Before we get into the juicy details of the marijuana-hating Karen who sued her Washington, D.C. neighbor to force him to stop using medical marijuana, let’s address contentious issues around the term “Karen” used as street slang to describe a narcissistic, pushy white woman who uses her white privilege to harass others.

One controversy surrounding the Karen designation is the claim it’s misogynistic. This claim rings false in most cases, especially when you know the term “Chad” is used to describe a narcissistic white man who uses his white privilege to harass others.

There are entire YouTube channels showing Karens and Chads yelling at people and otherwise making lives miserable.

But about 30% of these videos do not show a person unjustifiably interfering with another person’s actions. Instead, some people are called Karens or Chads because they legitimately interrupt obviously illegal, dangerous, or extremely disruptive behavior.

For example, I saw a Karen video in which hordes of feckless teenagers were constantly trespassing on a white woman’s land by having loud parties that harmed her property, and racing dirt bikes on her property.

When, in an exasperated but totally controlled manner she confronted the teens, they recorded her and uploaded a video calling her a Karen.

But in most Karen/Chad cases that become public, it looks like the Karen/Chad really is just an obnoxious loser who wants to tell everybody else what to do, often with racist, sexist, or other nefarious overtones and intentions.

The famous case of the Central Park Karen, a white woman with her dog illegally off leash in a wildlife conservation area who Karened an African-American wildlife advocate, then called the police on him and played the race card by falsely claiming a black man was attacking her, is definitely a classic Karen scenario.

Now we see another one from Washington, D.C. This Karen is 76-year old Josefa Ippolito-Shepherd, who claims online to be a retired “independant” (sic) public health scientist.

Josefa lives in Cleveland Park in an apartment that shares a wall with Angella Faserotu, who rented a small sub-lodging to a qualified medical marijuana user named Thomas Cackett.

D.C. legalized purchase, sale, and consumption of medical marijuana several years ago, and Cackett has a legal right to use it.

But Josefa complained that Cackett’s marijuana smoke was somehow entering her home and her lungs, causing her health problems (including insomnia, lol) that only started when Cackett moved in and began using marijuana.

I was unable to view the case documents for the lawsuit Josefa filed against her neighbors, but if her claim is that second-hand marijuana smoke of sufficient potency and quantity creates severe physiological harms, such a claim would be relatively easy to evaluate for its accuracy.

All she would have to do is prove that she does not consume marijuana herself, and then have her body tested for marijuana metabolites. If testing showed marijuana metabolites beyond a certain level, it would somewhat support her claim that her neighbor’s weed smoke could be harming her.

But she offered no such proof, because there isn’t any.

One problem is that marijuana smoke is not a wizard—it can’t penetrate walls. If apartment windows are open, smoke might waft outdoors and into another apartment with open windows. But in D.C., with sweltering, humid summers and cold winters, it’s unlikely that Josefa had her windows open very much if at all.

So I call bullshit on her claim that enough second-hand marijuana smoke entered her apartment and body to cause health problems.

Although it’s true that second-hand smoke from tobacco or marijuana can create health issues for people very near the smoker, science shows the affected non-smoker would have to be in close proximity in a closed space with the smoker, and that repeated inhalation of high-density second-hand smoke is necessary before actual harm occurs.

Even if Cackett was smoking the highest-potency marijuana grown by people using the Growing Marijuana Perfectly website as guidance, it’s almost impossible that Cackett’s smoke was getting this Karen high or otherwise affecting her physiologically.

You see, Josefa was not inside a closed space with Cackett. And during lawsuit proceedings, she was unable to prove that Cackett’s smoke did her any compensable physical harm.

In a classic Karen scenario, Josefa-Karen is basically whining that she doesn’t like the smell of marijuana, so she has the right to stop her neighbor from medically using it.

What’s worse, D.C. Judge Ebony Scott recently ruled that although Josefa isn’t entitled to damages, Cackett’s marijuana smoke creates a “private nuisance.” And as we’ve pointed out before, so-called marijuana legalization is somewhat bogus. It does not give marijuana growers and users, or the marijuana plant itself, full legal rights.

Indeed, Judge Scott had the gall to order Thomas Cackett to stop smoking. Cackett is “licensed” to buy marijuana, Scott ruled, but “does not possess a license to disrupt the full use and enjoyment of one’s land.”

The judge went full fascist by banning Cackett from smoking cannabis in his own home, or within 25 feet of Ippolito-Shepherd’s home. And because public consumption of marijuana is illegal in D.C. Josefa’s victory prevents Cackett from using marijuana at all unless he travels far away from his own home!

While Josefa celebrated her successful bullying of Cackett, crowing that people who dislike the smell of marijuana nationwide can now fight back against marijuana users, the implications of her Karening and the judge’s ruling are mind-boggling.

One big problem is that a so-called public health expert like Josefa should be aware that poisonous volatiles are aerosolized all around us and indoors, and they’re far worse for you than second-hand marijuana smoke.

For example, there are gas stations in Cleveland Park. If you live near them, you’re breathing petroleum distillates and other poisons whenever the stations are open, and if they have leaky storage tanks, all the time.

If Cleveland Park government does any pesticide or herbicide spraying, or if any of her neighbors employ “pest control” services, she is breathing deadly poison.

If her apartment has the common materials used in paint, carpets, upholstery, household cleaners, and other items, she is breathing volatilized poisons.

