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FDA to Ban Juul, Flavored E-Cigarettes If Industry Doesn't Change

74 points by uptown 8y ago

folkrav 8y ago
I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if products like this didn't exist. I don't know what more the industry can realistically do. The sales of their products is already limited to adults, and I don't know why advertising flavorings is supposed to be about targeting children (why would adults not like strawberry flavoring?) so unless there is an epidemic of B&M or online stores that keep selling to minors, they're already doing what they can. Maybe I'm missing something, but as an outsider, the FDA seems dead set on killing your vaping industry by all means necessary.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  >I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if products like this didn't exist. personal observation, not data, but I don't think this is so. I work on a university campus, and the proportion of people on campus that smoke has cratered this decade. The only reliable smoking populations are foreign students, and they seem to taper off over their undergrad years, which I can ascribe only to peer pressure against smelling horrible -- and maybe easy access to "study aids" like adderall. edit: i should add that juul use has jumped just this year alone, and with less focused of a user group.
  - uxp100 8y ago
    But doesn't that line up with the popularization of nicotine vaping? I tend to think indoor smoking bans had something to do with the decline, but I don't know the timeline for anywhere except my state.
    - hprotagonist 8y ago
      it does, loosely. However, box mods are still quite rare, so it's not super clear that the narrative of "people stopped smoking and started vaping" really holds -- or held until Juul took over, which is quite recent. It's fairer to say that an age cohort basically just stopped consuming nicotine at all, and that a new, younger generation has picked up again but switched delivery methods.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if products like this didn't exist. We've got plenty of data that shows a steady, large decline in number of smokers since the 1970s.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  > I don't know what more the industry can realistically do. Stop selling poison. > Maybe I'm missing something, but as an outsider, the FDA seems dead set on killing your vaping industry by all means necessary. Well, yeah. The FDA Mission, which is defined by statute: "The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. FDA also has responsibility for regulating the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products to protect the public health and to reduce tobacco use by minors. FDA is responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medical products more effective, safer, and more affordable and by helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medical products and foods to maintain and improve their health. FDA also plays a significant role in the Nation's counterterrorism capability. FDA fulfills this responsibility by ensuring the security of the food supply and by fostering development of medical products to respond to deliberate and naturally emerging public health threats."
  - folkrav 8y ago
    > Stop selling poison. Then what's the alternative for smokers that want to stop, then? These highly ineffective smoking cessation patches/gums they already had? If you want to be anywhere near consistent, cigarettes should be banned as well, as all the damn data points to vaping being far less dangerous that smoking. Wouldn't a less short-sighted alternative be to just damn regulate the market properly?
    - Spooky23 8y ago
      Treat it as a medical issue. Tobacco companies don’t have a right to exist.
      - folkrav 8y ago
        Still they do, and nobody goes after them. Treating it as a medical issue would be one way to regulate the market, then. Outright banning them but keeping cigarettes is just a plain double standards.
- schnevets 8y ago
  You know the FDA didn't handle this correctly when shares of Altira and British American rose after the announcements.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  "I don't know what more the industry can realistically do" I wouldn't mind if they just went out of business and did something useful instead.
  - folkrav 8y ago
    Countless smokers stopped using cigarettes because of vaping. Vaping is not about eliminating risk but risk reduction. Long-term effect research is lacking by simple lack of long-term data due to how new the market is, but the overwhelming majority of data there is for now points towards it being a far safer alternative to smoking cigarettes. Want to ban vaping? Ban goddamned cigarettes too, then, if you want to be anywhere close to consistent.
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I am consistent. I don't see a distinction between companies that sell cigarettes and vaping equipment. They are the same industry. And that industry should just close down. It has no useful purpose and is additionally extremely harmful.
      - folkrav 8y ago
        Outright banning cigarettes won't and never happened anywhere, as far as I know. I don't see why vaping should be treated differently, if you think they're similar industries (which I agree on). Regulate the market like cigarettes are, but damn, why outright ban it?
        maxxxxx 8y ago
        I didn't say banning cigarettes. The question was "what else could the industry do?". And I wrote the best they could do is to shut down and do something useful.
        folkrav 8y ago
        > do something useful Well that's bad faith if I've ever seen it. Not every industry out there has to be "useful", some are there for convenience. One could also argue that allowing people to switch from vaping to smoking is a huge plus in risk reduction and potentially (for now, with the data we have, more than likely) health.
- 013a 8y ago
  Its a combination of a few different things. The flavors make it more attractive to kids. The non-combustible method of inhalation means it can be safely/cleanly vaped indoors, say in school bathrooms, and you don't have to waste a whole cigarette just for one puff. They're also ridiculously easy to find online under 18; Juul themselves does digital age verification, but plenty of retailers don't. They're being asked to prove that the device helps adult smokers more-so than it hurts new smokers. The keyword is "more-so", because if these statistics suggest that Juul's uptake in adult users is lower than the FDA's statistics on high school usage, or if Juul can't prove that the vast majority of their users were former smokers rather than new users at any age, or if Juul can't present evidence that vape devices (especially their ultra concentrated 5% nic salt formula) are safe, they're finished. And they'll take the rest of the vape industry down with them.
  - folkrav 8y ago
