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Comment by olliej | Hacker News Reader

Um, by marketing an extremely addictive drug to children and young people?

That’s what tobacco did in the past, and are doing again now.

Eh. Not quite the same. And it wasn't marketed to children. Apparently there's just something about blowing smoke and age restriction that is cool to teens. It is almost as if Juul was sought after by them.

Also, it isn't tobacco that is the big driver of juul sales. Weed is. And we've had a multi-decade marketing campaign about how weed carries no negative side-effects by large swaths of the population. I got shellacked on this forum when I tried to argue that it isn't normal for kids to smoke weed (apparently it is perfectly normal for kids to 'experiment'). Juul didn't do that.

But an article I read on the internet said it was true!

Tobacco is an industrial product. It's only amenable to industrial cultivation at scale, because of the biology of the tobacco plant. It's not feasible to grow and process enough tobacco yourself to sustain a habit. This is why big tobacco made such a gigantic pile of money in the last 100 years. But now Americans don't smoke cigarettes anymore.

The thing about weed is that it's not an industrial product. A 15 year old can easily grow enough weed in his bedroom to keep himself constantly high. This is Really Bad for profits.

So Juul is valuable because big tobacco sees an opportunity to revive tobacco sales aka nicotine Juul cartridges, while also replacing soon-to-be-legalized ordinary marijuana with weed-themed Juul cartridges. It's a two-pronged strategy.

> A 15 year old can easily grow enough weed in his bedroom to keep himself constantly high. This is Really Bad for profits.

I see this repeated a lot, but I have a very hard time believing it matters at all. It’s just as easy to grow tomatoes and the result is significantly cheaper and tastier than what you can buy in stores, yet I doubt anyone would say tomatoes are significantly less profitable because of it. Even in my own state where growing weed is legal I’ve heard of exactly one friend who grew their own, and that was a one time novelty rather than a real supply.

The reality is that the vast majority of customers prefer the convience of pre-packaged and pre-portioned weed products over the cost savings of growing. In fact, if anything the trend is towards more convenice (edibles, single dose vapes, delivery services) rather than away from it. The profit impact of those who do choose to grow will be extremely tiny.

I've had several friends that grow weed, from pretty sophisticated (albeit <5 plant) hydroponic setups to "guerrilla grows" (tossing seeds into areas unlikely to be discovered and later coming back to check/harvest). It's a lot easier than most home garden produce by a long shot, in my opinion. There is even a book called "The $64 Tomato" that details how difficult that particular fruit is to grow.

Even if the actual growing isn’t hard, you need to plan it months in advance and there’s work involved in setup and harvesting. That’s far more inconvenient than just opening an app or driving to the store. It can also be risky (there are still plenty of confusing rules around growing for personal use, and guerrila growing is illegal) and even meticulously attended plants have variable yields. The only way for it to substantially affect profits is if a non-trival portion of customers prefer the cost savings to inconvenience, and, imo, the evidence points strongly against this. Heck, at my local despensery pre-rolls far outsell flower and the only work involved there is grinding and rolling!

Also, I haven’t read that particular book, but the growing difficulty depends on the variety. I can personally attest that growing cherry tomatoes is extremely easy (they’re commonly recommended as a “beginner” plant.)

That's a really good point about pre-rolls. I agree that homegrown weed is no more of a threat to dispensaries than homebrewed beers are to Budweiser.

Kids but juul (not marijuana) becausee people like marijuana?

>Apparently there's just something about blowing smoke and age restriction that is cool to teens.

Yes this explains why they try it or start using it but you can't deny that nicotine will keep them coming back and that is something we shouldn't want. We're just getting a bit of success in a multi-decade battle against cigarettes.

"Also, it isn't tobacco that is the big driver of juul sales. Weed is."

What do you mean by this? Juul doesn't sell weed products and is hugely successful because it has made nicotine addiction easier + more accessible (which is part of what the article argues).

PAX labs owns the Juul brand and also sells weed vapes (under the PAX brand.)

Juul was spun-off from Pax (unclear to me if Pax still owns a portion of it). And Juul's nicotine is the "big driver" of Juul's sales, not weed (as the commenter above claims)

I have a friend who works at a competitor and according to him PAX still owned a majority after the spinout. Although, I tried looking it up and Philip Morris just bought a 35% stake, so this may no longer be true.

> Juul's nicotine is the "big driver" of Juul's sales, not weed

I agree, just trying to clarify that (at least at one point) the company that owns Juul also sold weed vapes.

Ah interesting to hear, thanks! Guess it would've been a pretty big ball-drop to not continue to own a piece

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