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Businesses United States News

Walmart Will Stop Selling E-cigarettes (cnn.com) 112

Walmart said Friday it will stop selling e-cigarettes as the number of deaths tied to vaping grows. The decision from America's largest retailer may influence other stores and marks a significant blow to the vaping industry. From a report: "Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes, we plan to discontinue the sale of electronic nicotine delivery products at all Walmart and Sam's Club US locations," the company said in a statement. "We will complete our exit after selling through current inventory." Earlier this year, Walmart raised the minimum age to buy tobacco to 21. The changes took effect July 1 at all American Walmart and Sam's Club locations. The company said at the time that it would stop selling sweet-flavored e-cigarettes, which have become popular among teenagers. The eighth person in the United States died Thursday from lung disease related to vaping, according to Missouri health officials.
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Walmart Will Stop Selling E-cigarettes

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  • ... but they won't stop selling guns!
    • Well, that are stopping handgun sales (soon? already? don't recall the timeline). That's a start. They'll continue selling hunting rifles, which I don't think pose quite as much of a risk (slower, limited capacity, more difficult to use in close quarters) and I don't recall them being mentioned as used in any of the mass shootings (though I'm not 100% sure on that last "fact").
      • by Z00L00K ( 682162 )

        Stop selling handguns - so you mean that I can order a Tank at wally-world?

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

            Good offtopic thread, I can literally smell the vaper PR trolls.

            So what is going on, quite simply the vaper ass hats were having a little nicotine tug of war for addicts. The more nicotine the more addictive and the other companies vapes simply do not feed that addiction in quite the same way. So trying to win over the addicts with higher and higher doses and don't you know but nicotine is quite toxic and will kill you at higher doses.

            Now if the FDA can prove this and demonstrate intent to exploit that add

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • According to the NIH, "Each year, approximately 5,000 young people under the age of 21 die as a result of underage drinking;".
                Current "DEATH TOLL" for this omg outbreak that's sweeping the nation and killing our youth whom we must protect!!! -- 8.

                Fucking 8 people. This is an epidemic worthy of attention from Washington and our Cheeto-in-chief, huh? Have to stop selling those tasty flavors of e-liquid 'cause THINK OF THE CHILDREN!!!!
                Oh yeah? how about all these flavors?! Like lemon, lime, lemon-lime, orange,

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        which I don't think pose quite as much of a risk (slower, limited capacity, more difficult to use in close quarters)

        Won't argue "more difficult to use in close quarters", but hunting rifles are sometimes semiautomatic (in other words, IDENTICAL in function to "assault weapons"), and fire just as fast. And while you would have a hard time finding a ten round magazine for your average deer rifle, five round detachable magazines aren't unknown - and swapping magazines isn't a seriously time-consuming action w

    • Don't forget the millions killed by regular cigarettes.... and alcohol....

  • by MoOsEb0y ( 2177 ) on Friday September 20, 2019 @02:44PM (#59217332)
    What a weird double standard when they pull e-cigarettes, yet continue to sell tobacco.
    • by skids ( 119237 ) on Friday September 20, 2019 @02:51PM (#59217378) Homepage

      We're probably about to get a lesson in how prohibition pushes users to mare dangerous alternative markets. Because we never learn.

    • Exactly this.

      Tobacco is a proven killer and has been known to be this for a long time now. I'm not saying that Vaping gear doesn't need regulation and testing. I just think it's a bit crappy of them to ban e-cigarettes and keep selling tobacco products.

      Further, I doubt folks are buying illicit THC products at Walmart, so they really won't be preventing any illness/death related to this recent rash of illness/death.

      Lack of understanding of the scope of the problem on the part of WM Execs IMO.

      • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

        by torkus ( 1133985 )

        Virtue signaling at it's finest. Once they caved on guns you had to know they'd cave on just about anything to seem woke.

    • Yes, it is sort of odd, but at the same time I can see this being an even more significant issue. How quickly some of these people have died is alarming. This isn't like someone who has developed lung cancer after 30 years of smoking. I'd hate to see what the toll is when you have people with 30 years of inhaling these things.
      • by torkus ( 1133985 )

        Agreed. It's likely (based on initial evidence) a case of contaminated, bootleg product.