    Still waiting on that data, then. Super bummed about the industry going down if that happens, as it's what made it possible for me to stop smoking cigarettes. Up here in Canada, online vape stores are behind age walls, are required to ship with age verification. Quebec shops can't even sell nor advertise online.
- LeifCarrotson 8y ago
  Vaping is a gateway for some who would not have smoked to begin doing so. Some of them would have picked up smoking if the products did not exist. Not all; some who vape would not have smoked. And it's also a release for some who do smoke to quit. It's very difficult to measure these populations and movements, and also difficult to make statements about the magnitude and worth of their effects. Regardless, the goal is to reduce the ingress of new smokers, and if possible to increase the success rate of those who wish to quit smoking. The FDA can make progress on this by policies that reduce kids picking up vaping and using proven methods to stop them from picking up smoking.
  - folkrav 8y ago
    > The FDA can make progress on this by policies that reduce kids picking up vaping and using proven methods to stop them from picking up smoking. Thing is, these "proven methods" (gums/patches) are extremely ineffective - last time I checked it was something along the lines of 20-something% success rate. Vaping has been also pretty much proven at this point to be way less damaging than smoking at short-to-medium term. I don't know about studies on effectiveness as a smoking cessation tool, but just the risk reduction alone makes it worth consideration, and would make it pretty damn dangerous and short-sighted to outright ban...
    - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
      Sorry, I wasn't referring to gums/patches or other tools to help people quit smoking. By "stop them from picking up smoking" I was referring to cigarette taxes, extreme social stigmas and heavy peer pressure against smokers, laws banning smoking within public places and private businesses, medical warnings, advertising restrictions, and so on. These do little to help the situation of current addicts - and actually make their lives miserable - but do a lot to help those who would have become smokers in the future. If the FDA can prevent people from starting smoking, then even if they do nothing to help people who are currently addicted the problem will eventually be solved. If they ineffectively help people to quit, but in so doing generate new addicts, the problem will persist. It ought to come down to a data-driven question of quality-adjusted life years and results now vs. results later, but people are bad at shutting up and doing the math. It's easer to imagine the choice between helping one member out of a group of 5 old smokers who just can't seem to give up the habit he picked up in the 70s but might be helped by vaping, and the alternative of an anonymous high school kid who might pick up vaping this school year, eventually pick up smoking and become that old man someday in the 2060s. I'd rather help the kid.
draw_down 8y ago
Pathetic. But not surprising; the moral panic around kids vaping has been building for a while now.
- glitchc 8y ago
  It's not moral panic. Vaping is just as harmful as smoking. Combustion is still the main chemical reaction, and the resultant compounds are just as toxic. They only smell nicer.
  - function_seven 8y ago
    There’s no evidence of this. Everything I’ve read indicates that vaping is likely (and dramatically) less harmful. The levels of toxins are orders of magnitude lower or nonexistent in vapor. Also, there’s no combustion when liquid-based nicotine solution is atomized.
    - glitchc 8y ago
      I grant that vaporization occurs at a lower temperature than combustion, but it is still a chemical reaction that relies on a heating element. Proponents of e-cigs have always argued that this makes e-cigs safer, and it does not produce the same compounds that yobacco burning does. What is not clear is whether the compounds produced are safer.
      - itdaniher 8y ago
        Vaporization (boiling) is not a chemical reaction.
  - itdaniher 8y ago
    > Combustion is still the main chemical reaction Please do some research! This is blatantly false. Combustion is not involved in vaping, and boiling is not a chemical reaction! It's very easy to find peer reviewed medical studies showing vape compounds are considerably healthier than cigarette smoke. 30 sec of googling shows https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10105146 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10105146 amongst the relevant docs.
hprotagonist 8y ago
I have long been confused how Juul manages to avoid getting taxed into oblivion. A cart has ~2x packs of cigarettes worth of nicotine, yet is regularly sold for ~$15 in my state, which is a 50% or greater savings over traditional cigarettes. I don't entirely understand how this is legal. The FDA is in an interesting regulatory bind here, too -- I think nicotine is unique in their regulatory scope in that the FDA is concerned with efficacy and safety and tobacco products are known to be unsafe and ineffective therapeutic agents.
- lightyrs 8y ago
  A package of Juul pods contains 4 cartridges which each contain approximately 1 pack of cigarettes worth of nicotine. In NYC these sell for ~$20, while 1 pack of cigarettes sells for ~$13.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    ah, so it's even worse! (or better, i guess, if you really like nicotine)
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > The FDA is in an interesting regulatory bind here, too -- I think nicotine is unique in their regulatory scope in that the FDA is concerned with efficacy and safety and tobacco products are known to be unsafe and ineffective therapeutic agents. Thr tobacco industry tried this approach, claiming tobacco is an "agricultural product". Congress fixed that by passing a law specifically authorizing the FDA to regulate tobacco, which includes smokeless nicotine products.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    yeah, exactly. This is a newish thing for the FDA, too. I think they were given regulatory power in ~2014.
    - janitor61 8y ago
beager 8y ago
It's still amusing to me that Juul markets itself, raises money, and structures its ranks like a technology startup, but they're really a tobacco company. Every trope about "growth hacking" from a traditional startup apply here, except that "growth hacking" is most impactful with getting kids to smoke, which I at least assumed was a non-starter for forward-thinking people in the 21st century. Yet, here we are, with a tech startup that likely needs kids to smoke in order to turn their company's financials right-side-up for a successful exit.
- hendzen 8y ago
  I don't know how anyone who works for JUUL Labs can sleep at night.
  - milesdyson_phd 8y ago
    Probably on piles of money.
  - orangecat 8y ago
    It's likely that on balance they have saved many lives.
    - Balgair 8y ago
      I've heard that a fair few times before about vapes. That they are 'cleaner' than cigs, and therefore better. But I've not yet seen a peer-reviewed study on them that proves they are less bad than cigs. Is there one? I mean, nicotine is itself not a good thing to be exposed to [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Adverse_effects
