Marty Jackley is dropping legal bombs on smoke shops. Evidently the Attorney General dispatched secret shoppers to five peddlers of allegedly mild mind-alterants in June and caught all five peddling something stronger:
“Every one of the five shops where we did buys had illegal drugs,” Jackley said.
Only one shop owner was indicted on felony charges. In that case, originating with a purchase at Masterpiece Smoke Shop in Pierre, the owner is alleged to have sold felony amounts of marijuana that had been marketed as legal hemp. That charge was tied to pre-rolled “Thumpers” joints, according to court documents.
That owner is also alleged to have sold a product called “Legal Magic Mushrooms” that allegedly contain a controlled substance called psilocin. The owner also faces a felony charge of distributing drugs in a drug-free zone.
The other shops targeted were All the Smoke in Aberdeen, Puff City in Sioux Falls, Blazin’ Aces Smokes and Vape in Sioux Falls, and ZyGlam Smoke Shop in Rapid City. The charges in those cases are misdemeanors.
…Lawmakers in South Dakota passed a bill in 2024 to bar the sale — but not the possession — of products whose hemp-based intoxicants are chemically modified. That crime is a misdemeanor punishable by up to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine.
…Of the four shop owners indicted for misdemeanors in the statewide sting, three face the modified hemp charge. Another shop owner was charged with the sale of industrial hemp for smoking. All four misdemeanor indictments include charges for selling a product for the purposes of intoxication, a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine [John Hult, “Statewide Sting Operation Returns Charges for Smoke Shop Owners,” South Dakota Searchlight, 2025.09.24].
Pierre merchant Bristol Jade Nielsen is in the deepest trouble, not just because A.G. Jackley is pinning felony charges on him but also because he’s been behind bars before… long enough, apparently, to get covered in tattoos, including some white-supremacist skin memes:
On Friday, Bristol Nielsen sat in a backroom of the “MasterPiece” smoke shop he owns, gesturing towards walls that would be knocked down for further expansion. With braided hair stretched above a Viking undercut, Nielsen pulled down the top of his shirt to reveal the words “HAIL ODIN” tattooed on his chest in thick, bold capital lettering.
In prison, Nielsen explained, materials are burned down to soot, mixed with water and used as ink. Sharpened guitar wires, headphone cords or components from scrapped radios help needle the black cinder beneath skin. This procedure, like many of Nielsen’s prison tattoos, had to be earned. Nielsen went three days without eating and another three without speaking to earn the thunder god’s hammer — “Mjölnir.” Markings upon his flesh remind Nielsen of the community he found behind bars. Like scars, they have the power to remind him the past was real.
Nielsen described the prison community as a brotherhood.
“If somebody was down, we all worked to help that person back up. It was about having somebody to go talk to and people that were like-minded,” he recalled.
Often misunderstood and misportrayed, the fraternity Nielsen found in prison organized themselves around the Nordic-pagan religion Ásatrú. Their reconstructed faith was less about prayer and scripture than adherence to etiquette. The loosely organized tribe emphasized strict codes of conduct, physical exercise and fellowship between members. Within that structure, Nielsen found the fire to clear deadwood from his mind [Michael Leifer, “Local Business Owner Finds Strength in Family, Work,” Pierre Capital Journal, 2022.09.12, updated 2023.10.18].
Yeah, Asatru is a brotherhood, all right, a brotherhood of Aryan crud disguising themselves in Viking myth:
Neo-Völkisch groups rely on a romanticized Viking aesthetic and mythos — imagery they use to perpetuate their belief in white racial superiority. This adaptable and covert messaging, anchored by a nationwide network of “kindreds,” has allowed these groups to grow in recent years.
The number of active neo-Völkisch groups increased to 53 in 2024 — up from 40 in 2023. The Asatru Folk Assembly (AFA), the largest neo-Völkisch organization, expanded to include 43 chapters, with new kindreds established in Montana, Michigan, New Mexico and Iowa. Two new groups also emerged: Raven Folk United, based in Missouri, and the Pacific Northwest Wolfpack in Washington state. Meanwhile, the Los Angeles-based Wolves of Vinland has seemingly disbanded. Throughout 2024, neo-Völkisch adherents aligned with broader American right-wing issues, rallying against so-called “critical race theory,” challenging educational frameworks, and spreading conspiracy theories about immigration. Central to their ideology is an unfounded fear of white “replacement.” To further this agenda, hate groups increasingly emphasize homeschooling as a means to circumvent accurate educational content on racism and systemic oppression in the United States. The AFA’s homeschooling initiative, the Asatru Academy, has expanded to include K-6 students, reflecting a growing commitment to shaping the worldview of young members.
