Juul Is Fighting To Keep Its E-Cigarettes on the US Market (nytimes.com) 232
Sales have plunged by $500 million. The work force has been cut by three-quarters. Operations in 14 countries have been abandoned. Many state and local lobbying campaigns have been shut down. From a report: Juul Labs, the once high-flying e-cigarette company that became a public health villain to many people over its role in the teenage vaping surge, has been operating as a shadow of its former self, spending the pandemic largely out of the public eye in what it calls "reset" mode. Now its very survival is at stake as it mounts an all-out campaign to persuade the Food and Drug Administration to allow it to continue to sell its products in the United States. The agency is trying to meet a Sept. 9 deadline to decide whether Juul's devices and nicotine pods have enough public health benefit as a safer alternative for smokers to stay on the market, despite their popularity with young people who never smoked but became addicted to nicotine after using Juul products. Major health organizations, including the American Heart Association, American Lung Association, American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Cancer Society's Cancer Action Network, have asked the agency to reject Juul's application.
Well, bye (Score:5, Insightful)
Fuck 'em. (Score:5, Insightful)
Juul is a villain by any measure. They supported raising the legal age limit for vaping and advertised it because their internal research indicated it would increase the number of teens that vaped. This company is run by sociopaths who are jealous that oil companies are managing to destroy the global ecosystem and profit from it.
Honestly, these are the type of people that should be tarred, feathered and run out of town in the literal sense but I would settle for dropping them into an active volcano.
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You said:
" They supported raising the legal age limit for vaping and advertised it because their internal research indicated it would increase the number of teens that vaped"...
And this is a bad thing, how?
Shouldn't the legal age be the same as for cigarettes? Isn't it?
Re:Fuck 'em. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because they were advertising vaping to kids, and knew that banning it would make it even cooler.
When a movie gets an 18 rating that covers the advertising too. Trailers will not be shown along side PG rated movies.
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If they were advertising to kids, that's one obviously bad, BUT supporting the same ban on vaping as there is on cigarettes has to be looked at in the same light. Is supporting a ban on underage cigarette sales considered something that makes cigarettes even cooler? I think not. That's means whether you support age restrictions or not -- either way you could be considered "bad", which is obviously ridiculous.
As for advertising to kids, that should be held to the same standards as advertising cigarettes t
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If they were advertising to kids, that's one obviously bad, BUT supporting the same ban on vaping as there is on cigarettes has to be looked at in the same light.
That's not what they did.
They supported federal vaping laws which restrict the sale of vaping products and refills to persons 21 years or older. The federal age for purchase of tobacco products remains at 18.
SOME STATES (getting up around a third, looks like) have now raised the age for purchase of any tobacco, tobacco-related, or tobacco-derived products to 21, notably California. This also includes all of the related paraphernalia for anything which could be considered a tobacco product, so vapes are incl
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You said:
" They supported raising the legal age limit for vaping and advertised it because their internal research indicated it would increase the number of teens that vaped"...
And this is a bad thing, how?
How did you miss "it would increase the number of teens that vaped"? That's obviously a bad thing.
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What I didn't get, and what doesn't make sense, is that they were supporting a higher age for vaping products vs. cigarettes. How can that be scientifically supported? That's why I didn't even consider that possibility. If that is what they are supporting, then I would throw a load of hate for stupidity their way regardless of the teen issue.
As for teens/children, its always impressive the way the US teens are scored/rated low by many measures and seem to be dropping compared with other western nations -
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I would settle for dropping them into an active volcano.
Lord Xenu tried that once and it didn't go well.
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I just want to use energy. Big Oil (etc.) has lobbied to make sure that I have to get it from them, and that it has to come from the remains of plants which have been underground for millions of years. We could have been putting in solar plants since the 1970s.
