Washington lawmakers deserve credit for taking meaningful steps to confront the growing threat of illicit tobacco and vapor products. Stronger enforcement tools, clearer penalties, and a renewed focus on keeping illegal products out of our communities are long overdue. These efforts matter not just for public health, but for public safety.
As a prosecutor, I have seen firsthand how illicit markets do not operate in isolation from the communities they exist in. They are magnets for organized crime, violence, and exploitation. When we strengthen enforcement, we disrupt those networks and protect the public, especially kids.
But enforcement alone is only part of the answer. If we are serious about protecting young people and communities, we also need to be honest about how policy choices can unintentionally undermine those goals. Around the world there is a cautionary tale playing out in real time.
Australia was once considered the gold standard in anti-smoking policy. Through aggressive taxation, plain packaging, and strict regulation, it drove legal smoking rates to some of the lowest in the developed world. But as a recent Bloomberg investigation details, those same policies also helped create a massive illicit tobacco market, one now responsible for more than half of all tobacco sales in the country and the resurgence of youth smoking.
With legal cigarette prices consistently rising, criminal networks stepped in and provided an alternative to the regulated trade. Cheap, untaxed cigarettes and illegal vapes flooded neighborhoods. Targeted groups include minors and school-aged youth. Unfortunately cigarettes and vapes are not the only things being marketed. As is customary when organized crime creeps into a market, we see an uptick in violence and co-occurring crimes. As a nation, billions in lost tax revenue and a new generation exposed to illegal nicotine products sold without age checks or safety standards.
Far from a public-health victory, this is a public-safety failure.
In Spokane County, I have seen young people drawn into criminal activity through illicit vaping products — often cheap, brightly packaged devices imported illegally from China. What starts as selling vapes at school can escalate into ties with organized distributors, drug trafficking, theft, weapons offenses, and violence. These are not hypotheticals. These are cases my office prosecutes.
When illegal products dominate the market, public health and public safety suffer, especially for youth.
That is why Washington’s recent focus on enforcement is critical. Cracking down on illegal supply chains, strengthening penalties for traffickers, and giving law enforcement clear authority to act are all steps in the right direction. Legislators deserve recognition, but there is much more work to be done.
But we should be careful not to repeat Australia’s mistake.
When taxes and regulatory burdens push legal products out of reach, demand for the product does not disappear. It moves into the illicit market. Unlike legitimate trade, the illicit market does not ask for ID or consent for exposure to hard drugs. It does not follow safety standards. It does not pay taxes. It does not care about our kids. Importantly, the illicit trade does not contribute to the safety nets such as law enforcement, emergency services, hospitals, and counseling that many young people will need as a result.
Excessive taxation may feel like progress, but if it drives consumers into the illicit market, it creates larger and more expensive public-safety consequences.
Effective public policy means balancing public-health goals with real-world enforcement outcomes. It means ensuring that legal, regulated markets do not collapse under the weight of well-intentioned but overly aggressive tax policy. And it means recognizing that every new incentive for illicit trade is an opportunity for criminal organizations to expand and reach even further into our communities.
Washington can lead by doing both, strong enforcement and effective policy design. We should not take one step forward and two steps back.
We can protect kids, support public health, and deny criminals a foothold if we stay focused on stronger, more durable solutions rather than short-term fixes.
