27 ms·

Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are terrible and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. In a world where cigarettes a

by pclark 4y ago

Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are terrible and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. In a world where cigarettes are so terrible however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life. Of all the e-cig players, Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) is the most reputable one — by far - they have by far the best technology, quality controls, compliance and regulation teams, etc. Unfortunately before Altria acquired Juul it was a terribly ran company. People spend a lot of time discussing the chronic youth issues but the reality is that Juul never wanted to sell to youths or anything of the sort — they were just _so_ incompetent at operations that they couldn't do anything. They set fire to hundreds of millions of dollars on totally ridiculous projects plainly stupid ideas: * A modular supply chain project with the idea that they could use manufacturing as a carrot for regulatory laws — this team was 50-100 people and had tens of millions of dollars in budget. Never did anything. * All manner of vanity innovation projects: new battery technology, next and next and next generation projects, dozens of flavours, absurd marketing campaigns, rebrands, a $250k custom typeface, the list goes on. * Hired McKinsey and Bain because the executive team (who were all ex-management consultants) wanted the company to move fast .... * My personal favourite Juul story (ok I have a bunch) was that the company was so incompetent they didn't do headcount planning — You could just hire as many people as you wanted if your random (often incompetent) VP was okay with it. Juul had 50-100 VPs so it was sheer chaos. It got so bad that Altria had to step in and install their own CEO and axe all of the existing executive team (and lay off thousands of random employees) to try and right the ship. Altria are a very legit operational business — you may not like them but they know how to work with the FDA within strict regulation guidelines. If Juul is removed from the market despite Altria taking over they're truly fucked. In my time at Juul I have never worked with so many incompetent people. It was quite impressive but also incredibly depressing as someone that joined because the idea of creating a connected device vaping product to help switch Americans off combustible cigarettes was very compelling.

