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FDA is considering drugs to help kids quit vaping

61 points by LinuxBender 8y ago

porpoisely 8y ago
Ah yes, lets drug our kids even more to fix the fact that we drug our kids so much. We have to think about those poor pharma execs who need more mansions and private jets. When your paycheck depends on it, I guess drugs are the answer for everything. Do people still believed that government and its agencies exist for the benefit of the public rather than to benefit capital and corporate interests? The US government has never been a country of the people, by the people, for the people. It's been a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.
devereaux 8y ago
Bright idea: instead of letting kids vape (harm profile: uncertain, could be low), let's hook them to drugs like Varenicline (Champix) which are known to cause thing like cardiovascular diseases and suicide ideation. (Actually, it's a bright idea for all the parties involved, because "think of the kids" brings positive karma points, and parents and insurance plan will cough up the money)
- fanzhang 8y ago
  What a surprise: Varenicline is still under patent and available from only one provider in the USA https://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-chantix.html https://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-chantix.html I wonder who's paying the dinner bills after today's hearing.
  - devereaux 8y ago
    I suppose we are both bad cynical people because I thought the same when reading the article
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Chantix is known for causing weird gory nightmares of skin peeling off and menacing entities and such. Creeps me out, wouldn't want to give it to children. http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/ http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/ The fact this wasn't caught until after this drug was approved by the FDA really makes me question the efficacy of our extremely expensive drug regulatory system.
GoodJokes 8y ago
When capitalism is the problem... It’s just like therapy now. Don’t get me wrong, therapy can be very good, but I feel like a lot of people are going to therapy because it’s the only way to get respite from their capitalistic hampster wheel.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago
>Experts worry that the devices could put kids' developing brains at risk, get them hooked on nicotine early in life and be a gateway to smoking and other drugs. But, the long-term effects aren't clear. The vast majority of smoking’s harmful effects are due to the combustion products not the nicotine. It is really unclear if vaping will really have a long term effect on kids. In addition, given that vaping doesn’t really hurt other people via second hand smoke or altered behavior(see alcohol) this whole panic about vaping seems overblown. How much do you want to bet that the “medical experts” who are harping about the dangers of vaping without a lot of data are “consultants” for pharmaceutical companies looking to get their “anti-addiction” drug approved.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  Nicotine is still an addictive stimulant so I'd expect you'd get at least the level of bad consequences as letting teenagers make heavy use of caffeine.
- Entalpi 8y ago
  I like my air nicotine free please.
  - devereaux 8y ago
    I'd like my kids drugs free please.
    - fuzz4lyfe 8y ago
      Those goals seem to require each other as opposed to being mutually exclusive.
      - downer52 8y ago
        But, priorities!
    - x220 8y ago
      When you use most drugs they don't go into the air that others breathe in public spaces.
ben509 8y ago
> "I believe FDA posed the wrong questions for today's meeting," said Lauren Lempert, a law and policy specialist for the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. > Instead of debating the role of nicotine replacement and drug therapies, the agency "should be focusing on policies that will prevent youth initiation with e-cigarettes and addiction to nicotine," I've been noticing this form of argument... in case it's not clear why I find it strange: yes, for a hypothetical child it's ideal that he not get addicted in the first place. But you still have these children who are addicted, that's a real problem, so while it's useful to also consider prevention, a regulatory agency is mandated to address an actual problem.
- soared 8y ago
  Why would you plan to continuously use band-aids when you could prevent getting cuts in the first place? It seems more important to address the source of the issue to prevent it from continuing to occur rather than only treating the symptoms. (Fixing the current is still important, but seems secondary to me)
- simion314 8y ago
  I think the issue is some previous data that we also discussed here, this data shows that if before we had N children smoking now we have N1 = 10*N children using the cool looking, sweet tasting, less harmful e-cigarettes. If we had N1 = N then I would consider it a good thing but unfortunately is not that, Btw I invented this numbers but the point still stands.
standardUser 8y ago
Anti-tobacco extremists believe the ends justify the means. They'll happily give people dangerous psychoactive drugs or get them hooked on nicotine replacement therapy if it means advancing their agenda. I quit smoking a couple years back and I was baffled by the lack of quality information I could find online. It's 90% propaganda, thanks to the anti-smoking warriors. Most of it pushes these quit-smoking drugs or just different forms of nicotine intake (which is the very drug you're supposed to be trying to quit in the first place). You'd think we would have collectively learned something from the abysmal failure of things like the DARE program and abstinence-only education. Facts work better than scare tactics and propaganda.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Most of it pushes these quit-smoking drugs or just different forms of nicotine intake (which is the very drug you're supposed to be trying to quit in the first place). Hell no. Nobody really gives a shit if you consume nicotine or not. We should just avoid doing so in the form of a horribly dangerous delivery system.
  - standardUser 8y ago
    People who are addicted to nicotine care very, very much if they have or do not have nicotine. You seem to be talking about yourself. I'm talking about people suffering from the addiction.
    - drngdds 8y ago
      Definitely, but being addicted to something that will make you chronically ill and kill you is much worse than being addicted to something that won't.
- ams6110 8y ago
  The drug approach is pushed by the pharma industry of course, exploiting the natural appeal of the idea that one can just take a pill to fix a problem that is as complicated as addiction. Doctors prescribe these because they (probably rightly) believe not that the drugs are harmless, but that the side effects of the drug are less harmful than the direct effects of continuing to smoke. Really quitting takes either a major motivating scare like a cancer diagnosis (for some people even that isn't enough) or a very determined decision to stop.
