Not So Obvious

On the "New Rules" segment of  Real Time with Bill Maher Friday night, the host praised the decline in Fetanyl use and death from the drug, attributing it to action taken by each party.  He commended President Trump for closing the border and then-President Biden and other Democrats for "fast-tracking" Narcan and Republicans for "closing the border and deporting gang bangers and disrupting supply." There is some truth to that. However, the drop in both supply and demand has many causes.

 

Trump’s border policies are SAVING LIVES! Fentanyl deaths are down 55%, meth down 34%, and heroin down 89%. Even Bill Maher had to admit that closing the border, deporting gangbangers, and disrupting drug cartels worked!
Secure the border, protect the kids! 🇺🇸…

— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) September 27, 2026

 

Supply declined beginning in early 2024 because, as this news organization explained

Both the first Trump administration and the administration of former U.S. president Biden had pressured the Beijing government to attack the illegal precursor trade, leading to a formal agreement in November 2023. Many experts initially doubted China’s ability to corral thousands of precursor producers. Now, some theorize its government may have decided that disciplining such manufacturers— a tiny part of its economy—could have outsized benefits in its relations with the United States....

Cartel conflicts in Mexico could also be contributing to the fentanyl shortfall. The U.S. government had regarded the Sinaloa cartel as the number one producer of the highly addictive opioid. For the past 19 months, though, the group has been locked in a bloody civil war, weakening its operations and at times cutting off transit routes to the U.S. border. Both Trump and Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum have boasted of the results of their aggressive drug policies. Sheinbaum has broken with the more hands-off approach of her predecessor and mentor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and reported surging arrests and seizures.

And demand declined as

Fentanyl killed off many of its customers. Meanwhile, young people in their 20s don’t appear to be taking up fentanyl the way older Americans did. They may be more aware of its dangers, highlighted in news reports and public-health campaigns.

Sometimes an enforcement action yields benefits years after it occurs. Starting in the 1990s, pharmaceutical companies introduced painkillers like OxyContin that addicted millions of Americans. When authorities tightened access to those pills a few years later, they inadvertently triggered a new round of the crisis, as desperate users turned to other opioids—first heroin, then fentanyl. But the stricter controls on prescription drugs ultimately had another effect. Many people didn’t even start using them, and so never got to fentanyl. “Fewer people have been exposed to prescription opioids in recent years, potentially curbing the development of opioid use disorder,” said a recent analysis in The Lancet Regional Health – Americas, a medical journal, by drug specialists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.      

Researchers point to other possible factors in declining demand. Fentanyl vendors have increasingly adulterated the opioid with less lethal substances, such as the animal tranquilizer Xylazine. That reduces overdoses but also demand: Xylazine puts users to sleep, keeping them from injecting as often. Public-health initiatives also ramped up in recent years, with the Biden administration increasing federal funding for addiction treatment by tens of billions of dollars. Federal and local governments, as well as local harm-reduction groups, have widely distributed the medication naloxone, which quickly reverses overdoses.

And then there are the factors which are speculative. Evidently

Scientists and law-enforcement officials acknowledge there’s still a lot they don’t know. One senior U.S. drug enforcement official said fentanyl seizures may have fallen, in part, because the Trump administration has reassigned thousands of FBI, DEA and Homeland Security Investigations agents from narcotics work to arresting immigrants in the country illegally. “Yeah, seizures are down,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “But we’re not looking anymore.”

This is a far cry from President Trump claiming full credit. Maher noted the decline in deaths from other illicit drugs- cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamine- and accurately remarked

Part of it is reasons beyond politics.... But mostly, it's because Democrats did some things and Republicans did other things.  And by not actually working together, they stumbled upon positive change or as Trump put it, "it was all me".

Circumstances for a plunge, though more intentional than serendipitous, amounted to a reversal of a perfect storm.  The Chinese recognized their self-interest and negotiated a deal with the Biden Administration; Mexican cartels turning their attention inward; stricter controls on legal drugs; adulteration of opioids by Fetanyl vendors; increased spending by the Biden Administration for drug treatment; shutting down the border by the Trump Administration.  These are reasons both of "politics" and beyond politics, and may continue well into the future. Or not.

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Poppycock

Give this guy from Texas 4th Congressional District a cookie. He's right about mainland China, at least in the past.

We've lost tens of thousands of Americans a year to fentanyl, made in China and trafficked into our country by cartels.

Striking the narcoterrorists at sea is in America's best interest.

