Reading the article further it’s clear to me that they just want to avoid criticism by positioning themselves as a tool to quit smoking. They know that some people are going to buy them no matter what they say - and this just keeps parents off their backs and their products on retailers shelves.
I mean, I would love it if people behaved in a moral way - if they are in a business that brings a net negative value to the world, then yes! Shut it down!
But I'm not here expecting that to happen...
Instead I think we should just know that what they are saying and why they are saying it is 100% a cyncial play to make more money at the cost of the environment and people's health, and regulate them as such.
Playing Devils Advocate: Why are we so quick to demonize the tobacco industry but we don’t demonize companies that sell alcohol, artificial sweeteners, junk food, red meat, etc. They are all unhealthy. I’m sure everyone has some bad habits that will lead to a premature death.
Not really. You can want something to be legal, not have the state brutalize people, and still not want for profit companies synthesizing desire via marketing and product design and creating ubiquitous availability.
You can want both. But it can’t happen. I personally would rather not have a world where marijuana use is widespread, but I would rather have that if it means taking away one more tool from the justice system to punish people (unequally) for a victimless crime.
What world do you live in? Potato chip companies cause way way more social harm than Juul. It is waaay easier to quit Juul than cigarettes. It doesn't cause cancer. What is actually the issue, besides the puritanism?
this claim is not uncontroversial. they don't cause physical dependence in the way we think of with drugs (ie, no physical withdrawal syndrome), but eating junk food can be an exceptionally difficult habit to break. humans can become addicted to almost anything that gives a moderate to strong immediate reward.
Clearly there are differences between potato chips (hard to stop eating) and alcohol/tobacco/coffee (physical withdrawal symptoms). So how about this: I think the more addictive something is, the more carefully we should regulate the capitalist systems that surround it. Not actually that complicated a position.
not trying to split hairs, but it's worth pointing out that addiction is a lot more complicated than most people think. the severity of physical withdrawal is not perfectly correlated with how hard it is to kick a habit; there are a lot of other factors.
I don't disagree with your broader point though. as long as you are focused on preventing new users rather than making the lives of existing users needlessly difficult, you'll get no argument from me.
1. Potato chips are totally addictive. Obviously and [1]. And they market extensively to children.
2. If Juul offered nicotine from non tobacco sources, would that change things? Calling nicotine tobacco still doesn't make vaping anywhere close to being as deadly as cigarettes.
[1] Lennerz, B., & Lennerz, J. K. (2018). Food addiction, high-glycemic-index carbohydrates, and obesity. Clinical chemistry, 64(1), 64-71.
1. a 2018 paper arguing that food addiction is real is hardly conclusive consensus. That paper is literally evidence that the topic is still under debate.
2. everybody in this thread is conflating nicotine and tobacco, but the difference is moot. the point is health risks and addiction. Whatever is in your vape is an unquantified health risk, and is definitely addictive. We won't know if vape chemicals and usage patterns cause more or less damage than cigarettes until people have been huffing them at scale for 20-30 years at least.
Even if they do cause less damage than cigarettes, how much less is ok? half? a tenth? a one-hundreth?
The benefit of a 2018 paper is that it assembles the evidence. But, to satisfy, here is a much older paper about caffeine addiction [2]. Because, yes. Caffeine. It's addictive. And that's not really a problem, is it?
You ask how much less damage is ok. Half would be great! But it is likely to be more than that. The sun causes more cancer than Juul, that is worth keeping in mind. It's a free country.
[2] Olekalns, N., & Bardsley, P. (1996). Rational addiction to caffeine: An analysis of coffee consumption. Journal of Political Economy, 104(5), 1100-1104.
Ok... so caffeine is addictive therefore potato chips are? Does not follow.
Addictive alone is not necessarily a problem, but it does mean there is the potential for companies to exploit that addiction to make money while causing great harm along the way.
> It's a free country.