      - folkrav 8y ago
        https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent-expert-e-cigarettes-evidence-review https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent...
lightyrs 8y ago
As a former smoker who was only able to quit using Juul, this is disappointing to me. As a father of a one year old, I understand the reasoning behind this. I think perhaps the answer is to make the Juul and similar products less appealing to youth. How? Of course this is a complex topic but less flashy hardware and marketing could be a small start.
- glitchc 8y ago
  I'm afraid you haven't actually quit, merely swapped one delivery mechanism and associated set of toxic compounds for another.
  - lightyrs 8y ago
    I was able to quit using Juul. That is to say, I no longer smoke cigarettes or Juul.
    - citation_please 8y ago
      But this is somewhat an admission of using it as medication, which is far from what Juul is being marketed as. It should be next to the nicotine patches at the pharmacy. Can you even buy nicotine patches in bulk? Substances that can be abused for something other than their primary use as medication are heavily regulated by the FDA (think meth ingredients).
  - folkrav 8y ago
    Risk reduction vs. risk elimination. Swapping from one to another means reducing risk by a huge margin, according to the huge majority of (short to mid-term) data we have for now.
- neurobashing 8y ago
  I, too, am a former smoker and I have questions. Mostly how a device that delivers the addictive substance helps you quit. Were you taking a "step-down" strategy like with the nicotine gum? Since the gum is carefully regulated and the "juice" isn't, how can you be sure your step-down is actually doing anything? And since the gum is metered out in measured doses, what's to prevent you from just grabbing full-strength juice and falling off the wagon? (Compare with smoking, which means you ostensibly have to go and buy a pack of smokes and a lighter, assuming you followed step 1 in the gum and got rid of your cigarettes and lighter)
rileyphone 8y ago
Straight from the CDC: > Nearly 8 of every 100 high school students (7.6%) reported in 2017 that they smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days—a decrease from 15.8% in 2011. >Nearly 12 of every 100 high school students (11.7%) reported in 2016 that they used electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days—an increase from 1.5% in 2011. While of course e-cigs aren't harmless, there's a pretty clear replacement effect between them and cigarettes. Kids are going to do stupid things anyways, taking away the more enjoyable of the two isn't going to stop that. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...
- Retric 8y ago
  There is a very long term downward trend with cigarettes from the 70's. https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance-use/drugs/tobacco/trends/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance... So, no it's not obvious that electronic cigarettes are replacing smoking. The upward trend with electronic cigarettes is a huge public health issue.
- bunderbunder 8y ago
  It seems like it might not just be a replacement effect, though. Adding those numbers together, and pretending that 2016 == 2017, you get an increase from 17.3% of kids using either in 2011, to 19.3% in 2016/2017. Perhaps you can make an argument that, lacking tar and being (purportedly?) less addictive, e-cigs are enough less bad that a net increase in the number of kids consuming nicotine is an acceptable price for halving the number of kids who are smoking cigarettes. That's a more arguable argument, though.
seibelj 8y ago
I have friends and family that either quit using vapes or substituted then permanently. As a former half a pack smoker myself, on occasion I would smoke a cigarette at a bar because it’s such a nice feeling, then feel guilty the next day. Juul is the only e-cig that I really like, and since I bought one I’ve yet to smoke a cigarette when drinking. Banning them because “think of the children!” is extraordinarily short sighted. Why not ban fruity alcoholic drinks too? Kids prefer those to beer.
- ajross 8y ago
  > Banning them because “think of the children!” is extraordinarily short sighted. Alternatively, prioritizing the needs of the already-addicted vs. keeping a new generation off the product entirely is "short sighted". Statistically, let's be honest: you guys are a lost cause.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    I disagree. Quitting at any age, even after 40 years of smoking, is still very beneficial to your health. I don’t see any of your “statistics” linked.
    - ajross 8y ago
      The point was that if you trade "make it easier to quit" for "more new addicts from candy nicotine products", you're making a bad trade. You really want me to cite the numbers for how many smokers quit? It's depressingly low -- like 30% over a lifetime or something like that.
      - mcbits 8y ago
        According to the article, there are currently 2.1 million underage "candy nicotine" users. How many of them would have been smokers if the alternative didn't exist? If it's banned, how many will switch to regular cigarettes vs. unflavored e-cigarettes? What are the relative risks of each? Unfortunately nobody actually knows the relative risks, which is the most pressing problem here.
jdanp 8y ago
Is there anyway to reverse course in the USA and remove power from these alphabet agencies that claim they know what's best for us? What happened to being a free people who could make their own decisions?
- danharaj 8y ago
  Give me a break. Things sucked without the FDA.
  - jdanp 8y ago
    Certain things were worse, certain things were better. Unfettered access to opiates prior to the FDA's formation never led to a crisis like we are seeing today.
    - danharaj 8y ago
      Literally a century of changes besides the FDA's role also intervened. The FDA is, to be honest, shit compared to how it could be if it were a better run organization. But it's still better than throwing entire industries to the wolves and insisting the free market will save us.
- kevin_b_er 8y ago
  Because companies lie, beg, borrow, and steal in favor of profit, at the expense of the public. It is the duty of the public to restrain such abuse.
  - jdanp 8y ago
    I agree with you 100%, but these agencies are often headed by former executives of companies which they pretend to vilify.
- jasonmp85 8y ago
  Yeah: leave
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
marcoperaza 8y ago
Why is it the company’s responsibility to stop kids from using their product? This seems like something that parents should be responsible for. And what is the company to do in the first place? As long as something is available for adults, and teenagers want it, teenagers will find a way to get it.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  What if they choose to act collectively using a system established for that purpose? It's funny how the only regulation that gets treated as a sensible status quo is the limited liability extended to investors in corporations.
