Following publication of this article, New Approach South Dakota publicly clarified that the anticipated leadership changes referenced in an earlier discussion concerned the Marijuana Policy Project, not New Approach South Dakota itself. New Approach states it is adding partners and expanding resources but will remain under its current leadership. Multiple conflicting statements in 2026 about stepping back repositioning or being the most powerful Harvard Law student in the world have left an intentionally shady view on plans from NASD other than self promotion while hiding multiple criminal and civil issues ongoing court issues – including an active appeal with the South Dakota appeals court – with their leader. Questions remain whether this activity violates social security disability laws which NASD says they are now receiving while continuing to work as an auditor, consultant, student, lobbyist, and business owner. Quite the claimed work schedule. Also, NASD fails to inform the public NASD got a cannabis advocate arrested to silence federal exemption advocacy and questions about NASD abusing power and costing marijuana advocates credibility at the Capitol with shady tactics giving medical cannabis lobbyists a bad name as shown by these court transcripts:
Here’s the court transcript of hearing three of three in Mentele vs. real Republican advocate and free speech blog WeedPress:
Executive Director of NASD, Melissa Mentele has announced that New Approach South Dakota (NASD), the organization she leads, now operates under a new leadership structure with Democrat operatives at lead positions with radical communist views and tactics including pro-Black Lives Matter positions. This development comes amid ongoing questions about her past organizational record and leadership approach.
Mentele has held a very public and prominent role in South Dakota cannabis advocacy for over a decade, including as Executive Director of NASD. During this period, multiple initiatives connected to her leadership have encountered significant difficulties, including stalled progress and declining broader support. Observers have pointed to recurring patterns, including emotional public responses during active campaigns, limited transparency around decision-making and organizational operations, and a tendency to position herself as the primary architect of the state’s medical cannabis program while discouraging open debate or criticism.
When faced with questions or opposing views, Mentele has at times responded with personal attacks rather than substantive engagement. These dynamics have contributed to concerns about organizational stability and the long-term sustainability of efforts conducted under her direction.
As Mentele moves forward with this new leadership arrangement at NASD, those considering involvement should carefully assess the outcomes of previous initiatives associated with her leadership. Past patterns suggest that similar challenges may reappear without meaningful shifts in approach and accountability.
Experienced investigators pay close attention not only to what a person says, but to what they avoid, what provokes disproportionate anger, and where they repeatedly try to redirect attention…as well as when they hire BLM supporting nut jobs at their organization while pretending they are now welcome (they’re not) as a Republican Party member.
When someone confronted with factual questions (federal law issues are what started her two year long name calling starting March 2024) responds by attacking the questioner’s character, motives, sanity and reputation, that behavior does not make the questions disappear. It makes investigators more interested in why those questions produce such an extreme reaction.
Mentele’s litigable responses – name calling and slander and lying to law enforcement/the public at large – are not the language of a woman calmly confident that the evidence supports them. It is the language of someone desperate to control the frame.
One observer, Dakota War College, has harshly criticized Mentele repeatedly over the years for various far left antics: hysterical fake outbursts, emotional attacks used as leverage for funding or silencing dissent, accusing Republicans of being traitors, America of being a bad country, and thereby alienating Republican lawmakers. Don’t forget using social media pages for attacks on men and the patriarchy, promoting anti-family/Christian values, sexual immorality, and trying to legalize assisted suicide. Not a good look in a Republican state ran by Catholics.
Dakota War College is a Republican leaning partisan news organization that criticizes Democrats heavily, which is why it criticized Mentele, because she wasn’t Republican, having lost when she ran as a far left Democrat for House office in a short lived unpopular run that included the South Dakota Legislature voting to condemn her efforts to legalize assisted suicide. She’s been a liability in cannabis politics until 2026, when she went full clown and really jumped the shark, attacking people and trying to ruin people’s lives by getting them arrested for criticizing her failures in leadership, then mocking those same people when they warned the public Mentele is, in their opinion, a real life psycho with a fake online brand.
Maybe she’s the one needing an exorcism. Projection, ya know? What a liability. Loose lips definitely sink multi-million dollar cannabis business ships. And how does she own a company while being on social security disability again? May be legit, but it seems a question worth asking, even if the response is only limited to name calling as it has been for the last 8 months of attacks through social media, like a coward who can’t handle politics with backbone. According to multiple Annual Reports on file with the South Dakota Secretary of State, Melissa Mentele has maintained documented ownership interest in 605 Cannabis LLC since at least 2022, appearing as a Beneficial Owner in the 2022, 2023, and 2024 filings. This stands in contrast to her public statement in court that she receives Social Security Disability benefits, while also holding the title of COO and Co-Founder of the company.