A "free country" and regulated capitalism are not mutually exclusive. It's a free country and you need a license to drive a car. It's a free country and you can't sell someone baking soda disguised as flour. Regulations, done right, have the potential to make us all safer, and protect us from exploitation by capitalist interests. For example, stealing is very profitable... but we made it illegal in order to discourage corporations from forming around theft as a business model.
All that said, to be perfectly honest, my actual biggest beef with juul is the stupid disposable plastic pods. Everything else is... well, capitalism exploiting addiction for profit... at the cost of people's health. Which as you point out, is not exclusive to juul.
We are on on the same page. I only view the health effects of Juul as a larger net positive than potato chips (but not coffee!). I wish juul was sold in India -- millions of lives would be saved. Smoking kills. I think Juul is a gateway to not consuming nicotine. But I recognize that takes more time and evidence to bear out.
Marijuana is a plant that is very easy to grow, has few negative long-term side effects, has several medicinal properties, and its ban and subsequent enforcement existed to disenfranchise anti-war folks and minorities. Additionally its ban helped gangs in South and Mezoamerica make a lot of money by selling it in the US.
Cigarettes have few positive side effects and heavily contributes to the #1 preventable disease in the US: cardiovascular disease. AFAIK there are no outright bans on nicotine or tobacco products. However, the places you may consume them in public are shrinking (and often the same restrictions are placed on marijuana). Also the kind of products that are attractive to kids are being targeted (again, AFAIK companies are not allowed to market marijuana - or alcohol - to children).
It seems to me that tobacco used to be much more prevalent but is being re-categorized from "acceptable everywhere" into the same group as alcohol. And marijuana is being re-categorized from Schedule 1 to the same category as alcohol.
Unhealthy != addictive.
Tobacco and alcohol are addictive, but none of your other examples are. I'd love to have a separate convo about regulating alcohol in a different way than we currently do - more in some ways, less in others.
Is it? I really don't think that everything that gives you a dopamine hit should be considered addictive. Even if we do accept that "sugar is addictive", the physical symptoms of withdrawal from alcohol / tobacco are much more extreme than the physical symptoms of sugar withdrawal... they are at best two classes of "addiction", NOT the same thing.
We do demonize alcohol makers and sellers -- Scotland has introduced Minimum Unit Pricing; there's a push to get that introduced in England (unlikely with a current PM who doesn't believe in regulation for anything) and alcohol is taxed and has controls on who can buy it and who can sell it.
Artificial sweeteners are not harmful.
Red meat is no where near as harmful as either tobacco or alcohol.
> I’m sure everyone has some bad habits that will lead to a premature death.
Tobacco kills huge numbers of people in a variety of ways. The number one public health issue at the moment is getting people to smoke less and then to stop smoking.
Yes, in fact, but that's not the world in which we live.
I'd also prefer that arms dealers shut down, that whatever Philip Morris calls itself these days shut down, that food manufacturers stop using high-fructose corn syrup, etc, etc.
is juul hurting you personally? I and many of my friends are using juuls and other vapes as smoking cessation tools with great success. we would very much prefer for them not to shut down.
edit: I do understand that some people are concerned about juul's alleged marketing to minors. if that's really what you're upset about, why not narrow your focus? I don't think many vape consumers would object to having vape advertisements strictly limited or banned.
Not being a xxxx, but I wanted to honestly ask about how you square or feel about those that start vaping in order to quit smoking, and then just massively become into vaping, talk about it all the time and the gadgetry and accessories, the community, etc.
I've got a few friends that went this way and it's a bit... odd.
I think it's a little bit silly, but I went through that phase for about a year, so I don't judge the people too harshly. as long as you're not chucking huge clouds at people in a public space, I think it's mostly harmless.
in a way, it kinda reminds me of the pc overclocking community.
It's because it works so much better than anything else. But then it becomes insidious and if one is smart, you don't keep it around anymore. But for those with addiction issues, way better to be Juul than pretty much any other addiction
It's just a hobby, like being "into" craft beer, whiskey, or PC gaming. Those aren't healthy in excess either, and it is annoying when someone only wants to talk about their one interest, but overall it isn't really hurting anyone else. It's a bit of a red herring to bring that up when Juul is by far the lowest-effort vaping method - you wouldn't have to know how to build a coil or mix VG/PG to use one.
