She’s already seeking higher office!
Freshman US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has tapped a former marijuana lobbyist to work as a senior counsel and adviser.
The Democratic Socialist from Queens, who smoked longtime incumbent Joe Crowley in the primary last year, brought on former Marijuana Policy Project director of federal policies Dan Riffle last week.
MPP bills itself as the largest single-issue marijuana policy-reform group in the nation.
Ocasio-Cortez, 29, has said she supports federal legalization and regulation of marijuana, as well as the release of individuals sentenced for nonviolent drug offenses.
But she snagged Riffle to help hash out a proposed tax on the wealthy whose proceeds would be used to combat climate change.
Either way, he’s no token hire — his last gigs were as a communications director to former Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) and a legislative aide to former Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).
And he’s apparently no tokin’ hire either.
“I don’t enjoy smoking pot,” he bluntly told The Hill. “I don’t wear tie-dye shirts. And I don’t wear flip-flops.”
Riffle left MPP in 2014 because it was becoming, like, too corporate, man.
“I felt for the last few months the industry was kind of dominating the legalization movement’s work in general, and MPP’s specifically,” he told International Business Times in 2015.