How fondly I remember six years ago when Governor Kristi Noem, with her usual rhetorical flair and high-priced ad campaigns, rallied all South Dakotans to get on meth:
Six years later, the brilliant website Noem created to fight meth addiction now advertises Thai online gambling, and according to U.S. Attorney Ron Parsons, meth remains “the biggest scourge we have in South Dakota“:
While fentanyl continues to dominate national headlines, South Dakota’s U.S. Attorney Ron Parsons says methamphetamine remains the state’s most serious drug problem. Parsons, now serving his second term after being reappointed by President Donald Trump, said combatting drug trafficking is among his top federal priorities.
“The use of fentanyl was a new thing when I first started last time in 2018,” Parsons said. “The first fentanyl overdoses were hitting, and now fentanyl has increased. But methamphetamine is still the biggest scourge we have in South Dakota” [Riley Harrington, “U.S. Attorney: Meth Still South Dakota’s Most Serious Drug Threat,” KOOL Radio, 2025.11.27].
We may be catching meth shippers and dealers, but that just means South Dakota still has lots of meth buyers and users.
Spendy ad campaigns, no results—that’s Kristi Noem’s legacy.
Again and again, just look at Portugal. That’s the way to go. I could dream up a ranchers fantasy with Kristi as the star for one of those commercials. Maybe more.
Your dream will likely morph into the worst nightmare you ever dreamed of.
Apparently she meant we were literally on it…
Matt Walz works for Keystone Treatment Center, the only inpatient gambling addiction treatment center in South Dakota and has been told the best place addicts can buy meth is at the bars with video lootery terminals. “’As for suicide,’ Walz continued, ‘compulsive gamblers have the highest rate of suicide than any other addiction.’” In 2020 the Rapid City Police Department took their complaints to the public because it was overwhelmed with crimes of opportunity driven by meth and gambling. Even the extreme white wing of the South Dakota Republican Party has called video lootery a “scourge.”
The reasoning is hardly mysterious. It’s all about the money a too big to jail banking racket, a medical industry triopoly, prostitution, the Sturgis Rally, policing for profit, sex trafficking, hunting and subsidized grazing bring to the SDGOP destroying lives, depleting watersheds and smothering habitat under single-party rule.
It seems the only addiction stronger than the video games and the demon weed and meth crackers is that which grips the minds of those inflicted with NDS.
USA Ron Parsons just pledged to crack down on the Trump loving bikers who traffic meth in his failed red state.
TDS, NDS, “Insert Loser Here”DS. The only individuals who suffer from these are their namesakes who crave constant attention and then act incredulous when people do so.
Did you work for Mr. BIden, Ben? You sound like you worked for Mr. Biden. But grudznick likes your take. It is good you have some take.