It's a shame that Democrats can't get over their hatred of President Trump to agree. pic.twitter.com/QU0KMkYTgN

— Rep. Pat Fallon (@RepPatFallon) December 26, 2025

Obviously, it is brought into the USA by carters, as Representative Fallon asserts. However, little of it is coming from Venezuela or Columbia. According to the top official at Customs and Border Protection in September

We saw that as China scheduled fentanyl in 2019 [as a class of drugs that are controlled and restricted], the fentanyl production moved to Mexico. The precursors started moving to Mexico, and we started seeing the pills and powder come across the southwest border specifically trafficked mostly by the Sinaloa cartel. Even today, they control that corridor between Mexico and Arizona and California….

As we started looking for precursors based on the intelligence we had garnered from our previous operations, we saw these substances coming into Los Angeles, JFK, and some of the other express hubs. And we also continued to see the pill presses, dies, and molds that are used for producing the fentanyl pills.

The interesting thing about the precursors is that they were coming in transit through the U.S., then down over the southwest border into Mexico, then being used to process the pills, and then being smuggled back north into the U.S. This gave us multiple opportunities to really hit these transnational criminal organizations that are moving the fentanyl.

So somehow the fetanyl is going from China or Mexico to the southwestern USA- then back to Venezuela and on to the USA?  That's doing things the hard way.

Donald doesn't  give a rat's behind about fetanyl, though that's still more negative than his attitude toward cocaine. The Annenberg Publlic Policy Center has reported that.

According to the indictment filed on Jan. 27, 2022, in the U.S. District Court in the Southern District of New York, from about 2004 to 2022, (former Honduran president Juan Carlos) Hernández “participated in a corrupt and violent drug-trafficking conspiracy to facilitate the importation of tons of cocaine into the United States.” He received “millions of dollars from multiple drug-trafficking organizations in Honduras, Mexico, and elsewhere, including from the former leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, Joaquin Guzman Loera,” the Mexican drug kingpin known as “El Chapo.”

Hernández used the drug money to fund his political campaigns and commit voter fraud, the indictment said. “In exchange, Hernández protected drug traffickers, including his brother and former member of the Honduran National Congress Juan Antonio Hernández Alvarado … from investigation, arrest, and extradition; caused sensitive law enforcement and military information to be provided to drug traffickers to assist their criminal activities; caused members of the Honduran National Police and military to protect drug shipments in Honduras; and allowed brutal violence to be committed without consequence.”

Hernández “contributed with his co-conspirators to Honduras becoming one of the largest transshipment points in the world for United States-bound cocaine,” the indictment also said. Loads of cocaine were trafficked through Honduras from Colombia and Venezuela by boat and air.

(The Trump administration has been building up the U.S. military presence in the Caribbean in recent months and striking alleged drug-running boats off the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia, as we’ve previously written.).

President Trump on November 28 announced that he was handing a full pardon to Hernandez and two days later told reporters

Well, I was told, I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup. … The people of Honduras really thought [Hernández] was set up and it was a terrible thing.

He was the president of the country, and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country." And they said it was a Biden administration setup. And I looked at the facts and I agreed with them.

It's difficult to separate dishonesty and ignorance by GOP members of Congress as this regime continues its reign of terror against whom Donald Trump characterizes as "bloated, fat, and dsigusting" Americans. But there is a tell because there is no such thing as a "narcoterrorist." Transporting narcotics for fun and profit kills a lot of people but does not constitute "terrorism." so if the Republican is railing against "narco-terrorists," the congressman has a complete disregard for the truth, not unlike the President he or she follows blindly.

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A Harebrained, or Urinebrained, Scheme

As President Joseph R. Biden would put it, "This woman was a judge. Not kidding."

The individual respectfully referred to as "Judge Jeanine Pirro" is clearly apoplectic that there has been no determination that the bag of cocaine found in the West Wing of the White House belongs to Hunter Biden. Thus, no link has been made to President Biden. In character, the former judge rants

.... Where are the canines?  Why don't you know everyone who's gone through there? It's all hogwash. You vacated the building it was so dangerous when you saw that, what you thought might be anthrax. And now, you know I don't have anything to say about it.

Jeanine Pirro: "Finally, why is Hunter Biden always in our face?! Why is this guy at the White House? ... This guy is either a drug addict or a reformed drug addict. We shouldn’t have to deal with him constantly in our face!" @justinbaragona
pic.twitter.com/xaZs97Zk8E

— The Intellectualist (@highbrow_nobrow) July 13, 2023

And then she kept talking, in a high-pitched voice, appearing unhinged, as she periodically does.