If Josefa has a car and uses it, she is sending dozens of poisons into her neighbor’s lungs.

If airplanes are flying low over Cleveland Park, they’re dumping pollution from above, and even though Cleveland Park is an elite D.C. suburb for rich folks, the D.C. grid is often a polluted cesspool of industrial and vehicular aerosolized poisons. The infamous I-95 D.C. grid traffic jams, which now extend into Maryland and Virginia, make it so the air in Cleveland Park isn’t fit to breathe, especially during summer.

One wonders if Josefa is outraged about second-hand cigarette smoke. If so, she hasn’t said so.

One wonders if Josefa is suing oil companies and others who contribute to climate change, which right now in early June 2023 is burning vast areas of Canada, and the smoke from those fires has traveled to New York and D.C., triggering health problems and warnings.

There’s no record from Josefa’s professional career that she ever tried to help the world by suing anyone to ensure clean air, water, cities, food, etc.

Instead, Josefa petulantly opposes marijuana and marijuana legalization, based on her comments and lawsuit.

And the fact that a so-called public health expert is doing activism against only one of many things she might be inhaling that might make her ill shows her actions are not well-intentioned or grounded in a generalized concern for environmental purity and health, but in a discriminatory dislike of marijuana and marijuana users.

Now let’s also be very clear about something else—if you use a lot of marijuana, and especially via combustion, you are depositing toxins in your body.

Combusting is not smart. Good news is you easily eliminate the harms of combustion by using a precision vaporizer, of which there really is only one worthwhile portable version, the Storz & Bickel Mighty+.

Or you could use a desktop vaporizer (think electric hookah), such as the inexpensive Arizer V-Tower.

When you set vaporizer temperatures from 375-394°F, you inhale all the cannabinoids and terpenoids from your marijuana flowers, without the toxins and particulates of combustion.

Cackett could also use edibles, tinctures, and vape pens, although they create a different suite of effects than smoked or vaporized marijuana.

However, vaporizers and vape pens often create a marijuana odor. So even if Cackett accommodated Josefa’s bullying by giving up combusting marijuana, it’s likely Josefa would still complain.

How far does Josefa want this kind of Karening to go? For example, she might wear perfume someone else hates to smell. If Josefa worked in an office, and her co-worker hated her perfume and got headaches every time Josefa wore it, should she sue Josefa, hoping to use the legal system to force Josefa not to use the perfume?

That’s not a slippery slope argument or comical rhetorical question. That’s a logical consequence of precedents set by rulings that clearly discriminate against marijuana users and empower obnoxious Karens.

Marijuana legalization activists have long pointed out that restrictions on where people can smoke cannabis limit the user’s rights, and that there’s no scientific proof that second-hand marijuana smoke outdoors causes any harm at all.

Some so-called legalization includes bans on public consumption. You can publicly consume alcohol and tobacco, but in many “legalized” states, marijuana users have to hide in the closet. But if their closet is next door to Josefa, there’s nowhere to hide!

Adam Eidinger, a D.C. activist who helped lead the D.C. marijuana legalization campaign, said the problem of cannabis smokers annoying their Karen neighbors would be eliminated if D.C. legalized outdoor consumption.

“Hopefully this is a wake-up call for cannabis smokers that they should be fighting for outdoor common use spaces and social use locations,” Eidinger said.

Under  current D.C. policy, most people cited for smoking marijuana in public must report for booking to a police station within two weeks and can choose to fight the citation in court or pay a fine.

Eidinger said the policy disproportionately affects residents who live in public housing. Those residents are subject to eviction and arrest under federal laws if caught using marijuana, even for approved medical reasons.

He also noted that in a very dense urban grid like D.C. many people don’t have private yards or patios, makes lighting up indoors the only legal option for many.

Josefa now joins the long list of narcissistic Karens who harm others in an attempt to force their lifestyle preferences on others. Looking at a photo of her, and with background in health and fitness, I’m rather sure her health problems are caused by overeating, lack of exercise, Karen syndrome, and other issues, not second-hand marijuana smoke that magically travels through walls.

Here’s just a partial list of what other vicious Karens have done:

  • A Karen sues the city council after they installed a new STOP sign that blocks the sun from her window for two minutes a day. The sign was installed after a child on his bicycle was hit and killed by a speeding driver
  • During the peak of COVID, anti-vaxx COVID denier Karens made lives miserable for retail workers and others, constantly screeching about the “terrible indignity” of wearing a protective mask.
  • A Karen went mad with rage when a wheelchair ramp was placed where she used to park her car. She ignored the ramp and parks in the same spot.

The bottom line is that Karens and Chads are the tip of the iceberg for increasingly political and personal fascism in America. Just like Ron DeSatan and other GOP politicians want to interfere with people’s health care, women’s bodies, school teachers, marijuana legalization, and free speech, Karens and Chads want to stop you from using marijuana in your own home, solely because they don’t like the smell.

Well, Josefa, I’m sure you don’t smell so good either. In fact, I suspect that Mr. Cackett is feeling sick right now because of it. You cost him and his landlord a lot of money in legal fees, Josefa, while also stealing the right of a medical user to use his own medicine in private or at all. You put extra stress and hassle into the lives of others, Josefa, all so you don’t have to smell that evil weed.

Josefa, it’s time for you to change your name to Karen. Because that’s who you are! Maybe we will see you in a compilation like the one here: