After Donald Trump visited the Los Angeles area late last month to observe the damage from recent fires, he made a nakedly political demand: As a condition of releasing federal aid to stricken areas, he wants California to make voters show ID at the polls. Trump is reportedly convinced that he would have won the state if it had such a law, but that has nothing to do with fire safety.

If Trump wants California to mend its ways before receiving federal disaster relief, he could make some reasonable requests: The state should stop encouraging suburban sprawl in fire-prone areas, for example, and start pushing property owners to take more precautions. To the exasperation of emergency-management experts and budget hawks alike, California fires are like many other disasters all around the country. They lead to massive insurance settlements and outflows of government aid, which in many cases pay for rebuilding the same physical environment that left people and their homes vulnerable in the first place.

[M. Nolan Gray: How well-intentioned policies fueled L.A.’s fires]

State governments typically manage the aftermath of natural disasters; when they are overwhelmed, they appeal to Washington for additional money. For years, people in my field have been urging Congress to put strings on that relief. Unfortunately, Trump’s voter-ID demand—along with his insistence that the state should also change its water policies, which he did not appear to fully understand—triggered a righteous response among prominent California Democrats. “Conditioning aid for American citizens is wrong,” Governor Gavin Newsom declared in a statement. No, it isn’t, but Trump is setting back the cause of reform.

The present federal disaster-relief system, built over decades, involves multiple pots of money from a variety of agencies: the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Small Business Administration, the Department of Housing and Urban Development. The 1988 Stafford Act, which governs the distribution of many of these funds, is built on the presumptions that major disasters are random, rare acts of God, and that communities hit by them need to be made whole again. But as climate change repeatedly exposes certain regions to the same disasters—fires in California, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast, tornadoes in the Great Plains—rebuilding the status quo looks less and less defensible. “Okay, that was a 40-year-old building; let’s rebuild a 40-year-old building,” one recovery official in Louisiana memorably said in a 2009 PBS report, capturing widespread frustration with federal rules governing New Orleans’s long recovery after Hurricane Katrina.

Some local jurisdictions have responded to disasters by taking steps to avoid a repeat. In 2018, the Camp Fire destroyed most of the buildings in Paradise, California, and killed 85 people. To build there now, homeowners must abide by local regulations, known as defensible-space requirements, that require them to remove vegetation that would otherwise help a fire move more quickly. In 2013, a tornado in Moore, Oklahoma, killed 24 people, including seven children in an elementary school. The community responded in part by imposing stringent new residential building codes.

When I visited Moore last year, after a devastating tornado season in Oklahoma, a builder named Marvin Haworth walked me through a home that requires sheathing, nail shanks, and hurricane straps under the new regulations. He was originally concerned about the changes, but the added cost to home purchasers is minimal, and the matter is settled now. “It is not a part of the discussion anymore,” he told me. “It’s the code. This is the way we are building and are going to build.”

[Nancy Walecki: The place where I grew up is gone]

Moore and Paradise both had the foresight to acknowledge the risks they face and take it upon themselves to change. States generally do not require such steps. Sweeping policy changes are difficult to enact immediately after a disaster. People are hurt and in need; political considerations demand that immediate distribution of money. That’s why FEMA administrators under presidents of both parties have proposed some version of conditional relief funding. Project 2025, the blueprint for Trump’s policies, calls on states to pay a “disaster deductible” before securing federal aid—a requirement that might motivate governors and legislators to demand better preparation for disasters. As The New York Times reported, that idea originally came from Craig Fugate, President Barack Obama’s FEMA chief, who insisted that Washington needed a mechanism to force states to do better advance planning. But states want money unconditionally, and substantive reform proposals such as Fugate’s have not survived political pushback.

Nevertheless, a lot of little changes—stronger nails, cleared yards—can add up to a more resilient society. Trump’s focus on political payback is unfortunate, because the current system needs an overhaul. Disasters are no longer random or rare. When disaster strikes, we should rebuild accordingly.

From inside the room, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings felt at times more like an awards show than a job interview. While the health-secretary nominee testified, his fans in the audience hooted and hollered in support. Even a five-minute bathroom break was punctuated by a standing ovation from spectators and cheers of “We love you, Bobby!” There were some detractors as well—one protester was ushered out after screaming “He lies!” and interrupting the proceedings—but they were dramatically outnumbered by people wearing Make America Healthy Again T-shirts and Confirm RFK Jr. hats.

The MAHA faithful have plenty of reason to be excited. If confirmed, RFK Jr. would oversee an agency that manages nearly $2 trillion, with the authority to remake public health in his image. “He just represents the exact opposite of all these establishment agencies,” Brandon Matlack, a 34-year-old who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign, told me on Wednesday. We chatted as he waited in a line of more than 150 people that snaked down a flight of stairs—all of whom were hoping to get a seat for the hearing. Many of them were relegated to an overflow room.

