FDA to order Juul e-cigarettes off U.S. market
wsj.com
wsj.com
Of all the e-cig players, Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) is the most reputable one — by far - they have by far the best technology, quality controls, compliance and regulation teams, etc.
Unfortunately before Altria acquired Juul it was a terribly ran company. People spend a lot of time discussing the chronic youth issues but the reality is that Juul never wanted to sell to youths or anything of the sort — they were just _so_ incompetent at operations that they couldn't do anything.
They set fire to hundreds of millions of dollars on totally ridiculous projects plainly stupid ideas:
* A modular supply chain project with the idea that they could use manufacturing as a carrot for regulatory laws — this team was 50-100 people and had tens of millions of dollars in budget. Never did anything.
* All manner of vanity innovation projects: new battery technology, next and next and next generation projects, dozens of flavours, absurd marketing campaigns, rebrands, a $250k custom typeface, the list goes on.
* Hired McKinsey and Bain because the executive team (who were all ex-management consultants) wanted the company to move fast ....
* My personal favourite Juul story (ok I have a bunch) was that the company was so incompetent they didn't do headcount planning — You could just hire as many people as you wanted if your random (often incompetent) VP was okay with it. Juul had 50-100 VPs so it was sheer chaos.
It got so bad that Altria had to step in and install their own CEO and axe all of the existing executive team (and lay off thousands of random employees) to try and right the ship. Altria are a very legit operational business — you may not like them but they know how to work with the FDA within strict regulation guidelines. If Juul is removed from the market despite Altria taking over they're truly fucked.
In my time at Juul I have never worked with so many incompetent people. It was quite impressive but also incredibly depressing as someone that joined because the idea of creating a connected device vaping product to help switch Americans off combustible cigarettes was very compelling.
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.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....
* I cannot reiterate enough just how incompetent Juul was in 2017. Everyone was running around with their hair on fire and had zero of the skills or experience to deal with these issues
* I believe that Juul did a lot of really really really stupid things like going into schools and trying to hamfistedly state that vaping was bad but safe — again, Juul had a lot of very inexperienced executives who were obsessed with doing things they thought were really smart but were just plain stupid
* It's worth noting that these actions didn't actually contribute to making youths vape. Vaping was exploding amongst teens because of social media and being a meme — in what world would going to a school and talking about Juul make youths want to use that product? that is what makes all this so hilarious - Juul did a stupid thing, has to live with the consequences, and the underlying thesis of why they did it in the first place was totally ridiculous.
Again, I was a Juul employee - I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul, but I am sure that their incompetence meant that their communication and actions blurred their dreadful attempts at dealing with the issues.
The very fact this NYT article exists without a clear rebuttal and explanation from Juul says it all, really.
Juul is not conscious and cannot want anything.
I think it's pretty clear that there were some Juul employees who wanted children to use their company's product. Company representatives did not just wander into schools by chance; someone reached out and struck that deal. Clearly not you, and maybe no one on your team, but certainly someone.
And incompetent or not, Juul the organization is responsible for its actions.
"I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul."
I do, and their actions prove it. Individuals who worked at the company were simply reacting to the obvious economic incentives of "growth at all costs", and it was clear they were allowed to market using whatever means necessary.
> I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul
This... is not incompetence or a side effect.
They fucking paid schools to tell kids that Vaping was safe. You can try to say "oh, they didn't realllllly want to sell to kids, they just weren't good at their job".
They gave ad agencies specific briefs saying that their target market for a campaign was '13-17 year olds'.
"They didn't realllllly want to sell to kids".
No. They knew exactly what the fuck they were doing.
Accidentally promoting their product to minors has 1) The same impact as if it was done on purpose and 2) demonstrates criminal negligence.
I also don't regard Altria's operational professionalism and discipline as a net positive in this situation. A company with a historical track record of deliberately marketing to children and a current track record of continuing to do so (IQOS) is no improvement merely because they control headcount and limit vanity projects.
> Altria are a very legit operational business
Worth noting that Altria used be known as Philip Morris - a company that has decades of history of marketing cigarettes to children and covering up the dangers of tobacco.
They are in no way, shape, or form a "good" company.
It can both be the case that the people who ran PM in the 1950s lied about the dangers of cigarettes and that Altria today is, "a very legit operational business."
A company's culture doesn't necessarily change just because some folk are dead or retired.
>In 2006, a United States court found that Philip Morris "publicly ... disputed scientific findings linking smoking and disease knowing their assertions were false."[11] In a 2006 ruling, a federal court found that Altria, along with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard and Philip Morris were found guilty of misleading the public about the dangers of smoking.[12] Within this ruling, it was noted that "defendants altered the chemical form of nicotine delivered in mainstream cigarette smoke for the purpose of improving nicotine transfer efficiency and increasing the speed with which nicotine is absorbed by smokers."[13] This was done by manipulating smoke pH with ammonia. Adding ammonia increases the smoke pH, in a process called "freebasing" which causes smokers to be "exposed to higher internal nicotine doses and become more addicted to the product."
>In 2010, the FDA banned the use of “Light” for ventilated cigarettes because it misrepresented the products as a healthier cigarette, and Philip Morris switched to using colors to brand them to circumvent the rule.
It's quite confusing, as there is also another S&P500 component called Philip Morris International. I believe they export Marlboro branded cigarettes to all countries outside the US.
Just focused on advertising alone here is NyTimes summary with link to MA lawsuit.
They fired the first ad company who suggested reasonable adult oriented ads and directed the new one to run youth focused ads and youth targeting. Cartoon network, kids websites, teen magazines.
I don't believe you can brush aside those decisions by just calling the company 'terrible.'
True you can never look into someone's brain and know their intent. But the evidence is pretty clear.
If we give everyone a pass like this because of terrible management or incompetence we'd never hold anyone accountable.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsui...
Millenials (myself among them) grew up before state-wide indoor smoking bans, and those of us who didn't smoke weren't interested in picking up anything resembling it.
A lot of Zoomers, however, grew up in a cigarette free world, where they also didn't see addiction or substantial anti-smoking messages. The older folks (Millenials) were set in their ways, but the Zoomers were the addressable audience. It was intentional. It was evil.
Can we please stop perpetuating the idea that the NYT is a reputable source?
A flippant dismissal of OP's firsthand account requires something a bit more substantial than "I found an article printed in an outlet that has been on a decade-long mission to demonize the tech industry, or any other industry remotely worthy of the term."
They have, at this point, shown they're willing to print nearly anything if it damages their cultural opponents. Any facts they report should prompt corroboration from reputable sources.
no?
E-cigarettes are not better than not smoking anything.
Tobacco-flavored JUUL pods are mainly used by former smokers as an alternative to cigarettes. High schoolers are vaping hot pink, mint bubblegum flavored, one-time-use Puff Bars now. They won't even notice when JUUL is banned.
I've never paid attention to Juul marketing, so perhaps they were committing faux pas in their targeting, but the existence of a bubble gum (or other enjoyable flavors) should probably not meet the threshold as readily as we allow it.
Taking these tools away from consenting adults is morally criminal. If your main argument is "think of the children" I'm going to doubt your sincerity.
Technically true but there's barely any health risks from vaped nicotine. The number of serious injuries are in the low thousands (total, not per year) and are mostly associated with THC vapes of questionable origin.
I also remember that a solid quarter of the student population smoked. So good luck with your abstinence policies, they have such a strong track record.
Speaking of which, does abstinence only education result in less teen pregnancy, or more? I can't quite remember.
What world would they find themselves in?
I don't smoke regularly, but if my kids did, could they get a healthier alternative?
What if they fell into heroin?
It would be terrifying, but could they be safe?
I no longer can make that argument. I'm susceptible to the taxation attack. Ten years ago I would have gladly paid all the taxes for my kids and a dozen others. But as some have pointed out, I don't make enough money.
It's a good conservative argument, I can't pay for that.
So, I'm sorry, I can no longer take part in this discussion.
You're right, abstinence is better, because unlike the responsible conservatives who are paying for necessary services like education, I can't help as much.
I'm so sorry. I wanted to pay more. We could have had scientific discussions on risks of food grade propylene glycol or something. Would it make a good hair gel? Sorry, some light-hearted kidding.
My new dream is to not ever have to engage in this discussion again. Because the idea of others wasting time in this divisive acidic discussion is sadder. Thank you.
They're not « slightly » less terrible. They're not even comparable. Vaporizing glycerin and glycol is in no way comparable to burning plants. Implying it is is specious.
I like to say that vaping is slightly less terrible than combustible cigarettes because it is very clear that you. should. not vape. unless. you. smoke. cigarettes.
People say things like this all the time, but it'd be nice to get some actual hard data to quantify the risk.
At the very least, i suspect the nicotine is doing bad things in both cases.
I believe the jury is still out on whether or not smokers have more expensive health care requirements than non-smokers. Smokers tend to die younger and quicker than non-smokers, so their health care needs may actually be less than most non-smokers. They've also voluntarily paid a huge amount of additional taxes throughout their lifetime.
Using your argument, "dying early is a benefit when it comes to healthcare costs"...
"I believe the jury is still out on whether chronic drunk drivers have more expensive health care requirements than non-drunk drivers."
Huh.
Altria is a terribly run company. I was part of their previous attempt at entering the e-cig market (Green Smoke and Mark Ten). Everything they touch turns to dust, so this news about Juul is not surprising. I've never seen a company with so much dysfunction, in-fighting, and ineffectiveness.
When they shut us down in favor of the stake in Juul, we joked that they only took a minority stake in order to save Juul from them.
Given the scale and growth trajectory of Juul, perhaps you really were unaware of the numerous marketing and growth plans targeted at minors. Also likely, most of your points amount to n-th hand hearsay and your insider knowledge is actually missing many important facts. Be careful repeating stories you've heard if you are publicly associating yourself with the company.
Anyway, your ignorance of their tactics isn't really an excuse when it's been covered so widely. I think you should probably not defend and attack them so easily. Stories of ignorance and incompetence can actually be well crafted PR to attempt to attempt to limit the responsibility of the company and senior management for illegal activity.
