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Comment by seattlebarley | Hacker News Reader

Speaking as someone who started using a Juul at 17, this is absolutely ridiculous. People are responsible for what they choose to consume. Got asthma? Maybe avoid inhaling chemicals that might affect your condition. Now, I'm 19 and I have to drive to North Carolina (about 30 minutes) to even buy tobacco products, since they raised the legal age to 21 in Virginia. Thanks, nanny. I really hope this little prick goes home empty handed.

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> People are responsible for what they choose to consume.

People are influenced by advertising. Especially those under the age of 25 such as yourself where the prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that involved with decision making) is usually not completely developed yet.

"People are responsible for what they choose to consume" only takes you so far when people's ability to decide what to consume is shaped by their peers, the advertising they see and ten million other factors in their life. I remember thinking the way you do... and then I grew up and realised people are infinitely more complex than I had given thought to.

Don't you see how extremely patronizing it is to say, essentially, "you can't make your own decisions, your brain isn't fully developed"? I get that this is occasionally necessary to say to actual kids, but it does not seem appropriate to say to anyone we deem capable enough to vote and drive a car.

They even add on the old "I was like you, then I changed, so obviously you too may one day be so fortunate as to advance into being like me"

It's true, shrug. I distinctly remember thinking "Why don't other people make the right decisions?".

I'll admit including it is patronising and in itself immature. Maybe this is my "Why don't people realise that other people are complex beings?" moment and in another dozen years I'll be chiding my past self again!

Patronizing or not, it's true. And it's better to admit that amongst ourselves so that we can protect adolescents as they're developing. Otherwise, you might end up with companies taking advantage of this fact and getting teenagers addicted to something pretty much everyone knows is terrible for you now, and those very same teenagers might start defending them, making cases for personal responsibility when they don't even have the proper brain parts to have any

Just because someone's capable of voting or driving a car it doesn't mean they're doing a good job at it - it's just that they're now past the bare minimum required to qualify.

Anyway, the biggest problem here's not the brain, since adults get addicted just as well.

The problem's that some truly evil people have created yet another addictive product, spent a lot of money to market it and now the poor sods using it are stuck with the ill health and addiction.

And the rest of us have to pick up the pieces while the miserable bastards which invented this get rich. Oh how I hope they're thrown in a dungeon.

I think the last paragraph referred to people in general and not only to young people.

If people are infinitely more complex and there are ten million other factors in life, then how can the advertising be singled out?

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/08/why-goo...

Only speaking as anecdata, but yeah, I had asthma, and I've just avoided all forms of smoking as much as possible. Vaping does present itself as a safe alternative, though, whether actually true or not. It's possible for someone to be misled and think they have nothing to worry about.

Also I used to inhale cigarette smoke second-hand in restaurants and bars when that was still legal. I don't think my asthma got any worse from it that I am aware of (although I am very thankful that's no longer a thing anymore... tried going to a casino in a state where it's still legal recently and coughed like crazy... I was only there to see Penn and Teller perform).

Got lungs? Maybe avoid inhaling chemicals that might harm them

I'm curious how you reconcile your decision to smoke tobacco while also thinking people are responsible for all their decisions. Do you accept that you're making a terrible decision? And if so what kind of person does that make you?

fact: cars kill people indirectly via fumes.

so i'd rephrase your idea:

"Got lungs? Maybe avoid <living on planet earth>"

Yes, but you can't really control whether or not you're exposed to car fumes. Some toxicity is very hard to avoid

The toxicity from smoking is entirely avoidable by not engaging in it

So basically you're a success case for their predatory practices and you don't even realize it.

"As a minor who caved into marketing pressure and became addicted to nicotine, I think we should make tobacco products more accessible to people like me"

This is not at all a cogent argument. Don't blame the nanny state for problems you brought upon yourself.

"Don't blame the nanny state for the actions it's taking" Ironic to see you claiming someone isn't making a cogent argument

It's not a matter of personal responsibility, but of statistics. If you have a population of a few dozen million which is targeted by an addictive product which is heavily marketed a proportion of them will end up using that product for a long time.

And if said product is harmful, one has a public health issue on their hands. The sad thing is that we've already been on a similar path once with normal cigarettes: the lying, deceitful marketing, the people dying in droves, addicts proudly proclaiming their rights to self-determination.

> Speaking as someone who started using a Juul at 17

Are you advocating for Juul to be more accessible to minors? Lowering the minimum age to consume tobacco?

Funnily enough, one of the ingredients in normal vape juice, propylene glycol, has been used as a delivery medium for inhalers (asthma and otherwise) since the 50s.

You've got 35 years or so. Better enjoy them.

Vapes aren't good for you, sure, but I don't think telling someone they are going to die at 55 is warranted or constructive

Give it a few years and vaping will be seen as bad or worse than smoking cigarettes. There is already quite a bit of research out there, the products simply aren't in use long enough that we have a good statistical base to build conclusions on but the first signs are terrible.

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