pixelpoet 8y ago
I cannot fathom how people still use phrasing like "drugs and alcohol" and "drugs instead of vaping" etc. How can there be such a disconnect, those are first class drugs! Is it cognitive dissonance, i.e. actively refusing to acknowledge it? It's pretty much universal too, not just one or two countries.
- Alex3917 8y ago
  It's not just that, it's also pharmaceutical drugs. As far as I know, I'm the only one to ever try to come up for an estimate of total deaths from all drugs, and people (including on HN) complained quite a lot about it.
  - x220 8y ago
    If you objectively try to figure out the most dangerous drug in the world, you'll quickly find out it's alcohol. Alcohol makes people act dangerously and kills tens of thousands in car crashes(in the USA at least). In the USA alcoholism is also normalized in popular culture but especially on college campuses. It's absolutely insane how we turn a blind eye to alcoholism and yet demonize drugs like cannabis and psychedelics which have comparatively little harm to others.
    - reaperducer 8y ago
      Just because alcohol is bad doesn't mean other things are not also bad.
      - chris_mc 8y ago
        Just because murder is bad doesn't mean jaywalking isn't also bad.
      - x220 8y ago
        I never claimed that. I think that's derailing the conversation. The point is that our cultural (and law enforcement) ideas around drugs are straight up delusional and entirely detached from reality.
cat199 8y ago
like, say, 0% nicotine vaping?
- linkingday 8y ago
  This is exactly how I quit vaping a few years ago. Crazy, right? Offer 0% nic Juul pods for parents to buy their kids and they'll stop giving a shit after a while.
fopen64 8y ago
I read 'faping' for some miliseconds
viivaux 8y ago
Isn't it :odd: that all the comments remotely disparaging or cynical towards pharmaceutical companies and their fucking lobbyists are massively downvoted, even the ones only two minutes old as of right now... Hope y'all are taking note of this.
- devereaux 8y ago
  Actually it's something I noticed and was wondering about. However, it was too fast to be part of a coordinated campaign.
  - iotku 8y ago
    I'm not saying it is or isn't, but... >However, it was too fast to be part of a coordinated campaign Being able to act fast doesn't mean something isn't coordinated does it? If I had an army of bots designed to reduce exposure or otherwise AstroTurf a topic I could put them into action as fast (potentially more suspicious) or slow as I wanted (would seem more natural).
    - devereaux 8y ago
      You have a great point. It is highly likely that many topics are astroturfed on many websites, but I would think HN is too small and too specific of a target to be of any interest to pharmaceutical companies. However, if they use a subcontractor, it could certainly "cover" HN among its astroturfing portfolio, especially if it frequently does jobs for tech companies. Some stories I read in the new section when I'm taking a break have very suspicious rises, compared to identical stories of about the same technical topic. Also, it feels funny to see the same story again the next day, as if it was "tried" but with different parameters until it catches up. Without further evidence, it is just suspicious. I hope that YC has a commercial interest in keeping the site clean from astroturfing.
- FiveSquared25 8y ago
  All of the top ones are anti pharmaceutical
- 8y ago
Udik 8y ago
I can't read this article without shuddering. It sounds completely hysterical about kids using what is considered a smoking cessation tool, that is not proven to cause any harm, and that delivers varying, but usually pretty low, if not zero, amounts of nicotine. The solution? Prescribing other drugs to these kids (as if there are any that actually work against smoking, except the very one they're trying to gegt them off).
- mistermann 8y ago
  > I can't read this article without shuddering. It's a wonderful example of fake news, using clever (but technically true, if someone ever called them on it) language to persuade people to be scared.
  - hannasanarion 8y ago
    No, this is not fake news, and is completely unrelated to fake news. It is editorialized, perhaps, but nowhere close to fake. The fact that the sweet potato in chief uses "fake news" to mean "news I don't like" doesn't mean that the rest of us should adopt that definition.
    - mistermann 8y ago
      > The fact that the sweet potato in chief uses "fake news" to mean "news I don't like" doesn't mean that the rest of us should adopt that definition. What is the proper definition of fake news? For me it means news that is presented as true fact but is not, or writing that forms an impression that is not conclusive based on known facts. If it's some propaganda website I don't give it much thought, but this CNN which many people claim is respectable, and the source organization is the FDA. Just a few examples: > A few years ago, it would've been incredible to me that we would be here today discussing the potential for drug therapy to help addicted young people quit Is the addictive nature of smoking the reason why we discourage it's use? > The agency announced in November that vaping had increased nearly 80% among high schoolers and 50% among middle schoolers since the year before. Percentages starting from a low base are misleading. Were the actual numbers omitted for persuasive reasons? > Experts worry that the devices could put kids' developing brains at risk... "Worry"? Is this based on scientific studies? > ...get them hooked on nicotine early in life and be a gateway to smoking and other drugs. Is this based on scientific studies? > But, the long-term effects aren't clear. Neither are the short term effects. A more correct way to say it is: we don't know, what we're saying is pure speculation. > "The FDA has concluded that the level of addiction it is seeing among youthful e-cigarette users is so disturbing and so unprecedented... Why is it disturbing? Why does it matter if it is "unprecedented"? > ...that it needs to at least ask whether we need a solution that goes beyond what we ever did with cigarettes," Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, previously told CNN. I'm not following the logic of why anything "needs" to be done. > Medical experts say there is an urgent need for research on using therapies to treat kids who are addicted to nicotine. Is this "urgent need" based on science? > According to experts, most of what we know about nicotine addiction in teens, we know from cigarettes. But the technology and chemistry of vaping might pose an entirely different threat. "Might". > "These products deliver very high levels of nicotine, meaning that even brief experimentation is likely to put adolescents at risk for long-term dependence," "likely...at risk" - this one is fantastic because it has two levels of uncertainty, yet still communicates fear to those who lack (or choose not to exercise) critical thinking skills. And again: is this vague claim based on science? > "Clinicians urgently require new solutions to safely and effectively help stop them using these and all tobacco products for good," said Tanski Why? > "Preventing youth use in the first place should be FDA's primary goal," she said. Why? Taxpayers pay for this, they have a right to ask such questions. > "We must all recognize that if an adolescent has developed a nicotine addiction as a result of vaping, we've already failed." Is preventing nicotine dependence even part of the mandate of the FDA? If so, why? I'm rather skeptical about any "news" written in this style, especially when it comes from an institution like the FDA who we are told(?) are fact-based and work at arms lengths from corporate influence (there are several billion dollar industries with conflicting interests in this topic).
