19 ms·

Juul bought an entire issue of a scholarly journal

501 points by i_love_limes 5y ago

dna_polymerase 5y ago
> Pretty much all the articles take the Juul party line that e-cigarettes help convert smokers away from combustible tobacco products, and thus aid public health. Pretty much none of the articles mention that Juul and other vaping companies make their money by attracting countless new people to nicotine addiction. Well maybe it's because Juul bought the journal or maybe the researchers found no correlation between Juul's profits and public health.
- i_love_limes 5y ago
  This has been a hot topic of research in the public health community, and from more legitimate researchers there is still a lot of debate. However this kind of move is striking in it's similarity to the known tried and tested maneuvers of the tobacco industry to undercut public understanding of the risks with their products. This is the 21st century equivalent of attempting to disprove the links between smoking and cancer.
  - smolder 5y ago
    It's similar but not what I'd call equivalent, because the risks of smoking and vaping are different and differently understood in their respective PR battles. The science is still out on how safe vaping is in the long term, but apart from liquids having certain additives like diethyl that are known to be unsafe now, it appears to be reasonably safe. The undercutting of understanding the risks of cigarettes was happening when the risks would have been blatantly obvious to researchers, unlike with current vaping products. So while the PR technique is similarly appalling, the context is different.
- tokai 5y ago
  Over half of the researchers are employees of Juul. Not funded or financed, but employed.
- bserge 5y ago
  I mean, yeah they're a smoking cessation tool which has been taken up by non-smokers, like any other drug with somewhat recreational effects out there. Vaping for fun can be done without nicotine, though. They could place some more visible stickers that say "Smoke only nicotine free - same fun, no stupid addiction!" or something. And locking e-cigarettes behind a prescription would just make people continue smoking the freely available tobacco products. Nicotine patches failed to gain wide adoption in part because of that.
- possiblelion 5y ago
  Well, nicotine addiction is a debatable topic as nicotine itself is actually not addictive as a compound.
  - struxure 5y ago
    Any source for that claim? I can only say from the personal experience that people I know and I used to be addicted to nicotine (not only in tobacco products)
    - possiblelion 5y ago
      https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16177026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16177026/
nathias 5y ago
I have followed the story of e-cigarettes and can only say it's eye opening, its probably very symptomatic to how things are done. It went from innovators and communities to being large enough that the cigarette companies responded by a smear campaign, disinformation and panic, that was then used to regulate in a way that benefited only the cigarette companies. What a transparently corrupt world we live in.
- KingOfCoders 5y ago
  And everyone who doesn't want funny smells in their face. While since some decades cigarette smokers go outside, many ecigarette users spread funny smells without any empathy.
  - Tenoke 5y ago
    The smell from vaping is not comparable and it goes away quick, at least if you are not using some fancy liquid. Even if it doesn't, it's no worse than the smell of kebab which people are allowed to eat indoors.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - leoedin 5y ago
      Vaping indoors for any length of time leaves a sticky residue over everything - perhaps either nicotine or propylene glycol residue. Even ignoring the air quality issues for people who didn't sign up for it, it's not completely impact free. Maybe kebab also creates poor air quality and sticky residues, but in my experience people don't tend to eat kebabs continuously every 5 minutes through the day. I'm all for e-cigarettes as an almost-certainly-better alternative to real cigarettes (banning vaping but not smoking is ludicrous to me) - but allowing using them indoors does have a real impact on everyone else. Perhaps some are discreet, but the cloud chasing guys ruin it.
      - Tenoke 5y ago
blfr 5y ago
Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.
- ud_0 5y ago
  > Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as "excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government to make decisions based on facts and methods of finding out more facts. Currently, that's only one small part of our governmental decision making process, with the other notable parts being powerful special interests and public opinion. Could you elaborate a bit on what exactly you meant by this?
  - wccrawford 5y ago
    I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends. Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science. For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over. And it happens for this that are much less certain, too.
    - ud_0 5y ago
      Thank you for answering. I agree that "scientific consensus" is an elusive thing in practice: interpretations change, new data comes in, sometimes it turns out data was held back or falsified. On top of that, what is consensus and what isn't is often distorted in the public view. There is no established quorum process (which is a good thing). > For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity There is no scientific consensus on the mechanism that is causing gravity, at least not on the level you suggest. There is consensus on how gravity behaves, in regimes we can currently observe. The problem with suggesting "some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism" is that you can generate arbitrary many such mechanisms, because there aren't good options yet for experimental corroboration. We all have favorite ideas for how gravity might work behind the scenes, and it absolutely is fun to speculate. But if your goal is to actually make a contribution, your need to come up with an idea that can be falsified. In my opinion you are completely within your rights to make claims that contradict empirical findings or theoretical frameworks. There often are holes in our knowledge, and continuously re-examining established science is absolutely part of the process. Of course, the burden of proof is on you in that case. But science is absolutely meant to be a living process.
Traster 5y ago
This seems to be just standard procedure for any company operating in a health related sector. Maybe the scale is different, but any competent regulator would be aware of these types of relationships and should be adjusting for selection bias in their evaluation.
- counternotions 5y ago
  This is all fair game for Juul, and merely serves as a distraction by the media. Modern capitalism enforces no moral responsibilities on companies besides enriching its shareholders. The academic system has long been exploited by these same players and left standing as a shell.
uniqueuid 5y ago
That's quite outrageous. If this special issue was peer-reviewed, people donated their time for free to publish 11 studies with potentially severe conflicts of interest. If the issue was not peer-reviewed, then the editors handed out free publication for money, which is what predatory journals do. There is no way to spin this as remotely related to good scientific practice, which would mean: - Funding is independent of results - Double-blind peer review - Pre-registration wherever possible
shusaku 5y ago
