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Inside the Philip Morris campaign to 'normalize' a tobacco device
- aerotwelve 7y agoThese companies are selling an addictive poison and continuing to get away with it -- never forget that.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y agoAlso alcohol companies as well.
- drdeca 7y agoI’m under the impression that alcohol is substantially less chemically addictive than Nicotine. Is that correct?
- jowday 7y agoSubstantially less chemically addictive, but causes a much higher degree of social harm for those who do get addicted.
- ainiriand 7y agoMuch more harmful even if you are not addicted. Take road accidents and fights for example.
- joecool1029 7y agoThis is actually a surprisingly difficult question to answer. If you had asked specifically about tobacco, you'd be correct. But, nicotine itself may not be as addictive as tobacco products are. Remember that tobacco contains many other compounds that influence how the body metabolizes things (MAOI's and such). Here's a link with some citations: http://www.healthnz.co.nz/Addiction_TobNic.htm http://www.healthnz.co.nz/Addiction_TobNic.htm EDIT: My personal anecdote is that I tried vaping when the first 901 ecigs started to hit the US market: the idea was twofold. I wanted to assess whether there was any cognitive benefit in using nicotine through a cleaner delivery system and I also wanted to get my dad to quit smoking cigarettes. Both goals were failures, I found it too difficult to dose reliably using this method and the side effects weren't worth it to me. I did not find myself addicted after around a month of use.
- reaperducer 7y agoI’m under the impression that alcohol is substantially less chemically addictive than Nicotine. Is that correct? Doesn't addictiveness vary from person to person?
- aianus 7y agoYou can die from quitting alcohol cold-turkey, which is not true for nicotine.
- stared 7y agoMost alcohol users (in many countries, the majority of the adult population) are not addicts. As far as I know, most cigarette and e-cigarette users are addicted. Also: there are some computer games, which have the potential for addiction. Some others (especially "free to play") shamelessly monetarize on addiction. Similar things goes from other businesses: e.g. loans, dating websites, social media, etc.
- freepor 7y agoYes, but I think that the majority of alcohol is consumed by addicts. I have a few 750mL bottles of liquor that I use to make a drink for myself once or twice a week. My alcoholic childhood friend has drunk an entire handle of liquor (1.75L) in a day and then walked to the liquor store in the snow to get more. I’m counted as an alcohol user, but my usage is a rounding error of his.
- bcrosby95 7y agoYes, in the past I knew a couple people that were addicted - as in, they got the shakes if they didn't drink. They would drink several 750ml bottles of vodka per day.
- fjp 7y agoI'm struggling to find a source, but I was taught in school that some large majority of the total beer consumption is by a core group of beer drinkers that average > 3/4 gallon (around eight cans of beer) per day
- spicymaki 7y ago> Also alcohol companies as well. Indeed, death in the US due to alcoholism is about 88,000 a year it is the #3 leading preventable cause of death. [1] Tobacco related deaths is #1 (preventable) by 480,000. [2] Obesity is #2 for completeness. I have loved ones that have died or are dying from one or a combination of these vices. [1] https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sheets/alcohol-facts-and-statistics https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/brochures-and-fact-sh... [2] https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/health_effects/tobacco_related_mortality/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...
- clSTophEjUdRanu 7y agoTheir whole strategy is dumb. They could be winning the legal cannabis game but rather they fight against it.
- monadic2 7y agoPhillip Morris has a pretty diverse portfolio; they just play every side.
- freehunter 7y agoPhillip Morris invested over $2b in Cronos Group. They are playing in the cannabis game.
- homonculus1 7y agoI feel blessed to live in a world where companies can "get away with" selling products to people who are informed of the risks and choose to buy them. The urge to remove the option for others to behave irrationally runs strong in some, but we mustn't be carried away by ego. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. This very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be "cured" against one's will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” --C.S. Lewis
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- throwanem 7y ago"Omnipotent", there, is palming a card.
- TimTheTinker 7y agoI think he’s referring to something like a surveillance state - folks in charge who know everything about you and wish to police all your behavior. It’s a great quote from 70 years ago that speaks well to modern politics, but its application to Phillip Morris here seems to be a bit of a stretch to me.
- throwanem 7y agoYou may be right, but he still dodges the comparison. His moral busybodies are "omnipotent", while his robber barons are not. I understand why this should be the case - were it otherwise, the thought of living under robber barons would not come off nearly so well - but I see no reason why it should pass without comment.
- testfoobar 7y agoSugar is addictive. "Using brain-scanning technology, scientists at the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse were among the first to show that sugar causes changes in peoples' brains similar to those in people addicted to drugs such as cocaine and alcohol.6,7 These changes are linked to a heightened craving for more sugar.8 This important evidence has set off a flood of research on the potentially addictive properties of sugar.9" https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-growing-concern-of-overconsumption.html https://sugarscience.ucsf.edu/the-growing-concern-of-overcon... Obesity, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, etc. all cause society a massive loss in lost length and quality of life, lost productivity and increased health costs.
- jimbob45 7y agohttps://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/emerging-tobacco-products/6-important-things-know-about-iqos-new-heated https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/emerging-toba... For those who also had no idea what an "IQOS" was. Looks like it's an e-cig you shove a cigarette into. Seems dumb. If I was a kid, I wouldn't think it seemed preferential over regular e-cigs.
- derefr 7y agoIf you think of it as an e-cigarette, it’s dumb. If you think of it as a fancy filter for regular cigarettes, it’s potentially clever. Especially if, for some reason, you already have the cigarettes, or can acquire them for cheaper than you can acquire e-cig liquid (because e.g. you work at a convenience store.)
- jacob019 7y agoIt's a vaporizer for leaf material. People have been using this tech for weed for 20+ years.
- 52-6F-62 7y agoOof. I don't know who would really trust research about it being "less harmful" coming from that company after their history. It may very well be, but I wouldn't trust them on the matter.
- awslattery 7y agoSaw extensive use of these type of devices across Tokyo a few months back. Hadn't yet seen them in the market at our local QT/Circle Ks.
- delusional 7y ago> If I was a kid, I wouldn't think it seemed preferential over regular e-cigs. If I was a kid none of these options would be preferential over just not smoking. I've never smoked, but to my knowledge it doesn't carry any positive effects. That means utility doesn't really make any difference. The tobacco game is a pure marketing play. Maybe you could even sell a JUUL and an IQOS device to the same people (JUUL for everyday use and the IQOS for trips where you can get new capsules)
- hhs 7y agoAs cited in the piece, this is the 313-page white paper: http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/publications/IQOS_Paper_2-21-2020F.pdf http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/publications/IQOS_P...
- jacob019 7y agoSo they're marketing tobacco vaporizers and trying to push it as an upscale luxury good. Most people here know how hard it is to watch someone die of tobacco related illness, just a terrible way out. How is this company that has profited off of so much death and misery still thriving while our jails are full of addicts?
- throwawayhhakdl 7y agoI was at a tobacco company hq once. It surprised me to learn that almost everyone there smoked. A lot.
- autokad 7y agohow is that any different than alcohol? sugar? gambling? standing in the sun? how is that different from work? are you profiting off of the people that put together the building you are sitting in? watching anyone die is hard. no matter what we do, it will probably have a factor in our death.
- azinman2 7y agoOr crack, heroin, meth? The argument that anything can be bad so therefore nothing is bad is a meaningless slippery slope. Clearly there are differences and you have to draw the line somewhere.
- SuoDuanDao 7y agoThe prevailing sentiment in my circle of friends is that substance addiction should be treated as a health, not a moral, issue. That lets us neatly draw the line at 'the user sought it out'. Health outcomes tend to improve under that kind of paradigm as well, so it's not just libertarian ideology either. What's the rationale for drawing the line at a particular substance?
- azinman2 7y agoDo we also allow people to seek rotten meat, ineffective medications, or not wearing seatbelts? There are known things we can do to substantially reduce harm to the public. It’s always a balancing act between a “parental gov” and individual liberty: there is no universal answer. But over time we learn as humans what we think those trade offs should be. Note I’m not necessarily for making sins illegal personally, but I am for finding ways to regulate the hell out of them.
- mimixco 7y agoThe fact is that adults don't take up a new nicotine habit, so it's no surprise that PM must market IQOS as a sexy, exciting "lifestyle" for young people. This is part and parcel of the industry they're in. They'd be doing it in the US, too, but for the strict regulations here which disallow it.
- chachachoney 7y ago>> The fact is that adults don't take up a new nicotine habit That's not a fact. There are plenty of smokers who acquire the habit as adults.
- mimixco 7y agoAccording to the CDC[0], 9 out of 10 new smokers are under 18. [0]https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...
- chachachoney 7y agoWhat you're presenting is not factual evidence that adults don't take up new nicotine habits, it's evidence to the contrary.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- ortusdux 7y agoApparently there are also privacy concerns for this device. Great. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tobacco-iqos-device/ https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/tobacco-...
- drc500free 7y agoIt seems very hard to have clear policy discussions about "less harmful" products. Opiates > Marijuana > No Drugs Cigarettes > Juul > No Tobacco Bottled Soda > Bottled Water > Tap Water They all seem to devolve into a group that only looks at the first two arguing with a group that only looks at the second two. Are there any good policy frameworks for how to evaluate something that reduces very harmful behavior while increasing less harmful behavior?
