highway Patrol. He retired in 2017. (Courtesy Sioux Falls Argus Leader)
The shock of seeing Welsh in a room full of pot without a badge on his chest or a story to tell about a massive bust can hardly be overstated.
He served 28 years with the South Dakota Highway Patrol. For many of them, he was one of the top leaders for the patrol in the Sioux Falls region. From 2014 through his retirement in 2017, he was in charge of that region.
Regular news readers or viewers in the area heard from Welsh frequently. In 2012, for example, he was quoted in a story about a saturation patrol that led to the seizure of 295 pounds of marijuana.
Now he’s a partner in a Dakota Herb, a company with grow operations that produce that much pot on a regular basis.
There are times Welsh is shocked himself. Like during a recent tour of a Dakota Herb facility in Tea, when he walked into a room filled with clear plastic garbage bags of dried marijuana awaiting their turn to be processed into edibles and vapes.
“When I was in law enforcement, I’d have gone crazy seeing this,” Welsh said.
Evolution in thinking on cannabis
So how did Welsh go from an avowed enemy of the devil’s lettuce to a purveyor of pot for medical patients?
“I did my own research, I looked into it, and I kind of changed my mind,” he said.
It all began with his first post-policing gig. He was hired to manage security for a trucking company that services oil and gas industry players in North Dakota. It’s owned by Welsh’s longtime friend Darcy Johnson.
After a few years, the owner asked Welsh about pot. Voters in South Dakota were set to approve a measure legalizing medical marijuana, and Johnson saw an opportunity.
Welsh said no, but Johnson persisted. So Welsh started reading. There were the medical uses to consider, sure, but Welsh’s cannabis come-to-Jesus moment came by comparing its relative impact on public safety with that of alcohol.
“This product has a horrible reputation and stigma associated with it, and it’s all bull—t, in my opinion,” Welsh said.
As he walked through the multimillion-dollar grow building in Tea on June 20, Welsh offered a quote from actor-turned-marijuana-entrepreneur Jim Belushi to sum up his feelings.
“He said ‘I used to be a bouncer, and I never broke up a fight between two potheads.’”
Welsh has a sheet of talking points he compiled under the heading “Fact: Marijuana is safer than alcohol.” Alcohol causes tens of thousands of deaths, whereas the Centers for Disease Control doesn’t even have a code for deaths caused by marijuana, it says.
It also cites peer-reviewed research on marijuana overdose deaths (essentially impossible), the health impacts of marijuana (alcohol is worse), addictive properties (alcohol worse again), as well as the higher risks with alcohol for injuries, traffic accidents, domestic violence and other violent crimes.
Read more