rspeele 8y ago
This was originally going to be a reply to ben509's comment but turned into a rambling mess only even tangentially related to the original article. Rather than throwing it away, I am posting it as a top-level one. I don't think it's just the substance that is perceived as unclean. Even for a libertarian, there is a slimy texture to any industry based around an inherently addictive product. Especially when it comes to marketing to kids -- potential lifelong loyal customers if you can hook them while they're more easily influenced. Suppose there was a substance that was completely neutral in terms of its effects on your body. It has no caloric content, is not caught on drug tests, it tastes like water, and doesn't even make you feel different when you take it. The only effect that it has is that, several hours after your last dose, you find yourself craving another. How would you feel about this substance being marketed? It's not hurting anyone, other than that they spend a portion of their money on the habit. But the companies selling it aren't doing their own customers any good, either, and in fact, each new customer they get to try the substance is just being roped into a life of either willing themselves through the cravings or spending a little money to make them go away. Now, obviously nicotine is not this substance. For one, I do think nicotine users actually enjoy the products and also get some alertness benefits from them. But there is that skeevy layer to it too. I'm not coming at this from a place of puritanism. I'm not a nicotine user but I do consume alcohol. I think we all know alcohol is worse than nicotine in terms of health effects, and the alcohol industry has done an extremely effective job of positioning their product as something cool grown-up adult people use, joke about, and have "sophisticated" tastes in. Just run through your favorite TV shows from the past 20 years or so and try to find any that don't show main characters either a. enjoying alcohol as part of all their social events, or b. abusing alcohol and it's played off as funny, or c. abusing alcohol as part of a "tortured genius" trope. In a lot of industries the top 10-20% of customers account for the majority of sales. It just gets weird when you have an industry that has to pretend it cares about "responsibility" when its bottom line is as dependent on its most addicted users as they are on the product. I guess my point is, at some point we call people adults and let them weigh the benefits vs. the risks. Even if they suck at doing that, it's on them. But I'm totally OK with the FDA's aggressive stance on e.g. Juul marketing to teenagers, because that seems to me to be all about getting somebody to start the habit when they're least likely to make wise decisions.
- 8y ago
Simulacra 8y ago
Where there’s a way, pharmaceutical companies will make money.
drewmol 8y ago
Companies like JUUL have patented formulations for nicotine salts that quickly spike blood nicotine levels similar to levels of analog cigarettes, then the sudden drop off promotes stronger cravings and more frequent usage. Cavings resulting from this quick spike and drop off significantly increases habit forming behavior by boosting both the intensity of withdrawl symtoms and frequency of usage compared to freebase nicotine formulas that have been common in traditional "ejuice" of the past decade. Combine this with their cornering the teenage vaping market you can see why Altria (malboro parent co) just gave them 13B for 35%. These nic salt formulas can ease the transition from traditional cigarettes, but also increase the first time user to addict conversion rate and lessen the likelyhood of users tapering off usage by gradual reduction of comparibly stabilized nicotine levels of freebase formulations. I've been rolling around an idea for a device to help ween off nicotine for years now. I need to consult with an EE, but don't have any in my network. If anyone's willing to chat for 30 mins, or interested in colaberating I'd love to hear from you, emails in my profile. If you're aware of any service out there to buy small block of consultation time, that would help at well.
- DarkStar851 8y ago
  Over on r/OpenPV on Reddit someone might be able to get you the right connections. It's a subreddit community for people who build/recycle e-cigarette batteries. A lot of them are hobbyists but there's a few who've made a business out of it and they might know the right people.
  - drewmol 8y ago
    thanks for the pointer I'll head down the reddit hole this weekend!
- owlninja 8y ago
  JUUL was the only thing that got me off a pack-a-day 13 year habit. I think very highly of the product and it is a shame teenagers made it so 'cool'. (Much like cigarettes at one time...)
  - 8y ago
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Does nicotine have an medicinal value? It seems to me, it's used as an additive with one ends in mind: addiction. While I'm not in favor of the Nanny State, the fact that tobacco products (read: known carcinogens) are sold freely boggles my mind. Imagine if a terrorist (e.g., UBL) had said, "I'm going to developer a product that addicts it's users. This product will cause health issue, and perhaps even cause cancer. I'm going to bring this product to the masses wolrdwide." If such an proclamation where made, the public and the governments would FLIP OUT. The war on terror would ratchet up ten-fold. It's a mad world
- AlgorithmicTime 8y ago
  Nicotine increases alertness among other things: https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#effects https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#effects
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  There are many who claim that nicotine is like caffeine: an addictive stimulant with no significant downsides. Note that most of the people who make this argument are either addicts or nicotine sellers, so I am highly skeptical and you should be too, especially since there hasn't been much study on the direct effects of mere nicotine. If the science comes in and it turns out nicotine really is harmless on its own, and it really does help you focus and suppress appetite and whatever, then I'll be all aboard the vape train, love myself a good nootropic. Until such a time, I think it's wise not to take chances. Give it a few years for the science to settle before getting addicted.
  - Balgair 8y ago