My memory may be faulty, but wasn't Juul the e-cigarette company that was launching school programs to more or less directly market e-cigarettes to students during school hours and on school property?
Nicely done. Rollies are worse. Think of the lives filtered cigarettes are saving.
Does the american government not spend money on retirement? In my country smoking saves like 30 times more in retirement expenses than spend on smoking-related diseases. IIRC, that's not even accounting savings on healthcare that earlier deaths cause.
Odds are we'll find out some unfortunate truths about e-cigs in 10-20 years, meanwhile many of the consumers of e-cig products will have believed they were avoiding the worst effects.
E-cigarettes aren’t slightly less terrible. They are much less terrible / much better than traditional cigarettes in that they do not cause lung cancer.
Lung cancer is the main problem with cigarettes and e-cigarettes don’t do this. So that’s a huge improvement.
Of course they have other problems but none of them are as bad as a 15x chance of lung cancer [0]
[0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
Idk who they wanted to sell to, but their message was heard loud and clear at my kids school.
How many because Juul essentially randomly went viral and is an inherently addictive product? Unfortunately way too many.
Is there any evidence for this at all? That there is a pipeline from vapers to cigarette smokers?
> Most Juul users are first time smokers.
This is just a simple oxymoron; vaping is not smoking.
Why not just ban all cigeratee? We all known why, because of commercial profit. Can we openly discuss the balance between human lives and profit? It's not like Capitalism is anything but balance profit and humanity, right?
Why involve this "saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life." as a derivative statement. It's much clear to just balance the profit and human lives. And stop muddy the pond with dubious metrics no one can verify.
PS: This does not intend to be a rant
What are those
And I say this as an ex-smoker, I don't mind if you worked at Juul, I believe its a free country and I have no judgements against a person's profession, just be honest and say the money is good and I don't care that I am selling a product that is poisoning people.
I understand your example, and I'm not or ever a drug user - but the opening premise is a false dichotomy.
https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Cocaine-2020...
"hat is its legal status in the United States? Cocaine is a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and has an accepted medical use for treatment in the United States. Cocaine hydrochloride solution (4 percent and 10 percent) is used primarily as a topical local anesthetic for the upper respiratory tract. It also is used to reduce bleeding of the mucous membranes in the mouth, throat, and nasal cavities."
Vs Heroin
https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Heroin-2020....
Heroin is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act meaning that it has a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.
"Its like saying cocaine is better than heroin..."
Well, it is. Legally.
Initially I thought that I'd transition to e-fags and climb down from there. Nope. You are trading one habit with another - it doesn't matter if a e-fag cloud is better for you it is still not good and keeps you tethered to smoking. I think it would be quite easy to go back to tobacco if you "allow" yourself to vape as a transition.
I rapidly realised that once I started down the abstinence route I had to be very hard with myself. It wasn't actually that bad in the end. I came up with two mantras that I repeated to myself in my head whenever I really wanted to smoke: they were - "I don't want to smell" and "I don't want to die". They are pretty self explanatory.
I did and sometimes still have dreams about smoking. It is a very insidious habit. I was a smoker for 30 years so it is obviously still a part of my life at age 52 but it is fading and I rarely have to say my mantras these days.
I had another strategy too, which helped in the short term: I started my give up, in the early afternoon of day one (Easter 2018 as it turns out) and had a very long lie in on day two. That got me to over 24 hours with minimal stress. I then progressed to a series of time based targets:
A day (tick), two days ... a week ... two weeks ... (tried a drag on daughter in law's fag - no thanks) ... a month ... two months (weird dreams) ... six months ... etc ... four years.
I think Mark Twain said it best, "Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it hundreds of times." Or something like that.
This is of course anecdotal evidence, but you (you, a smoker reading this thinking about quitting) are not doomed to suffer cravings forever nor are predestined to fail, like the Mark Twain quote could make you believe. Perhaps there are people, who find it really difficult to quit, but it is also possible to completely move on. Just don't fixate on how hard it is and simply do it.
I think you see similar things with alcohol addiction. As I understand, AlAnon has the philosophy that people are lifetime alcoholics, even if they haven't drank in years. Perhaps that is true for some, but the tendency to sensationalize that into a universal truism seems like it does more harm than good.
That said, negative habits and motivation are odd things. In support of those on the other end of the spectrum, where being told "You can just do it, use your grit and resolve and don't dwell," can lead to feelings of inadequacy and failure when it isn't so easy for them, well there's no one right path to growth and change. Just don't lose hope and keep looking for what works for you.
I think there are loads of decent approaches to giving up ciggies, from your dad's work out in the woods to my mental thingie. Getting out from fags is really hard - they are sooooo cool etc.
Mr Twain is correct for those that don't get it right.
Me and your dad did get out and it's really fucking hard. Really hard. Me and your dad have something in common - we are still alive and fucking kicking.
The dreams are the worst. I still have them occasionally, I still miss it and it’s been 5+ years now. I didn’t even smoke that long (basically 8 years when I was living in Beijing).
"I don't want to die" "I don't want to smell"
I picked those two because they are pretty nasty and represent what fags do to you.
Whenever you fancy a smoke, you say those phrases to yourself.
My method is mine and perhaps another method will work for you. Have a think about what might work for you.
