Alternatively, prioritizing the needs of the already-addicted vs. keeping a new generation off the product entirely is "short sighted". Statistically, let's be honest: you guys are a lost cause.
The tobacco industry was able to hold off the "definitive proof" - which they were entirely aware of internally - for decades.
It seems quite likely that inhaling vaporized chemicals multiple times a day will have some health impacts. As with tobacco, the evidence will take a long while to accumulate, and the industry is likely to obfuscate as long as possible.
Frankly, letting a company aggressively market a highly addictive compound to an impressionable segment of society because of a single-use excuse ("it can be used as medication!") is a bit disappointing. It also reads as astroturfing because it's such a limp talking point.
Sure, why not. Germany for example put a heavy tax on alcopops because they were too popular with teenagers (despite teenagers not being allowed to buy them), which largely drove alcopops from the market [1]
Because alcohol use is much more socially accepted than nicotine use.
More likely there are two factors at play:
1. The alcohol industry is a massive source of tax revenues (unlike guns or tobacco).
2. Educated voters across the spectrum enjoy alcohol but have largely left smoking behind ("people that matter").
Everything about regulating vices falls down when it comes to alcohol. Every indictment of guns or tobacco (dangerous, unhealthy, societal harm) is amplified for alcohol...yet it gets a pass while other vices are condemned.
Inexact. A lot of young women prefer those to beer and are getting hooked on alcohol through them. Much to their detriment. (Alcohol consumption causes cancer, especially breast cancer in women.)
No, they don't, and we do ban advertising those drinks directly to children.