    Addiction[0] comes in many forms, and I agree that addictions to things like caffeine and nicotine do not present serious social issues with withdrawal. We all know people that go on and off coffee/tea and we all know people that quit cigarettes. The vast majority of these types of addicts don't have anywhere near the withdrawal issues that methamphetamine and opiate addicts suffer through. That said, it's still an addiction. I'd advise against any form of addiction [1], and I'd further advise against compounding addictions upon each other. Especially when it comes to nicotine, it's a HARD habit to quit. Unsurprisingly, the science of nicotine is murky[2], especially the science around non-cigarette based nicotine. That's likely to change as vaping becomes more popular. I would not be surprised if vaping turns out to be slightly less bad than cigarettes, these companies like PM aren't known for their ethics. Vaping on it's own, sure maybe it's not any less bad than living next to the 405. But corporate sold stuff? COme on. That said, nicotine is a drug just like all drugs. There are good things about it and bad things. With nicotine, the bad mostly outweighs the good. The bad is easy enough to google and isn't something to dismiss at all. The 'good' is vasoconstriction, alertness boosting, and short-lived memory retention; that's about it. These things are really useful if you have a reasonable suspicion that grievous bodily injury may occur to you in the next few hours. So, if you aren't in an active warzone, I'd stay away. Office politics can be vicious, but not that bad ;) [0] https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/addiction/what-is-addiction https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/addiction/what-... [1] There is a coffee mug not 2 feet from me at the moment. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
goldcd 8y ago
https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance-use/drugs/tobacco/trends/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance... I posted a very well researched response, to a similar article (unfortunately somewhere else, I can't remember where). As a big opening gambit - "Smoking rates of children have gone off a cliff since ~ 2000". Not only have they dropped, they've accelerated. If any of this acceleration is associated to the corresponding increase in vaping over this time, then the vaping industry is possibly the leader in saving lives. (I'm open to other suggestions).
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  > If any of this acceleration is associated to the corresponding increase in vaping over this time, then the vaping industry is possibly the leader in saving lives. That doesn't appear to be the case. See the chart in https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/the-juul-fad-is-far-bigger-than-i-ever-would-have-guessed/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/the-juul-fad-...
  - goldcd 8y ago
    That's trends in percentages - not absolute numbers Makes perfect sense that. If there are more smokers than vapers (which there will be historically as vaping is new and smoking is old) - then a few switching to vaping will cause the smoking like do drop a little, and the vaping line to go up like a rocket. i.e. If there were 100 smokers and 10 vapers. Then one of them switches. Smoking has gone down 1% and vaping up 10%. Plus doesn't seem to include relative harm. I'd have thought it would take a large number of non-smokers taking up vaping, to match the harm-reduction of one smoker switching to vaping.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      What? No. It's the percentage of high schoolers who've tried each. 1% of high schoolers switching from smoking to vaping will cause the percentage of high schoolers smoking to go down by one and the percentage of high schoolers vaping to go up by one.
jimhefferon 8y ago
How about if we make it so they do not start?
quitsuffocating 8y ago
It seems to me that it would be in the best (financial) interests of big tobacco and pharma that vaping be outlawed entirely. Failing that they would probably both find it in the their best interests to force companies who want to produce vape related products through a regulatory process so expensive that only massive companies such as Marlboro or Pfizer can afford to comply - can’t have the little guy taking a slice of their poison pie. I think that if kids are going to try nicotine (and let’s face it - they are) better it be through a vape than a cigarette. Anecdotally as a person who has sometimes smoked as many as 100+ cigarettes a day - I am finding vaping to be helpful in quitting the horrible cigarettes and if it were not offered as an alternative, would probably go back to smoking because none of the other cessation methods have been effective for me. I know both smoking and vaping are far from ideal but the lesser of two evils is still better any way you slice it. When you have something that is taking significant profits from big companies, one of the first ports of call for them is to whip up some hysteria along the lines of “think of the children” if applicable. The rhetoric surrounding this appeals to something deep within human nature and it becomes trivial to demonise people who have a contrary point of view - in this case people who happen to be proponents of harm reduction and freedom of choice.
- a11595 8y ago
  The big tobacco companies sell plenty of vaping products. Vaping is something lots of kids will start - kids who would never start actual smoking. Why would they want vaping to be outlawed when they're making money from it? You are approaching this from the wrong viewpoint. There are two customers for vape. You and me, who vape instead of smoking. There are also people who vape but would not instead smoke. That second one is a huge market. I also see nothing requiring regulation or sin taxes for vaping. This is just plain wrong, and idiots started vape paranoia, flat lies in TV commercials, and misinformation campaigns. Yes, being addicted to anything is bad. Nicotine is not nearly bad enough - a burger is worse, alcohol is worse, living in a high-traffic area is worse. People have no problem stuffing their face with ribs and cake. What we need is to take away rights from the government to forcefully be your nanny. On a side-note - it's complete BS that I can't vape mild ginseng flavor at my desk, but the Indian guy next to me can fill the whole freaking room with curry goat smell for hours after eating lunch at his desk, and the fat white guy can fill the room with the smell of shit an hour after eating a greasy burrito. I mean - really? Ginseng extract and glycerine are outlawed indoors, but tiny molecules of someone's shit are fine?
soundpuppy 8y ago
Can’t we make some sort of waxy nanostructure material in the form of a cigarette that burns with zero particulates? Won’t help the issue directly but will help smokers. Here’s an idea - since all vapes except home made devices are electronic, put a Bluetooth chip that requires a phone app that securely identifies the age of the vaper. Make it mandatory for all vaping devices and boom - massive cut in underage vaping.