Cheers Jon
This is another part of what makes vaporizers so insidious. When you go to quit, there's a vague notion that it could be seriously harmful. Perhaps there's an equally vague notion of regaining lost discipline. But without that existential dread ("I am going to die if I continue") or social pressure ("I smell all the time and colleagues wrinkle their noses"), it can be trickier than cigarettes.
Vapes may work for some - an atomized <whatevs> is probably better for you than tobacco smoke.
I have quite a lot of experience of both.
And yea, I remember sleeping for 20 hours on day two.
You have to be so hard on yourself. It is worth it though.
Good skills sumy23 I think you have won at life in some way.
At some point I decided to attempt to quit, curios if I could do it. I quit the next day for 2 months. I never got an urge - other than "hey I liked that feeling", but nothing strong - and had no withdrawal.
Apparently there's a gene that helps combat nicotine addiction. I don't know if I have it, but it seems like it. Not trying to brag here, but I thought it was interesting enough to mention.
Addictions are weird. Nicotine is hell to quit, but it's mostly mental. I build it up in my head to be some impossible thing, but it's really not. Cigarettes seem to have a grip on people far more insidious than snus or vaping, though.
The real reason it's hard to stay off is the modern world we choose to live in. Full of stressors and always just a minute or click away from relapsing.
Sometimes I think about how bad it would be to be an alcoholic. You wouldn't even be able to turn on the TV and relax without a beer commercial ruining your mindset. You leave your house and see a billboard. You get fed up, strength depleted, and walk in the woods to get away from all the reminders to drink. You see a spent can...
Why did you smoke a cigarette every time you walked the dog? You liked to smoke? Why didn't you quit instead of switching to vaping? You quit for ONLY two months?
Off topic, but this sentence reminded me of an amusing Urban Dictionary entry[0]
[0]https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=smoke%20a%20...
I'm a Brit and you are probably a Yank - we both know exactly what is going on.
I am absolutely fucking furious at the moment (nothing to do with this) 8)
If some circles are offended then I suggest that's not too bad a thing 8)
This guy is clearly older (lets say he started smoking at 15, we would be pushing 45 as a lower bound), and he's not American where that word was common slang. I think there's a place to consider intent and realize that this is the internet, and not everyone is an American 20-something.
I'm 52 and I have some American relos. I'm well aware of many en_GB: en_US: en_AU: en_NZ and other language/slang ... discontinuities. A daughter in law from FL once explained to me how to pronounce Maryland.
I deliberately go in with the "fags" thing on a US based website for the obvious reason - it will almost certainly winkle out a daftie, who even now doesn't realise that a Brit burning a faggot isn't our version of horrific racism. To be fair, we haven't used the term faggot for a chunk of wood for some decades.
I absolutely adore our differences and have collected them quite obsessively. I love to watch and hear english being used in all sorts of strange ways!
Yes, because we must all speak like 'merkins.
On a serious note, if you are that sensitive, maybe the internet isn't the place for you?
We still live in a country where illegal drugs are prevalent in all settings of life. All of the moral legislation doesn't change the underlying narrative that the people we task with serving this country are not doing their jobs right, and simply voting does not fix that because of the deep seated agendas of non-tax-paying corporations and individuals influencing our political systems.
It's not about Juul products, it's a hostile bid to take their market share...
There are literally 20+ other vape product companies, and many other non-legal suppliers that will step in regardless of what laws are passed, many adding harmful chemicals to products as well, while the FDA is not focused on making vape products better and safer. It's meant to be simple nicotine, that's been around since America was inhabited by native cultures. What's next for elimination? Brands of Alcohol?
Are we going to limit blood alcohol content to 2 sips per outing? Who is driving all of this? Name the specific people pushing these rules, and then follow the paper trails, and you'll find that in a country where health care companies give major contributions to legislators to keep the market deregulated that it's all about money, not our best interests, and we fund it all every year, mandatorily, when we pay taxes...
Everyone is getting prodded and pushed around by the legislators we're mandatorily funding. I'm not advocating protest or overthrow of government and corporations at all, but the ones we have in place are not helping us by any means right now, and they're overreaching into our privacy and lives and driving policy based on agendas and profit at our expense. People smoke mostly because they are stressed and burdened within their lives, reduce public financial and emotional stress factors first, then they'll have no excuses left for smoking.
We need to be more vocal about the harm in moral legislation, even if smoking is eliminated, we still don't have free health care for being citizens, and we pay an extraordinary amount in taxes every year with cost of living that threatens to kill most well before smoking ever could.
I’m always a little shocked when I hear otherwise very intelligent people make these sorts of statements about second hand smoke.
The second hand smoke you’d encounter on a sidewalk is completely harmless. Any affect, if any, to your health would be completely insignificant and unmeasurable.
Second hand smoke is harmful when exposed to heavy amounts of it in confined spaces for prolonged periods of time. Think decades not seconds.
In fact that was the original justification for indoor bans. It was in defence of staff who may encounter health issues after being exposed to indoor second hand smoke for 8 hours a day over decades. (Think single mom working at a bar) They weren’t put in place to preserve the health of customers, since any affect would be extremely minimal and voluntary.