> But a Tuesday New York Times article on the subject contained a fascinating nugget midway through, which could be described as a buried lede (journalese for putting the most explosive part of a story in the middle of the piece). I’m going to come down on the opposite side and say that a garbage journal that nobody reads publishing garbage research for money isn’t news. Though it is certainly a good example of why you shouldn’t believe something just because it is published.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  The American Journal of Health Behavior apparently has an impact factor between 1 and 2, which isn't stellar but also isn't "nobody reads".
  - shusaku 5y ago
    It’s pretty hard to find a journal with an impact factor below 1 considering how frequently scientists cite their own work. Heck just look at the special edition papers and see how often they cite each other. Edit: but I also don’t want to argue this point too much because impact factor is not a good measure of the quality of a journal
  - nabla9 5y ago
    Impact factor 2 is bad. Nature Scientific Reports has 5-year impact factor ~4.5 and it's very low quality megajournal with tendency to publish junk science. The peer-review is designed to be very low quality (scientific importance is not criteria for example).
- Tenoke 5y ago
  Yeah, they bought it for $50k. It's like complaining about paying for an issue of some 3rd rate magazine.
  - uniqueuid 5y ago
    Okay, but the studies will still end up in meta-analyses and potentially skew results.
lemonberry 5y ago
My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in this one instance it was a good move for a smoker. I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. The quality, and I assume health effects, vary widely between different juices. For example: I bought him a non-refillable vape by another company and he started coughing and complaining of soreness in his throat. I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find. Disclaimer: I think all drugs should be legal.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life! That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit) - how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit) - how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm) - how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm) Perhaps someone with expertise can explain the current state of research. IIRC I saw a study arguing that the beneficial effects were less frequent and vaping as an entry to smoking was shockingly prevalent.
  - symlinkk 5y ago
    We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.
    - uniqueuid 5y ago
      I don't know (not my area of expertise), but aren't there some reliable meta-analyses on the effects of vaping? I would be surprised to see that inhaling any kind of smoke or non-water aerosol is good for your lungs, so I'd expect at least a minor harmful effect. This study, for example, claims increased risks for heart disease [1] (disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor and cannot evaluate its credibility) [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0
sva_ 5y ago
This study is pretty interesting: > Smoking Trajectories of Adult Never Smokers 12 Months after First Purchase of a JUUL Starter Kit https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/png/ajhb/2021/00000045/00000003/art00008# https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/png/ajhb/2021/0000... The survey conveniently only asked about cigarette or "Juul" use, take note how it doesn't ask if users switched to a different vaping product. Though the study was described as > “JUUL customer online survey about JUUL vapor products, vaping and smoking.” Makes me wonder if they conveniently left out some questions to get their p-value right.
esseeayen 5y ago
Wait, as someone overseas who hasn’t seen any of the Juul advertising what are some of the examples of them “blatantly advertising to children”? Is it just the fact that they are making flavoured nicotine products or has it been more nefarious than that. As an adult I kind of like some of the flavoured tobacco products from smoking shisha (argile, hookah etc) and they have had flavours forever and not been in the spotlight to marketing to children?
- samizdis 5y ago
  This article seems to give a fair discussion of the issue, with some examples: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-24/hiltzik-juul-target-teens https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-24/hiltzik-ju... Edit to add this article, too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/the-disturbing-focus-of-juuls-early-marketing-campaigns/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/t...
- TchoBeer 5y ago
  >they have had flavours forever and not been in the spotlight to marketing to children? I think my mum would disagree
- hwayne 5y ago
  Here ya go! http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/publications/JUUL_Marketing_Stanford.pdf http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/publications/JUUL_M...
cmauniada 5y ago
I can’t read this stupid website on my phone. The content keeps shifting up and down for some weird reason, and like every other bloated website it asks me allow cookies as soon as I visit it. So frustrating......
- MayeulC 5y ago
  Use Firefox's reader mode.
excalibur 5y ago
Vaporizers are extremely useful as smoking cessation tools. Juul is not really configured correctly for this purpose. You have to give your customers control over the nicotine content, there need to low-nicotine and nicotine-free options. But yes, the hysteria over flavors is uncalled for. Flavors are useful. If you don't prefer the taste of your vape to the cigarettes, you're not going to switch.
- stronglikedan 5y ago
  When I switched to vaping, I specifically chose the fruity flavors to disassociate tobacco from nicotine. It seemed to work, because I quickly found myself becoming disgusted with the smell of burning tobacco. So much so that my drunken-bummed cigarettes would be extinguished after only one or two puffs, and even then I was risking physical nausea. Having access to flavors was a huge part of my success with ditching tobacco.
irthomasthomas 5y ago
So Marlboro buys 35% of Juul and now Juul is advertising recklessly and inviting an e-cig ban or heavy regulation. Interesting Well here are some fun facts about the ingredients in tobacco, for comparison... The main* reason smoking causes cancer is the high amount of polonium 210, yeah, that same stuff they used to murder Litvenchenko. The reason for the presence of polonium 210 is flavour. Truly. It sounds far fetched, but while the polonium is thought to contaminate the plant from the environment, (Tobacco plants have lots of sticky little hairs which attract particles.) it could be washed out of the product. However, the manufacturers found that the harsh cleaning required, ruined the flavour profile of the end product. This was thought to be a disservice to the consumer. So the highly radioactive polonium 210 remains... For Flavour! [0][1] *Edit: Comments point out it may not be the "main reason". Well I thought I read it was. Measurements show that smokers receive radiation equivelant to 300 chest xrays a year: https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-polonium-in-cigarette-smoke/ https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol... Another ingredient you may be surprised at is urea。 Pig Urine. But this one is intentional, and in fact is probably the main flavour you pick up from a smoke. This history of this particular flavour enhancer is very interesting. They no longer use real pig urine in stuff any more, but a synthesized version. This synthesis was invented in the late 19th century by Friedrich Wöhler. But the paper that introduced urea synthesis to world is regarded as the beginning of the field of organic chemistry, and an important moment in history. That paper is now part of the western literary canon, and is often required reading for numerous academic fields. [0]:https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/smoking.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/smoking.htm [1]:https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol...