- danharaj 8y ago
  We live in a civil society which means we figure out together what our mutual obligations are. Did you not get the memo?
glitchc 8y ago
Long overdue. Vaping should be regulated much like smoking. It has the same deleterious side effects for individuals as smoking, and much the same negative impact on society (through second hand smoke).
- selectodude 8y ago
  That isn’t even slightly true and it’s nonsense like this that is going to kill people when they switch back to smoking cigarettes.
  - glitchc 8y ago
    Utter rubbish. The research has just begun and it will take a while to conduct epidemiology studies (basically we have to wait for people to die from e-cigs), but the prognosis is already poor. Here's one study from this year: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/01/25/1718185115 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/01/25/1718185115
- gradys 8y ago
  What do you consider the strongest sources for those claims, especially the second hand smoke claim?
- lightyrs 8y ago
  The Royal College of Physicians strongly disagrees with you. This is the same group that sounded the alarm on cigarettes in 1962 with their groundbreaking report "Smoking and health" [1]. Their 2016 report, "Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction" [2] stands in staunch disagreement with your statement. [1] https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/smoking-and-health-1962 https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/smoking-and-hea... [2] https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/nicotine-without-smoke-tobacco-harm-reduction-0 https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/nicotine-withou...
  - glitchc 8y ago
    Thanks for the article, will read at home. The conclusion isn't unanimous however.
pstuart 8y ago
My daughter says that half the kids in her high school have one of these.
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  Sounds like a lot of nice fines or jail terms to be handed out to whoever sold/gave them to the kids. What kind of investigation is being conducted to find out who's responsible?
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    Most people get stuff like that through friends and family members. Aggressive enforcement of minor laws like that tends to be harmful to society in the long term.
    - ubernostrum 8y ago
      If there was an epidemic of binge drinking in a school, I'm pretty sure the local police would start running sting operations to figure out who's supplying the alcohol. If there's an epidemic of e-cigarettes, why aren't they doing the same? And I guess I may be ignorant of how the market for these works, but I've never actually seen them in regular shops. Where would I go to buy a Juul? I know there are dedicated vape shops, and also tobacco shops that sell e-cigarettes. Could you run stings there the way many US states run them at stores that sell alcohol?
      - kn0where 8y ago
        They've advertised Juul and similar pretty heavily in convenience stores like Circle K.
JayJee 8y ago
"Your usage has been flagged as a violation of our terms of service". Sweet can't browse bloomberg with links. Nice.
xanthopan 8y ago
Last I checked, nicotine isn't carcinogenic. It's the tobacco that kills you. Or, at least, there isn't enough research yet to say that nicotine alone is harmful enough. So I may be playing devil's advocate here, but isn't this a net improvement over the last few decades? Kids getting hooked on something that's significantly less deadly? It's not ideal, sure, but it's better than a slew of cancer epidemics. What is the FDA trying to achieve?
- chimeracoder 8y ago
  > Kids getting hooked on something that's significantly less deadly? It's not ideal, sure, but it's better than a slew of cancer epidemics. The whole point is that these are kids who wouldn't be using nicotine products at all. Smoking rates have declined in the US over the last 40 years, and yet there's been an uptick in youth nicotine usage since the introduction of e-cigarettes. So when talking about youth usage, no, this is clearly not an improvement, by any measure.
  - orangecat 8y ago
    The actual numbers matter. Suppose vaping is 20% as harmful as smoking, and out of every 100 children, the availability of e-cigarettes causes 5 to switch from smoking to vaping and 5 others to start vaping who wouldn't have started smoking. That would be a substantial improvement.
    - magissima 8y ago
      Those aren't actual numbers though, nor is "percentage of harmfulness" directly quantifiable.
  - falcolas 8y ago
    If we don't block the consumption of caffeine in youths, why should we block the consumption of nicotine - a compound with similar effects? i.e. Why is nicotine so much worse than THC, alcohol, caffeine, guarana, or any number of other stimulants/depressants?
givinguflac 8y ago
This is just stupid. Until the government wants to ban crap like watermelon vodka, this is just a win for traditional tobacco companies. Should we be encouraging anyone to smoke or Vape? No. But that doesn’t mean shitty retailers breaking the law aren’t the bigger problem. Do parents have no responsibility here anymore?
itdaniher 8y ago
I'm astonished that there are folks in this thread who believe vaping to be as harmful as smoking cigarettes. Are there any peer reviewed papers supporting this assertion? I've kept an eye on literature as it's been released and everything indicates orders of magnitude less cell death and disruption from nicotine and flavor carrying PG/VG vape juice than cigarette smoke. Linked a DOI supporting this understanding elsewhere, but wondering if folks have papers supporting the opposite?
- folkrav 8y ago
  The amount of misinformation in this thread is worrying. Seems like your American pharmaceutical lobbies, or whoever gains in destroying the vaping industry, have succeeded in spreading the idea that vaping is somehow more damaging than smoking. Now that the science showed pretty clearly it's at least way less dangerous than cigarettes in short-to-mid term, they switched the narrative to "for the kids".
deckar01 8y ago
Time to pivot to caffeine vaporizers. Or one of the many other stimulants that are found in energy drinks and are legal to sell to children.
scarcely 8y ago
If they are to be consistent they should also ban Facebook and video games like league of legends.
lightyrs 8y ago
In what I'm sure is unrelated news /s, Altria Group stock has spiked to a 5-month high today [1]. Although there are legitimate reasons to consider banning E-Cigarettes, we should also be cognizant that Big Tobacco sees this as a benefit to their business. That alone makes me very suspicious of the potential benefits of this considered ban. [1] https://www.nasdaq.com/article/altria-group-inc-mo-has-spiked-to-nearly-a-5month-high-20180912-00717 https://www.nasdaq.com/article/altria-group-inc-mo-has-spike...

