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I understand that we don't want our kids vaping or smoking, but banning flavored juices is the wrong way to go about it. All it's going to accomplish is deregul

I understand that we don't want our kids vaping or smoking, but banning flavored juices is the wrong way to go about it. All it's going to accomplish is deregulation of the flavored juice market. People will buy unflavored juices and add their own (possibly dangerous)flavoring agents at home. Also, it is in Big Tobacco's best interest to make vaping as difficult as possible. Think about it, all these cities with vape bans haven't banned cigarettes yet, right? Make it extremely difficult to vape and people will resort to smoking. On a more philosophical note, are we really OK with the government reaching this far into our personal lives? The issue isn't really about the juices themselves though, is it? It's more about the advertising allegedly targeting young kids. I think regulating the advertisement of these products is probably the most sane course of action here.

Nuzzerino 7y ago
From my understanding, many of the flavored juices contain Vitamin E, which we're just now finding out is potentially deadly when inhaled (hence the recent deaths). It's a largely unregulated industry already when it comes to safety of peripheral ingredients. Wouldn't it be very costly to start scrutinizing each manufacturer's ingredients? Do you know what you're really getting if you decide to buy some vaping products?
- mfoy_ 7y ago
  (Related: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/e-cigarette-vaping-lung-damage-1.5270986 https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/e-cigarette-vaping-lung-damag...)
- magashna 7y ago
  Weren't those only regarding THC cartridges?
  - Nuzzerino 7y ago
    "Only" THC cartridges? There are more smokers of marijuana than those of nicotine in some demographics.
    - magashna 7y ago
      You shouldn't conflate nicotine vapes and THC vapes, they're completely different.
- freehunter 7y ago
  The recent deaths come from vaping THC, not nicotine [1]. Vaping THC is a mostly unregulated industry because cannabis is illegal at the federal level. Most reports call it "vaping related deaths" which is misleading because it's not the substance most people are vaping, the cause of the deaths is mostly unregulated THC vapes. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/indiana-reports-its-first-vaping-related-death-bringing-national-death-n1050741 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/indiana-reports-its-fi...
  - Nuzzerino 7y ago
    The legality of THC has little to do with the fact that ingredients of many household products across the board are not scrutinized to the level of safety that would have prevented this kind of outbreak from happening in the first place. Can you provide any details on what federal agency & team is inspecting nicotine cartridge production lines or imports in the US?
    - freehunter 7y ago
      I'd argue the legality does matter, since people have been vaping nicotine for years without a huge rash of deaths being associated with it, while THC vape carts have started killing people very recently and in increasing numbers. Something about THC carts is more deadly than nicotine carts. Whether anyone is inspecting nicotine carts or not, people aren't dying from nicotine carts and tons more people use nicotine carts than THC carts. Something about THC carts is killing people, while nicotine carts are not. In most of the states where people are dying, THC carts are a black-market item while nicotine carts are available legally. If legal nicotine carts are killing people, the business can be shut down and people held responsible. If black-market THC carts are killing people, the responsible party is not a legal entity that can be easily shut down. Government inspections or not, anything you buy on the black market is inherently more risky than something sold legally through a legal entity.
      - Nuzzerino 7y ago
        This whole argument is built on the premise of the items being black market products, yet I still have trouble understanding what that exactly means here. What is defined as black market? Where is the line drawn, if there is a line? Marijuana was 100% illegal for nearly a century, it's more legal now, yet the deaths are recent. I am very certain that there is some level of consumer bias toward buying supposed "underground lab" vaping products, having a higher amount of trust in them because marijuana is "legal" now. See where this might get confusing?
- scriptkiddy 7y ago
  > From my understanding, many of the flavored juices contain Vitamin E That is incorrect; specifically the "many" part. Vitamin E Acetate was found is black market(illegal) THC cartridges in the midwest. Vitmain E acetate is used in THC oils to increase potency. Legitimate THC oil producers in legal states do not use Vitmain E Acetate in their oils. Nicotine juices are a completely different industry.There would be no reason for Nicotine juice producers to use Vitamin E acetate. I understand why you would be misinformed though, because the articles on the subject have been very reactionary and exaggerated in order to stir up media frenzy and drive views and clicks.
  - Nuzzerino 7y ago