- failwhaleshark 5y ago
  Tobacco products killed about 10 of my mom's extended family members.. the macho cowboy types who didn't go to doctors. I say make Juul and cigarettes cheaper and pack more poisons in them. Sooner to get rid of self-absorbed, littering, cognitive dissonant, inconsiderate drug addicts, the better for the healthcare system, shorter unpleasant dying for their families, and other people's health. Smoking is suicide on the installment plan.
- 5y ago
pcdoodle 5y ago
Juul has sabatoshed their product. I quit smoking using the Mango flavor (now banned in the USA). I moved onto Virgina Tabbaco flavor which did the trick. About 6 months ago, all the pods started tasting like laundry detergent (Batch codes JJ25SA20A and forward). I had a few of the old to compare with. Waited 6 months now and bought another pack and it's still horrible. Now I buy mango pods from Russia. I hope that option lasts.
Aldipower 5y ago
I quit to smoke after 13 years of smoking. And I was a heavy smoker. I am a non-smoker for 10y now and will never smoke again. No need for vaping or such. I think if you substitute you do not catch your addiction at the root. Vaping is really the wrong way. You need to get rid of the addiction. My main point why it was easy for me to quit finally, I hated to be controlled by an chemical. A chemical that has control over my brain? No way anymore! I've destroyed this beast. I am a free man!
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  The most harmful part of smoking is the smoke, not the addiction to nicotine. The critical thing to do is to get people off the actual smoke. However they achieve that safely, including with nicotine vaping, should be supported.
  - nurb 5y ago
    Nicotine is harmful for your mind more than your body. Every time the need to smoke appears, it replace everything you had in mind, to the point that the only thing you can think of is «Damn I need to go to smoke». To me this is by far worst than any potential cancer risk. (I smoked for 15 years and stopped 3 years ago, if that precision can add any value) EDT: Juste to add that realizing this gives you motivation when you quit. And the freedom gained is also rewarding.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      > Nicotine is harmful for your mind more than your body. Every time the need to smoke appears... Right but you don't need smoke for nicotine - that's the point. Nicotine is still harmful, but it isn't as lethal as smoke. And more critically - smoke is dangerous to people around you, while nicotine is just your problem alone. If we can get people off smoke but still on nicotine, that's better for everyone.
    - dntrkv 5y ago
      > To me this is by far worst than any potential cancer risk. I think anti-smoking/vaping organizations should put more focus on this. I never realized how much this aspect of nicotine takes over your life. Personally, my thought process was always something like: Lung cancer and all those other health effects are scary and all, but they're gonna happen decades from now, and I'm gonna quit by then so it doesn't matter. Whereas focusing on the immediate effects of nicotine addiction and how it drives your day-to-day life, that's not talked about enough.
londons_explore 5y ago
A little more R&D into the ingredients of vape products could have eliminated or reduced so many of the health concerns. I really wonder why industry didn't do that. No industry wants their own products to be banned or legislated about by regulators - and paying a few more scientists to find replacements for ingredients that cause lung cancer would seem like a no-brainer.
throwitaway1235 5y ago
Cigarette smoking is so harmful, in addition to the reasons cited by other comments, because you are inhaling burnt matter. Vaping doesn't involve this. Big difference between inhaling a heated liquid vs combusted solid. And yes the nicotine is mostly harmless. I rather enjoy my nic addiction with good black coffee.
The_rationalist 5y ago
I never understood why smoke users don't use metal chelators, that would remove a lot of a the toxicity/carcinogenesis
Gatsky 5y ago
Juul is a company selling mind control juice to children, and is being advised by Big Tobacco, the most morally despicable industry in the world. They cannot be trusted, not at all, and this shameless fake journal issue is a perfect example straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook.
fromfar 5y ago
I used to be a cigarette smoker who went to juuling and eventually "quit" (I still cave to a few puffs of e-cigs every month or so when I'm with someone that has one). I agree if you have no intention to quit, juuling is much safer than continuing to inhale smoke. But you might want to be careful using it as a smoking cessation tool. I smoked about 7 cigarettes a day but after I picked up juuling the sheer convenience of not having to go outside, being able to use it in bed, etc. got me up to 1-2 pods (equivalent to 1-2 packs of cigarettes) per day in nicotine consumption. My lungs caught a break by vaping but my nicotine addiction was uncontrollable. I eventually used nicotine gum to quit and it was absolute hell. I suspect it would have been much easier if I wasn't so used to a constant stream of nicotine 24/7.
- hummusandsushi 5y ago
  I have a similar story but with just non-juul vaping. I actually started smoking again to stop vaping because I was so heavily addicted to the high nicotine availability. At least with cigarettes you get a sick feeling if you smoke too much, but with vape I would sometimes just puff away until I would start jittering from too much nicotine. Ended up just quitting cigarettes instead which ended up being easier after getting over the mental block that makes you think it's so much harder than it really is. Everyone's mileage varies though of course.
mik09 5y ago
(scihub all the way)
johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago
Well whatever they're doing is working. The amount of juul pod junk under my feet in my city seems to be growing exponentially year over year. At least cigarette butts are biodegradable! They should be forced to make these things out of cellulose or a similarly biodegradable product as their consumers are going to treat them as butts and just chuck them on the ground when they're done.
- rastapasta42 5y ago
  It's getting worse now. Disposable vapes are gaining in popularity, and some of those disposable vapes even come with a USB charger (even though they're not designed to be refilled without fluid). This means every time someone is done with the vape, they throw away much larger piece of plastic (compared to Juul pod). When comparing the price-point of a refillable vape (or Juul), disposables are around the same price or cheaper, without the hassle of getting fluid on your hands. Disposable vape buyers tend to ignore the price of refills is cheaper than buying a whole new vape, so most of the clientele are kids. Disposables are also very popular for products such as Delta 8 - since Delta 8 has higher price point compared to Nicotine - the disposable plastic is just a marginal part of the cost.
  - 34679 5y ago
    >When comparing the price-point of a refillable vape (or Juul), disposables are around the same price or cheaper, without the hassle of getting fluid on your hands. That's only true of the device. JUUL pods contain 2ml and a 4 pack is ~$20, about the same price as a 30ml bottle of juice for refillables.
- timbit42 5y ago
  Cigarette butts are NOT biodegradable. They are made of plastic.
rastapasta42 5y ago