61 points by LinuxBender 8y ago

Ah yes, lets drug our kids even more to fix the fact that we drug our kids so much. We have to think about those poor pharma execs who need more mansions and private jets. When your paycheck depends on it, I guess drugs are the answer for everything. Do people still believed that government and its agencies exist for the benefit of the public rather than to benefit capital and corporate interests? The US government has never been a country of the people, by the people, for the people. It's been a government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich.

devereaux 8y ago

Bright idea: instead of letting kids vape (harm profile: uncertain, could be low), let's hook them to drugs like Varenicline (Champix) which are known to cause thing like cardiovascular diseases and suicide ideation. (Actually, it's a bright idea for all the parties involved, because "think of the kids" brings positive karma points, and parents and insurance plan will cough up the money)

fanzhang 8y ago
What a surprise: Varenicline is still under patent and available from only one provider in the USA https://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-chantix.html https://www.drugs.com/availability/generic-chantix.html I wonder who's paying the dinner bills after today's hearing.
- devereaux 8y ago
  I suppose we are both bad cynical people because I thought the same when reading the article
cwkoss 8y ago
Chantix is known for causing weird gory nightmares of skin peeling off and menacing entities and such. Creeps me out, wouldn't want to give it to children. http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/ http://nymag.com/news/features/43892/ The fact this wasn't caught until after this drug was approved by the FDA really makes me question the efficacy of our extremely expensive drug regulatory system.

GoodJokes 8y ago

When capitalism is the problem... It’s just like therapy now. Don’t get me wrong, therapy can be very good, but I feel like a lot of people are going to therapy because it’s the only way to get respite from their capitalistic hampster wheel.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago

>Experts worry that the devices could put kids' developing brains at risk, get them hooked on nicotine early in life and be a gateway to smoking and other drugs. But, the long-term effects aren't clear. The vast majority of smoking’s harmful effects are due to the combustion products not the nicotine. It is really unclear if vaping will really have a long term effect on kids. In addition, given that vaping doesn’t really hurt other people via second hand smoke or altered behavior(see alcohol) this whole panic about vaping seems overblown. How much do you want to bet that the “medical experts” who are harping about the dangers of vaping without a lot of data are “consultants” for pharmaceutical companies looking to get their “anti-addiction” drug approved.

Symmetry 8y ago
Nicotine is still an addictive stimulant so I'd expect you'd get at least the level of bad consequences as letting teenagers make heavy use of caffeine.
Entalpi 8y ago
I like my air nicotine free please.
- devereaux 8y ago
  I'd like my kids drugs free please.
  - fuzz4lyfe 8y ago
    Those goals seem to require each other as opposed to being mutually exclusive.
    - downer52 8y ago
      But, priorities!
  - x220 8y ago
    When you use most drugs they don't go into the air that others breathe in public spaces.

ben509 8y ago

> "I believe FDA posed the wrong questions for today's meeting," said Lauren Lempert, a law and policy specialist for the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California, San Francisco. > Instead of debating the role of nicotine replacement and drug therapies, the agency "should be focusing on policies that will prevent youth initiation with e-cigarettes and addiction to nicotine," I've been noticing this form of argument... in case it's not clear why I find it strange: yes, for a hypothetical child it's ideal that he not get addicted in the first place. But you still have these children who are addicted, that's a real problem, so while it's useful to also consider prevention, a regulatory agency is mandated to address an actual problem.

soared 8y ago
Why would you plan to continuously use band-aids when you could prevent getting cuts in the first place? It seems more important to address the source of the issue to prevent it from continuing to occur rather than only treating the symptoms. (Fixing the current is still important, but seems secondary to me)
simion314 8y ago
I think the issue is some previous data that we also discussed here, this data shows that if before we had N children smoking now we have N1 = 10*N children using the cool looking, sweet tasting, less harmful e-cigarettes. If we had N1 = N then I would consider it a good thing but unfortunately is not that, Btw I invented this numbers but the point still stands.

standardUser 8y ago

Anti-tobacco extremists believe the ends justify the means. They'll happily give people dangerous psychoactive drugs or get them hooked on nicotine replacement therapy if it means advancing their agenda. I quit smoking a couple years back and I was baffled by the lack of quality information I could find online. It's 90% propaganda, thanks to the anti-smoking warriors. Most of it pushes these quit-smoking drugs or just different forms of nicotine intake (which is the very drug you're supposed to be trying to quit in the first place). You'd think we would have collectively learned something from the abysmal failure of things like the DARE program and abstinence-only education. Facts work better than scare tactics and propaganda.

matthewmacleod 8y ago
Most of it pushes these quit-smoking drugs or just different forms of nicotine intake (which is the very drug you're supposed to be trying to quit in the first place). Hell no. Nobody really gives a shit if you consume nicotine or not. We should just avoid doing so in the form of a horribly dangerous delivery system.
- standardUser 8y ago
  People who are addicted to nicotine care very, very much if they have or do not have nicotine. You seem to be talking about yourself. I'm talking about people suffering from the addiction.
  - drngdds 8y ago
    Definitely, but being addicted to something that will make you chronically ill and kill you is much worse than being addicted to something that won't.
ams6110 8y ago
The drug approach is pushed by the pharma industry of course, exploiting the natural appeal of the idea that one can just take a pill to fix a problem that is as complicated as addiction. Doctors prescribe these because they (probably rightly) believe not that the drugs are harmless, but that the side effects of the drug are less harmful than the direct effects of continuing to smoke. Really quitting takes either a major motivating scare like a cancer diagnosis (for some people even that isn't enough) or a very determined decision to stop.

pixelpoet 8y ago

I cannot fathom how people still use phrasing like "drugs and alcohol" and "drugs instead of vaping" etc. How can there be such a disconnect, those are first class drugs! Is it cognitive dissonance, i.e. actively refusing to acknowledge it? It's pretty much universal too, not just one or two countries.

