7 ms·

Trump Administration Weighs Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes

55 points by jbegley 7y ago

aphextim 7y ago
Guess I'll go back to making my own again.... If anyone else wants to learn how to mix your own juice here is my go to guide. https://liquidnicotinewholesalers.com/how-to-make-e-liquid https://liquidnicotinewholesalers.com/how-to-make-e-liquid
IronWolve 7y ago
Most the people who got sick or died was from THC related vape products, ecigs had nothing to do with it. Also, they didn't ban flavored alcohol or flavored THC products. They really need to stop being a nanny state about adults and stop use the agenda of (Think of the children!) bans. Kids (Young Adults) did start using juul, because gas stations could sell them easily, 7-11 banned those juice flavors awhile ago. The Feds banned an entire market for adults, that has nothing related to the THC vitamin E grease fiasco... Vaping is hell of a lot healthier than smoking, but of course not-smoking is best. But I hate when nanny stats bann something for political reasons, just like they are doing with trans fats (donut scare!) or cities with sugary drink taxes. Video showing cotton balls with smoking vs vaping, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pwj6BuS8Ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pwj6BuS8Ds
- CJefferson 7y ago
  They banned flavoured cigarettes in 2009, which seems like the closest comparison.
  - ddtaylor 7y ago
    Why not ban cigarettes if they are more dangerous anyhow?
  - jdhn 7y ago
    If they're banning flavored cigarettes, why not ban sugary/flavored alcoholic drinks (alcopops) as well? As others have said, this seems like a shakedown and/or a bit of an overreach.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      These are separate issues - there is a clear close corollary to flavored e-cigs which is conventional cigarettes - the flavored versions have been banned. Banning other flavored stuff might be a good idea but is entirely beside the point.
  - vonmoltke 7y ago
    Yet those shitty flavored "cigars" are still available, as is flavored pipe tobacco.
  - decebalus1 7y ago
    Menthol cigarettes are not banned.
- orf 7y ago
  > just like they are doing with trans fats You're implying trans fats are fine and the only reason to ban them is political, despite the heavy link with heart disease and other issues?
  - Pulcinella 7y ago
    Don’t know why you are being downvoted. Trans fats aren’t unhealthy like like eating too much sugar is unhealthy. Trans fats are “unhealthy” like lead and mercury are “unhealthy.”
- chadash 7y ago
  > _"But I hate when nanny stats bann [sic] something for political reasons, just like they are doing with trans fats (donut scare!) or cities with sugary drink taxes."_ It's not for political reasons, it's because the people enacting the legislation _believe_ that the government's role is to ban these. You can have a different philosophy about the role of government and disagree with the legislation, but that doesn't mean it's done for "political reasons". To me, legislation for political reasons would be where you legislate something you may not truly believe in to order to satisfy a small minority (e.g. corn subsidies for Iowans) or to advance some exclusively political agenda (e.g. voter re-districting legislation).
- tbabb 7y ago
  I think it is entirely reasonable that the government ban chemically addictive products which attract use by children.
mullingitover 7y ago
Let's be honest, this is a shakedown. E-cigarette manufacturers just need to grease the right palms, this is absolutely not about public health. Amount of money that States in the Master Settlement Agreement profited from tobacco sales this year: $27 billion Amount of tax revenue States collected on tobacco in 2018: $12.86 billion Number of people killed by tobacco last year: 480,000 Number of States that spend the CDC-recommended amount on tobacco prevention programs: 0 Number of states that have made efforts to ban tobacco: 0 https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/us/statereport https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/us/statereport https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/tobacco-tax-revenue https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/tobacco-tax-revenue https://www.statista.com/statistics/248964/revenues-from-tobacco-tax-and-forecast-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/248964/revenues-from-tob... https://cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm https://cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_fac...
- nokcha 7y ago
  >Number of states that have made efforts to ban tobacco: 0 Do you suggest that states should ban tobacco? I think that would be a mistake, judging by the effects of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and the current war on drugs.
  - mullingitover 7y ago
    I don't think it should be banned, but there's a level of taxation that will drive demand down to near-zero. If states really feel like you can't put a price on human life, and we should think of the children, etc, they could revise their policy and charge taxes at the price that would come extremely close to eliminating all demand.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      This is already true in some locales. NYC’s base price for a pack is $13. The main issue with this is, like guns and alcohol, localities and states all have differences of opinion, so that ends up not meaning much in practice when someone can just drive over the county line to get their cheaper fix. State and city level whack-a-mole is an intractable problem.
siruncledrew 7y ago
I bet there will be a rush to hoard flavored pods and a crazy resale market will follow.
- excalibur 7y ago
  I don't know anybody who uses pods. Most likely people will simply start mixing their own juice, as aphextim mentioned.
  - partialrecall 7y ago
    > "I don't know anybody who uses pods." That probably says more about the company you keep than it does about the industry itself. They're selling the shit, so obviously somebody is buying it.
  - nickthegreek 7y ago
    I mostly only see people using pods and almost never see anyone mixing their own juice (besides dense clouds flowing out of the random car on the highway). My guess is that is all related to your friend circle, age, and area. Juul's are INCREDIBLY popular.
    - dmix 7y ago