I don't get why Americans target their own companies when it comes to vaping. A couple of years ago regulators banned all the popular flavors of Juul while other brands still have plenty of vaping flavors. The flavor ban completely destroyed Juul as a company, and I would argue Juul is already dead, and more sinister products are taking its place. Vaping (and Delta 8) markets are now ran by a bunch of Chinese companies now, and their safety standards are much lower than American companies. With Delta 8 exploding in popularity, I would much rather prefer large and established American companies (such as Juul) making the product with American safety standards. But after most of the Juul flavors have been banned, Juul is now an empty shell of a company compared to what it once used to be, while Chinese are still cracking out those flavorful vapes, but now they're also disposable (which is even more appealing to kids) so you throw out a battery and plastic shell when the cartridge runs out of vaping juice. I miss the days of DYI vaping where you would have to build your own coil and cotton - maybe even mix your own fluid - and the whole thing was more akin to a hobby.
axiosgunnar 5y ago
That photo of the Juul advertisement with the huge government-mandated warning > „This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is addictive“ made me wonder… Maybe social media needs the same? > „This Facebook product contains dark patterns and is engineered by a team of psychologists to maximize time spent scrolling the news feed. It is highly addictive.“
plank_time 5y ago
We spent decades trying to get rid of cigarettes and it worked and now we let this fucking Juul through the front door. It’s as if we haven’t learned a fucking thing in decades, and the fact that this founder is celebrated in Silicon Valley sickens me. He just found another opportunity to hook kids on nicotine for another few generations and now he’s a fucking billionaire. Fuck that guy.
- CaveTech 5y ago
  When exactly do you think we got rid of cigarettes?
  - Centigonal 5y ago
    1. GP said "trying to get rid of cigarettes," implying it was not a completed effort. 2. It was (and is) a fairly successful effort: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/tobacco-smoking.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/tobacco-smoking.aspx https://www.statista.com/chart/20385/cigarette-sales-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/chart/20385/cigarette-sales-in-the-...
    - m10i 5y ago
      In full, he said "trying to get rid of cigarettes and it worked", implying that it was a completed effort, imo.
      - Centigonal 5y ago
        alright, I can see how the sentence could be read that way.
  - IshKebab 5y ago
    I don't know about elsewhere but smoking is has been dropping for decades in the UK. See figure 4 here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2019 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... I would say "it's working" rather than "it worked" but his point is valid.
qwerty456127 5y ago
> Juul’s dominance dissipated around the time that over a thousand people contracted a mysterious vaping-related sickness in the fall of 2019, and state and federal regulators started to investigate the company’s blatantly obvious marketing to teenagers. Surely as hell I support investigating marketing to teenagers but in this case it would seem to me more adequate if they would rather investigate the cases of the sickness and find out what exactly was causing it. I even doubt the sick were using Juul.
- qvrjuec 5y ago
  I think the case was closed on the vaping sickness, as it was attributed to black-market THC vapes using vitamin E oil to thicken their otherwise diluted distillate to give the illusion of a higher quality product. It's too late for the PR damage to be undone to vapes in general.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    Really? Where there no such problems with conventional liquids? I'm not aware about any cases which didn't involve VitE/oil but would prefer to be sure there were now such cases known to anyone and cite some credible sources for his. Occasionally people would bring this topic up and I want to respond "that's all about vaping vitamin E in black market THC oils, just stick to PG+VG from reputable vendors" but don't feel credible enough.
wyuenho 5y ago
Is that why a while back HN is full of articles supposedly extolling benefits of nicotine?
fnord77 5y ago
has anyone worked on nicotine-analogues that might be less addictive?
petercooper 5y ago
Before I start I note that I'm old enough to do what I want and I have no other habits/vices, but don't vape, kids ;-) So I, a total non-smoker, started experimenting with nicotine a few weeks ago. First I tried gum which did nothing but give me an itchy throat. Then I bought a vaping device and some juices. Why? I think I'm low in dopamine (I am not depressed, though) and had read nicotine provides a temporary boost (until you get hooked) and I was intrigued to feel the difference. I can't really tell what's happening. I like the taste and mouth feel of the smoke but the nicotine itself is a bust. Perhaps a very mild caffeine-esque feeling at a push. It hasn't proven addictive as it's been sat out in my car untouched for the past four days! Perhaps the nicest sensation is that of taking a truly deep breath.. but that feels just as good without the vape! I remain intrigued what this means and hope to speak to someone medical about it one day. There's nicotine because it stings the throat if you hold it there (versus a zero nicotine juice) but whatever this amazing sensation people get has clearly passed my receptors by.
- grawprog 5y ago
  >I quite like the taste and mouth feel of the smoke but the nicotine itself is a bust. Perhaps a very mild caffeine-esque feeling at a push? It hasn't proven addictive as it's been sat out in my car untouched for the past four days! As someone who stupidly started smoking later in life, that's pretty much how it goes. Nicotine addiction isn't like on TV where you smoke a cigarette or puff a vape and suddenly you're hooked. It's a slow process you find yourself doing more and more often until you realize one day, it's every day all the time.
  - axaxs 5y ago
    I'll add to that - I never found nicotine that addictive. Some grogginess, a little on edge, gone before you know it. What's hard to quit are the motor memories/habits. Get in the car, reach for your ... wait no we quit that. You start realizing how many little habits you have that way.
    - grawprog 5y ago
      This is the hardest part. This and being around people who smoke. You get used to those times when you have a smoke, or socializing with people who're smoking. Even just having your smokes in your pocket or something becomes one of those things.
scottlamb 5y ago
The journal is: "American Journal of Health Behavior". Why did they agree to this? Why aren't they afraid of damaging their reputation? I'm not an health researcher or medical professional, but I would think if I were one, I wouldn't want to publish in this journal afterward, take seriously articles written in it, or be associated with it. They lost three editorial board members at least. Maybe AJHB will be an example that $51,000 isn't worth trashing a reputation that took decades to build.
99_00 5y ago
Follow the science.
pope_meat 5y ago
Juul was bought by big tobacco a few years back, and then like magic state representatives in a bunch of states all started to get lobbied for a vape tax that was very beneficial to pod based systems like Juul, and Vuse(also owned by big t) and that's how I went out of business.
legulere 5y ago
We should just take it at face value: make Juul a medical product that you need to get prescribed to get away from cigarettes.
justshowpost 5y ago
The article tone itself indicates what it is just a continuation of Juul smearing campaign on Philip Morris grants. Not to be confused with Juul grants which are bad.

