Josef Stalin famously said, “A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are only a statistic.”  The accuracy of that statement was driven home earlier this month with the death of Robert DeNiro’s 19 year old grandson, Leandro Rodriguez, who was found dead in his New York City apartment, of an apparent drug, or drugs, overdose.  Now, just to keep the record straight, on these pages I have made no secret of the fact that I do not like Robert DeNiro.  I have described him as an under-educated, overpaid, foul-mouthed cafone, and that opinion hasn’t changed.  I have no use for him or for his politics, but this is different.  I have seen posts on Facebook that almost have taken delight in the death of his grandson, suggesting that DeNiro got what he deserved, and I think these posts are appalling.  Nobody “deserves” to lose a grandson, and no 19 year old “deserves” to die.  But that being said, the death of 19 year old Leandro shouldn’t have come as a surprise.  He had a bad multi-drug habit, that his family had to know about.  Shortly after his death, Leandro’s mother said he had bought fentanyl-laced pills.  He was found in his apartment, next to a quantity of white powder and various items of drug paraphernalia.  Postmortem toxicology revealed cocaine, fentanyl and benzodiazepines in his system. Clearly, Leandro had a bad problem.  Because his grandfather is a celebrity, Leandro’s tragic death was front-page news.  That’s not usually the case in New York.  Nearly 3,000 people die from drug overdoses in New York City every year, more than 7 per day.  The leading cause of death the past 6 years is fentanyl.  The majority of the victims are black,  and most of the deaths occur in the Bronx.  These thousands of drug overdose victims don’t get their names on the front page of the newspaper, and little notice of them is taken by elected officials and law enforcement.  But, as Stalin said, one death is a tragedy, and the death of someone connected to a celebrity calls for immediate action, and into action the authorities went.  Within days, police, aided by the DEA and Homeland Security no less, had arrested Sophia Haley Marks who was well known to law enforcement as the “Percocet Princess.”  According to a police source, Marks is notorious for selling pills to under-aged buyers, as young as 15.  Police found text messages on Leandro’s phone between him and Marks, who apparently is a drug dealer with a conscience.  She sold him counterfeit oxycodone (percocet) and xanax for $105, but warned Leandro, “Do you r[eal]ly need them … I [don’t] wanna kill u,” later adding, “I j[ust] don’t like serving u them cuz they not script,” and cautioning,“don’t go overboard with these.”  Of course, telling a drug addict not to go overboard is like telling a lion to go vegetarian.  Although Marks was a notorious drug dealer, I guess she wasn’t a priority for law enforcement.  The death of a celebrity’s relative changed that.  And the Feds had to get in the act, because in Manhattan, drug dealers are just released without bail after arrest.  Marks obligingly sold 50 fentanyl-laced percocets to the DEA, warning the undercover agent, “please be careful with these … don’t do more than one at a time … my friend just died.”  In New Jersey, and many other States, that admission would be tantamount to a confession to drug-induced homicide, but New York has no drug-induced homicide law.  The federal charges, however, expose Marks to a sentence of up to 40 years, undoubtedly far more time than she would get from Alvin Bragg in Manhattan.  As they say, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, so it’s not surprising that the DeNiro family got a quicker law enforcement response than most.  The real question, however, is what, if anything, will be learned from the tragedy of Leandro’s death.  Maybe it’s time that we, as a society, reexamined drug addiction in general, and the prevalence of fentanyl in particular.  As kin to a celebrity, we know Leandro’s name.  But what about the thousands of dead young people throughout the land who have been killed by fentanyl.  We lost 58,000 people in Vietnam over 10 years, and built a monument.  Fentanyl kills nearly 100,000 nameless, faceless young people every year, and they’re ignored.  Although too much fentanyl killed them, most of these victims didn’t overdose on fentanyl, because they never knew what they were taking contained fentanyl, which is added to a variety of illicit drugs.  On this point, at least Leandro had a chance.  He was warned the pills he was buying were counterfeit and could kill him.  In the end, no warning could overcome his addiction.  The nameless, faceless others get no such warning.  And what is our society doing about a threat that kills 100,000 Americans a year?  Nearly nothing.  Although we know the fentanyl is being shipped in from Mexico, after having been manufactured by Chinese chemists, using Chinese ingredients, we’re not going after the Mexican cartels, and of course, Corrupt Demented Imbecile Joe Biden can’t complain to his Chinese masters.  After all, business is business, right Hunter?  And we’re admitting millions of illegal aliens, to include fentanyl smugglers, and Mexican cartel members, who are expanding their businesses North of the border.  On top of this, we have Woke cities, including New York, that are enabling and encouraging illegal drug use, and drug legalization.  In the early 1980’s, serious people argued that cocaine wasn’t dangerous, and should be legalized.  Then Len Bias died of an overdose, sanity returned, and the legalization talk decreased.  But today there are no guide rails.  Idiots are still touting legalization, and governments are aiding and abetting illegal drug use, in some places setting up stations where government employees will actually inject the drugs into the addict.  They supply needles and crack pipes, free of charge, and are handing out Narcan, to revive comatose victims.  They call this compassion.  I call it suicide by government.  And it’s shameful.  Leandro’s mother rightly blames the drug dealer for her son’s death, but there’s more blame to go around. Government, on all levels needs to declare the fentanyl problem an intolerable threat to America, and do something to interdict the supply, while at the same time working with addicts to reduce demand.  Maybe if celebrities demanded action, the government would do something.  Leftists like Robert DeNiro like to call things “existential threats.”  Well here’s a real existential threat.  100,000 annual deaths isn’t only a statistic.  The actors are on strike now, so maybe they could use this down time to at least act like they care.  Will the actors act?  Not likely.