        You die damn fast if your drugs are cut with fentanyl too. Same if you put any number of vaporized common toxic substances directly into your lungs. (bleach comes to mind)

        Contaminated products aren't exactly new. Especially bootleg ones which inevitably crop up with you 1) over-regulate 2) over-tax 3) prohibit otherwise easily accessible and desirable items. Welcome to round 9000 of "doing something good" that has an

      • You are not supposed to put OIL into your Juul and vape it. The 7 people who died did just that.

        Apparently THC is oil-soluble so they mixed it in vitamin D oil and then inhaled it. They just wanted to get high, and figured this would be a cheap/inconspicuous way to do it (as opposed to lighting up a traditional MJ joint). Unfortunately nobody told these kids that yor're not supposed to inhale oil into your lungs, EVER. It's very very bad, mmkay?

        No reputable company sells oil-based vaping products, these kid

      • How quickly some of these people have died is alarming.

        Yes, that is alarming but it's also reassuring. If the legal products were causing people to die this quickly then this epidemic shouldn't be cropping up now. It shouldn't have 50+% of cases being individuals between 18 and 25.

        The latest death took up vaping after experiencing chronic pain. That should be indicative of what's going on here. Who says, "Gee, I'm experiencing pain, let me get some nicotine."

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Tobacco is harder to get hooked on. Kids who try a cigarette for the first time cough like crazy. A lot of us have stories like that from our youth, of sneaking a cig away from the adults and trying it. Most of us didn't go back... for a while. That is why they got rid of cig vending machines though--kids could get at 'em. Anyway, the vapes, first time you try them it's much easier. The flavors pull them in too.

      I don't see it as a double standard. Regular cigarettes don't hook kids so easily, and th

    • by torkus ( 1133985 )

      Kill one person and you're a murderer. Kill a million and you're a hero.

      Just how it goes these days (and pretty much forever). Society is stupid. Also, the tobacco industry is oh-so-very eager to shoot down the very thing that's killing their industry (which itself kills its customers).

    • What a weird double standard when they pull e-cigarettes, yet continue to sell tobacco.

      Not if your RTFA

      They are pullng due to "the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty.."

    • What a weird double standard when they pull e-cigarettes, yet continue to sell tobacco.

      Your question got me to wondering....

      And so I compared e-liquid prices to tobacco prices. And discovered that tobacco is MUCH more expensive than e-liquids!

      So, suddenly, all the opposition to vaping suddenly makes sense - stores are making less money, and poorer people are able to get their nicotine faxes.

      Between those two (the stores losing money and the poor people getting their nicotine fixes), you'll have big busi

    • "Given the growing federal, state and local regulatory complexity and uncertainty regarding e-cigarettes..."

      New York just banned the sale of flavored cigarettes. It's probably not going to end there.

      I also suspect they don't sell that many anyway. I bought e-cigs there a few times before I came to the conclusion that there were better options online and now in local vape stores which probably see Walmart getting out of the market as a slight silver lining to all the news recently.

    • This is very common..... I most countries e cigs are banned but normal smoking is ok because it's "grandfathered" in
  • I just bought my first Juul today. It's wicked. I'm wicked. 'nuf said
  • Guns, e-cigs... wonder if they'll get behind Bernie or Warren? And have to wonder how that will work out for them in the long term...

    • Well, since Bernie and Warren have both done a full 180 on protecting American workers and are now all about "free trade," I imagine they will oppose this move because it should be up to consumers what they put in their bodies.

  • by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday September 20, 2019 @02:49PM (#59217362)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      Americans:...who runs you guys these days?

      Walmart: a 84 year old schitzophrenic evangelical woman from Pensacola and her blind, incontinent cat.

      Probably couldn't do any worse than your typical CEO in terms of value added.

      • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

        Not true, most CEO's helpfully do nothing at all and let the competent people get work done while merely leeching funds. The evangelical schizo cat lady likely tries to do things... not cool for a CEO.

    • by lars5 ( 69333 )

      This is so much better if you imagine the voices of Walmart and Americans are John Cleese and Eric Idle respectively.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      Walmart: due to six deaths from electronic cigarettes, we must protect the consumer. Effective immediately these dangerous drugs will be removed from all of our stores.

      You didn't RTFA, did you? Go back and read the reason why they are dropping sales of E Cigs. Kind of butt-fucks your narrative, huh.

  • And getting dumber by the day. Was Walmart selling black market THC vapes? No? Then this is pointless. I bet they are still selling cigarettes though, amiright?

  • A win for the cigarette carthel.

    Luckily, im Europe, where smoking wasn't gone out of style just yet, people realized that vaping liquids did not include any of the hundrets of addictive additives; especially if you mixed them themselves... and so, suddenly, when you switched to e-cigarettes, reducing the nicotine content was not a problem anymore!
    I have several people who quot smoking that way. Easy-peasy. Slow reductions over 1-2 years... until the content was indistiguishable from none at all. ... And the

    • I can't type any better, currently. Or I would have to go stab a touch screen inventor. With a ladle. Thixk end fist.

    • by hazem ( 472289 )

      | A win for the cigarette carthel.

      Except that the members of the cigarette cartel are also the major players in the e-cigarette market too. JUUL, the market leader is owned by Altria (ah, that sounds so new-agey and nice), the new name of Philip Morris. Vuse is owned my RJ Reynolds Tobacco, and so on.

      From: https://www.journalnow.com/bus... [journalnow.com]

      Juul's market share increased from 70.5 percent to 72.1 percent during the four-week period that ended Aug. 11. Meanwhile, Vuseâ(TM)s market share dropped from 10.8 percent to 9.6 percent even as it lowered some product pricing to drive sales.

    • You are exactly right. The anti vap movement is from the anti cigarette movement. You see the more people smoke the more they get to stay around drawing government $$$ etc. Hence they want smokers over harmless vaping which will eliminate the need for the agencies and research and reports and recommendations about smoking etc. You can build quite a career over it.
  • by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Friday September 20, 2019 @02:59PM (#59217418)

    There goes the best tool we've ever had to fight tobacco addiction, because of a knee-jerk reaction from His Orangeness due to a bad batch of THC-laced e-juice. It wasn't even regular juice. But it was bound to happen: there are a lot of actors who eagerly waiting for the slightest slip-up to kill vaping.

  • by Anonymous Coward
    Knee-Jerk!
  • The elite shoppers of Walmart will see through this vape-ban/cigarettes allowed hypocrisy and won't stand for it!

    https://www.peopleofwalmart.co... [peopleofwalmart.com]

  • Between WalMart stopping most gun sales, and now e-cigs, this really opens up the market for smaller shops to compete.

    Kind of them to give away a huge marketshare and overwhelming cost advantage!

    • by Shaitan ( 22585 )

      Walmart didn't really have much in the way of guns for sale in the first place. They've always been pretty heavily restricted on the guns and ammunition they sell.

  • Jeff Bezos just made 500 million in new e-ciggerettes sales
  • It won't surprise me one bit if at some point in the near future we hear that the tobacco industry has been paying massive bribes to lawmakers and big businesses to declare, "E-CIGS BAD!!!!!!!!111"
  • What do deaths related to vaping THC cartridges have to do with anything sold at Walmart? Not that this is a bad thing, the only thing they'd be selling at Walmart are the e-cigs from the major tobacco companies and you'd have to be insane to trust their products.

  • Why aren't they going to stop selling junk food?

    Obesity kills more people than all gun deaths (including suicide) combined. If what you're wanting is to prevent deaths, lets start with the big killers.

  • I mean how many kids have guns killed?

    Has to be way less then illicent home made THC carts? Right?

  • by PPH ( 736903 ) on Friday September 20, 2019 @06:14PM (#59218206)

    Stop selling XXL yoga pants.

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