Some background on the water hyacinth [1]. You might have a point there. Mailing of tobacco? It is already illegal to avoid taxes and tariffs on tobacco. Why ban mailing it as well? Similarly, it is also illegal to smuggle drugs, why does the fact that someone may have done so with a submarine mean that "unregistered submarines" should be banned?
> It is already illegal to avoid taxes and tariffs on tobacco. Why ban mailing it as well?
Likely because proving intent to avoid taxes and tariffs is much harder than proving you've mailed something. I would bet it's a way to get around having complex expensive investigations for what was a common problem. Pass a law, now it's easy. You mailed tobacco? You're guilty. Case closed, problem reduced, taxpayer money saved.
I agree with much of your statement here. However, an unintended side-effect is you may end up prohibiting a lot of behavior that isn't the one you originally wanted to address and end up with an extremely broad set of laws that have the potential to be applied arbitrarily.
> However, an unintended side-effect is you may end up prohibiting a lot of behavior that isn't the one you originally wanted to address
Sure, but that's literally the case with every regulation. The point is to use them when the negatives of the behavior will likely outweigh the negatives the regulation might introduce. In a perfect world, there would be no laws, and free markets would work at peak efficiency all the time.
Now, I don't have enough information to argue authoritatively about the efficacy of this law, but based on the actual wording, where it says it's okay to do it for business as long as you've met all state and federal requirements means I think it's likely that for the most part it has little impact on individuals (who need to mail tobacco rarely) and businesses operating legally.
I would guess that it's just much easier to enforce a ban on submarines than a ban on submarines carrying drugs (it would be very easy to jettison drugs from a submarine).
