Alcohol is tightly regulated across the country, yet 60 percent of 18-year-olds have reported trying alcohol at least once. Is that evidence of negligence or carelessness on the part of state regulators? Of course not.

The same goes for diversion of marijuana. Marijuana from Colorado and Washington travels far and wide. But this has been the case since California passed the first state medical marijuana law in 1996. Laws against diversion don’t prevent diversion, they simply allow states to punish people who divert. People have trafficked cigarettes from the southeast U.S. to high-tobacco-tax states in the northeast for years, yet the DOJ is not sending ominous letters to Virginia or North Carolina.