    >I understand why you would be misinformed though, because the articles on the subject have been very reactionary and exaggerated in order to stir up media frenzy and drive views and clicks. It would have been great if we could have had this conversation without going there. One could easily say the same about some of your claims regarding the Vitamin E only being found in black market samples, and only in the midwest. Also, what is defined as a "legitimate" producer? Do you think every company out there that has a product in a supermarket follows every single law and regulation on the books?
    - objectivetruth 7y ago
      One "could easily say" all sorts of stuff, but the parent was correct. You can't suddenly shift the burden of proof to them to defend the nonsense non sequitir "every company out there that has a product in a supermarket follows every single law and regulation on the books."
landcoctos 7y ago
>Also, it is in Big Tobacco's best interest to make vaping as difficult as possible. Think about it, all these cities with vape bans haven't banned cigarettes yet, right? Make it extremely difficult to vape and people will resort to smoking. Maybe, but vaping has (had?) the reputation of being "safer" than cigarettes. I doubt there would be a 1:1 of potential vappers to smokers.
- mfoy_ 7y ago
  Anecdotally, I know people who started vaping without ever having touched cigarettes before.
  - landcoctos 7y ago
    That's my point. Banning flavoring probably won't lead to as many using cigarettes.
    - kortilla 7y ago
      But it will lead to more using cigarettes. If it’s any more than the 20:1 safety difference then it’s still a net loss.
      - ilikehurdles 7y ago
        I'm confident there are significant numbers of people (read: kids) who would have never taken up cigarettes but took up vaping as the cool new way to get cancer.
        DanBC 7y ago
        What cancer causing ingredients are there in vape liquids?
        partialrecall 7y ago
        Possibly nicotine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/ >Tobacco use is considered the single most important man-made cause of cancer that can be avoided. The evidence that nicotine is involved in cancer development is reviewed and discussed in this paper. Both tobacco smoke and tobacco products for oral use contain a number of carcinogenic substances, such as polycyclic hydrocarbons and tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines (TSNA), which undoubtedly contribute to tobacco related cancer. Recent studies have shown that nicotine can affect several important steps in the development of cancer, and suggest that it may cause aggravation and recurrence of the disease. TSNA may be formed from nicotine in the body. The role of nicotine as the major addictive component of tobacco products may have distracted our attention from toxicological effects on cell growth, angiogenesis, and tumor malignancy. Effects on cancer disease are important aspects in the evaluation of possible long-term effects from sources of nicotine, such as e-cigarettes and products for nicotine replacement therapy, which both have a potential for life-long use.
alistairSH 7y ago
Also, it is in Big Tobacco's best interest to make vaping as difficult as possible Not true. Big Tobacco owns (partially or outright) most of the big players in the vaping industry. Vuse is owned by Reynolds, Vype is owned by BAT, and Altria has a massive stake in Juul. It's in Big Tobacco's interest to ensure vaping is easy and viewed as an alternative to cigarettes. It's also in their interest to keep the product in snazzy packaging with candy flavors that appeal to younger consumers.
- partialrecall 7y ago
  > It's also in their interest to keep the product in snazzy packaging with candy flavors that appeal to younger consumers. It's also no coincidence that the same industry has been smacked down for the same behavior in the past. Eternal vigilance is required to make these companies behave themselves.
  - fragmede 7y ago
    Absolutely. Thus, it's worth reading the restrictions the 1998 accord (the aforementioned "smackdown") that the four biggest tobacco companies entered into for lying to the government, and consumers, about whether cigarettes cause cancer. https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-tobacco-control/tobacco-control-litigation/master-settlement-agreement https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-toba...
- scriptkiddy 7y ago
  Most people who vape here in southern California don't use Juuls, or Blus or whatever, they use box mods with tank atomizers and juices that come in bottles made by smaller privately owned companies.
  - ameister14 7y ago
    I don't think the data supports that statement. People who identify with vaping as a part of their lifestyle, perhaps, but the casual smoker?
  - 7y ago
tlarkworthy 7y ago
I just switched to unflavoured base + nicotine shot. It's tastes fine and costs about 80% less. I can buy 1 litre(!) of base for $15, a premix of flavour 60ml costs the same!
- scriptkiddy 7y ago
  Yep, I've made my own juice before as well. For me, I buy the pre-made juices most of the time because of the general convenience.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - tlarkworthy 7y ago
    I find going down the store the inconvenience, hence the step up to 1 litre quantities. Lasts months. Also since moving to Germany regulations force u to mix the flavour yourself, so the labour for flavour is greater.
- cowpewter 7y ago