- gowld 7y agoAre there any harm reduction frameworks? wikipedia.org/wiki/Harm_reduction
- vkou 7y ago> Are there any good policy frameworks for how to evaluate something that reduces very harmful behavior while increasing less harmful behavior? Yes, you can do a multi-decade-long study of health outcomes of long-term self-reported users, and compute how many quality-of-life-adjusted-years of life each vice costs them and their families. For illegal substances, you'd also probably want to take into account a mountain of other externalities, such as the impact of prison, black markets, drunk driving, etc. Or you can just skip doing all that work, and loudly legislate from an ideological position, because doing the work is a waste of time, as people tend to cherrypick facts that suit their worldview.
- cavanasm 7y agoI'm also under the impression that the evidence for Juul being meaningfully safer than cigarettes doesn't really exist. It's more a lack of evidence in either direction (whether Juul and similar vape products are more or less harmful than cigarettes) because research is still ongoing.
- catalogia 7y agoLacking soot and tar, I find it hard to believe vape products are as harmful as smoking in principle. Of course there may be other factors in play; for instance it seems plausible that some vaporizers might out-gas other harmful chemicals when they get up to temperature. The use of plastic parts in such devices seems pretty sketchy. That's my strong intuition anyway. I don't have any skin in this game; I don't consume tobacco products in any form.
- ufo 7y agoIn the first picture, what is the white cylinder next to the sign that says "no smoking, IQOS only"?
- PawelDecowski 7y agoIQOS “ashtray”: https://uk.iqos.com/shop/iqos-3/iqos-3-accessories/trays-and-disposal/iqos-tray https://uk.iqos.com/shop/iqos-3/iqos-3-accessories/trays-and...
- leto_ii 7y agoAs a Romanian I can testify that Iqos is quite prevalent. While smoking is normally prohibited inside, there are places where Iqos devices are allowed. They also have a fancy building to showcase their products in the Bucharest city center, under the guise of some sort of art/media center: https://qreator.ro/ https://qreator.ro/
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- AcerbicZero 7y agoI'm not entirely sure that tobacco is the worst product involved with this article. At this point Instagram seems to be doing more social harm than any form of smoking could. I'm half joking, but to me this is all a freedom thing. If a person is capable of making their own decisions in this already pretty complicated world, the option to use (or to not use) tobacco seems like one they can handle.
- kube-system 7y agoMental health is so much harder to measure. I have a feeling that social media is boiling the frog already. Like health crises of the past, we won't realize what we've done until it's too late. Except with mental health it'll be much easier to blame the victims instead of the institutions that caused the problem.
- vorpalhex 7y agoI think this is also a very individually subjective thing. I typically don't engage in social media, but sometimes I post pictures of food I've made to Instagram and about once a week I take a quick scroll through Facebook to keep in touch with relatives. And it's never seemingly done me any harm. I've had weeks when I've forgotten to do the above, and aside from a family member mentioning it, would have never noticed. But for some people, it certainly seems like Facebook causes them a whole bunch of harm. I don't think that's per se intrinsic to Facebook specifically (I have plenty of other things to blame them for, they're not off the hook). I think there are people who maybe due to anxiety or something else going on really struggle with social media and it causes them great panic. But if the issue is with the individual and it is highly subjective, then that suggests the solution isn't to change social media but to change the individual having troubles.
- Nasrudith 7y agoBlaming social media for mental health issues sounds deeply questionable no matter how many correlative studies. I doubt it is generally healthy but making it out to be the next tobbaco is absurd. There are far too many overlapping changes with potential negative effects, let alone the role of diagnosis and awareness affecting apparent numbers - a town without any access to diagnosis will look mentally healthy even if literally everyone has severe PTSD. Even if a correlation is taken as granted it is logically flawed as concluding kids eating their lunch alone are at an increased suicide risk - never mind shunning or bullying that is the shared cause of both!
- ficklepickle 7y agoStory time. These folks funded a restaurant industry magazine "startup". I got hired to build their online version. The people I was dealing with were severely out of their depth and all over the place frankly. I was very confused as to who was giving these people money. They had me meet them at their "office", which was actually the lunch area in the back if an IQOS-branded office. Eventually I put it together, and confirmed that it was in fact funded by a tobacco company. The magazine flopped shortly thereafter. I imagine the intent was to become popular amongst restaurant staff, then push this IQOS device. I put "startup" in quotes, because they never had a viable business plan or the ability to follow anything through. The while thing made a lot more sense when I realized it was a tobacco shill project. This happened in Vancouver. Edit: typo