Oil does not come from dead dinos -- or plants (Score:2)
The scientific evidence points towards oil coming from either cyanobacteria, a prokaryote, or from eukaryote organisms in the form of specific species of algae that have vesicles containing fatty substances close to the chemical composition of crude oil. These organisms grow under very specific environmental conditions of anoxic lakes or shallow seas, where when these organisms die, they sink to the bottom and their carbon content is sequestered in a reduced oxidation state instead of being broken down by
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If oil was that easily replaced, you think that motivated political cultures from WW-II era Germany to the 1970s oil-embargoed US to apartheid era South Africa would have pulled it off?
Maybe, if not for the ongoing lobbying efforts of... big oil.
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If oil was that easily replaced...
It's not easily replaced which doesn't make it any less worth doing.
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Oil companies are not destroying the global ecosystem. YOU are.
I drive an EV and use nuclear power. I'm not the one to blame here.
"how about we stop selling addictive poisons?" (Score:5, Interesting)
reminds me of that DS9 episode where the Ferengi go back in time and are astounded how the people will pay for self-administered poisons. "If these people will buy poison they'll buy ANYTHING!"
(although alcohol is pretty much right up there with nicotine in terms of addictiveness and health affects - but we can't have weed, that's too dangerous!)
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(although alcohol is pretty much right up there with nicotine in terms of addictiveness and health affects - but we can't have weed, that's too dangerous!)
Wine, or even some beer, can have health benefits when consumed in moderation.
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Are you some kind of prohibitionist? Because, no, alcohol is not "right up there with nicotine in terms of addictiveness ".
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You gave up smoking at 21. Any plans on giving up being an asshole at 66?
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I've heard so many different "success stories" I believe there's no one best way. You just have to try something and see if it works for you. And having some determination / ability to follow committments helps a lot.
And never start up again. Everyone I know that's just grabbed one cigarette or pack "just this once" has full-on relapsed. Don't give in to temptation.
Licensed Addiction (Score:4, Insightful)
It might be worth pointing out that in like-for-like form - i.e. comparable dosage and purity - nicotine is way, way more addictive than heroin. The key differences between these two toxins are the effects (the high) that heroin gives a users, coupled with the chemical changes to the body, especially the brain. Addictive compounds literally alter the brains of users, not in a good way,
The entire tobacco/nicotine industry makes money from the suffering of others. That they do it through addiction makes it worse.
If a few states were to set up treatment and rehabilitation centres for tobacco addicts and then take the industry to court to secure fines to cover the operating costs - as has been done with the opium industry - then perhaps a few of these parasite companies might go out of business or quit the market.
Re: Licensed Addiction (Score:2)
As well as camps for nicotine addicts, how about camps where beer users can concentrate?
Re: Licensed Addiction (Score:4, Funny)
Like Oktoberfest, but all-year-round?
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Why punish currently addicted persons by coercing them to hurt themselves by consuming tobacco instead of straight nicotine through vaping? You can buy nicotine patches and gum over the counter, in case you didn't know.
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Good (Score:4, Insightful)
I can't think of a good reason that the sale and advertising of vapes shouldn't be subject to the same restrictions as other tobacco products.
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Juul adverts wouldn't have looked out of place in a teen music magazine. They were deliberately pitched at young people and if their sales have crashed then good. Other e-cig products also aped all the BS that cigarette advertisers used to do in the 60s, 70s & 80s - cool people partying with their vapes, rugged manly men vaping while leaning against barns etc.
I can't think of a good reason that the sale and advertising of vapes shouldn't be subject to the same restrictions as other tobacco products.
Er, maybe because you don't have to put it in your mouth and set it on fire?? I mean, it's kinda different, isn't it??