I should try to dig this up some time but I recall reading once about one of the lead promoters of the first indoor smoking bans in NYC. He later had to step down out of principal, when things pivoted to outdoor bans. In his mind it would be completely irrational and unscientific.
Air pollution is definitely a significant problem but cigarette smoke is nothing more than a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. Look in to brake pad dust.
> Why does the individual freedom to do whatever you want overrule my individual freedom not to be affected by the externalities of your choices? The fundamental flaw in your argument is that you focus almost exclusively on individual right to the detriment of public good.
This is insanity. The same argument can be applied to any personal liberty. Should washing hands be mandated by the government? After all, your freedom to not wash your hands increases my chances of catching disease. Let's ban bugspray too since exposure to second hand insecticides infringes upon your right to never be affected by another individual's choices!
Who defines what "the public good" is? The same people who argue that rights must be eliminated for "the public good" are the ones who want to pass laws telling grown adults what they are allowed to do behind closed doors. From what plants they want to make illegal for you to grow, to what substances you want to ingest, to preventing you from playing poker with other consenting adults, to what language you must refer to people by - it is fundamentally anti-freedom.
>Why does the individual freedom to do whatever you want overrule my individual freedom not to be affected by the externalities of your choices?
This is the proper argument to make, and why I'm fine with banning smoking in certain public places, just like I'm fine with restricting a wide variety of other behaviors on public property that adults should otherwise be able to engage in behind closed doors. This is not what the federal government is doing in regard to Juul (or many other cases). They aren't addressing public behavior, they are passing laws and regulations to prevent you from behaving how you wish, on your own property, for your own good. The government shouldn't be in the business of telling consenting adults, at the point of a gun, what behaviors they aren't allowed to engage in behind closed doors.
When I was approached by people gathering signatures for anti-smoking measures, I always asked how they arrived at the location. Invariably they did not walk or bicycle to it. Always shrugged off, because not their problem.
If that was the case, the smokers, who had "first hand" smoke, would be dying a lot more frequently. Many of the people that died of lung cancer historically were exposed to asbestos products, which greatly skewed diagnoses for many many years... Many people who also never smoked in their lives died of lung cancer because of the prevalence of asbestos products in building materials as well. Most people don't know this because it would have resulted in many well embedded companies going bankrupt.
You'd also be surprised to know how smoking actually curbs incidents of rage, violence, suicide, and anger in people too, but there are no proper scientific studies because of the blinding bias promoted by companies that also seek to make a profit. There is a deeper discussion involved in quality of life versus quantity of life too, that is often overlooked, and no matter what regulation comes into play, nothing is going to stop a person from growing tobacco and smoking it even with prohibition, we know this from all the people that were murdered and made rich over bootlegging alcohol. This moral legislation is a waste of time, it's harmful to progress, and it's destructive to American freedoms that characterize the country.
Also ask yourself, why nicotine gum and patches (made to help people quit smoking) are always priced so high... This will further demonstrate the financial drive behind all aspects of tobacco. Tobacco was also a main driver of slave trade historically, meaning there are several companies that sold it and now are tied to investments and profit within the industry, including health care companies. CVS sold cigarettes for years, and that's likely a huge part of why they are still in business to this day.
I'm thoroughly convinced that moves like this have little to do with concern for the health of individuals. Smoking is a bad habit, but why is it always more polarizing than stock market manipulation, work wage theft, regulation of insurance industries, and so many other things that would improve the lives of citizens if not to shift profit elsewhere...
Government operates to protect companies and the wealthy now, not an individual making minimum wage with a smoking problem.
Flavored ecig sales increased after the ban. https://www.cdcfoundation.org/National-E-CigaretteSales-Data...
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/How-to-Become-a-Feder...
Now you got me thinking about one thing in particular.
Suppose we will have quite soon portable and discreet technology that can, through monitoring your BAC, or what have you, warn you that you're about to be overly drunk. It would stand to reason that for many folks out there who have An Alcohol Problem that technology like this could materially enhance their lives. Now that I think of this, something like this could even become the first practical widespread form of cybernetic enhancement, not that we don't already have plenty of awesome ones in the form of prostheses.
Just makes me wonder what kind of hurdles a company developing such a product would face.
Smoking marijuana and big gulps are very different from paper straws. Rules around smoking and soda sizes are the government legislating freedoms. I personally don't mind regulations here, but I agree it's taking away your liberty to some extent. Paper straws are mandated for a completely different reason: because they impose an externality that the user doesn't adequately pay for. Philosophically these bans are for the same reason we don't allow you to leave garbage on a public bench or dump toxic waste in a river. Again, you can debate the merits of single-use plastic legislation, but I wouldn't lump it together with smoking and soda bans at all.
Are these ways random though, really? Or do they reflect that we have vastly divergent ideas of what society should be from the “my home is my castle” folks to the “we live in a society” folks. For the former it’s an abrogation of their sacred right to do whatever they want. For the latter it’s not wanting to be subjected to powerful corporations doing sociopathic things to make as much money as possible.
For the former it's not wanting to be subjected to powerful politicians doing sociopathic things to make as much money as possible.
It's totally sane when looked at through one lens, and asinine when viewed through the other.
From a societal point of view, banning these products makes sense. They don't add value to the world, but they cause a lot of damage. The people who feel they are flipping the bill for the damaged caused don't see a reason that they have to pay it. The costs can be abstract, like increased medical costs, but they can also be direct, say, your child gets hooked on one of these and suffers some sort of medical complication.
From an individual perspective, then banning these products seems ridiculous. It's pretty common for people to believe that they aren't impacting others with their choices (which is wrong), or they acknowledge the negative impacts, but they just don't care.
Generally speaking, if you want to maintain a freedom, it is advisable to not bother other people with your activity.
Juul is new enough that the blunt approach will work. Plus, it's not a plant that grows all over, making a black market for them less likely to spring up.
I'm kind of surprised that Juul is targeted, real cigarettes are so much more horrible. I guess it's not a good idea to start smoking with e-cigarettes but in a world of legal real tobacco cigarettes I expected to see regulation on marketing only.
PS: later I quit by just not smoking anything and a happy ex-smoker ever since.
E.g. the PACT act amendment (Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking, not the other one) means USPS - and therefore effectively all other carriers - can't ship vaping products from businesses to individuals, effectively ending online sales. "Law-making" at it's worst, especially because it was bundled into a massive COVID-19 relief bill.
They literally called it the "Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act", although it's just the "Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes Act".
Probably due to historical precedent set by RJ Reynolds where they overtly and intentionally marketed cigarettes to kids because their research found that getting people addicted young was the best way to gain market share.
This is basic common sense legislation. We know exactly what these companies are going to do, we already know it's going to be bad, and we already have a solution in place.
What companies would that be? They are companies like Juul. And then there were plenty of small vape shops run by individuals who mixed their own e-liquids, or who curated a selection of e-liquids from other manufacturers.
> This is basic common sense legislation.
No, it isn't. Requiring age verification? Sure, even if it wasn't the law previously, all places I used did that already. Banning USPS from shipping nicotine? Maybe, but questionable.
But the 2020 PACT Act amendment goes even further. It covers Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems, a very broad term that includes "any component, liquid, part, or accessory of a device described [above], without regard to whether the component, liquid, part, or accessory is sold separately from the device." (!)
Think about this for a second. This potentially means lithium ion batteries, coils, wire, cotton, nicotine-free/0% e-liquids, etc. How exactly does that help? I would even be fine with other solutions, e.g. banning shipping anything containing nicotine. This is how it works in some other countries; you could still buy e-liquids and components, to which you could add nicotine. The mix-in nicotine could be more controlled.
I'm quite frankly sick of these bad faith arguments. It's a ridiculously broad law, and it's awful.
But they still didn't ban actual cigarettes
Regulators tend to only care about things which aren't already entrenched in the culture of the regulator. For example, if you tried to market a car that was as dangerous to drive as the safest motorcycle on the road the NHTSA would probably draw and quarter you.
They'd be happy to ignore you. But the nanosecond you try and market such a car people who would never buy your car would read the spec and start screeching about it. Internet commenters would make a stink. Journalists would speculate. The Youtube talking heads would summarize. The MSM would report on the fervor. And all these screeching would alert the regulator to the fact that there are political brownie points to be earned regulating or brownie points to be earned crapping on them for not regulating and they know which one they'd prefer so they break out the ban hammer.
See the whole self driving deal. Nobody cared to regulate it until it became a contentious issue over which virtue points could be earned or lost.
You see this in all sorts of areas. Regulators sit around doing what they've always done until some Outraged(TM) subset of the public comes along. It's not that they go around regulating un-entrenched things. It's that by the time you're entrenched you've long since pissed off some special interest group and got yourself regulated.
... and until people died in mind-blowing spectacular accidents [1] and Tesla in particular repeatedly lied in public or did other questionable maneuvers.
If the self-driving car industry wants someone to blame for their misery aka stricter regulations, they should look at Tesla. All it takes to make stuff worse for everyone is one who is caught doing stuff that simply is not OK.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/01/18/1073857310/tesla-autopilot-cr...
How would you falsifiably distinguish this from "nobody cared to regulate it until it became a meaningful threat to the lives of road users"?
Like, obviously before self-driving cars were being actively researched, nobody cared about their safety.
If you follow the money, it makes more sense.
Whether they will graduate to "real" cigarettes we don't know yet, because this demographic is not 21 years old yet. But it's likely to be true, because "real" cigarettes purportedly are more potent.
I haven't consumed any nicotine in quite some time, but I find the whole thing very obnoxious. (Smoking is a sin, but a pleasure. I'd like the freedom to navigate that choice myself, thank you very much.)
This must have been imagined by people who have no understanding of drugs whatsoever. Lessening the content of nicotine is likely to make people smoke -more-, I'd wager, inhaling more tar/cancer inducing substances in the process.
When the first e-cigs hit the market, most of the commonly found ones were things like the Joyetech eGo and eliquids that were frankly, unable to provide the necessary amount of nicotine to truly replace cigarettes. I found myself using the device far more than I smoked cigarettes, although it's probably still not as bad. A few studies proved that it's not just in the mind, people who vaped with those devices didn't have much nicotine in their bloodstream. Modern e-cigarettes with high power delivery, or low power combined with nicotine salts, satisfy me much faster and I don't feel a craving all day like I did with the eGo.
