GUEST BLOG: Sinclair Davidson - Different Century, Same Failure: Why Vape Prohibition Was Always Doomed

Different century. Same failure.

Prohibition does not work. It never has. Alcohol prohibition taught this. The war on drugs taught this. Illicit tobacco taught this. Now vape prohibition is teaching it again.

Prohibition does not abolish demand. It abolishes lawful supply. The market does not disappear; it gets taken over by criminals.

This was not unforeseeable. This was not bad luck. This was not a failure of implementation. Governments and regulators chose a policy with a known track record of failure, then acted all surprised when it failed. Again. This is not about incompetence alone. This is beyond stupid. It is a moral failure of government.

Governments need to learn that consumers are sovereign. Consumers decide what they want. Governments can only decide whether consumers buy from reputable, law-abiding retailers, or from multinational criminal syndicates.

Right now, governments are choosing the criminals.

Your family-owned corner store is no longer competing with another retailer. It is competing with a multinational criminal syndicate. That is the direct result of a deliberately chosen policy.

When it comes to vaping, governments would rather subsidise criminals than admit they were wrong.

The regulators responsible for this debacle should stop hiding behind fear-mongering child-protection slogans and take responsibility for the black markets they have created.

The costs are real. Police waste time chasing vapes instead of serious crime. Honest retailers lose their businesses. Consumers buy products of unknown provenance. Criminals run riot in our communities who then have to absorb violence, extortion, and disorder. Adding insult to injury, governments lose tax revenue.

The political excuses are contemptible. Governments were warned by history. They were warned by economics and economists. They were warned by every failed prohibition campaign that has ever come before. They ignored the evidence, imposed the bans, created the black market, and now demand more power to deal with the consequences of their own failure.

Solutions to problems like this are not hard. Stop treating adults like children. Stop telling people how to live their lives. Stop treating vapers like drug addicted simpletons. People vape because they want to. They enjoy it.

Why should any adult stop doing what they enjoy because some busy-body nanny-stater has built a career out of being a scold.

Public policy should follow the model of treating adults as individuals who make their own choices.

That means keeping adult alternatives legal. Keep them in shops that can be inspected. Test the products. Enforce the age limits. Punish illegal sellers. Grow a legal market not a black market.

New Zealand, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Greece, and Czechia have all shown, in different ways and to different degrees, that the vaping and alternative products market can be managed without surrendering it to criminals. Learn from them, not the latest prohibitionist sermon from unelected activists with too much money and too little accountability.

A government serious about smoking would make it easier for adult smokers to move to less harmful products. A government serious about youth access would keep sales inside licensed shops where age checks can be enforced. A government serious about crime would not create a new profit centre for organised syndicates. A government serious about tax would keep transactions inside the lawful economy.

This is what adult policy looks like; legal adult access, enforceable age limits, visible retailers, taxable sales, and no more government-made black markets.

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Read Sinclair Davidson's new report When Regulation Becomes Prohibition: Black Markets, Enforcement Failure, and Vape Restrictions HERE.

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About Prohibition Does Not Work

Prohibition Does Not Work is a global advocacy platform highlighting the unintended consequences of prohibitionist policies and promoting evidence-based regulation that protects consumers, reduces harm, and supports public health goals.