Giving Compass' Take:

• Bloomberg interviews Howard Buffett, brother of Warren, about his research on US border security and the drug epidemic. Buffett says we must address the increasing demand for drugs in our country and give law enforcement more flexibility.

• How can nonprofits help? Healthcare dedicated to more humane treatment of drug users would be a start, as would more cooperation with Mexico.

• We also should end stereotypes when it comes to the US-Mexico border. It's an area of innovation.

Howard Buffett, son of one of the world’s richest men, has been running the sheriff’s department in his rural Illinois county for the past several months.

It’s led him to a revelation about the relationship between two big challenges for America: border security and a drug epidemic. He’s attempted to detail some of the causes of the problems and how to address them in a recently released book.

“There is no way that you can take this problem and put it in a sound bite and be fair,” Buffett said in a phone interview, discussing his book, “Our 50-State Border Crisis.” “One of the biggest reasons I wrote this book was because I think most people in this country have not made the connection between border security” and the tens of thousands of people who died last year of drug overdoses.

While President Donald Trump has supported building a U.S. border wall, and the federal government and some states are clashing over policies, Buffett, 63, is preaching a more nuanced approach. He’s not a politician and said he doesn’t have ties to the Trump administration, but through his foundation and its $360 million in assets as of 2016, Buffett has gotten a close look at the effects of increased drug-related violence in places like Honduras. And within the sheriff’s department in Macon County, Illinois, he’s used philanthropic efforts to offer drug users a way to turn themselves in without fear of prosecution and receive treatment.

Read the full interview with Howard Buffett about border security and the drug epidemic by Katherine Chiglinsky and Noah Buhayar at Bloomberg.com.