Former ATF Deputy Director Rich Marianos put it bluntly: “The same people that are manufacturing fentanyl are manufacturing these vapes.” For years now, illegal disposable vape products have been making their way from our foreign adversaries onto the shelves of countless American corner stores and local shops, and criminal organizations are the ones making this operation possible.
Federal investigators found that the routes Chinese manufacturers employ to smuggle their illicit products are the exact same routes long used by infamous groups such as the Sinaloa Cartel and Jalisco New Generation Cartel. Criminal networks are able to move these products through channels they already control while raking in an easy profit. This transnational business has proven to be a lucrative one for these groups, with more than 80 percent of vape products sold in America currently being unauthorized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). That is particularly concerning given the backlog of products awaiting FDA approval.
The FDA must move faster on these applications, and as it approves or rejects individual products, it must publish a definitive list of exactly which specific products are legal to sell and which are not. Right now, a retailer trying to comply in good faith, or a state trooper trying to seize contraband with confidence, has no single, authoritative tool to confirm in the moment whether a given product is one of the several dozen legal ones or one of the thousands of illegal SKUs cartels are pushing into the market. Regulations may look simple on paper, but without that clarity, they're nearly impossible to enforce on the ground.
Therein lies the problem. Because federal authorities are still treating these illegal vapes as a nuisance rather than a serious criminal-trafficking threat, the penalties for smuggling these products are nowhere close to matching the scope of the crime. The illegal vape industry is a multi-billion-dollar market. As such, authorities seizing a single container of contraband or menial fines are a drop in the bucket for the cartels or hostile foreign nations facilitating these supply chains. Without widespread federal enforcement, the smuggling of illicit vape products is a golden opportunity for criminal organizations to maximize their profits with minimized risk.
Meanwhile, the damage propagates every level. Honest, law-abiding retailers who choose not to sell unauthorized vapes are left trailing behind the numerous shops that have recently popped up stocking their shelves with contraband and harboring other criminal activity. Local communities are forced to endure the growing confidence of criminal networks and their supply chains. As it stands, law enforcement is playing catch-up against adversaries who don’t think twice about the consequences of their actions.
Operation Vape Trail, one of the largest and most coordinated illicit vape takedowns to date, was an effective and tangible deterrent to this plague. But such actions have tapered off since then as the most common reprimands amount to little more than fines, warning letters, and minimal prison time. What we are dealing with here is a crisis of national security, and lasting change will only arrive once the FDA, ATF, and other federal agencies treat the issue as such.
That means making those adversaries think twice by assigning illegal vape trafficking crimes with proportional penalties. It means the current administration must ensure better coordination between federal agencies and grant the resources necessary to intercept illegal shipments higher up the chain rather than the store shelves where unauthorized products become much more difficult to track. And it means the FDA finally delivering on that clarity — a real-time, product-specific list so there's no ambiguity when illicit products are seized.
America letting cartels and foreign adversaries like China run unimpeded campaigns targeting American kids would be unacceptable in any other format, and illicit vapes should be no exception. Criminal groups expand their distribution networks, and foreign adversaries line their pockets for little effort. Meanwhile, lawful American retailers lag behind their competition for simply following the rules. This national threat has been allowed to thrive for far too long. It’s time for stronger action at the federal level to finally put an end to it.
David Clouse is the Navajo County Sheriff and the President of the Arizona Sheriffs Association.
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