  Yeah, I make my own juice as well, though I do flavor mine, usually with fruit or mint flavors. A 60ml bottle of commercial juice easily costs $15-20. I buy my nic, PG, and VG from Liquid Barn and my flavors from a variety of sources (though mostly through Nicotine River). My materials cost for 60ml of homemade juice is only around $1.53 per bottle (not including the bottle itself, which you can recycle from commercial juice, or you can buy some, which only costs like $1/bottle). That's one hell of a cost savings! That's made up of approx $0.33 of nicotine base, $0.09 of PG, $0.33 of VG, and $0.78 of flavoring. I buy PG/VG in 1000ml bottles and flavors I use a lot of in 2oz bottles, so I'm saving a bit by buying in bulk, but it still should only cost around $35 for the ingredients to get started in DIY ejuice - the cost of around 2 bottles of commercial juice. Grab yourself 500ml each of PG/VG, 125ml of nic base, and a handful of flavors and you have enough materials for at least 10 60ml bottles of ejuice (and you'll probably have PG, nic, and flavor leftover, the VG is by far the most used ingredient).
dsfyu404ed 7y ago
>On a more philosophical note, are we really OK with the government reaching this far into our personal lives? If I had a nickle for every time someone with high income said "there ought to be a law" I'd have a very high income.
fnord123 7y ago
>On a more philosophical note, are we really OK with the government reaching this far into our personal lives? It's not reaching into your personal life. It's reaching into businesses to stop them from selling damaging and highly addictive products. Banning tobacco would be optimal but not feasible since too many people are already addicted.
- scriptkiddy 7y ago
  So are you in favor of banning fast food and alcohol as well?
  - fnord123 7y ago
    None of these, including smoking, are possible to ban due to the addictive qualities. But indeed there should be initiatives to wean people off them and reduce the damage they do.
doctorpangloss 7y ago
> On a more philosophical note... I think regulating the advertisement of these products is probably the most sane course of action here. The moment when people view themselves as having the most reasonable point of view and they’re trying to defend tobacco companies is how you know we’ve reached Peak Reasonable. Do software engineers really want to die on the hill of, “The kinds of reasonable I practice at work authoring React components is the same reasonable I would like to apply to politics and regulation, so bunch of warble garble about tobacco” ? Like no one’s going to buy that. We’re not talking about urban planning or tax reform or any number of arcane things where at least having a software engineering background is an adjacent point of view. Tobacco literally has nothing to do with programming or engineering, the fact that Juul is a literal electronic technology is a total red herring. Sure writing something in LISP and having a bunch of money gives you an interesting point of view. But you’re going to quickly bankrupt that POV defending tobacco. That seems reasonable to me!
- CobrastanJorji 7y ago
  All people are the people who view themselves as having the most reasonable point of view.
atlasunshrugged 7y ago
I'm not sure I agree that advertising is the most sane course of action here - if you take tobacco as a reference then the intervention that causes the highest decrease in usage is tax (and higher price coincidentally usually leads to lower usage rates especially in younger people because they're more price sensitive). So if banning is too far to go, then a middle ground might be to have a very high tax on the product in order to 1) decrease usage and 2) put money into a fund in case all these users end up getting a new form of cancer in 20 years that we didn't see coming and that we (society/the state) have to collectively pay for
- scriptkiddy 7y ago
  From one perspective I would be in favor of this as long the tax on cigarettes is higher than the tax on vaping products. That way both appear unattractive, but cigarettes more so. From another perspective I wouldn't be in favor of higher taxes on vaping products because it would be yet another tax affecting primarily lower income people. So, while I don't think it's a bad idea, I think I would need to do some more research on the ramifications before supporting it.
  - atlasunshrugged 7y ago
    Why do you say it would primarily affect lower income people? You mean because the cigarette smoker user base skews low income? I guess it affects them in the sense that some pay more, but many others quit something that is harmful which "helps" them (but of course net negative if you value personal will higher than the health cost and believe that people who smoke are entirely rational) But agreed, in light of the current evidence that vaping seems to be better than cigarettes the tax should be lower, ideally pushing people who smoke to switch to vapes as an alternative
    - scriptkiddy 7y ago
      > Why do you say it would primarily affect lower income people? For the reason you stated here. It's more a conflict in personal philosophy I guess.
Shivetya 7y ago
it is the same reason we have the opioid mess, nice sounding but stupid policy decisions; namely beating on doctors correctly prescribing pain killers to those who needed them to the point they no longer did. like the current bugaboo over vaping causing deaths the CDC crows about yet statistics show its not legal over the counter products. sensationalism sells papers and gets votes. exploiting ignorance with something that sounds truthful if not plausible has always been the game. when all else fails, "for the children" is the go to.
Circuits 7y ago
Honestly, I wish cigarettes were illegal and the same goes for e-cigarettes. Neither is needed by society and one for sure brings nothing but pain and misery to the masses. Had they been illegal I wouldn't be dealing with a 17 year long addiction problem.

Nuzzerino 7y ago

From my understanding, many of the flavored juices contain Vitamin E, which we're just now finding out is potentially deadly when inhaled (hence the recent deaths). It's a largely unregulated industry already when it comes to safety of peripheral ingredients. Wouldn't it be very costly to start scrutinizing each manufacturer's ingredients? Do you know what you're really getting if you decide to buy some vaping products?

mfoy_ 7y ago
(Related: https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/e-cigarette-vaping-lung-damage-1.5270986 https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/e-cigarette-vaping-lung-damag...)
magashna 7y ago
Weren't those only regarding THC cartridges?
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  "Only" THC cartridges? There are more smokers of marijuana than those of nicotine in some demographics.
  - magashna 7y ago
    You shouldn't conflate nicotine vapes and THC vapes, they're completely different.
freehunter 7y ago
The recent deaths come from vaping THC, not nicotine [1]. Vaping THC is a mostly unregulated industry because cannabis is illegal at the federal level. Most reports call it "vaping related deaths" which is misleading because it's not the substance most people are vaping, the cause of the deaths is mostly unregulated THC vapes. [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/indiana-reports-its-first-vaping-related-death-bringing-national-death-n1050741 https://www.nbcnews.com/health/vaping/indiana-reports-its-fi...
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  The legality of THC has little to do with the fact that ingredients of many household products across the board are not scrutinized to the level of safety that would have prevented this kind of outbreak from happening in the first place. Can you provide any details on what federal agency & team is inspecting nicotine cartridge production lines or imports in the US?
  - freehunter 7y ago
    I'd argue the legality does matter, since people have been vaping nicotine for years without a huge rash of deaths being associated with it, while THC vape carts have started killing people very recently and in increasing numbers. Something about THC carts is more deadly than nicotine carts. Whether anyone is inspecting nicotine carts or not, people aren't dying from nicotine carts and tons more people use nicotine carts than THC carts. Something about THC carts is killing people, while nicotine carts are not. In most of the states where people are dying, THC carts are a black-market item while nicotine carts are available legally. If legal nicotine carts are killing people, the business can be shut down and people held responsible. If black-market THC carts are killing people, the responsible party is not a legal entity that can be easily shut down. Government inspections or not, anything you buy on the black market is inherently more risky than something sold legally through a legal entity.
    - Nuzzerino 7y ago
      This whole argument is built on the premise of the items being black market products, yet I still have trouble understanding what that exactly means here. What is defined as black market? Where is the line drawn, if there is a line? Marijuana was 100% illegal for nearly a century, it's more legal now, yet the deaths are recent. I am very certain that there is some level of consumer bias toward buying supposed "underground lab" vaping products, having a higher amount of trust in them because marijuana is "legal" now. See where this might get confusing?
scriptkiddy 7y ago
> From my understanding, many of the flavored juices contain Vitamin E That is incorrect; specifically the "many" part. Vitamin E Acetate was found is black market(illegal) THC cartridges in the midwest. Vitmain E acetate is used in THC oils to increase potency. Legitimate THC oil producers in legal states do not use Vitmain E Acetate in their oils. Nicotine juices are a completely different industry.There would be no reason for Nicotine juice producers to use Vitamin E acetate. I understand why you would be misinformed though, because the articles on the subject have been very reactionary and exaggerated in order to stir up media frenzy and drive views and clicks.
- Nuzzerino 7y ago
  >I understand why you would be misinformed though, because the articles on the subject have been very reactionary and exaggerated in order to stir up media frenzy and drive views and clicks. It would have been great if we could have had this conversation without going there. One could easily say the same about some of your claims regarding the Vitamin E only being found in black market samples, and only in the midwest. Also, what is defined as a "legitimate" producer? Do you think every company out there that has a product in a supermarket follows every single law and regulation on the books?
  - objectivetruth 7y ago
    One "could easily say" all sorts of stuff, but the parent was correct. You can't suddenly shift the burden of proof to them to defend the nonsense non sequitir "every company out there that has a product in a supermarket follows every single law and regulation on the books."