Of course, Matlack and other RFK Jr. fans could be in for a letdown. Whether Kennedy will actually be confirmed as health secretary is still up in the air. There was less raucous cheering during the hearing on Thursday, as Kennedy faced tough questions from Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, whose vote could be decisive in determining whether Kennedy gets confirmed. But the realization of RFK Jr.’s vision for health care in America may not hinge on his confirmation. The MAHA movement has turned the issue of chronic disease into such a potent political talking point that people like Matlack are willing to trek from Pennsylvania to Washington, D.C., just to support Kennedy. Politicians across the country are hearing from self-proclaimed “MAHA moms” (and likely some dads too) urging them to enact reforms. They’re starting to listen.

Kennedy is best known as an anti-vaccine activist who spreads conspiracy theories. His more outlandish ideas are shared by some MAHA supporters, but the movement itself is primarily oriented around improving America’s diet and the health problems it causes us. Some of the ways MAHA wants to go about that, such as pressuring food companies to not use seed oils, are not exactly scientific; others do have some research behind them. Consider artificial food dyes, a major MAHA rallying cry. Multiple food dyes have been shown in animal studies to be carcinogenic. And although a candy-corn aficionado likely isn’t going to die from the product’s red dye, the additive is effectively banned in the European Union. (Kennedy claims that food dyes are driving down America’s life expectancy. There’s no evidence directly linking food dyes to declining human life expectancy, though one study did show that they cut short the life of fruit flies.)

Until recently, concerns over food additives, such as artificial dyes, were the domain of Democrats. In 2023, California became the first state in the nation to ban certain food additives: red dye 3, potassium bromate, brominated vegetable oil, and propylparaben. But now food-additive bans are being proposed in Donald Trump country, including West Virginia, Arkansas, and Kentucky. Some of the efforts, such as the Make Arkansas Healthy Again Act, are an explicit attempt to enact Kennedy’s agenda.

In other states, something a bit more Schoolhouse Rock is happening: The purported dangers of food ingredients are riling up Americans, who are then going to their lawmakers seeking change. Eric Brooks, a Republican state legislator in West Virginia, told me that he decided to copy California’s food-additive bill after being prodded by a constituent. “I said, Well, I don’t normally look out West, especially out to California, for policy ideas, to be honest with you,” he told me. “But once I had done the research and I saw the validity of the issue, I said, Okay.” Although his bill, which was first introduced in January 2024, did not move forward in the previous legislative session because, in his words, “there were bigger fish to fry,” Brooks hopes the national interest coming from the MAHA movement will motivate West Virginia legislators to take another look at the proposal.

Other red-state efforts to follow California’s lead have similarly not yet been passed into law, but the fact that the bills have been introduced at all signifies how motivated Republicans are on the topic. The MAHA moms may be enough to propel Kennedy to the job of health secretary. One Republican, Senator Jim Banks of Indiana, told Kennedy on Thursday that he plans to vote to confirm him because doing anything else “would be thumbing my nose at that movement.” Republicans are not only introducing bills to ban food additives; they’re also taking up Kennedy’s other MAHA priorities. Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders recently asked the federal government for permission to forbid food-stamp recipients in her state from using their benefits to buy junk food—a policy Kennedy has repeatedly called for.

Over the past two days, senators seemed shocked at just how loyal a following Kennedy has amassed. One pejoratively called him a prophet. MAHA believers I spoke with made clear that they want RFK Jr.—and only RFK Jr.—to lead this movement. Vani Hari, a MAHA influencer who goes by “Food Babe” on Instagram, told me that, if Kennedy fails to be confirmed, there “will be an uprising like you have never seen.”

But at this point, it seems that the movement could live on even without Kennedy. On Wednesday, the Heritage Foundation hosted a press gaggle with MAHA surrogates. Heritage, an intellectual home of the modern conservative movement, is now praising the banning of food dyes. This is the same pro-business think tank that a decade ago warned that should the FDA ban partially hydrogenated oils, trans fats that were contributing to heart attacks, the agency “would be taking away choices,” “disrespecting” Americans’ autonomy, and mounting “an attack on dietary decisions.”

