Thread by @JCNSeverino

My organization is running a new ad urging @Sen_JoeManchin to vote NO on Vanita Gupta, citing her massive stake in a company that manufactures a key ingredient in the production of high-grade, China White heroin. /1

Vanita Gupta owns between $11 and $55 million dollars in stock in Avantor, a company that manufactures an essential ingredient used to make heroin and meth.

Gupta's father is also the chairman of the board of Avantor. /2

According to a Bloomberg investigation, Avantor produces and sells a key ingredient in Mexico known as acetic anhydride that Mexican drug cartels have used to mass produce high-grade, “China white” heroin and meth. /3

bloomberg.com/news/features/…

Between 2010 and 2018, an estimated 142,000 West Virginians died from overdoses. West Virginia suffers the highest overdose death rate of any state, and recently has been coping with an influx of heroin. /4

In 2012, Gupta wrote a shocking op-ed in the Huffington Post, arguing that “[s]tates should decriminalize simple possession of all drugs.” /5
huffpost.com/entry/its-time…

While Gupta was advocating for a change to the U.S. drug enforcement policy that would only further line the pockets of herself and her family, people across the United States and West Virginia suffered the devastating effects of the national heroin and meth epidemic. /6

For @Sen_JoeManchin, Gupta's history of drug-legalization extremism should be a non-starter. She's the wrong choice for associate attorney general. /7