landcoctos 7y ago

>Also, it is in Big Tobacco's best interest to make vaping as difficult as possible. Think about it, all these cities with vape bans haven't banned cigarettes yet, right? Make it extremely difficult to vape and people will resort to smoking. Maybe, but vaping has (had?) the reputation of being "safer" than cigarettes. I doubt there would be a 1:1 of potential vappers to smokers.

mfoy_ 7y ago
Anecdotally, I know people who started vaping without ever having touched cigarettes before.
- landcoctos 7y ago
  That's my point. Banning flavoring probably won't lead to as many using cigarettes.
  - kortilla 7y ago
    But it will lead to more using cigarettes. If it’s any more than the 20:1 safety difference then it’s still a net loss.
    - ilikehurdles 7y ago
      I'm confident there are significant numbers of people (read: kids) who would have never taken up cigarettes but took up vaping as the cool new way to get cancer.
      - DanBC 7y ago
        What cancer causing ingredients are there in vape liquids?
        partialrecall 7y ago
        Possibly nicotine. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/ >Tobacco use is considered the single most important man-made cause of cancer that can be avoided. The evidence that nicotine is involved in cancer development is reviewed and discussed in this paper. Both tobacco smoke and tobacco products for oral use contain a number of carcinogenic substances, such as polycyclic hydrocarbons and tobacco-specific N-nitrosamines (TSNA), which undoubtedly contribute to tobacco related cancer. Recent studies have shown that nicotine can affect several important steps in the development of cancer, and suggest that it may cause aggravation and recurrence of the disease. TSNA may be formed from nicotine in the body. The role of nicotine as the major addictive component of tobacco products may have distracted our attention from toxicological effects on cell growth, angiogenesis, and tumor malignancy. Effects on cancer disease are important aspects in the evaluation of possible long-term effects from sources of nicotine, such as e-cigarettes and products for nicotine replacement therapy, which both have a potential for life-long use.

alistairSH 7y ago

Also, it is in Big Tobacco's best interest to make vaping as difficult as possible Not true. Big Tobacco owns (partially or outright) most of the big players in the vaping industry. Vuse is owned by Reynolds, Vype is owned by BAT, and Altria has a massive stake in Juul. It's in Big Tobacco's interest to ensure vaping is easy and viewed as an alternative to cigarettes. It's also in their interest to keep the product in snazzy packaging with candy flavors that appeal to younger consumers.

partialrecall 7y ago
> It's also in their interest to keep the product in snazzy packaging with candy flavors that appeal to younger consumers. It's also no coincidence that the same industry has been smacked down for the same behavior in the past. Eternal vigilance is required to make these companies behave themselves.
- fragmede 7y ago
  Absolutely. Thus, it's worth reading the restrictions the 1998 accord (the aforementioned "smackdown") that the four biggest tobacco companies entered into for lying to the government, and consumers, about whether cigarettes cause cancer. https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-tobacco-control/tobacco-control-litigation/master-settlement-agreement https://www.publichealthlawcenter.org/topics/commercial-toba...
scriptkiddy 7y ago
Most people who vape here in southern California don't use Juuls, or Blus or whatever, they use box mods with tank atomizers and juices that come in bottles made by smaller privately owned companies.
- ameister14 7y ago
  I don't think the data supports that statement. People who identify with vaping as a part of their lifestyle, perhaps, but the casual smoker?
- 7y ago

tlarkworthy 7y ago

I just switched to unflavoured base + nicotine shot. It's tastes fine and costs about 80% less. I can buy 1 litre(!) of base for $15, a premix of flavour 60ml costs the same!

scriptkiddy 7y ago
Yep, I've made my own juice before as well. For me, I buy the pre-made juices most of the time because of the general convenience.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- tlarkworthy 7y ago
  I find going down the store the inconvenience, hence the step up to 1 litre quantities. Lasts months. Also since moving to Germany regulations force u to mix the flavour yourself, so the labour for flavour is greater.
cowpewter 7y ago
Yeah, I make my own juice as well, though I do flavor mine, usually with fruit or mint flavors. A 60ml bottle of commercial juice easily costs $15-20. I buy my nic, PG, and VG from Liquid Barn and my flavors from a variety of sources (though mostly through Nicotine River). My materials cost for 60ml of homemade juice is only around $1.53 per bottle (not including the bottle itself, which you can recycle from commercial juice, or you can buy some, which only costs like $1/bottle). That's one hell of a cost savings! That's made up of approx $0.33 of nicotine base, $0.09 of PG, $0.33 of VG, and $0.78 of flavoring. I buy PG/VG in 1000ml bottles and flavors I use a lot of in 2oz bottles, so I'm saving a bit by buying in bulk, but it still should only cost around $35 for the ingredients to get started in DIY ejuice - the cost of around 2 bottles of commercial juice. Grab yourself 500ml each of PG/VG, 125ml of nic base, and a handful of flavors and you have enough materials for at least 10 60ml bottles of ejuice (and you'll probably have PG, nic, and flavor leftover, the VG is by far the most used ingredient).

