4 ms·

This argument is akin to saying "sure, he murders people by night, but he's a fire fighter by day so it's ok". The kids being addicted to nicotine weren't even

by gpm 7y ago

This argument is akin to saying "sure, he murders people by night, but he's a fire fighter by day so it's ok". The kids being addicted to nicotine weren't even collateral damage. They were being explicitly targeted. Doing good doesn't excuse doing evil.

nickysielicki 7y ago
I'd say it's more akin to, "He flipped the switch to divert the train from running over 3 people, although the other track still had it running over one person."
- munk-a 7y ago
  As an alternative - vaping flipped the switch to divert the train from three to a single person - Juul flipped the switch later down the line to make sure it still hit three people anyways.
  - nickysielicki 7y ago
    I don't follow -- how did they cause more harm to existing smokers? Are you saying that a Juul is more dangerous (or even equally as dangerous) as smoking -- or that there's evidence that nicotine in and of itself is harmful? I don't think either has evidence to suggest it's true.
    - munk-a 7y ago
      Oh sorry - they continued the trend of lowered harm to existing smokers, but they also developed a lot of new customers. I work in a company with a lot of coops and just in the past three years a lot of the folks we've hired on have a nicotine addiction - there are more people in their twenties that vape or smoke than people in their thirties or forties.
- catalogia 7y ago
  No, it's not really akin to that. This isn't a trolley experiment with only two tracks; they could have chosen to not market their product to children.
  - nickysielicki 7y ago
    They targeted them at young adults -- it turns out that kids in high school typically emulate college kids. Who knew? Go to any college bar and you'll see kids -- naive children -- smoking outside. A lot of those kids use Juuls instead now. If targeting that demographic inherently means that highschoolers will look at them and think they're cool, does that mean nobody should ever target that demographic? Harm reduction only applies to the 30+ crowd? edit: I also don't think that it's really fair to say that they advertised towards children. The worst they did was push some colorful and fruity flavors. I guess only children like sweet things, and once you turn 18 you can no longer like mangoes?
    - catalogia 7y ago
      It shouldn't be legal to market tobacco products at all. Juul knowingly and deliberately marketing to kids is further proof of that, as if any more were needed. > They targeted them at young adults This is literally the same bullshit the same industry was spewing when they were advertising their cigarettes with cartoon characters (e.g. the cartoon camel.)
    - gamblor956 7y ago
      No, Juul openly and deliberately advertised to children. It used to run ad campaigns featuring high-school age models vaping, and as recently as last year paid hundreds of high-school age "influencers" to peddle their products.
      - btown 7y ago
        Article re: the above: https://www.businessinsider.com/juul-congress-e-cigs-target-teens-students-testimony-2019-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/juul-congress-e-cigs-target-... . There's nothing accidental about this.
asdff 7y ago
Where is the evidence that kids were explicitely targeted? Kids can't buy these unless some adult consumer or a shop clerk is breaking the law. Flavored vodkas aren't treated with similar scorn, but you know 14 year old kids are getting faced off of blueberry smirnoff and not rye whiskey.
- sandworm101 7y ago
  >>The Food and Drug Administration on Monday came out swinging at e-cigarette giant Juul over a variety of its unproven safety claims and startling marketing practices—most notably saying without evidence that its products are safer than smoking traditional cigarettes and giving presentations directly to kids in schools—in at least one alleged case, without teachers present or parental consent. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/juul-gave-presentations-in-schools-to-kids-and-the-fda-is-fuming/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/juul-gave-presentati... The were speaking directly to students inside schools. Kids. They were telling them that their products were safe. You don't see toy companies doing that.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    That's cartoonishly exploitative. Juul should be fined for this predatory marketing.
    - titzer 7y ago
      They should face jail time.
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        Even better. Prosecute 'em.
  - goldcd 7y ago
    Vaping is far safer than smoking - and there are countless studies and piles of evidence that prove this. As evidence - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-less-harmful-than-tobacco-estimates-landmark-review https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-le... Now, I'm not saying it's safe. I'm not saying Juul didn't market unethically - just "vaping is better than smoking" And if you can accept this overwhelmingly clear evidence - the cynic in you might ponder why there's an outrage over vaping, whilst cigarettes are still happily sold/taxed/lobbied.
eurticket 7y ago
The addiction to nicotine is nothing to scoff at, but they were taking a page out of the big tobacco brands' play book. The same people that go after Juul and disregard regular tobacco brands is something, seeing how they are just doing what big tobacco has always done. There are a lot of people angry over those kids being targeted by Juul, but fail to see big tobacco next door, causing as much, if not more damage due to the nature of their product. Both should fail, but I would rather have an ecosystem of Ecigs(for adults) vs the waste and carnage that big tobacco has done for decades.
- musicale 7y ago
  > they were taking a page out of the big tobacco brands' play book Indeed. Note Altria's large investment in Juul. However, much of Juul's innovation was figuring out how to evade tobacco laws and regulations such as bans on advertising and flavored tobacco products (e.g. by claiming to not be a tobacco product) and how to escape much of the stigma associated with tobacco (e.g. by making something that looked more like an Apple product and less like a cigarette.) Evading legislation and industry regulation is a powerful business strategy while it lasts - consider Airbnb (avoided hotel tax), Uber/Lyft (avoided taxi medallion limits), Paypal (avoided bank regulation) and cable companies (avoided telecom regulation while providing phone service.)
- catalogia 7y ago
  Juul is big tobacco.

