MITCHELL, SD (Mitchell Now) — 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.”

Parsons recently met with Attorney General Pam Bondi to discuss federal drug enforcement strategies. He said the Trump Administration continues to push an aggressive approach focused on dismantling drug cartels and transnational criminal organizations.

“Eliminating the cartels and transnational criminal organizations from the United States is the number one target,” Parsons said. “It’s interrelated with all these other things.”

Parsons emphasized that South Dakota law enforcement agencies — local, state and federal — play a major role in supporting national anti-cartel operations. The collaborative work, he said, often leads federal prosecutors to the highest levels of drug distribution networks.

“We are tracing those leads up the chain through the distribution networks, ultimately, that almost always lead to a cartel,” Parsons said. “And even here in South Dakota, we are indicting people in Mexico and other countries, having them extradited back to the United States and prosecuting them here in South Dakota courts.”

In just the past month, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has secured nearly 300 years in combined prison sentences for offenders convicted of drug crimes, child exploitation and violent offenses.