dsfyu404ed 7y ago

>On a more philosophical note, are we really OK with the government reaching this far into our personal lives? If I had a nickle for every time someone with high income said "there ought to be a law" I'd have a very high income.

fnord123 7y ago

>On a more philosophical note, are we really OK with the government reaching this far into our personal lives? It's not reaching into your personal life. It's reaching into businesses to stop them from selling damaging and highly addictive products. Banning tobacco would be optimal but not feasible since too many people are already addicted.

scriptkiddy 7y ago
So are you in favor of banning fast food and alcohol as well?
- fnord123 7y ago
  None of these, including smoking, are possible to ban due to the addictive qualities. But indeed there should be initiatives to wean people off them and reduce the damage they do.

doctorpangloss 7y ago

> On a more philosophical note... I think regulating the advertisement of these products is probably the most sane course of action here. The moment when people view themselves as having the most reasonable point of view and they’re trying to defend tobacco companies is how you know we’ve reached Peak Reasonable. Do software engineers really want to die on the hill of, “The kinds of reasonable I practice at work authoring React components is the same reasonable I would like to apply to politics and regulation, so bunch of warble garble about tobacco” ? Like no one’s going to buy that. We’re not talking about urban planning or tax reform or any number of arcane things where at least having a software engineering background is an adjacent point of view. Tobacco literally has nothing to do with programming or engineering, the fact that Juul is a literal electronic technology is a total red herring. Sure writing something in LISP and having a bunch of money gives you an interesting point of view. But you’re going to quickly bankrupt that POV defending tobacco. That seems reasonable to me!

CobrastanJorji 7y ago
All people are the people who view themselves as having the most reasonable point of view.

atlasunshrugged 7y ago

I'm not sure I agree that advertising is the most sane course of action here - if you take tobacco as a reference then the intervention that causes the highest decrease in usage is tax (and higher price coincidentally usually leads to lower usage rates especially in younger people because they're more price sensitive). So if banning is too far to go, then a middle ground might be to have a very high tax on the product in order to 1) decrease usage and 2) put money into a fund in case all these users end up getting a new form of cancer in 20 years that we didn't see coming and that we (society/the state) have to collectively pay for

scriptkiddy 7y ago
From one perspective I would be in favor of this as long the tax on cigarettes is higher than the tax on vaping products. That way both appear unattractive, but cigarettes more so. From another perspective I wouldn't be in favor of higher taxes on vaping products because it would be yet another tax affecting primarily lower income people. So, while I don't think it's a bad idea, I think I would need to do some more research on the ramifications before supporting it.
- atlasunshrugged 7y ago
  Why do you say it would primarily affect lower income people? You mean because the cigarette smoker user base skews low income? I guess it affects them in the sense that some pay more, but many others quit something that is harmful which "helps" them (but of course net negative if you value personal will higher than the health cost and believe that people who smoke are entirely rational) But agreed, in light of the current evidence that vaping seems to be better than cigarettes the tax should be lower, ideally pushing people who smoke to switch to vapes as an alternative
  - scriptkiddy 7y ago
    > Why do you say it would primarily affect lower income people? For the reason you stated here. It's more a conflict in personal philosophy I guess.

Shivetya 7y ago

it is the same reason we have the opioid mess, nice sounding but stupid policy decisions; namely beating on doctors correctly prescribing pain killers to those who needed them to the point they no longer did. like the current bugaboo over vaping causing deaths the CDC crows about yet statistics show its not legal over the counter products. sensationalism sells papers and gets votes. exploiting ignorance with something that sounds truthful if not plausible has always been the game. when all else fails, "for the children" is the go to.

Circuits 7y ago

Honestly, I wish cigarettes were illegal and the same goes for e-cigarettes. Neither is needed by society and one for sure brings nothing but pain and misery to the masses. Had they been illegal I wouldn't be dealing with a 17 year long addiction problem.