(obDisclaimer: never smoked, never vaped myself)
They won't go away (Score:2)
We know there is no real net public health benefit to these products. As stated it is doing far more to get kids hooked on nicotine than it does to get people to stop smoking. Add to that the convoluted defenses Juul and others have waged to keep us from knowing the full contents of their liquid concoctions and
The gawdawful smell (Score:2, Insightful)
Issues of addiction and health left aside for a moment (I do think they're important), as a lifelong non-smoker I don't think smokers appreciate the olfactory torture they inflict on non-smokers when smoking in confined spaces with them. Thankfully laws have been implemented in most places that banished smoking to designated areas (and yes, I'm old enough to have worked in open-plan offices where smoking was allowed). Unfortunately when said smokers return from those designated places, they still carry the
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when said smokers return from those designated places, they still carry the rot in their lungs and exhale it in the confined space
Thirdhand smoke comes more from the clothes and hair than from lungs.
Physical addiction vs. Psychological (Score:4, Informative)
Here's what I experienced: The nicotine addiction was trivial compared to the habit/psychological addiction. Nicotine effects were gone in roughly 3 days each time. But the habit-related cravings (a smoke after a meal, during a break, after sex, etc...) were much harder to deal beat and took much more effort/management. From my POV, vaping to avoid the nicotine withdrawal makes little to no sense. The real value of vaping for me would have come from habit substitution, not chemicals. After day 3, I could have vaped a non-nicotine product. Or I could learn to change my habits. Since vaping wasn't a thing back when I quit smoking, I had to learn to change habits. Altering habits is a skill I've been able to deploy into other aspects of my life.
Re:Who gets to choose when and how I die? (Score:5, Insightful)
Being dead or alive is not the problem. It is the transitional state that is uncomfortable.
Re: Who gets to choose when and how I die? (Score:4, Insightful)
So, vote "yes" to assisted suicide.
Re:Who gets to choose when and how I die? (Score:5, Insightful)
If your goal is to have zero deaths outside of "natural, healthy deaths at a ripe old age"
It isn't, it's to stop a bunch of cynical, already-rich old men from getting the upcoming generation addicted to nicotine so they can pick their pockets for the rest of their lives.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm a vaper. I've been vaping for 8 years. Vaping saved my life.
Today vaping is dead. Big tobacco and big pharma, and the corrupt politicians and lawmakers they have on the payroll around the world, pretty much killed it.
I have my old collection of mods and atomizers that I feverishly collected years ago when vaping was still a free thing, and a very large stash of nicotine base stored in nitrogen-filled brown bottles at -30C. I have all that because I knew the corrupt sumbitches would eventually legislate vaping out of existence, and the last thing I need is to be out of vaping supplies and be tempted to go back to tobacco. I absolutely dread being tempted to smoke again, so I stocked up before it was too late.
I'm good for the foreseeable future. But I pity the poor sap who wants to quit smoking today: 3 or 4 years ago, all they had to do is pop into one of the many vape stores and they stood a reasonable chance to find a rig that would help them quit smoking for a 10th of the price of smoking.
Today? Not so much: vaping is subject to obscene bullshit "tobacco product" taxes, and the choice of hardware on offer is pathetic because purchasing online has been outlawed everywhere.
Someone someday will have to answer for the killing of this unique chance to improve public health. Shame on our elected officials and shame on the bastards they're in the pockets of.
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Why not get it here? [ejuicedb.com]
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Why not get it here? [ejuicedb.com]
Where I live, that means I have to take a few days off work so I can personally sign for the package when it arrives. But I can order rolling tobacco online and the mailman is allowed to just leave it in my mailbox. But that's the law. Thanks Phillip Morris.
And now there's even a tax! It's like $.50/oz so a $20 bottle of juice is now $40. You know, for the children, or some other kind of bullshit.
Re: Better than smoking (Score:5, Insightful)
And there we have it. I don't think anyone could have written a more eloquent argument of how vital it is to reduce the number of people who get into nicotine in the first place.
Re: Better than smoking (Score:4, Insightful)
This^
With a side note that the nicotine industry specifically targets teens in their rebellious years when they don't know any better.
Motto: Get enough of them them hooked at that age and you'll have a guaranteed income for the rest of your life.