Republicans have generally been a bulwark for the food industry against policies that could hurt its bottom line. Democrats and Republicans in Washington today seem more aligned on food issues than ever before. “When you have members on both sides of the aisle whose constituencies are now extremely interested in understanding fully what’s in their food products, it does shift the game a bit,” Brandon Lipps, a food lobbyist and a former USDA official under Trump, told me. After all, even Bernie Sanders, despite chastising Kennedy multiple times during this week’s confirmation hearings, professed his support for aspects of the MAHA movement. “I agree with you,” Sanders told Kennedy on Thursday, that America needs “a revolution in the nature of food.” During the same hearing, Cassidy said that he is struggling with Kennedy’s candidacy because, despite their deep disagreements on vaccine policy, on “ultra-processed foods, obesity, we are simpatico. We are completely aligned.”

Although MAHA has shown itself to be a unifying message, the real test will come down to the brass tacks of any political movement: passing actual legislation. How willing lawmakers—especially those with pro-business proclivities—will be to buck the status quo remains to be seen. Politicians have proved eager to speak out against ultra-processed foods; in that sense, MAHA is winning. But policy victories may still be a ways off.

To judge by the shelves of America’s vice merchants, the nation is in the grips of a whipped-cream frenzy. Walk into any vape store or sex shop, and you’ll find canisters of nitrous oxide showcased in window displays—ostensibly to catch the eye of bakers and baristas, who use the gas to aerate creams and foams. At the bodega near my apartment, boxes of up to 100 mini-canisters are piled up to eye level, next to Baby Yoda bongs.

In fact, culinary professionals generally don’t shop for equipment at stores with names like Puff N Stuff or Condom Sense. The true clientele inhales the gas to get high. A dangerous and technically illegal drug, nitrous oxide is widely available as long as everyone pretends it’s destined for use as a food product. Indeed, a whole industry appears to have built its business model around exploiting this loophole. Large distributors brand and flavor nitrous in ways that attract young inhalers, stock it with retailers catering to other vices, and sell it in quantities that are implausible for culinary use but ideal for huffing. The gas can even be ordered from Walmart, Amazon, and eBay. Without meaningful regulation, getting high on nitrous will remain as convenient as picking up a bag of chips.

Nitrous oxide has been recreationally inhaled since the 1800s. It induces a euphoric head rush and tingling in the user’s fingers and toes, often followed by giddy laughter. Almost as soon as it starts, it’s over. The effects of a single hit typically last for less than a minute.

The modern version of the drug, known colloquially as a “whippet” or “whip-it,” has recently climbed the youth-popularity ranks. (These products are distinct from the Reddi-Wip cans found at the supermarket, which contain cream and nitrous oxide together. The canisters proliferating now contain the gas alone.) Although pandemic-era lockdown protocols hampered illicit drugs’ supply chains, nitrous oxide remained broadly available by comparison. In 2018, about 12.5 million Americans over age 12 reported having ever used it, a number that rose to nearly 14 million in 2022. Social media is full of clips of young people ripping hits before falling on their faces (so much so that TikTok eventually banned nitrous-related search terms). Fans of the drug have created gas-tank accessories in the video game Roblox; one rapper’s song “Whippet” features him and his entourage ripping hits of nitrous from tanks tucked in their waistbands between verses. A recent Columbia graduate told me that, back in college, one friend’s birthday party featured a salad bowl “full to the brim” with used nitrous canisters. (He spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss illegal drug use.)

[Malcolm Ferguson: Marijuana is too strong now]

As you might imagine, depriving your brain of oxygen in favor of laughing gas is not wise. Heavy nitrous users can suffer severe health consequences, including, occasionally, death. Varun Vohra, an emergency-medicine professor at Wayne State University, in Detroit, told me that heavy users experience symptoms including irregular walking, bodily weakness, and severe limb pain. (Nitrous-oxide-related emergency-room visits in Michigan more than doubled from 2022 to 2023.) Inhaling the gas deactivates vitamin B12, which harms nerves in the brain and the spinal cord. Among chronic users, this can eventually induce paralysis. Users also report depression, anxiety, mood swings, and even hallucination. A senior at Tulane University, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, told me that he’d quit the drug after one night when he took a deep inhale and blacked out. He awoke on the floor a few seconds later, unable to remember what had happened; his friends told him he’d had a seizure.

Perhaps the greatest danger arises from what people do while huffing the drug. Ed Scott, a city-council member in Rialto, California, told me that his son, Myles, died in a car accident after his friend inhaled the gas while driving and passed out at the wheel. This inspired Scott to investigate the drug’s use in California. He told me that he found many other fatal car accidents in which nitrous-oxide products were discovered at crash sites but police—who thought they were helium cannisters—did not register the crashes as DUIs.

