Hacker News Reader

Comment by on_and_off | Hacker News Reader

My main issue with e-cigs is that they are heavily marketed to kids, for example with young sponsored influencers doing smoke tricks and other shit.

Thanks to e-cigs, teen cigarette (not e-cig) smoking has started increasing after decreasing for years. Teens that would have never started smoking are introduced to it with e-cigs.

I don't know how these 2 phenomenons balance out. Does the number of cigarette smokers moving to e-cigs counterbalance the number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ?

In all cases, I have no issue with more studies on the direct impact on e-cigs themselves.

View on HN

> the number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ?

Just ban cigarettes if that is the problem.

Kids really shouldn't be smoking e-cigs either. E-cigs are only better than cigarettes because "cigarettes are so legendarily bad for you".

I can accept them as cessation devices, but all their value in this realm should be weighted against the new users they introduce, chief among them: Kids.

They shouldn’t be eating chips, breads, candy, soda, and sitting around watching garbage YouTube/Netflix media and superhero shows. Solution isn’t always to ban something. They shouldn’t be marketed to kids, just like sugary snacks in my opinion, but education is better than banning it for all adults. Just slap the same 21 year old restriction as alcohol and move on.

I don't see the argument. Bad effect from things that are relatively non-addictive (at least physically) suggest that things that are addictive needs to be even more controlled. If anything there is now a disparity between what science tells us about "junk food" and digital media, and what how we treat them. The idea that you can teach people faster than dangers can appear without boundaries doesn't seem to be supported these days.

Considering 70% of US population is overweight, and 30% is obese, I would say the foods I listed are addictive. Regardless of definitions of addictiveness, I still think education is a better force than prohibition for most vices.

Banning alcohol, marijuana, and other drugs have all been unsuccessful. Why would it work with cigarettes?

The aggressive taxation, cultural shaming, disallowing smoking in public places, health warnings etc. seem to be more effective than most blanket prohibitions, even against the addictive properties of nicotine.

> number of younger people starting to smoke cigarettes because of it ?

Where is this fear coming from? The reason you pick up cigarettes is being around other people who smoke. I have seen zero evidence that cigarettes are on the rise among kids or that vaping somehow acts as a gateway drug. Using this to justify restriction of access to a cessation aid has always struck me as myopic, ineffective, and killing people. Granted it hasn’t happened quite yet, even in SF, so maybe there’s still hope. I’m certainly not looking forward to buying juul pods at extreme prices on the street.

Why not ban the goddamn cigarettes? People will complain and then roll their own anyway if they really need it in their life, and I certainly don’t see otherwise healthy teenagers rolling cigarettes again. It’s disgusting seeing arrays of cancerous easily smokable sticks in gas stations and corner stores.

Not a fear, a fact https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/26/e2/e106

Reply on news.ycombinator.com