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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....

> In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”

> Other schools across the country were offered $10,000 from the e-cigarette company for the right to talk to students in classrooms or after school.

> In Richmond, Calif. last year, Juul gave the Police Activities League $90,000 to offer the company’s vaping education program “Moving Beyond” to middle school and high school students who faced suspension for using cigarettes.

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Oh, interesting, fair enough thanks. I agree that could be considered selling.

“Selling” can mean a general sales pitch (what is quoted) or actual transactions of goods (not what is quoted). Those two meanings have very different implications.

Not defending either of those, but making a distinction in meaning.

Yeah... "selling their products directly" is not appropriate phrasing for referring to a sales pitch to a group of individuals.

Even if it's still a very bad thing.

That last point is maybe a little more legitimate, at least from this random commenters position.

On the one hand, you have what sounds like straight up abusive targeted marketing of a drug at a vulnerable population: direct meeting with children, no teachers present (!?), "totally safe", etc. This seems reprehensible.

On the other hand, if it's an "education program" specifically targeted (and limited) to students who have already demonstrated that they have a cigarette problem, it seems like it could be a genuinely well intended part of a program to provide harm mitigation and a (apparently fairly successful) tool to help quit. I'm a bit more sympathetic to that version, even if it's still financially motivated.

On the gripping hand, vaping has unclear risks of its own that we don't fully understand yet, and even setting aside the improvement going from smoke to vapor, any nicotine product is still going to be an addiction risk.

How is it acceptable for a school accepting money to subject their students to sales pitches for any company, let alone e-cigarettes? Unbelievable.

Given the way teenagers don’t really fawn over authority figures, this seems like the most counterproductive thing they could have done. Stupid.

Plant the idea in their head, even if they don't like you as an authority, and you might end up with a customer for life once those kids forget you and go looking for a vice.

$10k per room of kids is probably a low cost of customer acquisition for a potential lifetime addiction.

It can be selective. I suspect some teens will happily accept an authority figure who says "ignore your parents and health teachers, who say vaping is bad". Juul certainly seemed to think it was worth the money.

I disagree, they could care less. This has very little to do with what drive teen vice use, the danger/badness is part of the equation. If you take away cigarettes and vaping, they’ll just move on to marijuana or heroin, or maybe glue. Nothing about “what’s healthy” is driving their choice here.

> If you take away cigarettes and vaping, they’ll just move on to marijuana or heroin, or maybe glue. Nothing about “what’s healthy” is driving their choice here.

This claim is pretty strongly refuted by all available evidence, given that (before vaping), tobacco use among teenagers had been in a consistent decline for decades, without a corresponding consistent increase in marijuana or heroin use among teenagers.

Even if tobacco use was decreasing, that doesn’t mean something else wasn’t increasing in its stead. It could have been ridlin, opioids, meth, etc...I’m not sure what the popular bad stuff between 2000-2010 was, perhaps some younger HN readers could fill us in.

> Even if tobacco use was decreasing, that doesn’t mean something else wasn’t increasing in its stead. It could have been ridlin, opioids, meth, etc...I’m not sure what the popular bad stuff between 2000-2010 was, perhaps some younger HN readers could fill us in.

As someone who used to work in drug policy during this exact time period and has a very strong grasp of the facts on the matter, I can assure you that your speculation is entirely without merit. Teen tobacco use decreased. It didn't pawn off those would-be tobacco users onto other drugs, as if drugs were some fully fungible entity in teenagers' minds. Teen tobacco use decreased, full-stop.

Maybe you could go find some evidence for your pet theory before considering that pet theory to be accurate?

An adult saying, "Hey guys, try this cool, totally safe, vaping product!", doesn't exactly sound like the typical authority figure that a teenager rebels against.

Do you really think that cliche even applies here?

The New York Times isn’t a very credible source at this point.

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