74 points by uptown 8y ago

I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if products like this didn't exist. I don't know what more the industry can realistically do. The sales of their products is already limited to adults, and I don't know why advertising flavorings is supposed to be about targeting children (why would adults not like strawberry flavoring?) so unless there is an epidemic of B&M or online stores that keep selling to minors, they're already doing what they can. Maybe I'm missing something, but as an outsider, the FDA seems dead set on killing your vaping industry by all means necessary.

hprotagonist 8y ago
>I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if products like this didn't exist. personal observation, not data, but I don't think this is so. I work on a university campus, and the proportion of people on campus that smoke has cratered this decade. The only reliable smoking populations are foreign students, and they seem to taper off over their undergrad years, which I can ascribe only to peer pressure against smelling horrible -- and maybe easy access to "study aids" like adderall. edit: i should add that juul use has jumped just this year alone, and with less focused of a user group.
- uxp100 8y ago
  But doesn't that line up with the popularization of nicotine vaping? I tend to think indoor smoking bans had something to do with the decline, but I don't know the timeline for anywhere except my state.
  - hprotagonist 8y ago
    it does, loosely. However, box mods are still quite rare, so it's not super clear that the narrative of "people stopped smoking and started vaping" really holds -- or held until Juul took over, which is quite recent. It's fairer to say that an age cohort basically just stopped consuming nicotine at all, and that a new, younger generation has picked up again but switched delivery methods.
ceejayoz 8y ago
> I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if products like this didn't exist. We've got plenty of data that shows a steady, large decline in number of smokers since the 1970s.
Spooky23 8y ago
> I don't know what more the industry can realistically do. Stop selling poison. > Maybe I'm missing something, but as an outsider, the FDA seems dead set on killing your vaping industry by all means necessary. Well, yeah. The FDA Mission, which is defined by statute: "The Food and Drug Administration is responsible for protecting the public health by ensuring the safety, efficacy, and security of human and veterinary drugs, biological products, and medical devices; and by ensuring the safety of our nation's food supply, cosmetics, and products that emit radiation. FDA also has responsibility for regulating the manufacturing, marketing, and distribution of tobacco products to protect the public health and to reduce tobacco use by minors. FDA is responsible for advancing the public health by helping to speed innovations that make medical products more effective, safer, and more affordable and by helping the public get the accurate, science-based information they need to use medical products and foods to maintain and improve their health. FDA also plays a significant role in the Nation's counterterrorism capability. FDA fulfills this responsibility by ensuring the security of the food supply and by fostering development of medical products to respond to deliberate and naturally emerging public health threats."
- folkrav 8y ago
  > Stop selling poison. Then what's the alternative for smokers that want to stop, then? These highly ineffective smoking cessation patches/gums they already had? If you want to be anywhere near consistent, cigarettes should be banned as well, as all the damn data points to vaping being far less dangerous that smoking. Wouldn't a less short-sighted alternative be to just damn regulate the market properly?
  - Spooky23 8y ago
    Treat it as a medical issue. Tobacco companies don’t have a right to exist.
    - folkrav 8y ago
      Still they do, and nobody goes after them. Treating it as a medical issue would be one way to regulate the market, then. Outright banning them but keeping cigarettes is just a plain double standards.
schnevets 8y ago
You know the FDA didn't handle this correctly when shares of Altira and British American rose after the announcements.
maxxxxx 8y ago
"I don't know what more the industry can realistically do" I wouldn't mind if they just went out of business and did something useful instead.
- folkrav 8y ago
  Countless smokers stopped using cigarettes because of vaping. Vaping is not about eliminating risk but risk reduction. Long-term effect research is lacking by simple lack of long-term data due to how new the market is, but the overwhelming majority of data there is for now points towards it being a far safer alternative to smoking cigarettes. Want to ban vaping? Ban goddamned cigarettes too, then, if you want to be anywhere close to consistent.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    I am consistent. I don't see a distinction between companies that sell cigarettes and vaping equipment. They are the same industry. And that industry should just close down. It has no useful purpose and is additionally extremely harmful.
    - folkrav 8y ago
      Outright banning cigarettes won't and never happened anywhere, as far as I know. I don't see why vaping should be treated differently, if you think they're similar industries (which I agree on). Regulate the market like cigarettes are, but damn, why outright ban it?
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        I didn't say banning cigarettes. The question was "what else could the industry do?". And I wrote the best they could do is to shut down and do something useful.
        folkrav 8y ago
        > do something useful Well that's bad faith if I've ever seen it. Not every industry out there has to be "useful", some are there for convenience. One could also argue that allowing people to switch from vaping to smoking is a huge plus in risk reduction and potentially (for now, with the data we have, more than likely) health.
013a 8y ago
Its a combination of a few different things. The flavors make it more attractive to kids. The non-combustible method of inhalation means it can be safely/cleanly vaped indoors, say in school bathrooms, and you don't have to waste a whole cigarette just for one puff. They're also ridiculously easy to find online under 18; Juul themselves does digital age verification, but plenty of retailers don't. They're being asked to prove that the device helps adult smokers more-so than it hurts new smokers. The keyword is "more-so", because if these statistics suggest that Juul's uptake in adult users is lower than the FDA's statistics on high school usage, or if Juul can't prove that the vast majority of their users were former smokers rather than new users at any age, or if Juul can't present evidence that vape devices (especially their ultra concentrated 5% nic salt formula) are safe, they're finished. And they'll take the rest of the vape industry down with them.
- folkrav 8y ago
  Still waiting on that data, then. Super bummed about the industry going down if that happens, as it's what made it possible for me to stop smoking cigarettes. Up here in Canada, online vape stores are behind age walls, are required to ship with age verification. Quebec shops can't even sell nor advertise online.
LeifCarrotson 8y ago
Vaping is a gateway for some who would not have smoked to begin doing so. Some of them would have picked up smoking if the products did not exist. Not all; some who vape would not have smoked. And it's also a release for some who do smoke to quit. It's very difficult to measure these populations and movements, and also difficult to make statements about the magnitude and worth of their effects. Regardless, the goal is to reduce the ingress of new smokers, and if possible to increase the success rate of those who wish to quit smoking. The FDA can make progress on this by policies that reduce kids picking up vaping and using proven methods to stop them from picking up smoking.
- folkrav 8y ago
  > The FDA can make progress on this by policies that reduce kids picking up vaping and using proven methods to stop them from picking up smoking. Thing is, these "proven methods" (gums/patches) are extremely ineffective - last time I checked it was something along the lines of 20-something% success rate. Vaping has been also pretty much proven at this point to be way less damaging than smoking at short-to-medium term. I don't know about studies on effectiveness as a smoking cessation tool, but just the risk reduction alone makes it worth consideration, and would make it pretty damn dangerous and short-sighted to outright ban...
  - LeifCarrotson 8y ago
    Sorry, I wasn't referring to gums/patches or other tools to help people quit smoking. By "stop them from picking up smoking" I was referring to cigarette taxes, extreme social stigmas and heavy peer pressure against smokers, laws banning smoking within public places and private businesses, medical warnings, advertising restrictions, and so on. These do little to help the situation of current addicts - and actually make their lives miserable - but do a lot to help those who would have become smokers in the future. If the FDA can prevent people from starting smoking, then even if they do nothing to help people who are currently addicted the problem will eventually be solved. If they ineffectively help people to quit, but in so doing generate new addicts, the problem will persist. It ought to come down to a data-driven question of quality-adjusted life years and results now vs. results later, but people are bad at shutting up and doing the math. It's easer to imagine the choice between helping one member out of a group of 5 old smokers who just can't seem to give up the habit he picked up in the 70s but might be helped by vaping, and the alternative of an anonymous high school kid who might pick up vaping this school year, eventually pick up smoking and become that old man someday in the 2060s. I'd rather help the kid.