      No one needs to mix their own juice yet. The difference is when there is no longer an option in the market for pre-mixed juices, amazon will be flooded with various flavouring oils. Just like how the vaporizers are often sold as for 'potpourri'.
      - excalibur 7y ago
        > The difference is when there is no option amazon will be flooded with various flavouring oils. Which is highly likely to increase the percentage of vapers using unsafe ingredients and exacerbate the current health crisis. Hooray for progress!
thebiglebrewski 7y ago
Hilarious seeing all the Juul shills in here already, saying we need vapes to quit regular cigarettes and that, "this is a shakedown"
hprotagonist 7y ago
Mr. Azar said that the F.D.A. would outline a plan within the coming weeks for removing most flavored e-cigarettes that are not tobacco products from the market. Title is editorialized; should read "Are Planning To Ban" or the like.
- nwalker85 7y ago
  Yeah, I came here to say this. The title here suggests that the FDA just banned them. They have not. Misleading at best, straight up lying at worst.
sarah180 7y ago
The land of the free, where the government decides what adults can with their own bodies. I'm all for taking new steps to reduce the troubling increase in teen use of nicotine. Also, cigarettes should not be nearly so cheap: they should carry taxes that fully offset the health impact so smokers are not free riders. (This would add $10 per pack to the price.) However, freedom means adults should be free to make their own choices—even if they're bad ones—as long as they bear the costs. It's appropriate for government to persuade, but not to choose.
- chapium 7y ago
  In this case you can do what you want to your own body, you can't just sell it to others and cause them harm.
  - ttjjcc 7y ago
    When are we banning fast food?
- an_d_rew 7y ago
  > The land of the free, where the government decides what adults can with their own bodies. I have found that such black-and-white sentiments are common here in the US, and surprisingly missing a lot of very importance nuance. So... you will never use publicly funded (often emergency) healthcare? Do you really understand the risks that you are taking? Are you sure that the risks have been accurately and understandably explained? Are you sure that only adults will be targeted? Are you sure that commercial interests are not lying or exaggerating to you? I remember analogous arguments in the late 70's / early 80's regarding the use of seat belts. "It's my body! I know the risks!" It is the role of a functioning society to find a way to help protect its own members from non-obvious, long-term harm. We can argue if government regulation is the proper outlet, and we can argue about efficiency and details, but... no no sane world does a "I can damned well do whatever I want!" attitude build a safe, equitable society.
  - fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
    >So... you will never use publicly funded (often emergency) healthcare? When the overweight start getting hauled off to prison I'll find this argument compelling.
KingMachiavelli 7y ago
The amount of regulation of these devices is insane. At their core they have 3 parts; a battery, a heating element, and the juice/carrier. There are a lot of things that could potentially be consumed using these simple devices; nicotine and THC are just the first most popular ones. The fact that the FDA has the authority to regulate tobacco products should never have extended to anything but actual tobacco.
- invokestatic 7y ago
  Flavored e-cigarette cartridges (or whatever they're called, I don't smoke) are a tobacco product.
  - decebalus1 7y ago
    In the US! Technically, you can extract nicotine from sources other than tobacco. https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/21/3/267/5041976#targetText=Products%20that%20contain%20nicotine%20derived,legal%20framework%20for%20FDA%20regulation.&targetText=However%2C%20describing%20e%2Dcigarettes%20as,regulation%2C%20but%20others%20do%20not https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/21/3/267/5041976#target....
1_player 7y ago
Can we please update the title to reflect that they're still deciding whether to ban them. Original title: "Trump Administration Weighs Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes"
- dang 7y ago
  Whoa, that's bad. Fixed now. Submitted title was "FDA Bans Flavored E-Cigarettes". NYT is known for changing their headlines; did they get this wrong in the first place? If not, the submitted title broke the HN guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
dang 7y ago
Related discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20929796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20929796 From recent months: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20535474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20535474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18717697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18717697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17968645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17968645
stronglikedan 7y ago
A ban would be devastating for those using ecigs to quit nicotine. I love the fruity flavors, and purposely started with those when I switched to ecigs. I figured that would help me get rid of the desire for tobacco flavor, and it worked so well that just the smell regular cigarettes would make me nauseous. It was a huge factor in my quitting successfully.
theincredulousk 7y ago
This is 100%-grass-fed, free-range, organic bullshit. How on earth could anyone, with a straight face, propose an outright ban on e-cigarettes while real cigarettes are still legal... In public opinion, this is shaping up to be another tour-de-force showcasing the defective actors of our democracy. Starring, in order of appearance: 1 Moms that want the government to do their parenting, as the technology doesn't yet exist to Black Mirror them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror)) 2 Obnoxiously smug people that are willing to outlaw anything that doesn't affect them if there is morale high-ground to stand on 3 Corrupt politicians dressing up a power-move or money-grab in the name of protecting the children/public health 4 A recent but powerful entrant, Facebook users that have conjured degrees in both Medicine and Statistics, rapidly propagating the most poorly reasoned, common denominated, premature-birth-of-a-coherent-argument to all of their friends and family Good times!
matthewfelgate 7y ago
The USA should give gun control powers to the FDA...

