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Comment by atlasunshrugged | Hacker News Reader

I think if it really was purely a device for cessation then this could be solved by putting it behind the counter and requiring a prescription. I remember before weed was legal in California there would be a doc office next to a pot shop and you would get your prescription and then walk in. I imagine there would be a market for people who wanted to quit to go to a 5 min doc meeting, they'd verify you're a smoker and write you a prescription and then you could pick it up with any flavor your heart desired. That said, I'm not a big fan of creating another inefficiency in the healthcare market but it does seem like a way to stop the secondary effect of new users entering the market in a major way by creating a nontrivial hoop to jump through

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One thing I'd wonder about is if this might reduce the number of people using it for cessation. One extra hurdle, especially seeing a person in such a formal setting, might be enough for some people.

Personally speaking, if I had to get a prescription to buy by e-juice and devices (replacement pods, etc) I would still be smoking traditional cigarettes. Former 2 pack a day smoker, quit with the help of a Juul/Uwell Caliburn.

They do that with cigarettes but kids still get them (atleast in my country). Banning a device is useless, beceause the same vaporizer could be used to other stuff, and it'd be still sold online (from places like china), and customs don't really check every package for what's inside (especially since it usually says "electronic gadget" on the CN22 form). Banning liquids would be easier, but in some places (eg, here), the liquids are sold separately as a mix of glycerins and a food-grade arome, where neither of those can be banned. Nicottine can be (and is), but while it's addictive, most of the "bad stuff" is in other ingredients, that again, cannot be baned easily. ...and you can also order niccotine concentrate online...

so yeah, it's hard. Making it unnatractive is a lot easier procedure with drugs and "bad things", but a machine that makes huge clouds of tutti frutti falvoured smoke is.. wel... fun.

Sure, people will always get around things like that if they want to badly enough (see any illegal drug) but if the rate of use is dramatically lowered then it changes the dynamic of the current usage where public health folks are worried many new smokers will enter the market because of the availability.

I agree it's super hard, even with pot (again in CA) when it was illegal it was a bit of a joke to me (and a surprise as someone moving from a conservative area where pot use definitely had to be hidden) because if enough people use it even illegally and it's not considered a police priority, then there's no enforcement/repercussion and people use it willy nilly, often publicly.

Regarding THC being illegal... Around 2012 I was at a concert in LA at the Palladium (indoor venue-- arguably most famous as the final scene of the blues brothers movie). As the night progressed, the venue was filled with a fog of pot smoke, and I was struck by the a couple of things.

One, the contrast between Orange County where one would not dare to dream to smoke in public. My (minor) career as a weed smoker was entirely indoors-- late nights and Boards of Canada albums, and whispers of, "Do you know anyone?"

Two, as a cigar enthusiast, how utterly unwelcome I would have been smoking tobacco.

"Inefficiency" is a weird word for including doctors in healthcare.

I'd say it's an inefficiency in the case I referenced because I don't think it's 'healthcare' per se. If you go to your primary care physician during a checkup or because of an issue (even if it's this specifically) then I would consider that healthcare, but what I saw was basically this tack on service that was rubber stamping anyone who paid $X for an appointment as cleared to use medical marijuana and I would consider than an inefficiency since the step was purely created as an administrative hurdle

To force the involvement of a doctor that is not performing any procedures or making a diagnosis is definitely an inefficiency.

Most nicotine replacements don't require a prescription and it seems silly to require a prescription for vaping but not smoking.

> I think if it really was purely a device for cessation then this could be solved by putting it behind the counter and requiring a prescription.

That ignores the fact that cigarettes, which are orders of magnitude more dangerous, do not require such hoops to be jumped through.

If you’re going to make vaping by prescription, you then need to simultaneously ban tobacco outright.

Why does everyone want to police what I put in my body? I personally think vaping is beyond lame, but I support any adults right to injest what they wish. The prohibition of thc is the reason for the bad carts in the first place. Your attitude created this.

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