4 ms·

I feel like people often come at this topic from an individualistic perspective that ignores what's really going on. People see a new product has appeared and i

I feel like people often come at this topic from an individualistic perspective that ignores what's really going on. People see a new product has appeared and immediately accept it as a new fact of their environment and then debate whether they should be free to use it or not. This discussion is entirely absent of why this thing has appeared and why not some other thing. The reason it has appeared is because it is profitable. It is profitable because it is addictive. So some company or companies begins applying a population level medical experiment, introducing an addictive substance with only extremely ephemeral benefits and potentially serious health consequences. Intensifying this problem, the companies proceed to target children, in order to attempt to create lifelong money drips based on a physiological addition. The question is why is this a legitimate activity? While you personally may have some intelligence and ability to not waste your health and money on this product, simply placing it in accessible areas, advertising it and making it appealing, means that less informed or more risk taking members of the population will basically trip into a bear trap and feel like they're making an affirmative decision about their life because it feels good for a few moments at a time. This is insanity. Why do we allow known bad actors to manipulate and poison the public? EDIT: I should clarify that I don't have a problem with individuals growing and making this stuff themselves, just with the license we give to apply these medical experiments at a population level by entities that care nothing about the people they serve.

wutbrodo 8y ago
> introducing an addictive substance with only extremely ephemeral benefits and potentially serious health consequences This seems like a description of any method of nicotine use, and you're about 3500 years too late for that. I don't see how it's accurate to describe e-cigs advent as the introduction of a new addictive substance: it seems to me to largely be the introduction of a new (far safer) method of delivery for an existing addictive substance. The complaint about e-cigarettes seems to me to be a complaint about the ease for teens of hiding their usage, relative to stinky cigarettes.
- insanity321 8y ago
  To be clear, the use of tobacco has been an element of human culture (broadly construed, not all cultures) for millennia, on that we agree. I also do not have a problem with people growing it for small scale use. I do have a problem with the perverse incentives of industry to scale and market the product far beyond whatever niche it might otherwise occupy in human society. Furthermore, I object to the inflation of market share by targeting children. I thought about this a bit overnight and I think if we wanted to use this technology in a way to reduce harm and improve human health, we would offer it mainly through doctors' offices. While it would reduce reach among current smokers, it would also be fairly specific to that population sans some small scale cheating. This would prevent uptake by children and non-users. Instead, we take the opposite approach of selling it for profit and expand the market as far as possible. This is a gross behavior that does not care for the value of human life and health and we allow it.

wutbrodo 8y ago

> introducing an addictive substance with only extremely ephemeral benefits and potentially serious health consequences This seems like a description of any method of nicotine use, and you're about 3500 years too late for that. I don't see how it's accurate to describe e-cigs advent as the introduction of a new addictive substance: it seems to me to largely be the introduction of a new (far safer) method of delivery for an existing addictive substance. The complaint about e-cigarettes seems to me to be a complaint about the ease for teens of hiding their usage, relative to stinky cigarettes.

insanity321 8y ago
To be clear, the use of tobacco has been an element of human culture (broadly construed, not all cultures) for millennia, on that we agree. I also do not have a problem with people growing it for small scale use. I do have a problem with the perverse incentives of industry to scale and market the product far beyond whatever niche it might otherwise occupy in human society. Furthermore, I object to the inflation of market share by targeting children. I thought about this a bit overnight and I think if we wanted to use this technology in a way to reduce harm and improve human health, we would offer it mainly through doctors' offices. While it would reduce reach among current smokers, it would also be fairly specific to that population sans some small scale cheating. This would prevent uptake by children and non-users. Instead, we take the opposite approach of selling it for profit and expand the market as far as possible. This is a gross behavior that does not care for the value of human life and health and we allow it.