It's the replacement part that I was referring to. More like if the friend was previously drinking too much whisky, and thought they should stop drinking so much alcohol, so got massively into craft beer.
Probably the same way you'd feel about a friend that got all into beer and has to try all the "exotics" then goes out and buys a bunch of stuff to brew it themselves.
“What do you suppose I do?”, the drug dealer asks, “Stop selling heroin just because a couple of my costumers ruined their lives or ended up OD’ing? They’d just buy it somewhere else anyway.”
The moral thing to do is not to sell the thing you openly admit is bad for the people you sell it to, even if you end up losing a profit making machine. That is oddly often the case that morality doesn’t quite align with profits. But let’s not pretend like you are option-less to do anything but maximize profits.
The company's "mission" has always been that of "we provide a healthy alternative to smoking cigarettes". I remember reading that was the internal koolaid that got people to work there - they weren't creating new smokers, they were converting cigarette smokers to a healthy vaping option.
Whether that is true in reality is dubious, but I'm not surprised their CEO would come out publicly and say something like that.
No! Read the article. Teens are vaping more but smoking less. The article is equivocal about the health effects of vaping and smoking but that is ridiculous. Smoking is a known cause of early death. Suggesting that "we don't know" about vaping is just silly. Replacing a known killer with something that probably doesn't kill is good.
I'm not arguing the veracity of his claims - just that his claims aren't new to the company. After all its imperative that the company is marketed as a "health" solution in order to recruit and skirt regulations, so I wouldn't automatically believe they are acting "morally"; Internally they might believe they need as many teens hooked as possible.
Yes, that's been their claim since day 0. The founders basically claim that they invented it for themselves. The intent was to be a harm reduction device for people that can't quit smoking. Nobody, except them knows how genuine they are.
There's nothing else he can say, really. But he knows that regardless of what he says people will use it. And watch their ads, not his words intended to be seen by a very limited number of people.
I'm trying to figure out why my comment was so downvoted. It was a legitimate response, based on my actual reaction to reading the article, and generated a ton of thoughtful discussion, which has reframed the article for me. I'm honestly curious as to why it was downvoted.
A chinese company cannot do business in the USA, they need to register locally at which point they become an American company, technically, to be held accountable under US law.
The concern of nationhood or nationality might be a matter of degree, as well as the details and beaurocratic workarounds, however of fleeting interest because a potentially worse morallity of the Chinese is not indicated. If you note that leaving profits up for grabs to a competing economy, whether the profit was ethicallly dignified or not ... then the moral of the story still sucks?
If you hold equivalently that making profit and not smoking were imperative, then we could have an argument that applies to competition in general. The argument is interesting, if it implies, that non-smoking were a profit, and that profiting from idiots were imperative. Then we could have an argument about obsession and compulsion, that is, addiction and dependence.
They went to schools to tell kids "You should not use our product, our product is for adults. OBTW our product is very safe!" Even teenagers saw through the smokescreen: this wasn't an anti-vaping message, this was a sales pitch.
Also, they design their products to be usable while hidden within your palm. Some adults might like this but this is clearly intended for teenagers to be able to get access to nicotine discreetly while still in school.
I think it's a stretch to say that just because the item fits easily within your palm it's, "clearly intended for teenagers to be able to get access to nicotine discreetly while still in school."
I don't think so at all. If I put myself in the shoes of marketing or R&D, it's totally obvious that "easily hidden in the palm" would have probably come from a brainstorming session where one of the items was was some version of "teens want to avoid getting caught". It's not necessarily what happened, but it's miles from unrealistically cynical.
Why would they want to sell to teens? Like, the market is huge enough to sell to over 18, selling to 12-17 year olds is only going to get you in trouble.