draw_down 8y ago

Pathetic. But not surprising; the moral panic around kids vaping has been building for a while now.

glitchc 8y ago
It's not moral panic. Vaping is just as harmful as smoking. Combustion is still the main chemical reaction, and the resultant compounds are just as toxic. They only smell nicer.
- function_seven 8y ago
  There’s no evidence of this. Everything I’ve read indicates that vaping is likely (and dramatically) less harmful. The levels of toxins are orders of magnitude lower or nonexistent in vapor. Also, there’s no combustion when liquid-based nicotine solution is atomized.
  - glitchc 8y ago
    I grant that vaporization occurs at a lower temperature than combustion, but it is still a chemical reaction that relies on a heating element. Proponents of e-cigs have always argued that this makes e-cigs safer, and it does not produce the same compounds that yobacco burning does. What is not clear is whether the compounds produced are safer.
    - itdaniher 8y ago
      Vaporization (boiling) is not a chemical reaction.
- itdaniher 8y ago
  > Combustion is still the main chemical reaction Please do some research! This is blatantly false. Combustion is not involved in vaping, and boiling is not a chemical reaction! It's very easy to find peer reviewed medical studies showing vape compounds are considerably healthier than cigarette smoke. 30 sec of googling shows https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10105146 https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph10105146 amongst the relevant docs.

hprotagonist 8y ago

I have long been confused how Juul manages to avoid getting taxed into oblivion. A cart has ~2x packs of cigarettes worth of nicotine, yet is regularly sold for ~$15 in my state, which is a 50% or greater savings over traditional cigarettes. I don't entirely understand how this is legal. The FDA is in an interesting regulatory bind here, too -- I think nicotine is unique in their regulatory scope in that the FDA is concerned with efficacy and safety and tobacco products are known to be unsafe and ineffective therapeutic agents.

lightyrs 8y ago
A package of Juul pods contains 4 cartridges which each contain approximately 1 pack of cigarettes worth of nicotine. In NYC these sell for ~$20, while 1 pack of cigarettes sells for ~$13.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  ah, so it's even worse! (or better, i guess, if you really like nicotine)
chimeracoder 8y ago
> The FDA is in an interesting regulatory bind here, too -- I think nicotine is unique in their regulatory scope in that the FDA is concerned with efficacy and safety and tobacco products are known to be unsafe and ineffective therapeutic agents. Thr tobacco industry tried this approach, claiming tobacco is an "agricultural product". Congress fixed that by passing a law specifically authorizing the FDA to regulate tobacco, which includes smokeless nicotine products.
- hprotagonist 8y ago
  yeah, exactly. This is a newish thing for the FDA, too. I think they were given regulatory power in ~2014.
  - janitor61 8y ago

beager 8y ago

It's still amusing to me that Juul markets itself, raises money, and structures its ranks like a technology startup, but they're really a tobacco company. Every trope about "growth hacking" from a traditional startup apply here, except that "growth hacking" is most impactful with getting kids to smoke, which I at least assumed was a non-starter for forward-thinking people in the 21st century. Yet, here we are, with a tech startup that likely needs kids to smoke in order to turn their company's financials right-side-up for a successful exit.

hendzen 8y ago
I don't know how anyone who works for JUUL Labs can sleep at night.
- milesdyson_phd 8y ago
  Probably on piles of money.
- orangecat 8y ago
  It's likely that on balance they have saved many lives.
  - Balgair 8y ago
    I've heard that a fair few times before about vapes. That they are 'cleaner' than cigs, and therefore better. But I've not yet seen a peer-reviewed study on them that proves they are less bad than cigs. Is there one? I mean, nicotine is itself not a good thing to be exposed to [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Adverse_effects https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Adverse_effects
    - folkrav 8y ago
      https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent-expert-e-cigarettes-evidence-review https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent...