…Some believers actively distance their religion from neo-Völkisch dogma. Neo-Völkisch groups in the U.S. that embrace racial, ethnic and/or cultural essentialism generally identify themselves and their groups as “Folkish” and/or “Folk”-rooted, English translations of the German words “Völkisch” and “Völk,” respectively. While some neo-Völkisch groups attempt to cloak their ethnic exclusivity in claims centering on the victimization of white people, other groups overtly promote racial supremacy.
Folkish ideals and myths are derived from the Völkisch movement of the 19th and 20th centuries, which coalesced in present-day Austria and Germany. The movement grounded German ethnicity in an amalgam of geography, race and esoteric spirituality. Just as the original Völkisch movement can be understood as one of esoteric and ethnocentric nationalism, the neo-Völkisch iteration is a movement of esoteric and ethnocentric tribalism.
Present-day Folkish adherents also couch their bigotry in baseless claims of bloodlines grounding the superiority of one’s white identity. At the intersection of hypermasculinity and ethnocentricity, this movement seeks to defend against the unfounded threats of the extermination of white people [“Neo-Völkisch,” Southern Poverty Law Center, retrieved 2025.09.26].
Conspiracy theories about immigration, white replacement, hypermasculinity—that sounds like some good Charlie Kirk stuff!
“Hail Odin” is code for “Heil Hitler”:
The British Army is facing mounting questions over its vetting processes after clearing a soldier who “liked” Nazism on his public Facebook page.
The Scottish recruit, who is serving with the Royal Regiment of Scotland, is among several known troops who were accepted on basic training despite expressing neo-Nazi, racist and anti-Semitic views online.
The infantry soldier, who has a wife and young child, joined the Edinburgh-based regiment last year.
His Facebook page indicates a deep affinity with neo-Nazi and white supremacist ideology, formerly including a cover photo showing the phrase “Hail Odin” spelt out in runes.
The slogan has been taken up by far-right members including terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who professed his religion as “Odinism” in an extremist manifesto before massacring 77 people in bombing and shooting attacks in Norway [Lizzie Dearden, “British Army Faces Questions After Recruiting Soldier Who ‘Liked’ Nazism on Facebook,” The Independent, 2017.09.13].
Here’s what Asatru preacher—“Folkbuilder”, in AFA terminology—Nathan Erlandson of Minnesota says about the supremacy of his white followers:
We are a wide-faring Folk. Óðinn is a wanderer, and those who follow our Gods have typically been horizon-seekers. The longship has been replaced by the spaceship and the electron microscope, but the spirit of exploration remains the same. Our love of freedom and our craving for frontiers are undoubtedly connected. Stagnation brings on complacency, and complacency is death.
We would not be the advanced race that we are had our forebearers not been so adept at exploration and incorporating the latest technology of their time. Lord Óðinn is the epitome of our nature to seek new horizons and push beyond what we thought possible. Without that inherent nature, we as a race would still be barely clinging on to our existence just as you see in many other races around Miðgarðr, where their only means of survival comes from others stepping in to hold their hand. It is paramount that we continue to seek new opportunities and sights, new frontiers and capabilities. Not all races are equal; if that were the case, we would all be adept explorers and there would be no need to bring other races along, riding on our coattails as they contribute very little if anything to human advancement. Look around at other indigenous peoples around the world and you will see how stagnation, complacency, and a lack of the Wanderer’s spirit has left them far behind in the human experience, begging and grasping for others to carry them along or they would indeed cease to exist. Keep striving to improve yourself and your Folk, pushing perceived and imposed boundaries to seek new opportunities and environments [Nathan Erlandson, “Declaration of Purpose VIII,” Asatru Folk Assembly Baldrshof District, 2025.07.17].
Asatru is Nazi asshattery dressed up in pagan robes. I don’t approve of selling illegal drugs, but I’d hate to see Jackley send Nielsen back to prison where he’d be immersed in more white “brotherhood”.