What about personal freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
"It's bad for you" is no reason to make something illegal. Not, at least, if personal freedom is among a country's core values.
Note: this statement only applies to adults. Marketing at teenagers was the stupidest thing this company could have ever done. Adults should be free to decide to do things that are bad for them, but not children and not teenagers.
Every single human faces the eventuality of death, as as such every single human must make trade off decisions between quality and quantity of life. It is our duty to each other to preserve each other's ability to do precisely this. To those of you who want this product to be illegal for adults, just because it is addictive or unhealthy, I ask you: what about alcohol? What about caffeine? What about salt? What about red meat? What about social media? What about a million other things that can be bad for you if overdone? Somewhere in that list is your favorite vice that you think should be legal, even though it has such risks.
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Re:What about personal freedom? (Score:4, Informative)
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What about arsenic? The line has to be drawn somewhere. I'm not saying this is a good place to draw the line, but when you have an entire industry that is profiting from addiction, there is some degree of responsibility that comes with that. That definitely applies to alcohol to an extent - but also to the snack food industry. If cigarettes only contained tobacco, and vaping was only marketed toward adults, with advertising materials that aren't designed to appeal to teens who see it "accidentally" then
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Arsenic isn't addictive nor does it have any recreational use. It is not a counter-example so much as a completely irrelevant example.
The correct way to handle addiction is education and support services. The best place to draw the line is not "well it's addictive," as that would surely include caffeine and alcohol, but rather "it makes one violent." Something like PCP, for example, should remain illegal for that reason alone.
Understand that there is also more at play here than personal freedom. When hi
Re: What about personal freedom? (Score:2)
We now have AHC. So stuff that's bad for you is now the business of the collective.
Good point about kids vs adults though. Nobody has any business killing themselves on dad's nickel.
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Most of the bitching about smoking is due to the unpleasant habits of smokers, such as smoking around people that don't want to have anything to do with the smell, or the ever-present litter of cigarette butts flying out of car windows.
Note that every smoker does not do these things, but there are plenty that make up for it and cause it to move from individual freedom to public nuisance.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason vaping has been targeted is the companies making the products showed that they were in need of some heavy regulation. They went after kids, and they put all sorts of crap in the vaping mixtures.
If your product is chemically addictive and damages the customer's health you should really start by being very responsible and open with regulators. If you don't do that, well this is what happens. It's hardly surprising, it's all happened before with traditional tobacco products.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh yeah, I feel so much safer smoking well tested, well regulated cigarettes...
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If only there were a third option....
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason vaping has been targeted is the companies making the products showed that they were in need of some heavy regulation. They went after kids, and they put all sorts of crap in the vaping mixtures.
The tobacco industry has always gone after kids.
Think about it: How many smokers do you know who started smoking in their twenties? Almost none. By that time most people have figured out you'd have to be an idiot to start doing it.
By the time you get to age thirty the number of people who start smoking will be close to zero.
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The tobacco industry has always gone after kids.
Think about it: How many smokers do you know who started smoking in their twenties? Almost none. By that time most people have figured out you'd have to be an idiot to start doing it.
By the time you get to age thirty the number of people who start smoking will be close to zero.
I don't think most cigar and pipe smokers start before their 20s.
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Cigars are kind of a special case though - sure there are people that routinely smoke cigars (I have an uncle who does this) but for a whole lot of people a cigar is something they enjoy in a social setting, or golfing, etc. and then don't get touched until back in those settings.
Cigarettes are almost the opposite of that - social smoking of cigarettes is the exception to the rule. By far, the majority of cigarette use is from daily chemically addicted users.
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The main reason vaping has been targeted is the companies making the products showed that they were in need of some heavy regulation. They went after kids, and they put all sorts of crap in the vaping mixtures.
If your product is chemically addictive and damages the customer's health you should really start by being very responsible and open with regulators. If you don't do that, well this is what happens. It's hardly surprising, it's all happened before with traditional tobacco products.