by gpm 7y ago

nickysielicki 7y ago

I'd say it's more akin to, "He flipped the switch to divert the train from running over 3 people, although the other track still had it running over one person."

munk-a 7y ago
As an alternative - vaping flipped the switch to divert the train from three to a single person - Juul flipped the switch later down the line to make sure it still hit three people anyways.
- nickysielicki 7y ago
  I don't follow -- how did they cause more harm to existing smokers? Are you saying that a Juul is more dangerous (or even equally as dangerous) as smoking -- or that there's evidence that nicotine in and of itself is harmful? I don't think either has evidence to suggest it's true.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Oh sorry - they continued the trend of lowered harm to existing smokers, but they also developed a lot of new customers. I work in a company with a lot of coops and just in the past three years a lot of the folks we've hired on have a nicotine addiction - there are more people in their twenties that vape or smoke than people in their thirties or forties.
catalogia 7y ago
No, it's not really akin to that. This isn't a trolley experiment with only two tracks; they could have chosen to not market their product to children.
- nickysielicki 7y ago
  They targeted them at young adults -- it turns out that kids in high school typically emulate college kids. Who knew? Go to any college bar and you'll see kids -- naive children -- smoking outside. A lot of those kids use Juuls instead now. If targeting that demographic inherently means that highschoolers will look at them and think they're cool, does that mean nobody should ever target that demographic? Harm reduction only applies to the 30+ crowd? edit: I also don't think that it's really fair to say that they advertised towards children. The worst they did was push some colorful and fruity flavors. I guess only children like sweet things, and once you turn 18 you can no longer like mangoes?
  - catalogia 7y ago
    It shouldn't be legal to market tobacco products at all. Juul knowingly and deliberately marketing to kids is further proof of that, as if any more were needed. > They targeted them at young adults This is literally the same bullshit the same industry was spewing when they were advertising their cigarettes with cartoon characters (e.g. the cartoon camel.)
  - gamblor956 7y ago
    No, Juul openly and deliberately advertised to children. It used to run ad campaigns featuring high-school age models vaping, and as recently as last year paid hundreds of high-school age "influencers" to peddle their products.
    - btown 7y ago
      Article re: the above: https://www.businessinsider.com/juul-congress-e-cigs-target-teens-students-testimony-2019-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/juul-congress-e-cigs-target-... . There's nothing accidental about this.

asdff 7y ago

Where is the evidence that kids were explicitely targeted? Kids can't buy these unless some adult consumer or a shop clerk is breaking the law. Flavored vodkas aren't treated with similar scorn, but you know 14 year old kids are getting faced off of blueberry smirnoff and not rye whiskey.

sandworm101 7y ago
>>The Food and Drug Administration on Monday came out swinging at e-cigarette giant Juul over a variety of its unproven safety claims and startling marketing practices—most notably saying without evidence that its products are safer than smoking traditional cigarettes and giving presentations directly to kids in schools—in at least one alleged case, without teachers present or parental consent. https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/juul-gave-presentations-in-schools-to-kids-and-the-fda-is-fuming/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/juul-gave-presentati... The were speaking directly to students inside schools. Kids. They were telling them that their products were safe. You don't see toy companies doing that.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  That's cartoonishly exploitative. Juul should be fined for this predatory marketing.
  - titzer 7y ago
    They should face jail time.
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Even better. Prosecute 'em.
- goldcd 7y ago
  Vaping is far safer than smoking - and there are countless studies and piles of evidence that prove this. As evidence - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-less-harmful-than-tobacco-estimates-landmark-review https://www.gov.uk/government/news/e-cigarettes-around-95-le... Now, I'm not saying it's safe. I'm not saying Juul didn't market unethically - just "vaping is better than smoking" And if you can accept this overwhelmingly clear evidence - the cynic in you might ponder why there's an outrage over vaping, whilst cigarettes are still happily sold/taxed/lobbied.

eurticket 7y ago

The addiction to nicotine is nothing to scoff at, but they were taking a page out of the big tobacco brands' play book. The same people that go after Juul and disregard regular tobacco brands is something, seeing how they are just doing what big tobacco has always done. There are a lot of people angry over those kids being targeted by Juul, but fail to see big tobacco next door, causing as much, if not more damage due to the nature of their product. Both should fail, but I would rather have an ecosystem of Ecigs(for adults) vs the waste and carnage that big tobacco has done for decades.

musicale 7y ago
> they were taking a page out of the big tobacco brands' play book Indeed. Note Altria's large investment in Juul. However, much of Juul's innovation was figuring out how to evade tobacco laws and regulations such as bans on advertising and flavored tobacco products (e.g. by claiming to not be a tobacco product) and how to escape much of the stigma associated with tobacco (e.g. by making something that looked more like an Apple product and less like a cigarette.) Evading legislation and industry regulation is a powerful business strategy while it lasts - consider Airbnb (avoided hotel tax), Uber/Lyft (avoided taxi medallion limits), Paypal (avoided bank regulation) and cable companies (avoided telecom regulation while providing phone service.)
catalogia 7y ago
Juul is big tobacco.