Alex3917 8y ago
It's not just that, it's also pharmaceutical drugs. As far as I know, I'm the only one to ever try to come up for an estimate of total deaths from all drugs, and people (including on HN) complained quite a lot about it.
- x220 8y ago
  If you objectively try to figure out the most dangerous drug in the world, you'll quickly find out it's alcohol. Alcohol makes people act dangerously and kills tens of thousands in car crashes(in the USA at least). In the USA alcoholism is also normalized in popular culture but especially on college campuses. It's absolutely insane how we turn a blind eye to alcoholism and yet demonize drugs like cannabis and psychedelics which have comparatively little harm to others.
  - reaperducer 8y ago
    Just because alcohol is bad doesn't mean other things are not also bad.
    - chris_mc 8y ago
      Just because murder is bad doesn't mean jaywalking isn't also bad.
    - x220 8y ago
      I never claimed that. I think that's derailing the conversation. The point is that our cultural (and law enforcement) ideas around drugs are straight up delusional and entirely detached from reality.

cat199 8y ago

like, say, 0% nicotine vaping?

linkingday 8y ago
This is exactly how I quit vaping a few years ago. Crazy, right? Offer 0% nic Juul pods for parents to buy their kids and they'll stop giving a shit after a while.

fopen64 8y ago

I read 'faping' for some miliseconds

viivaux 8y ago

Isn't it :odd: that all the comments remotely disparaging or cynical towards pharmaceutical companies and their fucking lobbyists are massively downvoted, even the ones only two minutes old as of right now... Hope y'all are taking note of this.

devereaux 8y ago
Actually it's something I noticed and was wondering about. However, it was too fast to be part of a coordinated campaign.
- iotku 8y ago
  I'm not saying it is or isn't, but... >However, it was too fast to be part of a coordinated campaign Being able to act fast doesn't mean something isn't coordinated does it? If I had an army of bots designed to reduce exposure or otherwise AstroTurf a topic I could put them into action as fast (potentially more suspicious) or slow as I wanted (would seem more natural).
  - devereaux 8y ago
    You have a great point. It is highly likely that many topics are astroturfed on many websites, but I would think HN is too small and too specific of a target to be of any interest to pharmaceutical companies. However, if they use a subcontractor, it could certainly "cover" HN among its astroturfing portfolio, especially if it frequently does jobs for tech companies. Some stories I read in the new section when I'm taking a break have very suspicious rises, compared to identical stories of about the same technical topic. Also, it feels funny to see the same story again the next day, as if it was "tried" but with different parameters until it catches up. Without further evidence, it is just suspicious. I hope that YC has a commercial interest in keeping the site clean from astroturfing.
FiveSquared25 8y ago
All of the top ones are anti pharmaceutical
8y ago

Udik 8y ago

I can't read this article without shuddering. It sounds completely hysterical about kids using what is considered a smoking cessation tool, that is not proven to cause any harm, and that delivers varying, but usually pretty low, if not zero, amounts of nicotine. The solution? Prescribing other drugs to these kids (as if there are any that actually work against smoking, except the very one they're trying to gegt them off).

mistermann 8y ago
> I can't read this article without shuddering. It's a wonderful example of fake news, using clever (but technically true, if someone ever called them on it) language to persuade people to be scared.
- hannasanarion 8y ago
  No, this is not fake news, and is completely unrelated to fake news. It is editorialized, perhaps, but nowhere close to fake. The fact that the sweet potato in chief uses "fake news" to mean "news I don't like" doesn't mean that the rest of us should adopt that definition.
  - mistermann 8y ago
    > The fact that the sweet potato in chief uses "fake news" to mean "news I don't like" doesn't mean that the rest of us should adopt that definition. What is the proper definition of fake news? For me it means news that is presented as true fact but is not, or writing that forms an impression that is not conclusive based on known facts. If it's some propaganda website I don't give it much thought, but this CNN which many people claim is respectable, and the source organization is the FDA. Just a few examples: > A few years ago, it would've been incredible to me that we would be here today discussing the potential for drug therapy to help addicted young people quit Is the addictive nature of smoking the reason why we discourage it's use? > The agency announced in November that vaping had increased nearly 80% among high schoolers and 50% among middle schoolers since the year before. Percentages starting from a low base are misleading. Were the actual numbers omitted for persuasive reasons? > Experts worry that the devices could put kids' developing brains at risk... "Worry"? Is this based on scientific studies? > ...get them hooked on nicotine early in life and be a gateway to smoking and other drugs. Is this based on scientific studies? > But, the long-term effects aren't clear. Neither are the short term effects. A more correct way to say it is: we don't know, what we're saying is pure speculation. > "The FDA has concluded that the level of addiction it is seeing among youthful e-cigarette users is so disturbing and so unprecedented... Why is it disturbing? Why does it matter if it is "unprecedented"? > ...that it needs to at least ask whether we need a solution that goes beyond what we ever did with cigarettes," Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, previously told CNN. I'm not following the logic of why anything "needs" to be done. > Medical experts say there is an urgent need for research on using therapies to treat kids who are addicted to nicotine. Is this "urgent need" based on science? > According to experts, most of what we know about nicotine addiction in teens, we know from cigarettes. But the technology and chemistry of vaping might pose an entirely different threat. "Might". > "These products deliver very high levels of nicotine, meaning that even brief experimentation is likely to put adolescents at risk for long-term dependence," "likely...at risk" - this one is fantastic because it has two levels of uncertainty, yet still communicates fear to those who lack (or choose not to exercise) critical thinking skills. And again: is this vague claim based on science? > "Clinicians urgently require new solutions to safely and effectively help stop them using these and all tobacco products for good," said Tanski Why? > "Preventing youth use in the first place should be FDA's primary goal," she said. Why? Taxpayers pay for this, they have a right to ask such questions. > "We must all recognize that if an adolescent has developed a nicotine addiction as a result of vaping, we've already failed." Is preventing nicotine dependence even part of the mandate of the FDA? If so, why? I'm rather skeptical about any "news" written in this style, especially when it comes from an institution like the FDA who we are told(?) are fact-based and work at arms lengths from corporate influence (there are several billion dollar industries with conflicting interests in this topic).