501 points by i_love_limes 5y ago

> Pretty much all the articles take the Juul party line that e-cigarettes help convert smokers away from combustible tobacco products, and thus aid public health. Pretty much none of the articles mention that Juul and other vaping companies make their money by attracting countless new people to nicotine addiction. Well maybe it's because Juul bought the journal or maybe the researchers found no correlation between Juul's profits and public health.

i_love_limes 5y ago
This has been a hot topic of research in the public health community, and from more legitimate researchers there is still a lot of debate. However this kind of move is striking in it's similarity to the known tried and tested maneuvers of the tobacco industry to undercut public understanding of the risks with their products. This is the 21st century equivalent of attempting to disprove the links between smoking and cancer.
- smolder 5y ago
  It's similar but not what I'd call equivalent, because the risks of smoking and vaping are different and differently understood in their respective PR battles. The science is still out on how safe vaping is in the long term, but apart from liquids having certain additives like diethyl that are known to be unsafe now, it appears to be reasonably safe. The undercutting of understanding the risks of cigarettes was happening when the risks would have been blatantly obvious to researchers, unlike with current vaping products. So while the PR technique is similarly appalling, the context is different.
tokai 5y ago
Over half of the researchers are employees of Juul. Not funded or financed, but employed.
bserge 5y ago
I mean, yeah they're a smoking cessation tool which has been taken up by non-smokers, like any other drug with somewhat recreational effects out there. Vaping for fun can be done without nicotine, though. They could place some more visible stickers that say "Smoke only nicotine free - same fun, no stupid addiction!" or something. And locking e-cigarettes behind a prescription would just make people continue smoking the freely available tobacco products. Nicotine patches failed to gain wide adoption in part because of that.
possiblelion 5y ago
Well, nicotine addiction is a debatable topic as nicotine itself is actually not addictive as a compound.
- struxure 5y ago
  Any source for that claim? I can only say from the personal experience that people I know and I used to be addicted to nicotine (not only in tobacco products)
  - possiblelion 5y ago
    https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16177026/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16177026/

nathias 5y ago

I have followed the story of e-cigarettes and can only say it's eye opening, its probably very symptomatic to how things are done. It went from innovators and communities to being large enough that the cigarette companies responded by a smear campaign, disinformation and panic, that was then used to regulate in a way that benefited only the cigarette companies. What a transparently corrupt world we live in.

KingOfCoders 5y ago
And everyone who doesn't want funny smells in their face. While since some decades cigarette smokers go outside, many ecigarette users spread funny smells without any empathy.
- Tenoke 5y ago
  The smell from vaping is not comparable and it goes away quick, at least if you are not using some fancy liquid. Even if it doesn't, it's no worse than the smell of kebab which people are allowed to eat indoors.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - leoedin 5y ago
    Vaping indoors for any length of time leaves a sticky residue over everything - perhaps either nicotine or propylene glycol residue. Even ignoring the air quality issues for people who didn't sign up for it, it's not completely impact free. Maybe kebab also creates poor air quality and sticky residues, but in my experience people don't tend to eat kebabs continuously every 5 minutes through the day. I'm all for e-cigarettes as an almost-certainly-better alternative to real cigarettes (banning vaping but not smoking is ludicrous to me) - but allowing using them indoors does have a real impact on everyone else. Perhaps some are discreet, but the cloud chasing guys ruin it.
    - Tenoke 5y ago

blfr 5y ago

Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. At least they made it open access. At first I thought they bought out the entire issue so that people couldn't read it.

ud_0 5y ago
> Scientism has become the state religion and companies are paying for indulgences. I was unfamiliar with that term and googled it: it's described as "excessive belief in the power of scientific knowledge and techniques". I'm struggling a bit to understand how a belief in the importance of scientific knowledge and techniques equates to a religious mindset. In an ideal world, I would absolutely prefer my government to make decisions based on facts and methods of finding out more facts. Currently, that's only one small part of our governmental decision making process, with the other notable parts being powerful special interests and public opinion. Could you elaborate a bit on what exactly you meant by this?
- wccrawford 5y ago
  I'm not who you replied to, but I've experienced this with some of my friends. Some people believe in science. They don't take the facts and understand them, they just say "Science says this is true. Anyone who disagrees needs to be shouted down." They will shame people for expressing any doubt against a "scientific consensus". This is actually the opposite of science. For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity, they will literally get louder and louder until you stop arguing. They won't provide any evidence, they'll just keep saying the same thing over and over. And it happens for this that are much less certain, too.
  - ud_0 5y ago
    Thank you for answering. I agree that "scientific consensus" is an elusive thing in practice: interpretations change, new data comes in, sometimes it turns out data was held back or falsified. On top of that, what is consensus and what isn't is often distorted in the public view. There is no established quorum process (which is a good thing). > For instance, the Theory of Gravity. I know people who take it to be a law, even though science itself hasn't moved it into that category. If you dare to suggest that there might be some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism for gravity There is no scientific consensus on the mechanism that is causing gravity, at least not on the level you suggest. There is consensus on how gravity behaves, in regimes we can currently observe. The problem with suggesting "some as-yet-undiscovered mechanism" is that you can generate arbitrary many such mechanisms, because there aren't good options yet for experimental corroboration. We all have favorite ideas for how gravity might work behind the scenes, and it absolutely is fun to speculate. But if your goal is to actually make a contribution, your need to come up with an idea that can be falsified. In my opinion you are completely within your rights to make claims that contradict empirical findings or theoretical frameworks. There often are holes in our knowledge, and continuously re-examining established science is absolutely part of the process. Of course, the burden of proof is on you in that case. But science is absolutely meant to be a living process.

Traster 5y ago

This seems to be just standard procedure for any company operating in a health related sector. Maybe the scale is different, but any competent regulator would be aware of these types of relationships and should be adjusting for selection bias in their evaluation.

counternotions 5y ago
This is all fair game for Juul, and merely serves as a distraction by the media. Modern capitalism enforces no moral responsibilities on companies besides enriching its shareholders. The academic system has long been exploited by these same players and left standing as a shell.

uniqueuid 5y ago

That's quite outrageous. If this special issue was peer-reviewed, people donated their time for free to publish 11 studies with potentially severe conflicts of interest. If the issue was not peer-reviewed, then the editors handed out free publication for money, which is what predatory journals do. There is no way to spin this as remotely related to good scientific practice, which would mean: - Funding is independent of results - Double-blind peer review - Pre-registration wherever possible

shusaku 5y ago

> But a Tuesday New York Times article on the subject contained a fascinating nugget midway through, which could be described as a buried lede (journalese for putting the most explosive part of a story in the middle of the piece). I’m going to come down on the opposite side and say that a garbage journal that nobody reads publishing garbage research for money isn’t news. Though it is certainly a good example of why you shouldn’t believe something just because it is published.

uniqueuid 5y ago
The American Journal of Health Behavior apparently has an impact factor between 1 and 2, which isn't stellar but also isn't "nobody reads".
- shusaku 5y ago
  It’s pretty hard to find a journal with an impact factor below 1 considering how frequently scientists cite their own work. Heck just look at the special edition papers and see how often they cite each other. Edit: but I also don’t want to argue this point too much because impact factor is not a good measure of the quality of a journal
- nabla9 5y ago
  Impact factor 2 is bad. Nature Scientific Reports has 5-year impact factor ~4.5 and it's very low quality megajournal with tendency to publish junk science. The peer-review is designed to be very low quality (scientific importance is not criteria for example).
Tenoke 5y ago
Yeah, they bought it for $50k. It's like complaining about paying for an issue of some 3rd rate magazine.
- uniqueuid 5y ago
  Okay, but the studies will still end up in meta-analyses and potentially skew results.

