Obviously the illicit tobacco trade is a large/primary driver of this, but illicit vapes are also becoming a part of their business.

Are you saying that legitimate tobacco stores are being burned down by illicit tobacco traffickers? To eliminate competition?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-15/tweed-tobacconist-ram...

Organizers of what? The businesses, or illicit tobacco?

What does standing over mean?

It's not clear to me why standing over would be a motivation for attacks.

To “stand over” is a verb meaning roughly to “threaten, with menace”.

But it doesn’t necessarily mean that that’s the party or parties that have undertaken the attacks.

There have been few isolated incidents of the tobacconist stores having been set ablaze, but it does not equate to, e.g. east coast Australian capital cities, being engulfed in putrid smouldering fires emanating from the said tobacconist shops.

Australian government introduced a (rushed) law in July this year that outlawed street sales of vapes and obligated local pharmacies to sell the officially licensed vapes instead, which has caused a uproar and a revolt on behalf of the Pharmacist Guild who bluntly refused to stock and distribute the vapes. The pharmacies that are not the guild members have made decisions at their own discretion. The drama is still unfolding.

There have been more than 70 arson attacks on tobacco stores and other businesses believed to be involved in the sale of illicit tobacco since March 2023, according to the Victoria police assistant commissioner Martin O’Brien.

ABC[0] reports following numbers for arson attacks on tobacconists across Australian states:

NSW: 14

Victoria: 130

Queensland: 30

South Australia: 12

Western Australia: 8

Whilst 14 (NSW) is more than a few, the order of magnitude difference compared with 130 (VIC) is a bewildering revelation, indeed, especially considering that NSW has a larger population. I do not know what makes NSW and VIC so different with respect to the matter at hand.

[0] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-29/two-men-arrested-over...

Both these parties run tobacco stores in many states - licensing was/is non-existant or minimal, although they are now increasing the overview and requirements in states that were lax.

These stores were mostly branded as vape/convenience stores until the recent regulation changes, now they often sell american candy and various random things along with local gov sanctioned cigarettes ($50/pack minimum) or the imported packs ($15-25 pack) - you can guess which one they pretty much exclusively sell.

Asians (Vietnamese/Chinese) are also selling the imported cigarettes out of their own branded stores and also some of the big chain tobacco stores (TSG, Cignall).

There have been dozens of arson attacks against the Lebanese and Biker stores over the last few years, supposedly over territory and payments.

A lebanese nearby had its security facade destroyed and was torched black the day after last years Christmas.

The asians don't seem to be involved in the arson attacks, they may be importing it as many of the packs are korean/chinese, but unsure as also eastern european and english brands are available.

The government engineered this situation with its ridiculous taxation policy, it was effective up to a point but it's becoming reminiscent of the era of alcohol prohibition in the USA.

IMO this is only causing more problems. It won't put people off smoking because cheaper illegal alternatives arrive and it will create heavy crime syndicates.

For kids, they're expensive to purchase, expensive to replace when mom/dad take it away, and much harder to conceal from teachers and parents. It's harder to swap flavors and such, too.

Really, the issue is that public officials and police don't care. It took 3-4 years for NYC to start doing something about the thousands of illegal smoke shops.

The overhead of a charging circuit and a refillable or removable chamber is not much.

If they cared about health you'd be able to get Snus too

That organized crime already existed and this is just one of a dozen or so income streams for them. Hard drugs, human trafficking, and money laundering are probably orders of magnitude more profitable.

Also: people get murdered all the time, despite it being illegal. Clearly the law isn't working, so let's make murder legal! /s

Oh, and legalizing weed didn't do jack shit about dealers selling weed; the dealers are much cheaper, provide better service, and often better product (well, except the illicit stuff is likely to have much higher pesticide content.)

This isn’t universal. Oregon estimates roughly 80% of marijuana purchases are through legal sources nowadays.

The real issue the state sees now is apparently illegal grow farms to supply other states that haven’t legalized or where the taxes are too high.

Source: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/14/oregon-mar...

A drug policy that makes it so that nobody who does party drugs has contact with a dealer breaks the entire supply chain because there's no outside money coming in.