lightyrs 8y ago

As a former smoker who was only able to quit using Juul, this is disappointing to me. As a father of a one year old, I understand the reasoning behind this. I think perhaps the answer is to make the Juul and similar products less appealing to youth. How? Of course this is a complex topic but less flashy hardware and marketing could be a small start.

glitchc 8y ago
I'm afraid you haven't actually quit, merely swapped one delivery mechanism and associated set of toxic compounds for another.
- lightyrs 8y ago
  I was able to quit using Juul. That is to say, I no longer smoke cigarettes or Juul.
  - citation_please 8y ago
    But this is somewhat an admission of using it as medication, which is far from what Juul is being marketed as. It should be next to the nicotine patches at the pharmacy. Can you even buy nicotine patches in bulk? Substances that can be abused for something other than their primary use as medication are heavily regulated by the FDA (think meth ingredients).
- folkrav 8y ago
  Risk reduction vs. risk elimination. Swapping from one to another means reducing risk by a huge margin, according to the huge majority of (short to mid-term) data we have for now.
neurobashing 8y ago
I, too, am a former smoker and I have questions. Mostly how a device that delivers the addictive substance helps you quit. Were you taking a "step-down" strategy like with the nicotine gum? Since the gum is carefully regulated and the "juice" isn't, how can you be sure your step-down is actually doing anything? And since the gum is metered out in measured doses, what's to prevent you from just grabbing full-strength juice and falling off the wagon? (Compare with smoking, which means you ostensibly have to go and buy a pack of smokes and a lighter, assuming you followed step 1 in the gum and got rid of your cigarettes and lighter)

rileyphone 8y ago

Straight from the CDC: > Nearly 8 of every 100 high school students (7.6%) reported in 2017 that they smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days—a decrease from 15.8% in 2011. >Nearly 12 of every 100 high school students (11.7%) reported in 2016 that they used electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days—an increase from 1.5% in 2011. While of course e-cigs aren't harmless, there's a pretty clear replacement effect between them and cigarettes. Kids are going to do stupid things anyways, taking away the more enjoyable of the two isn't going to stop that. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...

Retric 8y ago
There is a very long term downward trend with cigarettes from the 70's. https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance-use/drugs/tobacco/trends/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance... So, no it's not obvious that electronic cigarettes are replacing smoking. The upward trend with electronic cigarettes is a huge public health issue.
bunderbunder 8y ago
It seems like it might not just be a replacement effect, though. Adding those numbers together, and pretending that 2016 == 2017, you get an increase from 17.3% of kids using either in 2011, to 19.3% in 2016/2017. Perhaps you can make an argument that, lacking tar and being (purportedly?) less addictive, e-cigs are enough less bad that a net increase in the number of kids consuming nicotine is an acceptable price for halving the number of kids who are smoking cigarettes. That's a more arguable argument, though.

seibelj 8y ago

I have friends and family that either quit using vapes or substituted then permanently. As a former half a pack smoker myself, on occasion I would smoke a cigarette at a bar because it’s such a nice feeling, then feel guilty the next day. Juul is the only e-cig that I really like, and since I bought one I’ve yet to smoke a cigarette when drinking. Banning them because “think of the children!” is extraordinarily short sighted. Why not ban fruity alcoholic drinks too? Kids prefer those to beer.

ajross 8y ago
> Banning them because “think of the children!” is extraordinarily short sighted. Alternatively, prioritizing the needs of the already-addicted vs. keeping a new generation off the product entirely is "short sighted". Statistically, let's be honest: you guys are a lost cause.
- seibelj 8y ago
  I disagree. Quitting at any age, even after 40 years of smoking, is still very beneficial to your health. I don’t see any of your “statistics” linked.
  - ajross 8y ago
    The point was that if you trade "make it easier to quit" for "more new addicts from candy nicotine products", you're making a bad trade. You really want me to cite the numbers for how many smokers quit? It's depressingly low -- like 30% over a lifetime or something like that.
    - mcbits 8y ago
      According to the article, there are currently 2.1 million underage "candy nicotine" users. How many of them would have been smokers if the alternative didn't exist? If it's banned, how many will switch to regular cigarettes vs. unflavored e-cigarettes? What are the relative risks of each? Unfortunately nobody actually knows the relative risks, which is the most pressing problem here.

jdanp 8y ago

Is there anyway to reverse course in the USA and remove power from these alphabet agencies that claim they know what's best for us? What happened to being a free people who could make their own decisions?

danharaj 8y ago
Give me a break. Things sucked without the FDA.
- jdanp 8y ago
  Certain things were worse, certain things were better. Unfettered access to opiates prior to the FDA's formation never led to a crisis like we are seeing today.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    Literally a century of changes besides the FDA's role also intervened. The FDA is, to be honest, shit compared to how it could be if it were a better run organization. But it's still better than throwing entire industries to the wolves and insisting the free market will save us.
kevin_b_er 8y ago
Because companies lie, beg, borrow, and steal in favor of profit, at the expense of the public. It is the duty of the public to restrain such abuse.
- jdanp 8y ago
  I agree with you 100%, but these agencies are often headed by former executives of companies which they pretend to vilify.
jasonmp85 8y ago
Yeah: leave

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

marcoperaza 8y ago

Why is it the company’s responsibility to stop kids from using their product? This seems like something that parents should be responsible for. And what is the company to do in the first place? As long as something is available for adults, and teenagers want it, teenagers will find a way to get it.

maxerickson 8y ago
What if they choose to act collectively using a system established for that purpose? It's funny how the only regulation that gets treated as a sensible status quo is the limited liability extended to investors in corporations.
danharaj 8y ago
We live in a civil society which means we figure out together what our mutual obligations are. Did you not get the memo?

