Earlier this year, I picked up a rather unfortunate habit: vaping. More specifically, I started smoking flavored vapes manufactured in China’s so-called “Vape Valley” and sold throughout the United States. Flavored nicotine vapes are largely illegal in the US, yet convenience stores and tobacco shops across the country have generated billions of dollars in sales from these products in recent years, despite periodic law enforcement seizures and efforts by the Food and Drug Administration to keep them off the market. More recently, Chinese manufacturers have found a new way to sidestep the law, escaping regulatory oversight altogether. Like many people, I assumed the only addictive chemical in these products was synthetic nicotine, which vape manufacturers have used for years to avoid FDA oversight. But after Congress closed that loophole in 2022—expanding regulation beyond tobacco-derived nicotine—Chinese manufactures began filling their vapes with little-studied chemicals that mimic nicotine’s effects, known as nicotine analogs. Because current regulations still narrowly define what counts as nicotine, Chinese companies have been able to sell nicotine analog vapes in the US without …