Come off it, please. Juul took out patents showing that their vape had a psychopharmacology similar to cigarettes, which everyone knows are hugely addictive. Juul needs to be killed dead.
I would support this conclusion only if cigarettes, and other tobacco products were similarly banned. Since they're not, Juul should be treated the same.
What it really comes down to is not equal protection under the law, it's big tobacco wants Juul gone.
> What it really comes down to is not equal protection under the law, it's big tobacco wants Juul gone.
This is nonsensical. "Big tobacco" owns Juul. And couching the shutting down of a company addicting kids to nicotine in terms of equal protection is.. bleh.
Philip Morris has a 35 % stake in Juul, so they are at least "medium tobacco". Practically speaking, you can't ban cigarettes right yet, you'll have another Prohibition problem, but sooner or later the cigarette problem will solve itself, everybody agrees that cigarettes are disgusting. Juul on the other hand marketed itself to schoolchildren as a hip and safe alternative. That problem must be addressed.
Cigarettes are clearly going towards being banned. Which is a good thing. But unlike alcohol prohibition, it seems like the current plan is to just try to prevent new users and let the current users smoke until they die (or help them quit if they choose to).
>Cigarettes are clearly going towards being banned. Which is a good thing.
Idealistically only. In reality, expect a lot of societal problems if that happens. Crime increases from black market good and increase assaults from smokers who have had their drug removed. Basically drug war 2.0. Unfortunately most people vote idealistically these days and tend to ignore or not even think about the reality of implementing laws/bans. Even after seeing the horrible effects of drug wars, people still love fighting them.
The second part of the comment you replied to addresses this.
> it seems like the current plan is to just try to prevent new users and let the current users smoke until they die (or help them quit if they choose to).
>>it seems like the current plan is to just try to prevent new users and let the current users smoke until they die (or help them quit if they choose to).
>The second part of the comment you replied to addresses this.
It attempts to address it, but in banning of Juul products, which many ex-smokers used and continue to use to get and stay off cigarettes, is very obviously counterproductive to this assumed objective. Banning Juul will create more cigarette smokers, both ex-smokers and kids who decide to pick up the habit. Full stop.
> Banning Juul will create more cigarette smokers, both ex-smokers and kids who decide to pick up the habit.
In the short term. In the long term cigarette adoption was falling to under 5% in high-school/college kids. Juul reversed the trend and the majority started using nicotine. If we lose 7 years of people getting addicted, we can save the next 21.
Plus, it's not eCigs that are being banned. It's Juul. They're the ones who cannot prove their additives are safe. They could change their juice to make it have less toxic additives.
>In the long term cigarette adoption was falling to under 5% in high-school/college kids. Juul reversed the trend and the majority started using nicotine. If we lose 7 years of people getting addicted, we can save the next 21.
You're conflating two things: cigarettes and nicotine. With a lot of propaganda, repressive sin taxes, and the development of substitutes; the US managed to lower the cigarette smoking rate since the 60s. Why do you think these techniques are even still relevant and will work the same on nicotine substitutes? That seems to be what you are using to support the ban.
Also, this is a "for the children," argument.
>Plus, it's not eCigs that are being banned. It's Juul.
Ya that's the weird thing. The shelves are filled with competitors, have they all "proven their products are safe?" I'm assuming not. Are they going to be subject to the same outright ban? Is Juul just a test balloon for further bans, or is it being made an example of? The FDA is known for regulatory capture, is it just an issue of money? Weird stuff.
>The US managed to lower the smoking and all tobacco rate dramatically among new smokers. ECigs reversed this course.
Again, you are conflating ECigs with tobacco. ECigs are a tobacco replacement and one of the things that greatly contributed to reduction in tobacco use (like Nicorette). According to this, tobacco use hasn't reversed anything, so you are definitely incorrect there:
The percentage of adults who had ever used an e-cigarette (57.3%) and the percentage of adults who were current e-cigarette users (25.2%) was highest among former cigarette smokers who quit within the past year
57.3% of adults who have ever vaped is not negligible. Seems like your conclusions are based on incorrect assumptions.
So based on that, if 25.2% of the adult population are ex-smokers, and a good chunk of those are vaping Juul, you're gonna have between 0 and 25.2% of the population who aren't smoking now to be smoking again by banning Juul. This action, if allowed to stand, will certainly reverse the current tobacco rate trend, potentially to the 1970s adult smoking rate of ~37%.
The point of Juul and similar vaping products is they are a way to get people off cigarettes, which are significantly more harmful. Banning Juul and similar products will only increase smoking rates. I'm not sure why the government wants to increase smoking rates, but there is certainly financial incentive to do so based on the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement.
>The point of Juul and similar vaping products is they are a way to get people off cigarettes,
The point of Juul is to make money, sure you can use it to stop smoking cigarettes but there are also people starting vaping without ever having smoked cigarettes.
>The point of Juul is to make money, sure you can use it to stop smoking cigarettes but there are also people starting vaping without ever having smoked cigarettes.
Yes if you only look at it from the company's earnings perspective, but the benefit to the market/society is undoubtedly to get people off cigarettes, and it has worked better as a substitute than anything before it. This is undeniable regardless of how demonized vaping has become in the US.
It's a very simple equation: allow Juul and get more people off cigarettes. Ban Juul and increase smoking rates. It's amazing how obtuse people (and the government) are on the subject.
> It's a very simple equation: allow Juul and get more people off cigarettes. Ban Juul and increase smoking rates. It's amazing how obtuse people (and the government) are on the subject.
I am actually not so sure about this. Cigarettes smoking rates have been falling consistently for many years, youth smoking rates were up in the 90's but fell before vaping / e-cigarettes hit the market.
Smokers also since 1980 have been smoking less cigarettes per day.
There is a significant amount of high school students that starts with e-cigarettes, and doesn't use them to quit anything else. Statistics don't seem to indicate that these children would have smoked cigarettes if they wouldn't have access to e-cigarettes. One also could argue that this potentially makes cigarette adoption higher for this population, because they are already used to nicotine and smoking/vaping.
All in all, it's not as simple as you make it out to be.
But aren't there dozens of other companies that sell the same product? Nicotine vape pens? Why is this calling out Juul specifically, and not all nicotine vape pens?
I think it would be a net win for society if the whole concept were killed, or regulated/marketed to help long-time smokers kick their habit. Nobody needs this stuff, even if you enjoy it.
Like alcohol? Sports cars? Cars that can go faster than the fastest speed limit? Large houses? International travel? Where precisely would you like to draw that arbitrary line? Are there any things you do that aren't required to "live" but you "enjoy?"