This.
I'll preface this with the fact that vaping is a lot better than smoking, my brother in law hasn't smoked in 5 years after I bought him a vaping kit from the UK (he's in Oz, which is still AFAIK restricting the sales of vape fluid outright) and my sister is still recommending me for sainthood because of it. But it's still an addicting compound so it should be treated with the same caution that we treat other addicting compounds, this means targeted advertising is strictly verboten in most developed
Acetamiprid (Score:2)
You heard of synthehol on STNG? I want my synthetic nicotine back!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Since Big Ag pulled Ortho Flower Fruit and Vegetable Insect Killer Concentrate off the market, a backyard grower is left with few options for a reduced human-risk agent that is effective against the major apple pests.
I was thinking "they pulled acetamiprid (from home, not big commercial growers) for unsubstantiated claims about bee toxicity but they still allow teens to suck nicotine vapor into their l
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
If your product is chemically addictive and damages the customer's health
Good point. Could you get this message to Seattle's politicians in the context of meth and heroin?
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Insightful)
Today vaping is dead. Big tobacco and big pharma, and the corrupt politicians and lawmakers they have on the payroll around the world, pretty much killed it.
No the industry killed itself. They didn't need help from tobacco or big pharma. Marketing nicotine and candy flavoured vapes at teens was incredibly fucking stupid and doesn't need a conspiracy behind it.
They could have remained an alternative to smoking, a product to ween those people off who wanted to quit or change to something healthier, but instead they had to go and expand their market and did so using the same addictive substance which we give tobacco companies endless shit for.
The only saving grace is that smoking rates have been falling in the USA regardless of vaping, and if you look at the smoking trends you can't actually spot when vaping came to the scene. Anyway it's a shame vaping died first, but ultimate as long as both vaping and tobacco industries continue to decline the world is going to be alright.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Informative)
No the industry killed itself. They didn't need help from tobacco or big pharma. Marketing nicotine and candy flavoured vapes at teens was incredibly fucking stupid and doesn't need a conspiracy behind it.
The vape industry IS big tobacco. For example Juul is 35% owned by Altria (formerly Philip Morris) and 27% owned by Japan Tobacco International. Juul has over 70% of the vape market. Tobacco bought up big vape and ran it into the ground. It absolutely had a conspiracy behind it, and further, it wasn't at all secret and all the details are public so you can see that this is in fact the case.
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It absolutely had a conspiracy behind it, and further, it wasn't at all secret and all the details are public
I don't think you quite know what the word "conspiracy" means. A public non-secret plan by definition isn't a conspiracy.
Point is the same, Juul wasn't the subject of some hostile takeover which they defended themselves against. They happily took the money and then fucked their own industry. That's not a conspiracy, that's not some external nefarious lobbying to get rid of some competition. That is market stupidity combined with selling out, 100% in control of and the fault of the vaping industry itself.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think you quite know what the word "conspiracy" means. A public non-secret plan by definition isn't a conspiracy.
Conspiracy? How about the vitamin-e laced THC "vape" that was destroying people's lungs. FDA and the media knew goddamned well from day one that it had nothing at all to do with nicotine vape yet for a whole year pounded out the message that everyone should stop vaping immediately (and move back to cigarettes, of course).
Oh, and the exploding vape bullshit. Another lie.
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Big tobacco and big vape? You're a big fucking idiot.
Big x is understood to mean "Big business in the x market". That is, by people capable of understanding things. You are not one of these people, apparently, which makes me wonder why you think Slashdot is a good place for you. If you have to have everything spelled out for you, perhaps you'd be better off playing Reader Rabbit.
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A big conspiracy to buy up and destroy the industry by...following basically the same death profiteering playbook they always have. When you let nicotine-peddlers operate unregulated, they'll make the product as addictive and profitable as possible at any cost to their customer's health, advertise everywhere and market to kids, news at 11.