South Dakota’s cannabis community continues to face important policy and organizational questions. The effectiveness of future advocacy efforts will depend in part on leadership’s ability to prioritize transparency, manage internal dynamics constructively, and focus on sustainable, collaborative outcomes.
Centralized control through high-conflict personalities attacking Republicans hurts relationships at the Capitol, and destroys coalitions.
Working this hard as owner of a company while receiving social security disability is the subject of our next public records investigation of Mentele, who won’t stop escalating conflicts and causing real problems for marijuana political activists (not just WeedPress although the false arrest Mentele orchestrated – sending men with guns to my house on false allegations thrown out later after state review – was a severe red flag) in South Dakota by serial filings in court “dampening” her credibility (see transcripts of judges ruling and words on file with WeedPress being released next week).
Public attacks accusing other advocates of not donating enough money to her self-serving no-chance-in-winning voter projects, all while attempting to have other advocates jailed for speaking the truths Mentele hides from, and can’t face publicly or address calmly without personal attacks and making light of the damages she now owes me for slander, false jailing (charges dropped), and multiple reports to law enforcement alleging these blog articles cause her fragile reputation to be harmed are grounds for being “bounced out” of the South Dakota Republican Party for the second and final time in ten years.
She even accused me of causing her grandchild to be born prematurely. That’s insane. The woman is in my opinion mentally disturbed from traumas – like getting her husband, Brent Mentele, arrested in 2023 for domestic assault, and booked at the Alexandria jail. She wanted that hidden from the public among other concerns and questions about fundraising being hidden from public view she’d rather not face up to. Money demands, and pay to play insider access, are the revolving themes she promotes, as if this makes her smart and relevant, instead of corrupt, or highly unethical.
She pushed voter initiatives in off-presidential election years, which nobody in marijuana thought was a good idea, then blamed others when she failed or ran into walls politically, because ducking accountability while projecting personal insecurities by attacks on more professional connected and financially capable people, is her pattern. Running these initiatives in the opinions of multiple advocates despite them having no chance to win – and her not disclosing until after the election that she didn’t have the grassroots power to win a voter initiative – can only have been done for one reason: money via fundraising. Once you see the pattern it isn’t unseen. Selling this pattern as politically savvy is absurd. It just makes the whole cannabis movement smell like a pay to play activist scam. (In my opinion.)
And from here on out, with so much court transcripts and evidence, and a forthcoming lawsuit, nobody will ever again pretend to not know what bed they’re getting into when they risk their fortune and sacred honor to work with Mentele only to get burned. Courtrooms are where these levels of disagreements get settled for the public record and interest. Back and forth from someone who lies to the public and twists narratives so disgustingly it’s alarming – and even possibly criminal when filing false law enforcement reports such as she has done against me – can’t be resolved with debate. Liars always twist the narrative. So, court is the only defense left against materially false allegations made and dismissed four times this year in three court hearings here in Sioux Falls.
Sucks to suck, but really sucks to have judges say you’re discredited in future litigation. Good luck suing over marijuana issues moving forward when opposing counsel will use Mentele’s own words in court against WeedPress to show her credibility, due to misleading the Sioux Falls court judges, is damaged in South Dakota court rooms now.
That wasn’t my fault, but the public deserves to see the full court record for the safety and stability of organizational coalition building and leadership power gifting. As for me, and my fiance, we do not consent to Mentele speaking for cannabis patients after what she’s tried to pull off this year. And I am absolutely owed financial damages. Her lawyer has been notified I am suing, and she is still out there attacking me personally, as she’s done for two straight years. I finally just now spoke up because her attacks and name calling was starting to become an obstacle to my efforts to secure federal exemptions for gun users, nursing home residents, and Republicans, while Mentele attacks those same people and lets them have their rights stripped…and works to stop me from getting these people, and myself, our full rights, by reputational damages and falsehoods to duck accountability.
Narcissists are exhausting, and nobody else should have their money and energy drained for this fake leaders pattern of bad behavior.
And I will document the damages for the record. Next up: court transcripts. I had a Republican lawmaker read the court transcripts before publication. He said it was hilarious, and Mentele won’t ever recover from the embarrassment once the public sees what she tried to do to a no-name weed blogger with no power. Nobody else will get bullied and assaulted by Mentele without me objecting publicly on the record moving forward.
I went to jail over asking questions. Cunt.*
See ya in court soon. This time I’d pay for an attorney. You’re definitely going to need one.
