The war on drugs is winding down, and the war on tobacco is ramping up. E-cigarettes, a safer nicotine-delivery alternative, have contributed to plummeting use of traditional cigarette smoking. Yet the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has effectively made it harder for cigarette smokers to switch by limiting vapes from the market. The agency also recently announced a ban on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, which will push more products onto the black market, with all sorts of unintended consequences.
"As tobacco, e-cigarettes, and e-liquids transition from legal to illicit, law enforcement agencies will more aggressively interfere with production, distribution, retail sales, and in some cases even individual use," wrote Jacob Grier, author of The Rediscovery of Tobacco: Smoking, Vaping, and the Creative Destruction of the Cigarette, in a recent issue of Reason. And there's no way to know how far police will go when black market purveyors inadvertently break the law by selling banned smoking products.