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I have no idea why they wouldn't want to put everything that they had into something with a higher profit margin. They should have allowed it to cut into tobacco sales sharply, while having advance knowledge so they don't end up overproducing on the tobacco side. They also would have had a larger share of the nicotine market if they could pull customers from other tobacco companies.
They could have just done the simplest selfish thing and still been a win for public health. The amount of stupidity involve
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The lengths these addicts will go to to get their fix.
This only shows how important it is to stop people from becoming nicotine addicts in the first place.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely agreed!
I started smoking when I was 11 years old. That turned me into a lifelong nicotine addict and it was the dumbest thing I've ever done in my life. But I know that now with the power of hindsight.
Yes, I will go to great length to get my nicotine fix. Do you think I enjoy it? It's all fine and good to be sarcastic, but for former people like me, vaping does offer a way out of constant craving.
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Not sarcastic.
I guess we have to weigh up the benefits to people like you who are already addicted. (And seemingly with no intention to stop)
And the people who aren't already addicted.
I'm on the side of stopping todays generation of 11 year olds making the same mistake you did.
But I understand why you would be on the other.
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It's not that I have no intention to stop. God knows I tried. It's that I can't. I quit cold turkey for 3 years once, and every single day of those 3 years was a fight against craving. I don't get that with vaping, and it lets me live the rest of my life normally.
I read somewhere that if you start young enough (16 years of age or younger) the nicotine addiction gets hardwired in your growing brain. I can believe that.
Yes, it's great that kids today don't start smoking, because it's not cool anymore. But som
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I read somewhere that if you start young enough (16 years of age or younger) the nicotine addiction gets hardwired in your growing brain.
I believe your brain is either wired for it or it's not. My brother tried a cigarette as a teen, got sick, and puked. I tried one and got the best buzz I've ever experienced in my life.
Guess which one us smoked for 20 years (until vaping came out).
Weird thing is, he's the one dying of brain cancer and not me. :(
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And you talk about how hard that was. Yet nicotine itself is not significantly more dangerous than caffeine. And even caffeine's long term effects are pretty well mitigated by consistent, relatively low dosing. I'd rather see large numbers of people stay addicted for the rest of their life than see fewer people able to quit actually smoking. Winning against nicotine is not as important as winning against smoking.
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Interesting)
> I absolutely dread being tempted to smoke again, so I stocked up before it was too late.
Please understand this is not a personal attack, you just raised a topic which crosses my mind everytime I see phat clouds being ripped, my dude.
I say this as an ex-smoker who used gradually decreasing nico vapes to quit, why do folks say "ex-smoker" like anything has changed? They are still addicted to the chemical and physical aspects of the process, and sure, lungs might take an extra 10 years to liquefy (and the jury is still out on the long term jive with vaping) but they're otherwise all but smoking save the smell. I didn't consider myself one till I was clear of the vapes.
For *months* after I quit I was not only idly smoking/ashing/vaping pens and other things, but I was often instinctively pushing the ciggy lighter in on the car when I got in of a morning and had to buy a moka pot for work so I could break the "smoke a smoke on the walk to coffee so I could have my morning coffee and a smoke" regime (I lolled a little bit of vomit when I recognised that behaviour)". Saved $22 dollarydoos a week on bean alone. A year later and I still instinctively go for my pocket if someone asks for a light, though I do miss my Zippo and it's clicky satisfaction (another addictive hook!). It's crazy to see how deep even the physical habit bites once you have separated it from the chemical, and personally I do not like something that did not co-evolve in nature with me, having that deep an impact on my psyche. Especially when you consider the heinous scumfucks at the top of the profit chain. I applaud your deft sidestep, but a good majority would have no idea how to DIY vape/juice, or even that you can.
