Helium balloons and other trivial uses of the gas should be banned. We can't manufacture more until we figure out fusion. There's no replacement for it, it's not a complex chemical compound but rather an element. It's also one of the most important compounds there is for high tech equipment. It's use as a coolant is something that no other material in existence (or material people predict being created) can match.

Many years ago, I went to Disneyland with a friend who is quite literally a rocket scientist. His 7-year-old daughter asked him if she could have a helium balloon, and he said "No, because helium is a finite substance, needed to obtain Absolute Zero. And when the balloon flies off into the air, that helium is lost and is unrecoverable." I have laughed about that reply so many times, but it turns out he was telling her the truth.

CC

I've heard some natural gas fields actually vent the stuff in their flares. So despite there being a "shortage", the economy still isn't there to merit certain sources to be collected. (Reading the Wikipedia article on Helium, I think the U.S. gov't threw off the market by artificial limiting and flooding of the market, and it'll take time for the economics to stabilize regarding this resource.)

The age of arbitrarily cheap and easily obtained helium might be over, but there's still plenty around still untapped. (It's a decay product, and as long as there's fissionable isotopes deep underground, we're not really going to run out of it anytime soon.)

Hmm this means I'm going to mug any clowns I see on the street, steal their helium tanks and stash them away until helium becomes really rare and valuable.

Then I'll finally be rich! I knew I'd figure this out eventually.

And don't steal my idea.

A good start would be to ban those huge blimps that the US has currently under program. The one they lofted a few months ago would certainly fill enough toy balloons for a century or two.