lemonberry 5y ago

My father has COPD from over 50 years of smoking. I convinced him to switch to vaping and he's been using a Juul for a few years now. Awhile after the switch his primary care physician listened to his lungs and said they sounded a lot better. She said she because the science isn't in "I can't tell you to vape but I can tell you to keep doing what you're doing". Should non-smokers pick up vaping? Probably not. But in this one instance it was a good move for a smoker. I'd like to see more studies in this area and some more regulations on the "juice" for vapes. The quality, and I assume health effects, vary widely between different juices. For example: I bought him a non-refillable vape by another company and he started coughing and complaining of soreness in his throat. I also think the arguments against the flavored juices are hysterical/hypocritical given the variety of flavors of liquor one can find. Disclaimer: I think all drugs should be legal.

uniqueuid 5y ago
Congratulations on your father's change of habit, I hope he continues to recover and has a long life! That aside, the collective balance is: - how many cigarette smokers will switch (benefit) - how many people will start vaping instead of smoking (benefit) - how many people will switch from vaping to smoking (harm) - how many people will start vaping but wouldn't have started smoking (harm) Perhaps someone with expertise can explain the current state of research. IIRC I saw a study arguing that the beneficial effects were less frequent and vaping as an entry to smoking was shockingly prevalent.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  We don’t know that vaping is harmful. It’s addictive, yes, but not necessarily harmful.
  - uniqueuid 5y ago
    I don't know (not my area of expertise), but aren't there some reliable meta-analyses on the effects of vaping? I would be surprised to see that inhaling any kind of smoke or non-water aerosol is good for your lungs, so I'd expect at least a minor harmful effect. This study, for example, claims increased risks for heart disease [1] (disclaimer: I'm not a medical doctor and cannot evaluate its credibility) [1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40138-020-00219-0

sva_ 5y ago

This study is pretty interesting: > Smoking Trajectories of Adult Never Smokers 12 Months after First Purchase of a JUUL Starter Kit https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/png/ajhb/2021/00000045/00000003/art00008# https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/png/ajhb/2021/0000... The survey conveniently only asked about cigarette or "Juul" use, take note how it doesn't ask if users switched to a different vaping product. Though the study was described as > “JUUL customer online survey about JUUL vapor products, vaping and smoking.” Makes me wonder if they conveniently left out some questions to get their p-value right.

esseeayen 5y ago

Wait, as someone overseas who hasn’t seen any of the Juul advertising what are some of the examples of them “blatantly advertising to children”? Is it just the fact that they are making flavoured nicotine products or has it been more nefarious than that. As an adult I kind of like some of the flavoured tobacco products from smoking shisha (argile, hookah etc) and they have had flavours forever and not been in the spotlight to marketing to children?

samizdis 5y ago
This article seems to give a fair discussion of the issue, with some examples: https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-24/hiltzik-juul-target-teens https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-24/hiltzik-ju... Edit to add this article, too: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/the-disturbing-focus-of-juuls-early-marketing-campaigns/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/kathleenchaykowski/2018/11/16/t...
TchoBeer 5y ago
>they have had flavours forever and not been in the spotlight to marketing to children? I think my mum would disagree
hwayne 5y ago
Here ya go! http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/publications/JUUL_Marketing_Stanford.pdf http://tobacco.stanford.edu/tobacco_main/publications/JUUL_M...

cmauniada 5y ago

I can’t read this stupid website on my phone. The content keeps shifting up and down for some weird reason, and like every other bloated website it asks me allow cookies as soon as I visit it. So frustrating......

MayeulC 5y ago
Use Firefox's reader mode.

excalibur 5y ago

Vaporizers are extremely useful as smoking cessation tools. Juul is not really configured correctly for this purpose. You have to give your customers control over the nicotine content, there need to low-nicotine and nicotine-free options. But yes, the hysteria over flavors is uncalled for. Flavors are useful. If you don't prefer the taste of your vape to the cigarettes, you're not going to switch.

stronglikedan 5y ago
When I switched to vaping, I specifically chose the fruity flavors to disassociate tobacco from nicotine. It seemed to work, because I quickly found myself becoming disgusted with the smell of burning tobacco. So much so that my drunken-bummed cigarettes would be extinguished after only one or two puffs, and even then I was risking physical nausea. Having access to flavors was a huge part of my success with ditching tobacco.

irthomasthomas 5y ago

So Marlboro buys 35% of Juul and now Juul is advertising recklessly and inviting an e-cig ban or heavy regulation. Interesting Well here are some fun facts about the ingredients in tobacco, for comparison... The main* reason smoking causes cancer is the high amount of polonium 210, yeah, that same stuff they used to murder Litvenchenko. The reason for the presence of polonium 210 is flavour. Truly. It sounds far fetched, but while the polonium is thought to contaminate the plant from the environment, (Tobacco plants have lots of sticky little hairs which attract particles.) it could be washed out of the product. However, the manufacturers found that the harsh cleaning required, ruined the flavour profile of the end product. This was thought to be a disservice to the consumer. So the highly radioactive polonium 210 remains... For Flavour! [0][1] *Edit: Comments point out it may not be the "main reason". Well I thought I read it was. Measurements show that smokers receive radiation equivelant to 300 chest xrays a year: https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-polonium-in-cigarette-smoke/ https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol... Another ingredient you may be surprised at is urea。 Pig Urine. But this one is intentional, and in fact is probably the main flavour you pick up from a smoke. This history of this particular flavour enhancer is very interesting. They no longer use real pig urine in stuff any more, but a synthesized version. This synthesis was invented in the late 19th century by Friedrich Wöhler. But the paper that introduced urea synthesis to world is regarded as the beginning of the field of organic chemistry, and an important moment in history. That paper is now part of the western literary canon, and is often required reading for numerous academic fields. [0]:https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/smoking.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nceh/radiation/smoking.htm [1]:https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol https://news.cancerresearchuk.org/2008/08/29/radioactive-pol...

failwhaleshark 5y ago
Tobacco products killed about 10 of my mom's extended family members.. the macho cowboy types who didn't go to doctors. I say make Juul and cigarettes cheaper and pack more poisons in them. Sooner to get rid of self-absorbed, littering, cognitive dissonant, inconsiderate drug addicts, the better for the healthcare system, shorter unpleasant dying for their families, and other people's health. Smoking is suicide on the installment plan.
5y ago

pcdoodle 5y ago

Juul has sabatoshed their product. I quit smoking using the Mango flavor (now banned in the USA). I moved onto Virgina Tabbaco flavor which did the trick. About 6 months ago, all the pods started tasting like laundry detergent (Batch codes JJ25SA20A and forward). I had a few of the old to compare with. Waited 6 months now and bought another pack and it's still horrible. Now I buy mango pods from Russia. I hope that option lasts.