I am all for people quitting everything, I do not want to be seen as discouraging and I absolutely understand the difficulties a growing red mist in your peripheral vision brings to passing the days without burning something (or having a cigarette), but I cannot help but feel that vaping for anything longer than 12-18 months (11 for me) basically negates all other points than the "not die of lungrot". People are still physically and chemically addicted to the process, and those who use nicotine free juices it make even less sense to me. Why pay a literal recurring fee to carry yet more e-junk around that does nothing for you other than make you look like a child with a security blanket?
Re:Better than smoking (Score:5, Interesting)
As to zero nicotine vaping, there is a reason there too.
I also used vapes to quit smoking, by mixing my own juice and reducing nicotine to zero. I continued to vape at zero for 3 or 4 months because I was physically addicted to the ritual of drawing on something, be it vape or cigarette. The oral fixation was actually stronger than the nicotine, as I didn't miss it at all and didn't have any issues until I finally came to the realization internally that drawing on a zero nicotine vape was an ultimately useless activity, and finally quit for good.
I have been off cigs and vapes totally now for about 3 years, had a few cravings but not too bad and I was a former 2 pack a day smoker.
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I do not want to be seen as discouraging and I absolutely understand the difficulties a growing red mist in your peripheral vision brings to passing the days without burning something (or having a cigarette), but I cannot help but feel that vaping for anything longer than 12-18 months (11 for me) basically negates all other points than the "not die of lungrot". People are still physically and chemically addicted to the process, and those who use nicotine free juices it make even less sense to me. Why pay a literal recurring fee to carry yet more e-junk around that does nothing for you other than make you look like a child with a security blanket?
Never smoked, never vaped, but couldn't let this go by without comment.
basically negates all other points than the "not die of lungrot".
Isn't that kind of ... an important point? Even if it's the only one??
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So here we are 8 years later and you still haven't quit "smoking".
Must be a wonderfully effective way to "quit".
Re: Better than smoking (Score:4, Insightful)
You never truly "quit" a drug addiction. No matter what you do your brain will keep craving for it for your whole life and the temptation to start it all over again will always be there. You can FORCE yourself to not do drugs, but it requires a huge will power that not everyone has.
What you can do if you can't manage to stop it is to have alternatives. If vaping is healthier than smoking, then go for it. You will still get your fault dose of nicotine, bit at least you aren't filling your lungs with tar sands perhaps this will avoid you getting lung cancer and dying craving for air.
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
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They have not quit nicotine use. Nicotine use is not incredibly dangerous. If someone was still using the patch, pills or gum rather than smoking cigarettes, would you be telling them that they're still haven't quit smo
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
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Juul is not helpful because they are intentionally delivering much higher concentrations than a regular cigarette. IMO thats like trying to quit a Heroin addiction with Fentanyl.
The juice in vape shops is 0, 3, or 6mg nicotine.
A Marlboro Red is ~24.
Juul is 57mg.
FIFTY SEVEN!!
And in exciting colors and fruity flavors, all packaged to conveniently hide from your parents!
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You can still buy liquid nicotine and related equipment, but it has to be to physical stores. Which coincidentally are being hit with massive tax hikes in recent years. I be
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Sounds like a perfect solution. Nicotine addicts can still get their harm reduction, but it's awkward and uncool to do, so kids are unlikely to start.
I would have restricted sales to behind the pharmacy counter.
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Sounds like a perfect solution. Nicotine addicts can still get their harm reduction, but it's awkward and uncool to do, so kids are unlikely to start.
I would have restricted sales to behind the pharmacy counter.
Last I checked, kids need their parents permission to have a credit card, and thus buy online.
Cool vs. uncool isn't the point. What is the point is having to wait for the mailman, seeing him drop the "Sorry I missed you" note in the box without even getting out of his cart, and then having to go to the post office to get the package.
But I can walk right into the convenience store and buy cigarettes. Or rolling tobacco online. No signature required.
Anyways, go fuck yourself.