55 points by jbegley 7y ago

Guess I'll go back to making my own again.... If anyone else wants to learn how to mix your own juice here is my go to guide. https://liquidnicotinewholesalers.com/how-to-make-e-liquid https://liquidnicotinewholesalers.com/how-to-make-e-liquid

IronWolve 7y ago

Most the people who got sick or died was from THC related vape products, ecigs had nothing to do with it. Also, they didn't ban flavored alcohol or flavored THC products. They really need to stop being a nanny state about adults and stop use the agenda of (Think of the children!) bans. Kids (Young Adults) did start using juul, because gas stations could sell them easily, 7-11 banned those juice flavors awhile ago. The Feds banned an entire market for adults, that has nothing related to the THC vitamin E grease fiasco... Vaping is hell of a lot healthier than smoking, but of course not-smoking is best. But I hate when nanny stats bann something for political reasons, just like they are doing with trans fats (donut scare!) or cities with sugary drink taxes. Video showing cotton balls with smoking vs vaping, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pwj6BuS8Ds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Pwj6BuS8Ds

CJefferson 7y ago
They banned flavoured cigarettes in 2009, which seems like the closest comparison.
- ddtaylor 7y ago
  Why not ban cigarettes if they are more dangerous anyhow?
- jdhn 7y ago
  If they're banning flavored cigarettes, why not ban sugary/flavored alcoholic drinks (alcopops) as well? As others have said, this seems like a shakedown and/or a bit of an overreach.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    These are separate issues - there is a clear close corollary to flavored e-cigs which is conventional cigarettes - the flavored versions have been banned. Banning other flavored stuff might be a good idea but is entirely beside the point.
- vonmoltke 7y ago
  Yet those shitty flavored "cigars" are still available, as is flavored pipe tobacco.
- decebalus1 7y ago
  Menthol cigarettes are not banned.
orf 7y ago
> just like they are doing with trans fats You're implying trans fats are fine and the only reason to ban them is political, despite the heavy link with heart disease and other issues?
- Pulcinella 7y ago
  Don’t know why you are being downvoted. Trans fats aren’t unhealthy like like eating too much sugar is unhealthy. Trans fats are “unhealthy” like lead and mercury are “unhealthy.”
chadash 7y ago
> _"But I hate when nanny stats bann [sic] something for political reasons, just like they are doing with trans fats (donut scare!) or cities with sugary drink taxes."_ It's not for political reasons, it's because the people enacting the legislation _believe_ that the government's role is to ban these. You can have a different philosophy about the role of government and disagree with the legislation, but that doesn't mean it's done for "political reasons". To me, legislation for political reasons would be where you legislate something you may not truly believe in to order to satisfy a small minority (e.g. corn subsidies for Iowans) or to advance some exclusively political agenda (e.g. voter re-districting legislation).
tbabb 7y ago
I think it is entirely reasonable that the government ban chemically addictive products which attract use by children.