glitchc 8y ago

Long overdue. Vaping should be regulated much like smoking. It has the same deleterious side effects for individuals as smoking, and much the same negative impact on society (through second hand smoke).

selectodude 8y ago
That isn’t even slightly true and it’s nonsense like this that is going to kill people when they switch back to smoking cigarettes.
- glitchc 8y ago
  Utter rubbish. The research has just begun and it will take a while to conduct epidemiology studies (basically we have to wait for people to die from e-cigs), but the prognosis is already poor. Here's one study from this year: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/01/25/1718185115 http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2018/01/25/1718185115
gradys 8y ago
What do you consider the strongest sources for those claims, especially the second hand smoke claim?
lightyrs 8y ago
The Royal College of Physicians strongly disagrees with you. This is the same group that sounded the alarm on cigarettes in 1962 with their groundbreaking report "Smoking and health" [1]. Their 2016 report, "Nicotine without smoke: Tobacco harm reduction" [2] stands in staunch disagreement with your statement. [1] https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/smoking-and-health-1962 https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/smoking-and-hea... [2] https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/nicotine-without-smoke-tobacco-harm-reduction-0 https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/nicotine-withou...
- glitchc 8y ago
  Thanks for the article, will read at home. The conclusion isn't unanimous however.

pstuart 8y ago

My daughter says that half the kids in her high school have one of these.

ubernostrum 8y ago
Sounds like a lot of nice fines or jail terms to be handed out to whoever sold/gave them to the kids. What kind of investigation is being conducted to find out who's responsible?
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  Most people get stuff like that through friends and family members. Aggressive enforcement of minor laws like that tends to be harmful to society in the long term.
  - ubernostrum 8y ago
    If there was an epidemic of binge drinking in a school, I'm pretty sure the local police would start running sting operations to figure out who's supplying the alcohol. If there's an epidemic of e-cigarettes, why aren't they doing the same? And I guess I may be ignorant of how the market for these works, but I've never actually seen them in regular shops. Where would I go to buy a Juul? I know there are dedicated vape shops, and also tobacco shops that sell e-cigarettes. Could you run stings there the way many US states run them at stores that sell alcohol?
    - kn0where 8y ago
      They've advertised Juul and similar pretty heavily in convenience stores like Circle K.

JayJee 8y ago

"Your usage has been flagged as a violation of our terms of service". Sweet can't browse bloomberg with links. Nice.

xanthopan 8y ago

Last I checked, nicotine isn't carcinogenic. It's the tobacco that kills you. Or, at least, there isn't enough research yet to say that nicotine alone is harmful enough. So I may be playing devil's advocate here, but isn't this a net improvement over the last few decades? Kids getting hooked on something that's significantly less deadly? It's not ideal, sure, but it's better than a slew of cancer epidemics. What is the FDA trying to achieve?

chimeracoder 8y ago
> Kids getting hooked on something that's significantly less deadly? It's not ideal, sure, but it's better than a slew of cancer epidemics. The whole point is that these are kids who wouldn't be using nicotine products at all. Smoking rates have declined in the US over the last 40 years, and yet there's been an uptick in youth nicotine usage since the introduction of e-cigarettes. So when talking about youth usage, no, this is clearly not an improvement, by any measure.
- orangecat 8y ago
  The actual numbers matter. Suppose vaping is 20% as harmful as smoking, and out of every 100 children, the availability of e-cigarettes causes 5 to switch from smoking to vaping and 5 others to start vaping who wouldn't have started smoking. That would be a substantial improvement.
  - magissima 8y ago
    Those aren't actual numbers though, nor is "percentage of harmfulness" directly quantifiable.
- falcolas 8y ago
  If we don't block the consumption of caffeine in youths, why should we block the consumption of nicotine - a compound with similar effects? i.e. Why is nicotine so much worse than THC, alcohol, caffeine, guarana, or any number of other stimulants/depressants?

givinguflac 8y ago

This is just stupid. Until the government wants to ban crap like watermelon vodka, this is just a win for traditional tobacco companies. Should we be encouraging anyone to smoke or Vape? No. But that doesn’t mean shitty retailers breaking the law aren’t the bigger problem. Do parents have no responsibility here anymore?

itdaniher 8y ago

I'm astonished that there are folks in this thread who believe vaping to be as harmful as smoking cigarettes. Are there any peer reviewed papers supporting this assertion? I've kept an eye on literature as it's been released and everything indicates orders of magnitude less cell death and disruption from nicotine and flavor carrying PG/VG vape juice than cigarette smoke. Linked a DOI supporting this understanding elsewhere, but wondering if folks have papers supporting the opposite?

folkrav 8y ago
The amount of misinformation in this thread is worrying. Seems like your American pharmaceutical lobbies, or whoever gains in destroying the vaping industry, have succeeded in spreading the idea that vaping is somehow more damaging than smoking. Now that the science showed pretty clearly it's at least way less dangerous than cigarettes in short-to-mid term, they switched the narrative to "for the kids".

deckar01 8y ago

Time to pivot to caffeine vaporizers. Or one of the many other stimulants that are found in energy drinks and are legal to sell to children.

scarcely 8y ago

If they are to be consistent they should also ban Facebook and video games like league of legends.

lightyrs 8y ago

In what I'm sure is unrelated news /s, Altria Group stock has spiked to a 5-month high today [1]. Although there are legitimate reasons to consider banning E-Cigarettes, we should also be cognizant that Big Tobacco sees this as a benefit to their business. That alone makes me very suspicious of the potential benefits of this considered ban. [1] https://www.nasdaq.com/article/altria-group-inc-mo-has-spiked-to-nearly-a-5month-high-20180912-00717 https://www.nasdaq.com/article/altria-group-inc-mo-has-spike...