The Predictable Consequence of Prohibition: Australia Created the Market It Now Warns You About

Another uncomfortable reality sits beneath this latest warning, and it is one that policymakers rarely acknowledge. The discovery of etomidate in an illicit vape is not simply evidence of a contaminated product. It is evidence of a market that has become so detached from regulation that consumers can no longer have confidence in what they are buying. In a functioning legal market, consumers may still face risks, but those risks are at least known, monitored and subject to oversight. In a black market, uncertainty itself becomes the risk. A person purchasing a nicotine vape may unknowingly be purchasing a product containing synthetic cannabinoids, excessive nicotine concentrations, undisclosed chemicals or, as this latest warning demonstrates, even a hospital anaesthetic. The danger is not merely the substance itself. The danger is that nobody knows what else might be there.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that governments continue to treat each contamination event as though it emerged from nowhere. Every warning is framed as an isolated discovery, a rogue product or a criminal act disconnected from the broader policy environment. Yet these incidents are not occurring in a vacuum. They are occurring within a market that policymakers deliberately pushed underground. The conditions that allow these products to flourish did not develop naturally. They were created through policy choices that prioritised prohibition over regulation and ideology over pragmatism.

The irony is difficult to ignore. For years, Australians were told that legal nicotine vaping products represented an unacceptable public health threat. Policymakers argued that restricting access would protect consumers from harm. Yet today, consumers face a market where products can contain substances as dangerous and unexpected as etomidate, and public health officials are reduced to issuing emergency alerts after the products have already reached the community. It is difficult to argue that this represents an improvement in consumer safety.

If anything, the situation highlights a fundamental misunderstanding of how markets function. Governments often behave as though demand can simply be legislated away. They assume that if access becomes difficult enough, consumers will stop seeking the product altogether. History suggests otherwise. Human behaviour rarely changes because a parliament passes a law. When demand remains, supply follows. The only question is whether that supply comes from regulated businesses operating under public scrutiny or criminal organisations operating in the shadows.

Australia answered that question several years ago.

Instead of creating a tightly controlled retail market with age verification, product standards, manufacturing requirements and enforcement against bad actors, policymakers effectively handed the market to those least concerned with public health outcomes. The result should not be surprising. Criminal enterprises do not conduct ingredient testing. They do not submit products for regulatory approval. They do not issue recalls. They do not worry about adverse event reporting systems. They certainly do not care whether a customer accidentally consumes a powerful sedative. Their business model depends on avoiding scrutiny, not embracing it.

This is why every new contamination warning should be viewed as a policy signal rather than simply a product warning. The discovery of etomidate is not just telling us something about a particular vape. It is telling us something about the environment in which that vape was produced and sold. It is exposing the consequences of removing legitimate supply chains while leaving demand largely untouched. It is demonstrating what happens when governments focus almost exclusively on restricting access while paying insufficient attention to where consumers will turn next.

The public is often told that these dangers justify even stronger enforcement. Yet this argument ignores the fact that stronger enforcement has been the dominant strategy for years. During that time, the illicit market has not disappeared. It has expanded. Organised crime has not retreated. It has diversified. Products have not become safer. They have become increasingly unpredictable. If the objective was to eliminate illicit supply, the evidence suggests the strategy is failing. Repeating the same approach while expecting a different outcome is not evidence-based policymaking. It is wishful thinking.

What is perhaps most remarkable is that many of these consequences were forecast well in advance. Economists warned that creating a large disparity between legal demand and legal supply would inevitably fuel black-market activity. Criminologists warned that organised crime would seize the opportunity. Harm reduction advocates warned that consumers would continue seeking nicotine products regardless of legal restrictions. Even basic economic theory predicted exactly what would happen. Yet these warnings were often dismissed as industry talking points or attempts to undermine public health objectives.

Today, the consequences are becoming impossible to ignore.

Australia is experiencing an unprecedented illicit tobacco and vape trade. Tobacco stores are being firebombed. Criminal groups are fighting over territory. Governments are losing billions in tax revenue. Consumers are purchasing products of uncertain origin. Now, public health authorities are warning that anaesthetic drugs are being found in vaping products sold on Australian streets.

At some point, policymakers must ask whether these outcomes represent unfortunate exceptions or whether they are the predictable consequences of the strategy itself.

Because the discovery of etomidate did not occur despite the prohibition.

It occurred within the marketplace that prohibition helped create.

That is the uncomfortable truth at the centre of this story. The latest warning is not simply about a dangerous vape. It is about the failure of a policy framework that promised safety but delivered uncertainty, promised control but empowered criminal networks, and promised public health protection while steadily removing many of the safeguards that regulation was designed to provide.

The question Australians should now be asking is not whether etomidate belongs in a vape. The answer to that is obvious.

The real question is why policymakers remain surprised when dangerous substances appear in a market they knowingly pushed beyond the reach of meaningful regulation.