Also, here’s some advice by someone older in marijuana politics and smarter. You’ve already ruined your political future, that’s a guarantee, by your own actions. Blame me if you want. I don’t care about personal friendships. I don’t mix friendships with business, because I’m not a dumbass.
You were desperately attacking me to claw your way back to relevancy, but I’ve been here nearly twice as long in this space, and I still manage Republican lawmaker campaigns these days while you cry to judges politics is too rough and you need protection from criticism and aren’t strong enough to disagree like adults. You don’t speak for all patients and you definitely aren’t a Republican. The public deserves to see the court evidence, not fake Facebook claims.
If those words hurt your political reputation, that’s the entire point. When a judge says your credibility is dampened in court, that lessens your (arguably, arguably) illegal attacks against me. You’ve been trying to damage me for two years plus now, according to you, to stop me from advocating for policy improvements for cannabis patients like my fiance. I’m not the one failing financially and trying to pretend to be a tough indestructible leader, while attacking debate, and petty name calling as a tactic to one of the weirdest, most delusional goals I’ve ever seen in my life: trying to tell others what to do.
Super weird, actually. Spiritually speaking, are you even ok? Please see a priest.
That’s my advice.
And stop lying about me. That too.
You’re damaging not just me but the entire movement potentially.
Grow, up.
You’re 50.
Learn to debate without emotional hysterics, or stop pushing the wrong people, your intellectual superiors and elders, with illegal police reports and false arrests, you absolute, astonishingly incompetent and low IQ, ignorant little moron.
Seriously. For the sake of the patients, please stop your shit now. Move on. Feed your chickens. Swim in a lake. Touch grass. Nobody knows who you are, you aren’t famous, you aren’t interesting, hell you’ve never even been good looking. You’re a small town has been legend in her own mind everybody, charitably speaking, hates to actually work with. Loathe may be too strong of a word, because you’re not very effective anymore, so they just avoid working with you, so loathing isn’t really a thing. That’s saved for effective advocates. You’re not one of them unless latching on to other people and can’t do anything on your own.
Go feed and water your chickens. Let the actual experts navigate federal rescheduling impacts on South Dakotans, and stop pretending you studied at Harvard Law. You sound ridiculous.
Online followers who don’t know you at all aren’t real. The internet and Facebook are not real. The real talk in the real Capitol discussions are that you are genuinely done and irrelevant politically. Your resume claiming you’re a credentialed teacher and Harvard Law student are as truthful as a Saturday Night Live skit. That inauthentic fake Republican nonsense of attacking people started long before I tried to speak up to tell others about your behavior that caused this unpopularity, so they don’t get dragged down with you.
And moving forward any Republican who’s not established will not be able to associate with you without the GOP being warned another ex-Democrat is infiltrating South Dakota politics under a fake label, too.
My goal wasn’t to destroy or harm you but critique and improve the behavior of public figures behaving badly. That goal has now changed :). You doubled down, and now you’ve discredited yourself to judges and lawmakers are laughing at the court transcripts that have proven publicly you’re not only a liability but genuinely, just a bad human. That’s forgivable, in Christian charity (which you do not demonstrate, just pure hate of Republicans), but you have to stop lying and attacking someone who’s literally actually suing you. Drink coffee. Wake up. Go handle your beef privately instead of dragging others in. I didn’t cause you to go insane. You’re a clown. And I don’t care about your fake circus. Only making good federal drug policy to save drug addicts lives. You little, witchy scripture invoking, no-name nobody nobody has heard of, Christ denying, clown.
Go take political training, but you still aren’t welcome in the Republican circles now.
Attacking Republicans in South Dakota is not welcome, it’s in the class text at the secret Republican trainings, but it’s clear you don’t read or comprehend basic English, so that reading thing likely may not work either since not even judges can get you to comprehend you can’t jail a weed blog for talking about South Dakota. You don’t run the state. You don’t even run your own household (foreclosure, remember? Sorry for your loss, though.)
And being mad at me for promoting federal exemption because it would hurt your business interests? That was what you said was why you started this, was my idea for federal exemption was against your approval, and you would attack me viciously, to lawmakers, even attack me for selling hemp legally. Because you hate Republicans, and also, don’t know the laws. You can’t now claim you support federal exemption as being good for business when the very reason you filed court cases against me was to stop that same federal exemption policy I was advancing in the name of rigging the market to benefit your business and keep out interstate competition. You attacked my very goal. That gained you a very capable and way smarter than you political enemy until this is done with in court. Fuck yourself, and get an attorney. I will continue to blog about what you are doing, so I’d suggest you stop assaulting my reputation, and preying on sick people, because while you may have been what got your husband arrested for domestic assault with you as the alleged victim, I’m not sleeping with your ugly ass, or sharing a house being foreclosed on, so unlike your husband I don’t have to hide you getting me and him arrested (again him for domestic assault me for blogging and you lying to law enforcement about what the blog even said) and I don’t have to be polite after how uncivilly you’ve conducted yourself. Frankly, you’re a white trash, small town, high school educated saboteur, not a “Harvard law student,” (what a joke) and I have the right to not only say so, but tell everyone in public at the Capitol, that you’re not welcome to claim anymore that you represent patient interests. You only represent your own. For that, you are the weakest link. Get lost so patients can have someone who’s not a psycho female crying wolf every month over some blogger telling you you suck and aren’t liked in South Dakota politics.
The fact that nobody wants you in politics here these days is only news to you because you always block criticism or honest feedback and surround yourself with fake friends who only tell you what you want to hear and not harsh truths. Maybe the Democrats, and your LGBTQ transgender Black Lives Matter racist far left socialist friends, like you, but you aren’t welcome in the South Dakota Republican Party if I have anything to do with it. Your endorsement of Republican candidates actually hurts them now. Thou shalt not attack Republicans has been violated too many times. You’re done. Switch back to Democrat. Nobody will notice because you have no serious influence outside your fake Facebook circles.
And sweetheart? I’ve been established since 2009. You got here half a decade later. The enemies you make in politics must be chosen wisely. You picked a legally trained pitbull, and I’m off the leash now. Blog articles hit you in the feels, go tell it to the judge. Please do. The court hearings are amusing, once you get over the alarm of how stupid you are, and how careless you flail about in court looking insane in the public transcripts.
power(n.)
c. 1300, pouer, “ability; ability to act or do; strength, vigor, might,” especially in battle; “efficacy; control, mastery, lordship, dominion, ability or right to command or control; legal power or authority; ” from Anglo-French pouair, Old French povoir, noun use of the infinitive, “to be able,” earlier podir (9c.), from Vulgar Latin *potere(source also of Spanish poder, Italian potere), from Latin potis “powerful” (from PIE root *poti-“powerful; lord”).
Whatever some hypocritical ministers of government may say about it, power is the greatest of all pleasures. It seems to me that only love can beat it, and love is a happy illness that can’t be picked up as easily as a Ministry. [Stendhal “de l’Amour,” 1822]
But your Facebook friends are all idiots. So please tell them I’m unlikeable. It saves me time having to tell them to go away as well.
I only work with lawyers or lawmakers and only on federal exemption. You fought to stop federal exemption. And failed. Now, the blog will share all public court and business filings for future opposing counsel, business partners, hell if you have a fucking Uber driver I want them to know you don’t belong in Republican politics anymore. As you reap, so you sow. And accusing me of what you’ve accused me of gained you heightened scrutiny. And what’s unveiled isn’t looking good.
Footnotes
¹ Public statements by Melissa Mentele regarding a new leadership structure at New Approach South Dakota.
² Public social media activity by Melissa Mentele during active political ballot signature collecting campaigns showing repeated emotional responses and blame shifting/accountability avoidance for being under prepared to execute high stakes political campaigns.
³ Reports from former associates describing limited transparency in organizational decision-making and operations.
⁴ Public positioning by Melissa Mentele as a central figure in the development of South Dakota’s medical cannabis program; privately, insiders say the exact opposite, alleging she is a liability to organizations and everyone just tolerates her while avoiding her and keeping her at arms length.
⁵ Documented instances of personal attacks and name-calling in response to criticism or differing viewpoints.
⁶ Pattern of stalled or unsuccessful initiatives associated with periods of Mentele’s leadership in South Dakota cannabis efforts.
⁷ Supra note 5.
⁸ Supra note 6.
* Cunt, noun: An extremely unpleasant or objectionable person
Update: 8:03 pm I can’t get anything done please stop reading and sharing my phone is dying from all the notifications going off seriously stop sharing this article around the state
I haven’t even sent it to my west coast email list of 20,000 activists who’ve been in this movement for decades. I don’t run that. That’s an associate of Jack Herer’s. One of his closest, actually. Dunno, you may have heard of that group. Nobody in the weed movement likes you jailing a weed blogger to hide criticisms you’re trying to hide, like getting your husband arrested for domestic charges. Not a good look, putting weed activists in jail for personal power games.
What a mess. Fame seeking nobodies who think they’re something really can muck things up for everyone else before learning nobody has ever heard of them and they aren’t welcome to continue their fake Republican hate-lobbying.
WeedPress: The Paper Trail 
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