They're not directly selling to teens, but they are indirectly selling them... and the entire big tobacco industry has been doing so for decades. You get them hooked early in life so you have a lifetime customer... that's been their tactic
Yeah, it's an industry that historically kills it's best customers and needs a high intake (addictive) method of creating new lifelong customers. It's usually cheap, "cool", even easy for teens to start using any nicotine product but that usually creates a long term costly habit. They can't be directly marketed or sold to but that doesn't mean they aren't paying attention.
Most adults who didn't smoke as teens never pick up the habit. Smoking lives on through peer pressure - something that matters less and less as a person matures.
It isn't shown as "cool" in movies like it used to be, so adults who are "set in their ways" are lacking most of the remaining peer pressure tactics that typically works for adults.
Wait for vape scenes in the movies. You can be reasonably sure there's a lobby group working towards it. How about a "FBE Teens try different healthful Vape Flavours"?
it's a pretty big leap to go from "discreet device" to "designed for teens". have you seen people using old-school vapes with the huge battery pack and dense clouds? I'd argue that adults are more interested in avoiding that image than teens.
Yes, I don't get that either. My comment got smacked down also. It was an absurd claim. People don't want to carry around bricks, when a tiny pen will do. That's part of why juul's are popular with adults. You can save the pocket space and don't have to announce to everyone, look at me, I'm vaping!
They do that for portability reasons. It's convenient to have the product in a smaller package (less vapor too). Ecig devices like these are nothing new. They were around for years before juul.
Bender: Hear me, hear me! Stop eating Popplers! Stop eating them with honey mustard sauce. Stop eating them with tangy sweet-and-sour sauce. Stop eating the new fiesta Poppler salad. Stop taking advantage of the money-saving 12-pack.
74 comments
[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadReading the article further it’s clear to me that they just want to avoid criticism by positioning themselves as a tool to quit smoking. They know that some people are going to buy them no matter what they say - and this just keeps parents off their backs and their products on retailers shelves.
But I'm not here expecting that to happen...
Instead I think we should just know that what they are saying and why they are saying it is 100% a cyncial play to make more money at the cost of the environment and people's health, and regulate them as such.
2. juul is bringing millions of new people to tobacco products, not just providing a way for smokers to ease off cigarettes.
this claim is not uncontroversial. they don't cause physical dependence in the way we think of with drugs (ie, no physical withdrawal syndrome), but eating junk food can be an exceptionally difficult habit to break. humans can become addicted to almost anything that gives a moderate to strong immediate reward.
I don't disagree with your broader point though. as long as you are focused on preventing new users rather than making the lives of existing users needlessly difficult, you'll get no argument from me.
2. If Juul offered nicotine from non tobacco sources, would that change things? Calling nicotine tobacco still doesn't make vaping anywhere close to being as deadly as cigarettes.
[1] Lennerz, B., & Lennerz, J. K. (2018). Food addiction, high-glycemic-index carbohydrates, and obesity. Clinical chemistry, 64(1), 64-71.
2. everybody in this thread is conflating nicotine and tobacco, but the difference is moot. the point is health risks and addiction. Whatever is in your vape is an unquantified health risk, and is definitely addictive. We won't know if vape chemicals and usage patterns cause more or less damage than cigarettes until people have been huffing them at scale for 20-30 years at least.
Even if they do cause less damage than cigarettes, how much less is ok? half? a tenth? a one-hundreth?
You ask how much less damage is ok. Half would be great! But it is likely to be more than that. The sun causes more cancer than Juul, that is worth keeping in mind. It's a free country.
[2] Olekalns, N., & Bardsley, P. (1996). Rational addiction to caffeine: An analysis of coffee consumption. Journal of Political Economy, 104(5), 1100-1104.
Addictive alone is not necessarily a problem, but it does mean there is the potential for companies to exploit that addiction to make money while causing great harm along the way.
> It's a free country.
A "free country" and regulated capitalism are not mutually exclusive. It's a free country and you need a license to drive a car. It's a free country and you can't sell someone baking soda disguised as flour. Regulations, done right, have the potential to make us all safer, and protect us from exploitation by capitalist interests. For example, stealing is very profitable... but we made it illegal in order to discourage corporations from forming around theft as a business model.