mullingitover 7y ago

Let's be honest, this is a shakedown. E-cigarette manufacturers just need to grease the right palms, this is absolutely not about public health. Amount of money that States in the Master Settlement Agreement profited from tobacco sales this year: $27 billion Amount of tax revenue States collected on tobacco in 2018: $12.86 billion Number of people killed by tobacco last year: 480,000 Number of States that spend the CDC-recommended amount on tobacco prevention programs: 0 Number of states that have made efforts to ban tobacco: 0 https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/us/statereport https://www.tobaccofreekids.org/what-we-do/us/statereport https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/tobacco-tax-revenue https://taxpolicycenter.org/statistics/tobacco-tax-revenue https://www.statista.com/statistics/248964/revenues-from-tobacco-tax-and-forecast-in-the-us/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/248964/revenues-from-tob... https://cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_facts/index.htm https://cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/fast_fac...

nokcha 7y ago
>Number of states that have made efforts to ban tobacco: 0 Do you suggest that states should ban tobacco? I think that would be a mistake, judging by the effects of alcohol prohibition in the 1920s and the current war on drugs.
- mullingitover 7y ago
  I don't think it should be banned, but there's a level of taxation that will drive demand down to near-zero. If states really feel like you can't put a price on human life, and we should think of the children, etc, they could revise their policy and charge taxes at the price that would come extremely close to eliminating all demand.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    This is already true in some locales. NYC’s base price for a pack is $13. The main issue with this is, like guns and alcohol, localities and states all have differences of opinion, so that ends up not meaning much in practice when someone can just drive over the county line to get their cheaper fix. State and city level whack-a-mole is an intractable problem.

siruncledrew 7y ago

I bet there will be a rush to hoard flavored pods and a crazy resale market will follow.

excalibur 7y ago
I don't know anybody who uses pods. Most likely people will simply start mixing their own juice, as aphextim mentioned.
- partialrecall 7y ago
  > "I don't know anybody who uses pods." That probably says more about the company you keep than it does about the industry itself. They're selling the shit, so obviously somebody is buying it.
- nickthegreek 7y ago
  I mostly only see people using pods and almost never see anyone mixing their own juice (besides dense clouds flowing out of the random car on the highway). My guess is that is all related to your friend circle, age, and area. Juul's are INCREDIBLY popular.
  - dmix 7y ago
    No one needs to mix their own juice yet. The difference is when there is no longer an option in the market for pre-mixed juices, amazon will be flooded with various flavouring oils. Just like how the vaporizers are often sold as for 'potpourri'.
    - excalibur 7y ago
      > The difference is when there is no option amazon will be flooded with various flavouring oils. Which is highly likely to increase the percentage of vapers using unsafe ingredients and exacerbate the current health crisis. Hooray for progress!

thebiglebrewski 7y ago

Hilarious seeing all the Juul shills in here already, saying we need vapes to quit regular cigarettes and that, "this is a shakedown"

hprotagonist 7y ago

Mr. Azar said that the F.D.A. would outline a plan within the coming weeks for removing most flavored e-cigarettes that are not tobacco products from the market. Title is editorialized; should read "Are Planning To Ban" or the like.

nwalker85 7y ago
Yeah, I came here to say this. The title here suggests that the FDA just banned them. They have not. Misleading at best, straight up lying at worst.

