[mullingitover]

Governments only really started to care about vaping when teen smoking started to plummet. Those teens were going to become a valuable revenue stream!

Also, governments have a perverse incentive to maintain tobacco sales. There are 10x as many enforcement checks for tobacco taxes being paid as there are for underage tobacco purchases.

[Clubber]

The less people smoke cigarettes (vapes are not part of the deal), the less the states get from the Tobacco master settlement case in 1998. There is a significant financial incentive for governments to keep people smoking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agre...