rspeele 8y ago

This was originally going to be a reply to ben509's comment but turned into a rambling mess only even tangentially related to the original article. Rather than throwing it away, I am posting it as a top-level one. I don't think it's just the substance that is perceived as unclean. Even for a libertarian, there is a slimy texture to any industry based around an inherently addictive product. Especially when it comes to marketing to kids -- potential lifelong loyal customers if you can hook them while they're more easily influenced. Suppose there was a substance that was completely neutral in terms of its effects on your body. It has no caloric content, is not caught on drug tests, it tastes like water, and doesn't even make you feel different when you take it. The only effect that it has is that, several hours after your last dose, you find yourself craving another. How would you feel about this substance being marketed? It's not hurting anyone, other than that they spend a portion of their money on the habit. But the companies selling it aren't doing their own customers any good, either, and in fact, each new customer they get to try the substance is just being roped into a life of either willing themselves through the cravings or spending a little money to make them go away. Now, obviously nicotine is not this substance. For one, I do think nicotine users actually enjoy the products and also get some alertness benefits from them. But there is that skeevy layer to it too. I'm not coming at this from a place of puritanism. I'm not a nicotine user but I do consume alcohol. I think we all know alcohol is worse than nicotine in terms of health effects, and the alcohol industry has done an extremely effective job of positioning their product as something cool grown-up adult people use, joke about, and have "sophisticated" tastes in. Just run through your favorite TV shows from the past 20 years or so and try to find any that don't show main characters either a. enjoying alcohol as part of all their social events, or b. abusing alcohol and it's played off as funny, or c. abusing alcohol as part of a "tortured genius" trope. In a lot of industries the top 10-20% of customers account for the majority of sales. It just gets weird when you have an industry that has to pretend it cares about "responsibility" when its bottom line is as dependent on its most addicted users as they are on the product. I guess my point is, at some point we call people adults and let them weigh the benefits vs. the risks. Even if they suck at doing that, it's on them. But I'm totally OK with the FDA's aggressive stance on e.g. Juul marketing to teenagers, because that seems to me to be all about getting somebody to start the habit when they're least likely to make wise decisions.

8y ago

Simulacra 8y ago

Where there’s a way, pharmaceutical companies will make money.

drewmol 8y ago

Companies like JUUL have patented formulations for nicotine salts that quickly spike blood nicotine levels similar to levels of analog cigarettes, then the sudden drop off promotes stronger cravings and more frequent usage. Cavings resulting from this quick spike and drop off significantly increases habit forming behavior by boosting both the intensity of withdrawl symtoms and frequency of usage compared to freebase nicotine formulas that have been common in traditional "ejuice" of the past decade. Combine this with their cornering the teenage vaping market you can see why Altria (malboro parent co) just gave them 13B for 35%. These nic salt formulas can ease the transition from traditional cigarettes, but also increase the first time user to addict conversion rate and lessen the likelyhood of users tapering off usage by gradual reduction of comparibly stabilized nicotine levels of freebase formulations. I've been rolling around an idea for a device to help ween off nicotine for years now. I need to consult with an EE, but don't have any in my network. If anyone's willing to chat for 30 mins, or interested in colaberating I'd love to hear from you, emails in my profile. If you're aware of any service out there to buy small block of consultation time, that would help at well.

DarkStar851 8y ago
Over on r/OpenPV on Reddit someone might be able to get you the right connections. It's a subreddit community for people who build/recycle e-cigarette batteries. A lot of them are hobbyists but there's a few who've made a business out of it and they might know the right people.
- drewmol 8y ago
  thanks for the pointer I'll head down the reddit hole this weekend!
owlninja 8y ago
JUUL was the only thing that got me off a pack-a-day 13 year habit. I think very highly of the product and it is a shame teenagers made it so 'cool'. (Much like cigarettes at one time...)
- 8y ago

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Does nicotine have an medicinal value? It seems to me, it's used as an additive with one ends in mind: addiction. While I'm not in favor of the Nanny State, the fact that tobacco products (read: known carcinogens) are sold freely boggles my mind. Imagine if a terrorist (e.g., UBL) had said, "I'm going to developer a product that addicts it's users. This product will cause health issue, and perhaps even cause cancer. I'm going to bring this product to the masses wolrdwide." If such an proclamation where made, the public and the governments would FLIP OUT. The war on terror would ratchet up ten-fold. It's a mad world

