Jessica Melugin and Ryan Young of the Competitive Enterprise Institute write about the federal government’s misguided crackdown on nicotine:

Last week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a plan to limit nicotine in cigarettes and ban Juul e-cigarettes. A court quickly stayed the Juul decision, so Juul products will remain on shelves for now. But both measures, if they were to take effect, would create incentives for black markets.
E-cigarettes such as those made by Juul are a safer alternative to tobacco, and an effective quitting aid for smokers. Mandating that tobacco cigarettes have a lower nicotine content would encourage smokers to smoke more to get the same nicotine effect — or to go underground to look for higher-nicotine cigarettes.
And, as if the FDA hadn’t done enough harm, now the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is getting in on the action.

Veronique de Rugy writes about an example of industrial policy from France:

And here the story of the Minitel, even though not a resounding failure, offers a great illustration of one of the problems with industrial policy. When thinking of the Minitel story, we are lucky to have a perfect product to compare it to: The iPhone. As Mercatus Center’s Dan Rothchild reminded me, the iPhone came out 15 years ago, and its evolution offers a sharp contrast with the Minitel. While the iPhone has changed and improved dramatically over the years, thanks to Apple investment and innovation, the Minitel pretty much stagnated. The difference couldn’t be more stark.