sarah180 7y ago

The land of the free, where the government decides what adults can with their own bodies. I'm all for taking new steps to reduce the troubling increase in teen use of nicotine. Also, cigarettes should not be nearly so cheap: they should carry taxes that fully offset the health impact so smokers are not free riders. (This would add $10 per pack to the price.) However, freedom means adults should be free to make their own choices—even if they're bad ones—as long as they bear the costs. It's appropriate for government to persuade, but not to choose.

chapium 7y ago
In this case you can do what you want to your own body, you can't just sell it to others and cause them harm.
- ttjjcc 7y ago
  When are we banning fast food?
an_d_rew 7y ago
> The land of the free, where the government decides what adults can with their own bodies. I have found that such black-and-white sentiments are common here in the US, and surprisingly missing a lot of very importance nuance. So... you will never use publicly funded (often emergency) healthcare? Do you really understand the risks that you are taking? Are you sure that the risks have been accurately and understandably explained? Are you sure that only adults will be targeted? Are you sure that commercial interests are not lying or exaggerating to you? I remember analogous arguments in the late 70's / early 80's regarding the use of seat belts. "It's my body! I know the risks!" It is the role of a functioning society to find a way to help protect its own members from non-obvious, long-term harm. We can argue if government regulation is the proper outlet, and we can argue about efficiency and details, but... no no sane world does a "I can damned well do whatever I want!" attitude build a safe, equitable society.
- fuzz4lyfe 7y ago
  >So... you will never use publicly funded (often emergency) healthcare? When the overweight start getting hauled off to prison I'll find this argument compelling.

KingMachiavelli 7y ago

The amount of regulation of these devices is insane. At their core they have 3 parts; a battery, a heating element, and the juice/carrier. There are a lot of things that could potentially be consumed using these simple devices; nicotine and THC are just the first most popular ones. The fact that the FDA has the authority to regulate tobacco products should never have extended to anything but actual tobacco.

invokestatic 7y ago
Flavored e-cigarette cartridges (or whatever they're called, I don't smoke) are a tobacco product.
- decebalus1 7y ago
  In the US! Technically, you can extract nicotine from sources other than tobacco. https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/21/3/267/5041976#targetText=Products%20that%20contain%20nicotine%20derived,legal%20framework%20for%20FDA%20regulation.&targetText=However%2C%20describing%20e%2Dcigarettes%20as,regulation%2C%20but%20others%20do%20not https://academic.oup.com/ntr/article/21/3/267/5041976#target....

1_player 7y ago

Can we please update the title to reflect that they're still deciding whether to ban them. Original title: "Trump Administration Weighs Ban on Flavored E-Cigarettes"

dang 7y ago
Whoa, that's bad. Fixed now. Submitted title was "FDA Bans Flavored E-Cigarettes". NYT is known for changing their headlines; did they get this wrong in the first place? If not, the submitted title broke the HN guidelines: "Please use the original title, unless it is misleading or linkbait; don't editorialize." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

dang 7y ago

Related discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20929796 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20929796 From recent months: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20535474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20535474 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18717697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18717697 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18716016 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17968645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17968645

stronglikedan 7y ago

A ban would be devastating for those using ecigs to quit nicotine. I love the fruity flavors, and purposely started with those when I switched to ecigs. I figured that would help me get rid of the desire for tobacco flavor, and it worked so well that just the smell regular cigarettes would make me nauseous. It was a huge factor in my quitting successfully.

theincredulousk 7y ago

This is 100%-grass-fed, free-range, organic bullshit. How on earth could anyone, with a straight face, propose an outright ban on e-cigarettes while real cigarettes are still legal... In public opinion, this is shaping up to be another tour-de-force showcasing the defective actors of our democracy. Starring, in order of appearance: 1 Moms that want the government to do their parenting, as the technology doesn't yet exist to Black Mirror them. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arkangel_(Black_Mirror)) 2 Obnoxiously smug people that are willing to outlaw anything that doesn't affect them if there is morale high-ground to stand on 3 Corrupt politicians dressing up a power-move or money-grab in the name of protecting the children/public health 4 A recent but powerful entrant, Facebook users that have conjured degrees in both Medicine and Statistics, rapidly propagating the most poorly reasoned, common denominated, premature-birth-of-a-coherent-argument to all of their friends and family Good times!

matthewfelgate 7y ago

The USA should give gun control powers to the FDA...