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> It also seems clear that e-cig manufacturers are hoping to hook young non-smokers to expand their market. This is mentioned a lot, but I find it questionable

> It also seems clear that e-cig manufacturers are hoping to hook young non-smokers to expand their market. This is mentioned a lot, but I find it questionable. I’ve never seen an ad that made me feel like Joe Camel or the Marlboro Man did when I was a kid. My teenagers haven’t ever thought vaping was cool based on ads or plenty of people doing it. This sounds too much like a general truism of capitalist enterprise—always find ways to expand your markets—while combining it with a direct accusation that it’s being done perniciously to “hook” them. Everyone who is selling anything is trying to hook people on their product, if that’s the terminology we’re using—new clothes, new cars, new TVs, the latest deals ... every company is using advertising to hook people on their products. People go into financial ruin for cars and homes and stupid stuff. Maybe we should just ban advertising to people so no company can try to hook young people on their products to expand their markets.

ceejayoz 7y ago
Do you think Juul’s school curriculum - which they paid schools to accept - was genuinely well-intentioned? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.... > In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”
- bobwaycott 7y ago
  Do you really think I would argue that is well-intentioned—no matter what company it is? Did my comment really leave the impression I’d give that a thumbs up? Companies shouldn’t be permitted to do that, regardless of their product—so fine them exorbitantly, and let’s do the same to the morons who accepted such a proposal while we’re at it. What I’m pointing out is this is standard behavior for corporations, and nobody does a thing to go after them or their profits when they behave badly—instead, people use this for lame think-of-the-children arguments against the products, calling for public bans, suggesting we force adults to get prescriptions for an e-cig, when what we ought to do is aggressively go after the bad corporate behavior—or make it illegal to manufacture and sell things if we don’t like them. But in the case of e-cigs, let’s start with cigarettes first, or admit we aren’t going to ever do that, move onto more productive conversations, and stop acting like e-cigs and actual tobacco products are at all equivalent—aside from the very narrow category of nicotine-delivery device.
jodrellblank 7y ago
> Maybe we should just ban advertising to people so no company can try to hook young people on their products to expand their markets. Yes, we should. Advertising works. It influences you, affects your behaviour. To extract money from you. For someone else's benefit. Without your prior informed consent. We should ban it.
- bobwaycott 7y ago
  Yeah, exactly. That’s what I’m driving at. At the same time, I find it a bizarre bit of cognitive dissonance when people blame the product, and not the people in the company behind it. In most cases, at least. The product isn’t pushing itself on the public. It’s people doing that work, and people should be held responsible for it. Yes, there are bad products—but they aren’t making themselves. It’s strange that we find it so easy to think up ways to ban a product, but never consider banning the advertising that pushes it on everyone and convinces them they just have to have it.
ddingus 7y ago
They absolutely intend to stay in business. I have that from a chance, frank conversation with someone high enough in that industry to know. Let's be honest. It is great money. People do not give that up. It gets taken from them.

ceejayoz 7y ago

Do you think Juul’s school curriculum - which they paid schools to accept - was genuinely well-intentioned? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.... > In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”

bobwaycott 7y ago
Do you really think I would argue that is well-intentioned—no matter what company it is? Did my comment really leave the impression I’d give that a thumbs up? Companies shouldn’t be permitted to do that, regardless of their product—so fine them exorbitantly, and let’s do the same to the morons who accepted such a proposal while we’re at it. What I’m pointing out is this is standard behavior for corporations, and nobody does a thing to go after them or their profits when they behave badly—instead, people use this for lame think-of-the-children arguments against the products, calling for public bans, suggesting we force adults to get prescriptions for an e-cig, when what we ought to do is aggressively go after the bad corporate behavior—or make it illegal to manufacture and sell things if we don’t like them. But in the case of e-cigs, let’s start with cigarettes first, or admit we aren’t going to ever do that, move onto more productive conversations, and stop acting like e-cigs and actual tobacco products are at all equivalent—aside from the very narrow category of nicotine-delivery device.

jodrellblank 7y ago

> Maybe we should just ban advertising to people so no company can try to hook young people on their products to expand their markets. Yes, we should. Advertising works. It influences you, affects your behaviour. To extract money from you. For someone else's benefit. Without your prior informed consent. We should ban it.

bobwaycott 7y ago
Yeah, exactly. That’s what I’m driving at. At the same time, I find it a bizarre bit of cognitive dissonance when people blame the product, and not the people in the company behind it. In most cases, at least. The product isn’t pushing itself on the public. It’s people doing that work, and people should be held responsible for it. Yes, there are bad products—but they aren’t making themselves. It’s strange that we find it so easy to think up ways to ban a product, but never consider banning the advertising that pushes it on everyone and convinces them they just have to have it.

ddingus 7y ago

They absolutely intend to stay in business. I have that from a chance, frank conversation with someone high enough in that industry to know. Let's be honest. It is great money. People do not give that up. It gets taken from them.