Officers can well identify the potential trouble ahead when they see neon-colored, candy-flavored disposable nicotine vapes. They also can – and should – help authorities track them to the distributors and international smugglers who poison our children and fund their drug and arms businesses.
I have spent more than four decades walking evidence lines, logging contraband, and knocking on doors after midnight drug raids. I have learned to read neighborhoods the way old-timers read cattle tracks. These vapes are the freshest type of track I see today. Whenever my deputies find one, we know we are just scratching the surface because that little plastic tube almost always points to larger crimes.
Many of these vapes are from China and are the entry ticket for international syndicates that want low-risk, high-margin products to bankroll more-dangerous ventures. The devices arrive in bulk from factories outside Shenzhen, concealed in sea-containers marked “flashlights” or “phone