War on Drugs Meets War on Vaping--This Won't End Well

Jeffrey A. SingerLast summer, Brian Besser, Drug Enforcement Administration District Agent in charge of Utah, told reporters that Mexican drug cartels have “all of a sudden gotten involved in this vape cartridge industry, and reasonably so, because they know they are going to make money off of it.”This makes sense. Prohibition incentivizes  innovations in the production and distribution of illicit substances to make detection more difficult. It is very hard to identify illicit drugs that are processed in liquid form and combined with scented juices in vaping cartridges.On November 1, Agent Besserinformed reporters of a DEA intelligence report stating illicit fentanyl is being found in bootleg vaping cartridges in various parts of the country, although not yet in Utah.The Utah Department of Health reports more than 100 people have been hospitalized in the state for vaping-related illness, with one death. 90 percent of the patients admitted to using bootleg THC cartridges.There is a grim lesson in this tragic intersection of the war on drugs with the war on vaping: prohibition kills.Prohibition of marijuana promotes bootleg and homemade concoctions of THC vaping liquids sold in cartridges in the underground market, where they are often mixed with unsafe solvents. Prohibition of opioids causes innovative —and more deadly—ways of producing and distributing the drugs.NowAxios reports the Food and Drug Administration may announce plans next week to ban all flavored vaping ...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs