JUUL is like any other nicotine alternative (e.g. gum) -- has Nicorette been sued after people switched from cigarettes to their product and retaining their addiction to nicotine?
Further, it's peppered all around their site: Warning: This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical.
I don't vape, but I feel like this case is bull.
In the UK there's a voluntary agreement to not market to young people, and to not sell product to people who are not smokers.
Something like juul happening over here would probably prompt more formal regulation.
It definitely happens, it happened to me and a few friends. I suppose we may be extreme outliers but I think it's happening a bit more than people might guess.
Not exactly so, a distinguishing feature of Juul is that the nicotine provided is formulated as a salt rather than as a free base.
If they said that it was less addictive than cigarettes based on the average nicotine in a cigarette versus the average nicotine in a single pod, it would depend if a single pod has less nicotine or not.
Just looked it up, they claim a pod is equivalent to a pack.
It would also depend on their exact claim. If they're just claiming that it's a way to get people off of cigarettes, then that's not the same as nicotine independence.
E-cigarettes also give the user a lot more control over what they ingest. It's anecdata, but I know several people who have weaned themselves mostly or entirely off nicotine after switching to vaping thanks to the ability to mix or purchase vape liquid with variable nicotine content (this requires some level of knowing what you're doing and doesn't apply to mass-market products like Juul).
Vape products are also the largest existential threat to the status quo of the tobacco industry right now. Drawing an equivalence between e-cigarettes and conventional smokes vilifies the former and is exactly what big tobacco wants.
I'm not anti-regulation in general - designing e-cig products to give a more intense nicotine hit than smokes seems insane and if that's what Juul is doing then they can all get bent. But telling people that vaping is smoking is deceptive, and until conventional cigarettes no longer exist I believe that the suggestion is actively harmful.