Back in the days of Prohibition, many legitimate businesses would work as fronts for the illegal sale of alcohol. Bootleggers would partner with drug stores or barber shops, as depicted in "The Great Gatsby," to set up a bar behind a secret door. To gain passage, patrons would have to talk very quietly to avoid attention – hence the term speakeasy.
The same concept is alive and well 100 years later. Only now, instead of bathtub gin behind a barber shop, authorities are finding illegal drugs behind the counters of smoke and vape shops. In the day of the internet and tech-savvy law enforcement, you would think it is considerably harder to get away with.
These modern speakeasies aren’t limited to big cities like Gatsby’s New York. In September, police raided a vape shop near the University of Mississippi after undercover investigators conducted a controlled purchase. Inside, authorities found oodles of illicit drugs, including more than 500 units of kratom, THC cartridges, and other suspected narcotics.
The raid came amid an investigation into the deaths of two Ole Miss students. Court records show one of the students had purchased a kratom-like product from the store before his death. They arrested the store’s owners, three naturalized citizens from Yemen.
Now, one bad egg doesn’t mean that all the vape shops which have sprung up in the last 10 years or so are all run by Arab Al Capones. But there isn’t just one bad egg. Storefronts that should only be selling legal products have become convenient distribution points for products that duck the law. The market for illicit vapes and other controlled substances is flourishing, as unauthorized vapes have flooded American shelves.
Much like Gatsby’s and Meyer Wolfsheim’s “drug stores,” an underground distribution network has emerged around this shady business — one that can also provide a convenient retail channel for other illegal products to flood our communities. The police report about the Ole Miss vape shop shows investigators suspect the store owner had ties to other stores throughout the state.
The problem isn’t just unique to Mississippi. Undercover journalists led by James O’Keefe recently discovered that smoke shops across Los Angeles and San Diego continue to sell kratom after the state prohibited its sale for human consumption. As the video shows, you don’t even have to speak easy to get these drugs.
Most disturbingly, the video documented how store clerks attempted to process kratom purchases as “groceries” through Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cash, commonly used with the food stamps or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) program. The federal government spends about $100 billion on SNAP per year, but at least $10.5 billion of that is lost to fraud, waste, and abuse, according to the Government Accountability Office.
It’s particularly important to put an end to this smuggling, given that terrorists have long been known to use drug sales to fund their violence – like the Taliban’s opium sales. And illicit money has a way of traveling. Some SNAP fraud has been linked to the Islamic terror group Al-Shabaab, a rotten crowd that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is aiming to shut down “to ensure Americans’ taxes are not funding acts of global terror.”
Not every shady vape shop is secretly financing terrorists. But illegal commerce doesn’t stay neatly in its lane. Once you have built the infrastructure to smuggle, distribute,and sell illicit products, you have built an infrastructure that criminals can exploit.
While the legal vape industry has to play by the FDA's rules, illicit manufacturers can make products overseas, mislabel shipments, move them through distributors, and ultimately get them onto American shelves. The legitimate products get the red tape. The bad guys get a business model.
Just like Eliot Ness and his Untouchables 100 years ago, Americans shouldn't accept a system where legitimate businesses spend years navigating federal regulations to keep their noses clean while bad actors distribute illegal drugs right under Uncle Sam’s nose.
If a product isn't authorized for sale, it shouldn't be sold. And if someone is deliberately building a business around selling unauthorized products, regulators should go after the business and the supply chain behind it.
It's time to shut down the illicit vape pipeline – from the factory floor overseas to the storefront down the street.
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