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
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Today? Not so much: vaping is subject to obscene bullshit "tobacco product" taxes, and the choice of hardware on offer is pathetic because purchasing online has been outlawed everywhere.
I don't think it's outlawed in the US. I believe it requires a signature by carrier on delivery (presumably for age verification) so it costs more to get it sent to your house. And those signature requirements do not exist for business to business sales (mfg to vape shops).
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I'm a vaper. I've been vaping for 8 years. Vaping saved my life.
Today vaping is dead. Big tobacco and big pharma, and the corrupt politicians and lawmakers they have on the payroll around the world, pretty much killed it.
[...]
I'm good for the foreseeable future. But I pity the poor sap who wants to quit smoking today: 3 or 4 years ago, all they had to do is pop into one of the many vape stores and they stood a reasonable chance to find a rig that would help them quit smoking for a 10th of the price of smoking.
[...]
Before putting all the blame on big tobacco, you should know that Big Tobacco - Philip Morris (or Altria, as it's called now) - owns a large part of Juul.
The issue authorities have with Juul is not smokers replacing their habit with vaping, but with Juul going after kids [nytimes.com], youth [truthinitiative.org] and other non-smokers to increase sales. If it was just a product that helped transition addicts away from smoking, I'm sure everyone would a lot more positive..
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But not smoking or vaping at all is preferable, and the problem was the vaping products were encouraging people to start not just switch to vaping from smoking.
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Vaping products "encouraged" the same people that traditionally would have started smoking traditional cigarettes.
Juul screwed up by removing the flavored products. The idea that adults don't like sweet or fruity flavors was absurd.
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
I think the idea behind Juul being made to eliminate flavors (it wasn't their own idea) was to keep vaping from becoming attractive to anyone. Not just kids. Adults who were already hooked on nicotine would vape to satisfy their craving. Not for the taste treat.
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The tasty treat is what got me to switch from traditional cigarettes to vaping.
It tasted better and I didn't stink the same as when I smoked.
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Bzzt. Wrong.
What Juul, and other Vape's didn't account for was people modifying the devices so that they get 100x dosage they would from the unmodified device. Also them catching people on fire, causing house fires, etc.
Hence, it winds up being worse.
Look, I'll give it a little credit had the devices been tamper-proof and recyclable it would have been able to be passed off, but it isn't.
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
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The people overdriving vapes are like 0.0001% of the market. Most people just buy one and use it. And there's no such thing as a cheap tamper-proof device, either. Fundamentally at some point you make your own controller and there's really nothing they can do to add DRM to a resistive heating element.
What Juul and other big vape companies did was obviously market to teens. But since Juul in particular is over 50% owned by tobacco companies (and has over 70% of the market, BTW) it makes it seem awfully delib
Re: Better than smoking (Score:2)
Even bettet - give up nicotine totally.
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That's exactly what I tell people about fast food and sugar. But I still see it as their choice fundamentally.
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The vaping industry is owned by the tobacco industry so maybe this is what they want.
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Some of it is. I buy my juices from mom and pop stores.
Switching (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure Juul was set up by the tobacco companies, as they are coming out with their own vaping devices. Philip Morris recently launched their Iqos product, which electrically burns tobacco. I'm sure that it won't be too long before they start coming out with flavored products, to fill in where Juul left off.
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The larger issue is marketing to kids by selling candy flavored vape. This is a mistake that cigarette makers made by advertising using cartoons. There is good research that middle school kids are using and good evidence to believe the v
Don't give anyone ideas (Score:2)
I know where you are going with this, brother/sister person. News for Nerds and we all know about sugar and caffeine dependency in the Nerd Community although there may be a few weenies on Slashdot who claim they live on brown rice and mung beans.
Still, it might give the Slashdot diet-and-lifestyle Karens some ideas.
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It would be as silly as regulating caffeine if it weren't for the fact that they were actually wanting people to end up addicted to cigarettes eventually instead. Which is silly, because it is way more profitable than tobacco.