Source: Brownstone Institute
by Roger Bate
“Over the past few years, quiet but extraordinary warnings have emerged from the US Treasury Department. The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network reports that illicit e-cigarettes are being used as part of trade-based money-laundering schemes linked to fentanyl trafficking. Illegal vaping products are no longer just a regulatory nuisance or a youth-use talking point. They have become a financial instrument in the cartel economy. The finding matters because it exposes a reality many policymakers have spent years denying — prohibition does not eliminate markets, it reorganizes them. And when demand persists, prohibition reliably hands control to the most ruthless and well-organized suppliers.” (02/26/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/fincens-warning-and-the-predictable-failure-of-prohibition/