All that said, to be perfectly honest, my actual biggest beef with juul is the stupid disposable plastic pods. Everything else is... well, capitalism exploiting addiction for profit... at the cost of people's health. Which as you point out, is not exclusive to juul.
Cigarettes have few positive side effects and heavily contributes to the #1 preventable disease in the US: cardiovascular disease. AFAIK there are no outright bans on nicotine or tobacco products. However, the places you may consume them in public are shrinking (and often the same restrictions are placed on marijuana). Also the kind of products that are attractive to kids are being targeted (again, AFAIK companies are not allowed to market marijuana - or alcohol - to children).
It seems to me that tobacco used to be much more prevalent but is being re-categorized from "acceptable everywhere" into the same group as alcohol. And marijuana is being re-categorized from Schedule 1 to the same category as alcohol.
We do demonize alcohol makers and sellers -- Scotland has introduced Minimum Unit Pricing; there's a push to get that introduced in England (unlikely with a current PM who doesn't believe in regulation for anything) and alcohol is taxed and has controls on who can buy it and who can sell it.
Artificial sweeteners are not harmful.
Red meat is no where near as harmful as either tobacco or alcohol.
> I’m sure everyone has some bad habits that will lead to a premature death.
Tobacco kills huge numbers of people in a variety of ways. The number one public health issue at the moment is getting people to smoke less and then to stop smoking.
I'd also prefer that arms dealers shut down, that whatever Philip Morris calls itself these days shut down, that food manufacturers stop using high-fructose corn syrup, etc, etc.
edit: I do understand that some people are concerned about juul's alleged marketing to minors. if that's really what you're upset about, why not narrow your focus? I don't think many vape consumers would object to having vape advertisements strictly limited or banned.
I've got a few friends that went this way and it's a bit... odd.
in a way, it kinda reminds me of the pc overclocking community.
The moral thing to do is not to sell the thing you openly admit is bad for the people you sell it to, even if you end up losing a profit making machine. That is oddly often the case that morality doesn’t quite align with profits. But let’s not pretend like you are option-less to do anything but maximize profits.
I can be mad at the system that motives you, and also think you're a dick for valuing money over doing something that is a net benefit to the world.
I can also seek to control your ability to do damage using laws and public discourse.
Whether that is true in reality is dubious, but I'm not surprised their CEO would come out publicly and say something like that.
Lots of good points here, but when I first read what the CEO said, it struck me as pretty much the opposite of what I expected him to be saying.
A chinese company cannot do business in the USA, they need to register locally at which point they become an American company, technically, to be held accountable under US law.
The concern of nationhood or nationality might be a matter of degree, as well as the details and beaurocratic workarounds, however of fleeting interest because a potentially worse morallity of the Chinese is not indicated. If you note that leaving profits up for grabs to a competing economy, whether the profit was ethicallly dignified or not ... then the moral of the story still sucks?
If you hold equivalently that making profit and not smoking were imperative, then we could have an argument that applies to competition in general. The argument is interesting, if it implies, that non-smoking were a profit, and that profiting from idiots were imperative. Then we could have an argument about obsession and compulsion, that is, addiction and dependence.
Also, they design their products to be usable while hidden within your palm. Some adults might like this but this is clearly intended for teenagers to be able to get access to nicotine discreetly while still in school.
It isn't shown as "cool" in movies like it used to be, so adults who are "set in their ways" are lacking most of the remaining peer pressure tactics that typically works for adults.
Wait for vape scenes in the movies. You can be reasonably sure there's a lobby group working towards it. How about a "FBE Teens try different healthful Vape Flavours"?
https://theinfosphere.org/Transcript:The_Problem_with_Popple...
Bender: Hear me, hear me! Stop eating Popplers! Stop eating them with honey mustard sauce. Stop eating them with tangy sweet-and-sour sauce. Stop eating the new fiesta Poppler salad. Stop taking advantage of the money-saving 12-pack.