Aldipower 5y ago

I quit to smoke after 13 years of smoking. And I was a heavy smoker. I am a non-smoker for 10y now and will never smoke again. No need for vaping or such. I think if you substitute you do not catch your addiction at the root. Vaping is really the wrong way. You need to get rid of the addiction. My main point why it was easy for me to quit finally, I hated to be controlled by an chemical. A chemical that has control over my brain? No way anymore! I've destroyed this beast. I am a free man!

chrisseaton 5y ago
The most harmful part of smoking is the smoke, not the addiction to nicotine. The critical thing to do is to get people off the actual smoke. However they achieve that safely, including with nicotine vaping, should be supported.
- nurb 5y ago
  Nicotine is harmful for your mind more than your body. Every time the need to smoke appears, it replace everything you had in mind, to the point that the only thing you can think of is «Damn I need to go to smoke». To me this is by far worst than any potential cancer risk. (I smoked for 15 years and stopped 3 years ago, if that precision can add any value) EDT: Juste to add that realizing this gives you motivation when you quit. And the freedom gained is also rewarding.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    > Nicotine is harmful for your mind more than your body. Every time the need to smoke appears... Right but you don't need smoke for nicotine - that's the point. Nicotine is still harmful, but it isn't as lethal as smoke. And more critically - smoke is dangerous to people around you, while nicotine is just your problem alone. If we can get people off smoke but still on nicotine, that's better for everyone.
  - dntrkv 5y ago
    > To me this is by far worst than any potential cancer risk. I think anti-smoking/vaping organizations should put more focus on this. I never realized how much this aspect of nicotine takes over your life. Personally, my thought process was always something like: Lung cancer and all those other health effects are scary and all, but they're gonna happen decades from now, and I'm gonna quit by then so it doesn't matter. Whereas focusing on the immediate effects of nicotine addiction and how it drives your day-to-day life, that's not talked about enough.

londons_explore 5y ago

A little more R&D into the ingredients of vape products could have eliminated or reduced so many of the health concerns. I really wonder why industry didn't do that. No industry wants their own products to be banned or legislated about by regulators - and paying a few more scientists to find replacements for ingredients that cause lung cancer would seem like a no-brainer.

throwitaway1235 5y ago

Cigarette smoking is so harmful, in addition to the reasons cited by other comments, because you are inhaling burnt matter. Vaping doesn't involve this. Big difference between inhaling a heated liquid vs combusted solid. And yes the nicotine is mostly harmless. I rather enjoy my nic addiction with good black coffee.

The_rationalist 5y ago

I never understood why smoke users don't use metal chelators, that would remove a lot of a the toxicity/carcinogenesis

Gatsky 5y ago

Juul is a company selling mind control juice to children, and is being advised by Big Tobacco, the most morally despicable industry in the world. They cannot be trusted, not at all, and this shameless fake journal issue is a perfect example straight out of the Big Tobacco playbook.

fromfar 5y ago

I used to be a cigarette smoker who went to juuling and eventually "quit" (I still cave to a few puffs of e-cigs every month or so when I'm with someone that has one). I agree if you have no intention to quit, juuling is much safer than continuing to inhale smoke. But you might want to be careful using it as a smoking cessation tool. I smoked about 7 cigarettes a day but after I picked up juuling the sheer convenience of not having to go outside, being able to use it in bed, etc. got me up to 1-2 pods (equivalent to 1-2 packs of cigarettes) per day in nicotine consumption. My lungs caught a break by vaping but my nicotine addiction was uncontrollable. I eventually used nicotine gum to quit and it was absolute hell. I suspect it would have been much easier if I wasn't so used to a constant stream of nicotine 24/7.

hummusandsushi 5y ago
I have a similar story but with just non-juul vaping. I actually started smoking again to stop vaping because I was so heavily addicted to the high nicotine availability. At least with cigarettes you get a sick feeling if you smoke too much, but with vape I would sometimes just puff away until I would start jittering from too much nicotine. Ended up just quitting cigarettes instead which ended up being easier after getting over the mental block that makes you think it's so much harder than it really is. Everyone's mileage varies though of course.

mik09 5y ago

(scihub all the way)

johnnyApplePRNG 5y ago

Well whatever they're doing is working. The amount of juul pod junk under my feet in my city seems to be growing exponentially year over year. At least cigarette butts are biodegradable! They should be forced to make these things out of cellulose or a similarly biodegradable product as their consumers are going to treat them as butts and just chuck them on the ground when they're done.

rastapasta42 5y ago
It's getting worse now. Disposable vapes are gaining in popularity, and some of those disposable vapes even come with a USB charger (even though they're not designed to be refilled without fluid). This means every time someone is done with the vape, they throw away much larger piece of plastic (compared to Juul pod). When comparing the price-point of a refillable vape (or Juul), disposables are around the same price or cheaper, without the hassle of getting fluid on your hands. Disposable vape buyers tend to ignore the price of refills is cheaper than buying a whole new vape, so most of the clientele are kids. Disposables are also very popular for products such as Delta 8 - since Delta 8 has higher price point compared to Nicotine - the disposable plastic is just a marginal part of the cost.
- 34679 5y ago
  >When comparing the price-point of a refillable vape (or Juul), disposables are around the same price or cheaper, without the hassle of getting fluid on your hands. That's only true of the device. JUUL pods contain 2ml and a 4 pack is ~$20, about the same price as a 30ml bottle of juice for refillables.
timbit42 5y ago
Cigarette butts are NOT biodegradable. They are made of plastic.