Removing the nicotine but keeping the cancer stick has to be one of the dumbest thing I've ever heard of in my life. Absolutely insanity, this is just going to make people burn more cancer sticks to satisfy their craving.
The issue isn't e-cigs in general (though, to be clear in terms of health risks: if you aren't smoking anything now, avoid smoking both). It's that Juul was such a trash-fire that even acquisition by one of the biggest FDA-compliance-factories in the United States didn't convince the FDA that the fire was out.
But also current combustible tobacco products.
https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-anno...
I wouldn't care the least bit what you put in your body if it didn't have disastrous public health and finance implications. How many tens or hundreds of millions are spent annually via medicare and medicaid on old and poor people with COPD, emphysema, lung cancer, etc?
Hell, I'd be happy with loosening e- and combustible cigarette regulations if it meant smoking permanently banned you from both medicare and medicaid. If you really want to smoke that bad, fine, but don't expect me to pay for the extremely predictable consequences please.
I don't have the numbers to compare, but I suspect banning being fat might even save the US healthcare system more money, if not now - at least at the current trajectory.
If you think "You can't ban being fat, my body my choice".. well, then I don't think you should ban smoking.
Smokers die in there's 60s from a heart attack or lung cancer. Healthy people die in their 80s after collecting Medicare and social security for 25 years having spent the last 10 years in memory care.
The predictable consequence of American lives is that you'll get serious medical conditions and spend a lot of money addressing them at the end of your life. Changing out one for another won't necessarily make things cheaper.
It's possible that smokers actually end up saving Medicare and Medicaid money, because they die sooner. I've seen articles that estimate it both ways.
Saying things like this do not help.
You can tell me to stop doing X and/or Y, but if I do stop them, then it would be equivalent to me stopping antidepressants that help me get out of bed and do my damn job (which is helping people) and be able to live my life instead of driving myself nuts and end up hanging myself. It is NOT WORTH IT to me (and to society, since I contribute this way much more, but you may rather prefer I was dead) to stop doing X and/or Y. FWIW the reason for this is that my brain is physically damaged.
Plus I would advise you give them any tips (not just any random ones though) as to how to do that exactly.
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At any case, why are we so eager to tell people what to do without knowing anything about their life anyway?
If all you’re worried about is Medicaid expenditures, seems like you should be encouraging people to start smoking en masse.
I’m terribly sorry your government had forced you to pay for these things, I don’t agree with that either. I suggest you take it up with them.
Why are you being so over-dramatic? Juuls weren't the only e-cigs on the market. They also weren't the only alternative (to cigarettes) nicotine product on the market, either. You don't have to switch to cigarettes.
Additionally, just because the government can force you to wear a seat-belt doesn't mean it has the same kind of authority over just about anything else.
Juul then goes on to lobby the government to pull the ladder up behind them, successfully, by accusing it's competitors of doing what it did and drumming up fear of problems it created. This company and it's parent company are poster children for what's wrong with the corporate world.
If you vape, you should seriously consider ditching all these disposable finished products and just making coils and fluid yourself. It's cheaper (on the order of $100 a year) and you'll throw away less plastic and actually be able to know what it is you're inhaling. And as a bonus, these scum companies won't get any of your money.
And there's lots of data to back this up: https://tobacco-img.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/...
Altria surely didn’t want Juul to get regulated out of existence. But the rest of the majors did.
How does this help them?
Like, people who are in "known" Evil companies like Oracle, Nestle, Northrop Grumman, and others, can find a "good light" justification/spin to what they are doing. We make databases, we bottle water to send to people, we sell Freedom. But tobacco/nicotine? There's no other reason why someone will get a job in that supply chain other than "I want to make money while fucking up people's lives"
I'd hope that Altria knows how to operate properly by now, anyway, whatever they did, they probably deserve it. Whether it's the responsibility of the new guard or the old doesn't matter too much I guess.
Of course, that's crazy talk.
Ignoring that different young smokers will have different authority relationships and will require different guidance methods. Which is not an insignificant factor and not fucking lost on me.
I'd have to accept something like that reputations matter. Whether you're respected in the community. Whether you're a rebel or a straightedge. And whether you're the right kind of rebel...
Man, what if that was true? And then you were told your own reputation doesn't matter. Just be proud.
It'd be like a kick in the teeth.
Somehow we got condoms to be acceptable (to most groups, again setting aside bug chasers, certain populations mistrustful of public health and edge cases) without resorting to this.
It's just insane looking at the future, because we are moving backwards.
In our live and let live - don’t judge anyone culture, who cares if people are smoking this?
What on earth.
I stopped smoking with e-cigarettes.
E-cig tobacco comes from the same companies as cigarette tobacco. Heck, e-cigs themselves often come from the same companies: Juul is Altria (ex-Phillip-Morris). There is no competition, simply different channels for the same suppliers.
(Also, the FDA is going after some current combustible tobacco products as well some current e-cigs.)
