5. People assume that enforcement will be fully effective and that there will be no black markets or other circumventions of the law. When these black markets arise (as becomes inevitable when the conflict with consumer value scales is severe enough), people fail to connect the ill effects with the initial regulatory intervention. Instead, they mentally associate these negative conditions with the products themselves and therefore conclude, ironically, that their initial belief in regulation has been vindicated. In reality, of course, such undesirable consequences should be attributed to the regulatory policy rather than the nature of the product. The still-legal tobacco market, for instance, is not plagued by comparable gang wars among distributors, thefts by addicts to support their habits, and sudden deaths from accidental overdoses in the absence of product quality control.

6. People overlook the long-run adverse effects of the regulatory environment on overall consumer judgment and on the evolution of market institutions to provide consumer information (pp. 4.10:2-6, 4.11:62-3).  

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