rastapasta42 5y ago

I don't get why Americans target their own companies when it comes to vaping. A couple of years ago regulators banned all the popular flavors of Juul while other brands still have plenty of vaping flavors. The flavor ban completely destroyed Juul as a company, and I would argue Juul is already dead, and more sinister products are taking its place. Vaping (and Delta 8) markets are now ran by a bunch of Chinese companies now, and their safety standards are much lower than American companies. With Delta 8 exploding in popularity, I would much rather prefer large and established American companies (such as Juul) making the product with American safety standards. But after most of the Juul flavors have been banned, Juul is now an empty shell of a company compared to what it once used to be, while Chinese are still cracking out those flavorful vapes, but now they're also disposable (which is even more appealing to kids) so you throw out a battery and plastic shell when the cartridge runs out of vaping juice. I miss the days of DYI vaping where you would have to build your own coil and cotton - maybe even mix your own fluid - and the whole thing was more akin to a hobby.

axiosgunnar 5y ago

That photo of the Juul advertisement with the huge government-mandated warning > „This product contains nicotine. Nicotine is addictive“ made me wonder… Maybe social media needs the same? > „This Facebook product contains dark patterns and is engineered by a team of psychologists to maximize time spent scrolling the news feed. It is highly addictive.“

plank_time 5y ago

We spent decades trying to get rid of cigarettes and it worked and now we let this fucking Juul through the front door. It’s as if we haven’t learned a fucking thing in decades, and the fact that this founder is celebrated in Silicon Valley sickens me. He just found another opportunity to hook kids on nicotine for another few generations and now he’s a fucking billionaire. Fuck that guy.

CaveTech 5y ago
When exactly do you think we got rid of cigarettes?
- Centigonal 5y ago
  1. GP said "trying to get rid of cigarettes," implying it was not a completed effort. 2. It was (and is) a fairly successful effort: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/tobacco-smoking.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1717/tobacco-smoking.aspx https://www.statista.com/chart/20385/cigarette-sales-in-the-united-states/ https://www.statista.com/chart/20385/cigarette-sales-in-the-...
  - m10i 5y ago
    In full, he said "trying to get rid of cigarettes and it worked", implying that it was a completed effort, imo.
    - Centigonal 5y ago
      alright, I can see how the sentence could be read that way.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  I don't know about elsewhere but smoking is has been dropping for decades in the UK. See figure 4 here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/healthandlifeexpectancies/bulletins/adultsmokinghabitsingreatbritain/2019 https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthan... I would say "it's working" rather than "it worked" but his point is valid.

qwerty456127 5y ago

> Juul’s dominance dissipated around the time that over a thousand people contracted a mysterious vaping-related sickness in the fall of 2019, and state and federal regulators started to investigate the company’s blatantly obvious marketing to teenagers. Surely as hell I support investigating marketing to teenagers but in this case it would seem to me more adequate if they would rather investigate the cases of the sickness and find out what exactly was causing it. I even doubt the sick were using Juul.

qvrjuec 5y ago
I think the case was closed on the vaping sickness, as it was attributed to black-market THC vapes using vitamin E oil to thicken their otherwise diluted distillate to give the illusion of a higher quality product. It's too late for the PR damage to be undone to vapes in general.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  Really? Where there no such problems with conventional liquids? I'm not aware about any cases which didn't involve VitE/oil but would prefer to be sure there were now such cases known to anyone and cite some credible sources for his. Occasionally people would bring this topic up and I want to respond "that's all about vaping vitamin E in black market THC oils, just stick to PG+VG from reputable vendors" but don't feel credible enough.

wyuenho 5y ago

Is that why a while back HN is full of articles supposedly extolling benefits of nicotine?

fnord77 5y ago

has anyone worked on nicotine-analogues that might be less addictive?

petercooper 5y ago

Before I start I note that I'm old enough to do what I want and I have no other habits/vices, but don't vape, kids ;-) So I, a total non-smoker, started experimenting with nicotine a few weeks ago. First I tried gum which did nothing but give me an itchy throat. Then I bought a vaping device and some juices. Why? I think I'm low in dopamine (I am not depressed, though) and had read nicotine provides a temporary boost (until you get hooked) and I was intrigued to feel the difference. I can't really tell what's happening. I like the taste and mouth feel of the smoke but the nicotine itself is a bust. Perhaps a very mild caffeine-esque feeling at a push. It hasn't proven addictive as it's been sat out in my car untouched for the past four days! Perhaps the nicest sensation is that of taking a truly deep breath.. but that feels just as good without the vape! I remain intrigued what this means and hope to speak to someone medical about it one day. There's nicotine because it stings the throat if you hold it there (versus a zero nicotine juice) but whatever this amazing sensation people get has clearly passed my receptors by.

grawprog 5y ago
>I quite like the taste and mouth feel of the smoke but the nicotine itself is a bust. Perhaps a very mild caffeine-esque feeling at a push? It hasn't proven addictive as it's been sat out in my car untouched for the past four days! As someone who stupidly started smoking later in life, that's pretty much how it goes. Nicotine addiction isn't like on TV where you smoke a cigarette or puff a vape and suddenly you're hooked. It's a slow process you find yourself doing more and more often until you realize one day, it's every day all the time.
- axaxs 5y ago
  I'll add to that - I never found nicotine that addictive. Some grogginess, a little on edge, gone before you know it. What's hard to quit are the motor memories/habits. Get in the car, reach for your ... wait no we quit that. You start realizing how many little habits you have that way.
  - grawprog 5y ago
    This is the hardest part. This and being around people who smoke. You get used to those times when you have a smoke, or socializing with people who're smoking. Even just having your smokes in your pocket or something becomes one of those things.

scottlamb 5y ago

The journal is: "American Journal of Health Behavior". Why did they agree to this? Why aren't they afraid of damaging their reputation? I'm not an health researcher or medical professional, but I would think if I were one, I wouldn't want to publish in this journal afterward, take seriously articles written in it, or be associated with it. They lost three editorial board members at least. Maybe AJHB will be an example that $51,000 isn't worth trashing a reputation that took decades to build.

99_00 5y ago

Follow the science.

pope_meat 5y ago

Juul was bought by big tobacco a few years back, and then like magic state representatives in a bunch of states all started to get lobbied for a vape tax that was very beneficial to pod based systems like Juul, and Vuse(also owned by big t) and that's how I went out of business.

legulere 5y ago

We should just take it at face value: make Juul a medical product that you need to get prescribed to get away from cigarettes.

justshowpost 5y ago

The article tone itself indicates what it is just a continuation of Juul smearing campaign on Philip Morris grants. Not to be confused with Juul grants which are bad.