Given the health and safety risks, the sale and use of nitrous oxide for recreational purposes is technically illegal. The key word here is technically. Businesses can generally get away with selling nitrous oxide over the counter as long as they say it’s for culinary use—and pretend not to know what customers are really doing with it. (Some states prohibit sales to anyone under 21 or 18.) If, that is, they even bother pretending. The Tulane senior told me that the clerks at his local smoke shop greeted him with shouts of “whip-it boy!” when he visited to restock.

A major industry has grown out of the regulatory vacuum. In 2020, Marissa Politte’s family sued United Brands, the Silicon Valley–based company that distributes the brand Whip-It!, after she was killed by an unconscious nitrous-huffing driver. Documents revealed by the lawsuit suggest that the players involved know they’re benefiting from a legal loophole. A former warehouse employee estimated that three-quarters of United Brands’ customers were smoke shops, not bakeries or cafés. The client list named retailers including Mary Jane’z Novelties, Herban Legend Smoke Shop, Smoke 420, and Precious Slut 1. In a seven-year span, documents show, the company sold about 52,000 “chargers,” or miniature nitrous capsules, to Kaldi’s Coffee—and more than 1 million to the It’s A Dream smoke shop.

Internal emails between United Brands and retailers, uncovered by the lawsuit, suggest a certain cynicism around legal compliance. One United Brands employee emailed a retailer requesting that the Whip-It! chargers “are used properly and legally.” The retailer responded: “yah man we know the deal we put a disclaimer… you know we all got to cover our asses, better safe than sorry.” (United Brands did not respond to multiple requests for comment.)

Meanwhile, many other companies market nitrous in ways that seem conspicuously ill-tailored to professional pastry chefs. A variety of gas tanks are sold with names that evoke marijuana strains, not whipped cream—Monster Gas (slogan: “Become easy, Become happy!”), Hippie Whippy, Baking Bad, Cosmic Gas—and in flavors such as mango smoothie and tropical punch. Colorful labels feature fruits, unicorns, women in bathing suits, or sports cars. (Hervé Malivert, the director of culinary affairs at the Institute of Culinary Education, told me that many food professionals are loyal to iSi chargers, which they order from the company’s website—not at a gas station. Malivert said he has never heard of a chef using flavored gas or gas tanks.)

One of the most prominent nitrous companies is Galaxy Gas, which was founded in 2021 by three brothers who ran Cloud 9, an Atlanta-based smoke-shop chain. A Cloud 9 executive told New York magazine that Galaxy Gas at one time made up nearly 30 percent of all nitrous sales nationwide. Asked by CBS to explain why anyone would need to buy a tank with enough nitrous oxide to make thousands of servings of whipped cream, a Galaxy Gas spokesperson claimed that the product was for customers seeking an “erotic culinary lubricant.” (The company’s rising profile in the world of whip-its has brought legal scrutiny. According to New York, its trademark was recently sold for $1 to a newly registered corporate owner, and it has paused direct sales. Galaxy Gas did not respond to requests for comment.)

[Mike Riggs: Congress accidentally legalized weed six years ago]

In response to the spread of nitrous-oxide use, states and the federal government have begun taking steps toward more effective regulation. The most notable example is Louisiana, where the drug used to be outlawed only if sold for the purpose of being inhaled. Legislation enacted last May made its sale presumptively illegal, with carveouts for genuine industrial and culinary use. Jeanette Brick, the president of iSi North America, told me that her company does not oppose the Louisiana law. “These laws are intended to prevent misuse, and they have not negatively impacted our ability to serve the culinary community in the state,” she said in an email. She also noted that “iSi does not sell large tanks of nitrous oxide, as they have no culinary application and are increasingly associated with misuse. We strongly advocate for additional restrictions on these large tanks to help curb their growing misuse among teenagers.”   

Outside Louisiana, however, legislative efforts have yet to deliver significant change. In 2017, for example, then–California State Senator Jim Nielsen proposed a bill to ban nitrous-oxide sales in stores selling tobacco or tobacco-related products. Industry lobbyists opposed the bill, and it eventually failed to pass.

In the absence of effective regulation, litigation has emerged as the best tool to achieve accountability. In 2023, a Missouri jury found United Brands liable for conspiring to sell nitrous oxide as a drug. The company was ordered to pay $720 million to Marissa Politte’s family for her wrongful death. The novel jury verdict and the large court-mandated payout might set a lasting precedent. “You have companies whose full-time scheme it is to pour this stuff onto our streets,” Johnny Simon, the Politte family’s attorney, told me. “That’s who we need to go after.”

Still, case-by-case litigation can push only so hard against countervailing market forces. Nor should it have to, when the blueprint for lifesaving regulation exists. Had something like Nielsen’s California bill been federal law in 2020, Politte might still be alive. The driver who killed her bought his nitrous oxide from a smoke shop.