It wasn't anthrax. It was an illegal drug. It was an illegal drug whose half-life is very short. According to American Addiction Centers, the detection time frame for cocaine if a urine test, the most common test, is used is "up to 3 days, but up to 2 weeks for heavy users." According to the same source, for marijuana it is "up to 30 days, depending upon the frequency of use.".

Consequently, if a urine test for drug use were administered to White House staffers, it could very well ferret out individuals who used marijuana two or three weeks ago- and completely miss persons who had used cocaine a mere four days earlier. Recreational marijuana is legally possessed is twenty-three states; cocaine in none. Those twenty-three states include Maryland and Virginia- which border the District of Columbia, in which marijuana also may be legally used (in Guam, also).

Yet, if it is determined that many members of the Biden Administration use marijuana- oh, the horror of it all!- the number of Republicans who acknowledge that its use is widespread among Americans and generally no more deleterious than alcohol may range from negative 1 to plus 1. "Drug use" or whatever phrase is dredged gup to exaggerate the situation would become the newest fashion in political attacks for the likes of Chris Christie, Larry Hogan, Chris Sununu and other right-wingers who qualify as "moderates" in the mainstream media because they don't despise members of the LGBTQIA community. (The bar is set very low.)

As a Fox News personality, Ms. Pirro can shoot her mouth off at will and as a judge, she possesses a little credibility, however undeserved that it for her and others who by hook or by crook have attained that distinction. However, GOP officials including US Representatives Pete Sessions of Texas and Lauren Boebert of Colorado also have recommended drug testing.  It is a policy proposal which in the recent past would have impelled mainstream media to herald individuals as "fiscal conservatives."

Additionally, of course, northwest Georgia's Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Marjorie Taylor Greene wants the Secret Service to drug test 500 people because 1 of them potentially left cocaine at the White House. pic.twitter.com/OCeeYcX4eD

— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) July 13, 2023

.

Jamie Raskin of Maryland points out that such testing would be "a massive disproportionate and overblown response that would violate people's civil liberties." Dangerously intrusive, ineffective, and costly but to Republicans, who were curiously silent on this topic during the Trump Administration, such would be an asset, not a bug. It also would give the GOP another cause du jour in the culture wars in the effort to secure complete political power.

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Pardon The Execution

In 2016, it was immigration powering Donald J. Trump to the presidency. Now it appears that Donald Trump has seized upon a slightly different issue, one he mentioned but did not emphasize in 2022, as his path back to power. On Tuesday, he

voiced support for imposing the death penalty as punishment for convicted drug dealers as part of a speech in which he laid out a series of drastic measures to curb crime.

“The penalties should be very, very severe. If you look at countries throughout the world, the ones that don’t have a drug problem are ones that institute a very quick trial death penalty sentence for drug dealers,” Trump said at the America First Policy Institute.

“It sounds horrible, doesn’t it? But you know what? That’s the ones that don’t have any problem. It doesn’t take 15 years in court. It goes quickly, and you absolutely — you execute a drug dealer, and you’ll save 500 lives,” Trump continued.

“It’s terrible to say, but you take a look at every country in this world that doesn’t have a problem with drugs, they have a very strong death penalty for people that sell drugs,” he said.

Trump’s comments calling for a crackdown on drug dealers, which included praise for quick trials in other countries, came as part of a broader vision for harshly cracking down on crime.

The former president painted a picture of a bleak and dystopian country, highlighting instances of civilians being attacked in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere.

On July 8, he had similarly maintained

the U.S. should model its response to the illegal narcotics trade on China, where he said accused drug dealers are executed after swift trials.

Trump made the remarks in a speech he delivered in Las Vegas, Nevada, Friday during a rally for his endorsed candidates in the state's gubernatorial and Senate races. The speech was marked by two recurring themes for Trump: a demand for law and order, as well as an admiration for heavy-handed governance.

Addressing what he's characterized as an alarming wave of violent crime, Trump prefaced his praise for China by saying he would either "get a standing ovation" or "people are going to walk out of the room."

"If you look at countries all throughout the world ... the only ones that don't have a drug problem are those that institute the death penalty for drug dealers. They're the only ones, you understand that? China has no drug problem," Trump said to applause.

As with Trump's pleas for patriotism, the ex-president's heated rhetoric slamming drug dealers is a matter of convenience.  On his way out of office

President Donald J. Trump’s late-night commutation of a 10-year prison sentence being served by a drug smuggler named Jonathan Braun made the action sound almost routine. The White House said only that upon his release, Mr. Braun would “seek employment to support his wife and children.”

What the White House did not mention is that Mr. Braun, a New Yorker from Staten Island who had pleaded guilty in 2011 to leading a large-scale marijuana smuggling ring, still faces both criminal and civil investigations in an entirely separate matter, and has a history of violence and threatening people.

According to lawsuits filed in June against Mr. Braun and two associates by the New York State attorney general, Letitia James, and the Federal Trade Commission, Mr. Braun helped start and worked as a de facto enforcer for an operation that made predatory loans to small-business owners, threatening them with violence if they refused to pay up.

Federal prosecutors for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan also have a continuing investigation into that operation, a person with knowledge of the investigation said Friday.

As recently as two and a half years ago, Mr. Braun was accused of throwing a man off a deck at an engagement party. Federal prosecutors said in a court proceeding that he threatened to beat a rabbi who borrowed money to renovate a preschool at his synagogue. “I am going to make you bleed,” he told the rabbi, according to court documents, adding, “I will make you suffer for every penny.”

How much Mr. Trump and his aides knew about Mr. Braun’s past and his current legal troubles is not clear. In its announcement of the pardon this week, the White House appears to have substantially overstated how much of his 10-year sentence Mr. Braun had completed, saying he had served five years when he had only reported to prison a year ago. (The White House announcement also misspelled his first name, calling him Jonathon.)

Braun wasn't the first drug salesman to whom President Trump lavished some love.  There would have been more but the vast majority of drug crimes are state, rather than federal, offenses.

Perhaps Donald Trump actually would like to see drug pushers executed, along with the political opponents he'd target in a second term. Either way, he may have found his issue this time around.

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"Crack Pipes"

 

Senator, this is one of the grossest, despicable things you’ve posted *And there’s stiff competition* Like millions of Americans, I have addicts in my family. Addiction is hell. There’s no silver bullet. Some treatments work better for some. This is cheap and only sets us back. https://t.co/wxIshvFNbC

— Rep. Eric Swalwell (@RepSwalwell) February 9, 2022

There is indeed stiff competition and it is intended to score a cheap political point. But it doesn't seem to be made out of whole cloth.

The rumor began when the right-wing Washington Free Beacon maintained

The Biden administration is set to fund the distribution of crack pipes to drug addicts as part of its plan to advance "racial equity."

The $30 million grant program, which closed applications Monday and will begin in May, will provide funds to nonprofits and local governments to help make drug use safer for addicts. Included in the grant, which is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, are funds for "smoking kits/supplies." A spokesman for the agency told the Washington Free Beacon that these kits will provide pipes for users to smoke crack cocaine, crystal methamphetamine, and "any illicit substance."

HHS said the kits aim to reduce the risk of infection when smoking substances with glass pipes, which can lead to infections through cuts and sores. Applicants for the grants are prioritized if they treat a majority of "underserved communities," including African Americans and "LGBTQ+ persons," as established under President Joe Biden's executive order on "advancing racial equity."

If a report ends with "President Biden's son Hunter is a longtime user of crack cocaine," which is probably both inaccurate and irrelevant, it should be taken with a grain of salt- or at least subject to strict scrutiny.

As specified here, one of the five indicators grant recipients must report on a quarterly basis are twelve "harm reduction materials purchased with grant funds." Among these is "safe smoking kits/supplies," to which some drug treatment professionals are partial.  An Indian publication notes

Kassandra Frederique, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national nonprofit that advocates for drug law reform, likened the strategy to approaches people are more familiar with, like using condoms for sexual health and wellness.

“What research has consistently shown us is that when we give people access to safer smoking equipment, it’s resulted in increased health risk awareness for people that are using drugs,” Frederique told HuffPost.

“People are using drugs. It’s really important for us to give people information and educate folks about ways they can moderate their drug use or reduce the risk that can happen with some kinds of drug use,” she explained.

Nonetheless

“No federal funding will be used directly or through subsequent reimbursement of grantees to put pipes in safe smoking kits,” ​​Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and White House drug czar Dr. Rahul Gupta said in a statement, adding that they plan to prioritize the use of life-saving medications like Narcan, fentanyl test strips and syringes.

“Federal funding will not be used to put pipes in the kits or distribute them,” a senior administration official also told HuffPost. “Today, [HHS] clarified that no federal funding can be used for some specific elements that may be included in those kits. The contents of kits often vary by state based upon federal and state law.”

It was a mistake, both politically and programmatically, to encourage "safe smoking kits/supplies" in the Notice of Funding Opportunity for the Harmful Reduction Program Grant.   However, the federal government, though providing no direct funding, now is encouraging local jurisdictions to establish or continue programs which provide glass (considered safer than copper, plastic or aluminum) pipes for individuals to smoke methamphetamine or crack cocaine.

This is not relatively benign marijuana. This is the real deal, and not in a good way. The surrender to a drug culture of crack, opioids, and prescription drugs is off and running. This may not sincerely concern most Republicans. Yet, as the tweet from Senator Rubio indicates, they will find a way of tying drug use around the necks of Democrats unaware of how their sympathy toward drug users will be perceived by voters and disingenuously exploited by Republicans.

 

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Principles, Negotiable

A resignation is in order.  There is hypocrisy, and then there is hypocrisy.

This falls into the latter category. Over a week ago- with no additional explanation in the interim- we learned from the Daily Beast

Dozens of young White House staffers have been suspended, asked to resign, or placed in a remote work program due to past marijuana use, frustrating staffers who were pleased by initial indications from the Biden administration that recreational use of cannabis would not be immediately disqualifying for would-be personnel, according to three people familiar with the situation.

The policy has even affected staffers whose marijuana use was exclusive to one of the 14 states—and the District of Columbia—where cannabis is legal. Sources familiar with the matter also said a number of young staffers were either put on probation or canned because they revealed past marijuana use in an official document they filled out as part of the lengthy background check for a position in the Biden White House.

As far as we know, then, these individuals did not even violate the law. And they were the ones who admitted (thus making threat of blackmail less plausible) past marijuana use, in contrast to those who denied it and are still employed by the Administration.

Keep it classy, Mr. President:

In some cases, staffers were informally told by transition higher-ups ahead of formally joining the administration that they would likely overlook some past marijuana use, only to be asked later to resign.

“There were one-on-one calls with individual affected staffers—rather, ex-staffers,” one former White House staffer affected by the policy told The Daily Beast. “I was asked to resign.”

“Nothing was ever explained” on the calls, they added, which were led by White House Director of Management and Administration Anne Filipic. “The policies were never explained, the threshold for what was excusable and what was inexcusable was never explained.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki claimed that only five persons staffers were "no longer employed as a result of this policy” and that

In an effort to ensure that more people have an opportunity to serve the public, we worked in coordination with the security service to ensure that more people have the opportunity to serve than would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use. While we will not get into individual cases, there were additional factors at play in many instances for the small number of individuals who were terminated.

To ensure that more people have the opportunity to serve than would not have in the past with the same level of recent drug use (would "not" have?)  Ihe premise is that because more individuals now admit to legal drug use than in the past admitted to illegal drug use, there were fewer staffers in previous Administrations who had used drugs. But if the naivete is astounding, it is true that drug use is- when convenient- inconsequential to this President.

These staffers probably- unlike a particularly prominent member of the Administration- believed having smoked marijuana (though not a badge of shame) is not a particular badge of honor.

As hard as it is to believe (given the recent news) that was the current Vice-President of the United States of America, fifteen months before presumptive presidential nominee Joe Biden selected her as his running mate, giving her a leg up on her dream of being the first female president, first president of Asian background, the first president (aside, arguably, form Biden) who worked tirelessly for mass incarceration, or more firsts. Reinforcing the stereotype of Jamaicans as wacky weed aficionados was only the cherry on the top.

Below, Ana Kasparian of The Young Turks asserts "firing staffers over this is absolutely ridiculous." Noting the Administration's hypocrisy, she asks  (at 3:20 of the video below) for TYT's online poll

And you know what? We want want to know- should the Biden Administration fire Vice President Kamala Harris for her past usage of cannabis? The American people want to know. That's the whole question here.

Of course, the Vice President can no more be fired than can the President. Both of them were duly elected and in the absence of impeachment and conviction, can be removed only by voters at election time. So the answer to the question is either "no" or (the (unavailable) "not applicable."

However, it now is over a week since policy toward drug use of members of the Administration has been revealed. There has been no clarification of penalties, punishment, and/or dismissal of individuals for using marijuana. Meanwhile, a heartbeat from the presidency sits an individual giddily proud of her past drug use- at the time, illegal.

Clearly, President Biden cannot fire Kamala Harris, she will not resign, and she will not be asked to resign. It is just as clear, however, that without clarification (possibly, even with) by the Administration of its policy, President Biden owes it to the country to ask Kamala Harris to resign.

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Invitation To Failure

If you believe that "slavery and the scaffolding of white supremacy" are unrelated to marijuana, you know one more thing than Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) apparently does. Huffington Post reports that the media darling

 made her comments during a House Financial Services subcommittee hearing this week on banking services for the burgeoning cannabis industry as more states legalize the sale and use of marijuana.

She suggested the growing industry was “compounding the racial wealth gap”  by allowing wealthy white-dominated companies to gain a quick advantage in the industry. She complained that communities most affected by drug incarcerations are the “last in the door” when it comes to profiting now from legalized cannabis.

The nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance praised her position. “We must legalize marijuana in a way that recognizes and repairs the disastrous, disproportionate harms of the drug war ... on people of color,” the organization tweeted after the hearing.

Ocasio-Cortez cited statistics from Colorado and Washington, where marijuana is legal for recreational use, that 73 percent of cannabis business executives are male and 81 percent are white.

The State of Washington is not 50% non-hispanic white, and neither is Colorado. Colorado is a mere 29.6% % black, Hispanic, Asian, "mixed," or "other" while Washington is 70.4% non-Hispanic white. And for reasons of history, culture, and/or politics, most business executives in the USA are male and most are white. 

Beginning at 4:00 and resuming  at 4:44 of the video below, the freshman (freshwoman, or fresh person) Representative rhetorically comments

And so, so, you see what this really looks like is it's kind of coming to big picture that the folks who profited off for-profit incarceration get to profit off the legalization of marijuana first while the communities most impacted are last in the door....

So would you recommend that in us kind of opening this lane that also be paired with kind of affirmative licensing laws that prioritize front-line communities and communities that were most impacted to get them licenses first so that they can reap the benefits or recouping some segments of cost that they have bared in the 90s on the War on Drugs?

The very agreeable witness was Corey Barnette, described here as the "founder and Chief Executive Officer of District Growers, LLC, a full service grower and producer of cannabis, cannabis concentrates and cannabis-infused edible products." You should not be surprised that Mr. Barnette is neither a scientist nor medical researcher, nor a down-on-his luck ex-con who needs a leg up to rebuild a life shattered by the War on Drugs. Prior to becoming very successful in 

the medical cannabis industry, Mr. Barnette owned and operated businesses in a number of different industries across several states, including but not limited to automotive manufacturing, pharmaceutical testing, sports and entertainment, and transportation industries. For example, Mr. Barnette owned and operated Primary Physicians Research, a clinical trials service provider of drug testing services to large pharmaceutical companies. From 2001 to 2004, he served as a Vice President of the Small Enterprise Assistance Funds, an emerging market venture capital firm investing in start-up and early-stage businesses in 28 different emerging market countries. From 1997 to 2000, he serves as an investment banker with NationsBanc Montgomery Securites.

As the day of legalization of recreational marijuana, possibly nationally and more likely in several states, draws near, the challenge should not be to ensure that vast profits are made as the public is swindled and manipulated by wealthy minorities and private equity firms headed by minorities.

Purchasers must not be exploited, period. That should apply whatever the race or gender of the businessperson and whatever the race or gender of the chief executive officer of the individual(s) fronting for the group.

That is not, however, the thrust of Ocasio-Cortez's spoken concern. She is not suggesting that individuals who have been disadvantaged by disproportionate inequities in policing or the criminal justice system be given particular consideration. She is recommending that privilege be conveyed upon individuals (or companies) notwithstanding whatever hurdles- or not- they themselves have had to overcome.

Recreational marijuana, as with medical marijuana, is no ordinary business. The regulations which must be imposed in order to protect both consumers and the general public, and to maintain public support for legalization, are nearly unmatched in American commerce. So, too, are the opportunites for exorbitant profits, which are likely to attract a proliferation of hucksters (though Barnette has not been among them).

State officials must establish strict guidelines. Local agencies and boards will have to consider the motivation of entrepreneurs and numerous details, including but not limited to safety and security, location relative to schools and neighborhoods, and age of consumer. Philosophical issues aside, there is too much at stake to overlook critical factors in favor of skin color and biological makeup.

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