AlgorithmicTime 8y ago
Nicotine increases alertness among other things: https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#effects https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine#effects
hannasanarion 8y ago
There are many who claim that nicotine is like caffeine: an addictive stimulant with no significant downsides. Note that most of the people who make this argument are either addicts or nicotine sellers, so I am highly skeptical and you should be too, especially since there hasn't been much study on the direct effects of mere nicotine. If the science comes in and it turns out nicotine really is harmless on its own, and it really does help you focus and suppress appetite and whatever, then I'll be all aboard the vape train, love myself a good nootropic. Until such a time, I think it's wise not to take chances. Give it a few years for the science to settle before getting addicted.
- Balgair 8y ago
  Addiction[0] comes in many forms, and I agree that addictions to things like caffeine and nicotine do not present serious social issues with withdrawal. We all know people that go on and off coffee/tea and we all know people that quit cigarettes. The vast majority of these types of addicts don't have anywhere near the withdrawal issues that methamphetamine and opiate addicts suffer through. That said, it's still an addiction. I'd advise against any form of addiction [1], and I'd further advise against compounding addictions upon each other. Especially when it comes to nicotine, it's a HARD habit to quit. Unsurprisingly, the science of nicotine is murky[2], especially the science around non-cigarette based nicotine. That's likely to change as vaping becomes more popular. I would not be surprised if vaping turns out to be slightly less bad than cigarettes, these companies like PM aren't known for their ethics. Vaping on it's own, sure maybe it's not any less bad than living next to the 405. But corporate sold stuff? COme on. That said, nicotine is a drug just like all drugs. There are good things about it and bad things. With nicotine, the bad mostly outweighs the good. The bad is easy enough to google and isn't something to dismiss at all. The 'good' is vasoconstriction, alertness boosting, and short-lived memory retention; that's about it. These things are really useful if you have a reasonable suspicion that grievous bodily injury may occur to you in the next few hours. So, if you aren't in an active warzone, I'd stay away. Office politics can be vicious, but not that bad ;) [0] https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/addiction/what-is-addiction https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/addiction/what-... [1] There is a coffee mug not 2 feet from me at the moment. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

goldcd 8y ago

https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance-use/drugs/tobacco/trends/index.html https://www.hhs.gov/ash/oah/adolescent-development/substance... I posted a very well researched response, to a similar article (unfortunately somewhere else, I can't remember where). As a big opening gambit - "Smoking rates of children have gone off a cliff since ~ 2000". Not only have they dropped, they've accelerated. If any of this acceleration is associated to the corresponding increase in vaping over this time, then the vaping industry is possibly the leader in saving lives. (I'm open to other suggestions).

ceejayoz 8y ago
> If any of this acceleration is associated to the corresponding increase in vaping over this time, then the vaping industry is possibly the leader in saving lives. That doesn't appear to be the case. See the chart in https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/the-juul-fad-is-far-bigger-than-i-ever-would-have-guessed/ https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/12/the-juul-fad-...
- goldcd 8y ago
  That's trends in percentages - not absolute numbers Makes perfect sense that. If there are more smokers than vapers (which there will be historically as vaping is new and smoking is old) - then a few switching to vaping will cause the smoking like do drop a little, and the vaping line to go up like a rocket. i.e. If there were 100 smokers and 10 vapers. Then one of them switches. Smoking has gone down 1% and vaping up 10%. Plus doesn't seem to include relative harm. I'd have thought it would take a large number of non-smokers taking up vaping, to match the harm-reduction of one smoker switching to vaping.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    What? No. It's the percentage of high schoolers who've tried each. 1% of high schoolers switching from smoking to vaping will cause the percentage of high schoolers smoking to go down by one and the percentage of high schoolers vaping to go up by one.

jimhefferon 8y ago

How about if we make it so they do not start?

quitsuffocating 8y ago

It seems to me that it would be in the best (financial) interests of big tobacco and pharma that vaping be outlawed entirely. Failing that they would probably both find it in the their best interests to force companies who want to produce vape related products through a regulatory process so expensive that only massive companies such as Marlboro or Pfizer can afford to comply - can’t have the little guy taking a slice of their poison pie. I think that if kids are going to try nicotine (and let’s face it - they are) better it be through a vape than a cigarette. Anecdotally as a person who has sometimes smoked as many as 100+ cigarettes a day - I am finding vaping to be helpful in quitting the horrible cigarettes and if it were not offered as an alternative, would probably go back to smoking because none of the other cessation methods have been effective for me. I know both smoking and vaping are far from ideal but the lesser of two evils is still better any way you slice it. When you have something that is taking significant profits from big companies, one of the first ports of call for them is to whip up some hysteria along the lines of “think of the children” if applicable. The rhetoric surrounding this appeals to something deep within human nature and it becomes trivial to demonise people who have a contrary point of view - in this case people who happen to be proponents of harm reduction and freedom of choice.

a11595 8y ago
The big tobacco companies sell plenty of vaping products. Vaping is something lots of kids will start - kids who would never start actual smoking. Why would they want vaping to be outlawed when they're making money from it? You are approaching this from the wrong viewpoint. There are two customers for vape. You and me, who vape instead of smoking. There are also people who vape but would not instead smoke. That second one is a huge market. I also see nothing requiring regulation or sin taxes for vaping. This is just plain wrong, and idiots started vape paranoia, flat lies in TV commercials, and misinformation campaigns. Yes, being addicted to anything is bad. Nicotine is not nearly bad enough - a burger is worse, alcohol is worse, living in a high-traffic area is worse. People have no problem stuffing their face with ribs and cake. What we need is to take away rights from the government to forcefully be your nanny. On a side-note - it's complete BS that I can't vape mild ginseng flavor at my desk, but the Indian guy next to me can fill the whole freaking room with curry goat smell for hours after eating lunch at his desk, and the fat white guy can fill the room with the smell of shit an hour after eating a greasy burrito. I mean - really? Ginseng extract and glycerine are outlawed indoors, but tiny molecules of someone's shit are fine?

soundpuppy 8y ago

Can’t we make some sort of waxy nanostructure material in the form of a cigarette that burns with zero particulates? Won’t help the issue directly but will help smokers. Here’s an idea - since all vapes except home made devices are electronic, put a Bluetooth chip that requires a phone app that securely identifies the age of the vaper. Make it mandatory for all vaping devices and boom - massive cut in underage vaping.