Usually when something dumb like this happens you can follow the money. But I'm open to other hypotheses.
I do not smoke at all, but tend to be live and let live in the case of pills/lozenges by mouth. I am warier about anything that gets nicotine into the inhaled air stream with a carrier solvent unless that solvent is carefully assessed and tested to be 100% safe. Some of the earlier carriers caused deaths via carrier solvent! https://www.healthline.com/health-news/lung-vaping-disease-n... There is some linkage to THC vaping as the same diluent/carrier is often used. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%932020_vaping_lung_...
Its the same strategy that some companies use where they work with the earliest stage companies, i.e. Stripe, and they grow with them. In an extremely perverted view, big tobacco just wants to grow with their customers hahaha.
I did a pack or two for 10-15 years. Could not stop cold turkey, hands used to shake so bad I could not even hold a full cup, plus a whole host of other issues. Tried 3 times.
Started with nicotine and then gradually reduced with ecigs at the peak of covid. Covid also helped in that I was stuck at home.
Took me 3 months but I stopped.
Now I just tell people I am not a smoker. That mindset shift also helped keep me off cigs.
But ecigs can be equally/more addictive. On rare occasions, I want a nicotine hit, I do not think of smoking cigs, I want to vape.
It is sad to see others will not have the option with ecigs being banned across countries.
My vaping usage was out of control, I was heavily vaping daily.
Removing e-cigs can hurt people that use them to get off cigarettes.
2) I don't know a single human being who drinks who did not drink in high school. Same applies to smoking and vaping.
Maybe I'm just a lame nerd, but I didn't drink in high school.
They never needed to do that. Kids would've gotten their hands on them just the same.
Kids have been smoking cigarettes in school bathrooms since the beginning of time. JUUL was just incredibly incompetent in contrast with the high quality of their product.
In general, I don't want any of these things to be banned, and they have positives as well as negatives. For example, alcohol is a social lubricant that promotes social connection and cooperation that would not have happened before. But especially FDA targeting tobacco users while turning blind eye to a million other unhealthy/socially disruptive things is a clear sign that their decisions are motivated by whoever is in charge of FDA at the moment rather than any imparcial signs. So if anyone is wondering why so many people don't trust what they have to say about masks or vaccines - here you go.
The legal orders were changed to mandate a 55,000 pages per month rate and the disclosure should now wrap up before the end of this year. I have no idea what the PII controls look like.
That may be true, but it is still telling that we can only get information from a government agency because they are legally forced to give it to us and they will do so in a way that is as disruptive as they can be. This isn't related to this FOIA request, but to FOIA in general and the issue that FOIA was even needed to begin with. It denotes a lack of transparency and trust, one which has fed into many not trusting the government and builds a question of what extent it should be trusted even today. This factors into far more than just vaccine related discussions.
Smoking a cigarette is like taking a fast acting but short duration antidepressant along with a mild/moderate stimulant simultaneously, which has been specifically engineered to go from lungs to brain in the shortest time possible.
Switching to vaping from smoking has a transition period ranging from a few days to just over a week while the brain adjusts to receiving the nicotine much more slowly. Vaping relieves nicotine cravings, but at normal doses in an ex-smoker barely scratches the surface of the instant relief/rush delivered by a cigarette.
Nicotine itself and on its own is relatively harmless to an ex-smoker. But should still be avoided by non-smokers.
Most of the harm caused by cigarettes are related to the tobacco-specific nitrosamines found naturally in tobacco which are carcinogenic, combined with additional carcinogens and harmful compounds created when tobacco combusts.
That said many of the flavourings used in e-cigarettes are harmful to health, especially when heated. Most notably sucralose, which itself partially decomposes into carcinogenic compounds when heated to temperatures reached by vaping. But that's another problem, my main point is that nicotine is only about as harmful as caffeine when consumed alone outside the context of a cigarette.
Weed is addictive too. Smoking plant matter of almost any variety increases cancer risk.
The fact that the federal government has chosen to not interfere in states that have decriminalized it is merely a policy position- it continues to have the authority to go after people in any state for the production, distribution and (I think) consumption of any Schedule 1 drug, which marijuana is currently listed as.
Marijuana is a Schedule 1 drug, considered illegal for possession and consumption, at the federal level.
"In October, the FDA allowed Juul rival British American Tobacco Plc (BATS.L) to market its Vuse Solo e-cigarettes and tobacco-flavored pods, making it the first-ever vapor product to get clearance from the health regulator."
We won't know for sure until the FDA actually releases their report, but one could infer that Juul as a provider of human-consumable vapor products was unsalvageably bad, to the point of being a danger to public health (in a way that their market competition was not).
> in 2019 [Juul] stopped selling sweet and fruity flavors
> The [FDA] has cleared the way for Juul’s biggest rivals to keep tobacco-flavored e-cigarettes on the market. Industry observers had expected Juul to receive similar clearance.
This is just witchcraft. You aren't a serious person.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31844324
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31844306
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31844250
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31843933
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31834903
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31824727
Seriously not cool! We ban such accounts. I don't want to ban you, so please review the rules and stick to them. That means no more name-calling, no more personal attacks, no more swipes.