lumost 4y ago
I don't think its a given that e-cigs are better than regular cigarettes. I was a smoker for 8+ years and an e-cig user for a short while. E-cigs remove several of the stigmas and limitations attached to cigarettes, thus leading to greater use. The chemicals in e-cig fluid have unknown long-term effect on the lungs, the byproducts of vaporizing those chemicals are even less understood. Odds are we'll find out some unfortunate truths about e-cigs in 10-20 years, meanwhile many of the consumers of e-cig products will have believed they were avoiding the worst effects.
subsubzero 4y ago
I think you are deluding yourself by saying that e-cigs are better than cigarettes. Its like saying cocaine is better than heroin, they are both addictive and destructive to a persons body, just one is more so. Another thing I don't like about Juul and other e-cigs is that when smoking was really on a downhill slope among youth, e-cigs came along and enticed a whole new generation to inhale carcinogens under the guise of it being more healthy. And I say this as an ex-smoker, I don't mind if you worked at Juul, I believe its a free country and I have no judgements against a person's profession, just be honest and say the money is good and I don't care that I am selling a product that is poisoning people.
- rootsudo 4y ago
  Technically, Cocaine is better than heroin. Cocaine is Schedule 2, and still used for surgeries within the USA. Heroin is Schedule 1 and is not. I understand your example, and I'm not or ever a drug user - but the opening premise is a false dichotomy. https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Cocaine-2020_1.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Cocaine-2020... "hat is its legal status in the United States? Cocaine is a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and has an accepted medical use for treatment in the United States. Cocaine hydrochloride solution (4 percent and 10 percent) is used primarily as a topical local anesthetic for the upper respiratory tract. It also is used to reduce bleeding of the mucous membranes in the mouth, throat, and nasal cavities." Vs Heroin https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Heroin-2020.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Heroin-2020.... Heroin is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act meaning that it has a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision. "Its like saying cocaine is better than heroin..." Well, it is. Legally.
  - sprite 4y ago
    Meanwhile alcohol is worse than both and completely legal, while much safer drugs like LSD and shrooms remain illegal. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-the-most-dangerous-drug https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-...
rootsudo 4y ago
It must've been quite the fun ship and experience. I wonder if there's a way to measure afar similar companies that are this unguided - or if it was just an 10's thing, much like an 00's thing - right place, right product, right time.
error54 4y ago
> Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) is the most reputable one > Altria are a very legit operational business Worth noting that Altria used be known as Philip Morris - a company that has decades of history of marketing cigarettes to children and covering up the dangers of tobacco. They are in no way, shape, or form a "good" company.
- mise_en_place 4y ago
  > Worth noting that Altria used be known as Philip Morris It's quite confusing, as there is also another S&P500 component called Philip Morris International. I believe they export Marlboro branded cigarettes to all countries outside the US.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- dionidium 4y ago
  The way we talk about companies is kind of weird, in my opinion. "Phillip Morris" didn't make those decisions; individual human beings did. And those individual human beings are dead or retired. You see kind of a similar thing with Monsanto (now Bayer) where someone drops into a conversation about GM crops to remind everyone about Agent Orange and it's just, like, what in the world does that have to do with the debate about GM crops? It can both be the case that the people who ran PM in the 1950s lied about the dangers of cigarettes and that Altria today is, "a very legit operational business."
  - Teever 4y ago
    In the very least it important to punish companies that do shitty things by boycotting them or fining them out of existence if only as a warning to prevent other companies from doing similar things. Otherwise it's as simple as everyone standing up from they job and taking one step to the left for an identical position at a other company for us to all just absolve them of responsibility and corrective punishment.
jimmydddd 4y ago
Re: "Juul never wanted to sell to youths." In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.” Other schools across the country were offered $10,000 from the e-cigarette company for the right to talk to students in classrooms or after school. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....
- pclark 4y ago
  I wanted to reply since that NYT article is so damming and it's absurd for me to be parent comment about Juul and not reply (since obviously I saw your comment and have thoughts) and was thinking about how best to, I am not sure of the details of this but: * I cannot reiterate enough just how incompetent Juul was in 2017. Everyone was running around with their hair on fire and had zero of the skills or experience to deal with these issues * I believe that Juul did a lot of really really really stupid things like going into schools and trying to hamfistedly state that vaping was bad but safe — again, Juul had a lot of very inexperienced executives who were obsessed with doing things they thought were really smart but were just plain stupid * It's worth noting that these actions didn't actually contribute to making youths vape. Vaping was exploding amongst teens because of social media and being a meme — in what world would going to a school and talking about Juul make youths want to use that product? that is what makes all this so hilarious - Juul did a stupid thing, has to live with the consequences, and the underlying thesis of why they did it in the first place was totally ridiculous. Again, I was a Juul employee - I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul, but I am sure that their incompetence meant that their communication and actions blurred their dreadful attempts at dealing with the issues. The very fact this NYT article exists without a clear rebuttal and explanation from Juul says it all, really.
  - mike00632 4y ago
    You keep saying Juul was "incompetent" and "stupid" when it's neither. Marketing to children is a very calculated and well-tested means of peddling drugs. A better way to describe it is malicious, diabolical or downright evil.
resoluteteeth 4y ago
How is this the top comment? This attempt to whitewash juul is complete nonsense considering that juul is known to have gone into schools (!) to promote their products. Trying to pass that off as simple incompetence is absurd.
freebee87 4y ago
There was the free business class trips for everyone (not just higher management), the frenetic office building (at one point we had offices in over 100 countries), and hundreds of millions in WIP/inventory. Definitely not a well run but a blast to work for.
prepend 4y ago
> slightly less terrible alternative to those. E-cigarettes aren’t slightly less terrible. They are much less terrible / much better than traditional cigarettes in that they do not cause lung cancer. Lung cancer is the main problem with cigarettes and e-cigarettes don’t do this. So that’s a huge improvement. Of course they have other problems but none of them are as bad as a 15x chance of lung cancer [0] [0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm
mmaunder 4y ago
> Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are terrible and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. In a world where cigarettes are so terrible however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life. Nicely done. Rollies are worse. Think of the lives filtered cigarettes are saving.
- toolz 4y ago
  Was this supposed to be sarcasm? Filters did save a ton of lives. Are you suggesting cigarette smoking would've went away if no one created filtered cigarettes?
thecassandrist 4y ago
Capping the pods at 2mg, the same as quitting smoking amount, I feel it solve multiple problems.
dillondoyle 4y ago
There is a ton of evidence that they targeted kids. Including lawsuits which they settled. Just focused on advertising alone here is NyTimes summary with link to MA lawsuit. They fired the first ad company who suggested reasonable adult oriented ads and directed the new one to run youth focused ads and youth targeting. Cartoon network, kids websites, teen magazines. I don't believe you can brush aside those decisions by just calling the company 'terrible.' True you can never look into someone's brain and know their intent. But the evidence is pretty clear. If we give everyone a pass like this because of terrible management or incompetence we'd never hold anyone accountable. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsui...
- xmprt 4y ago
  Genuinely question, but how much of that is Juul wanting to advertise to kids versus Juul wanting to advertise to an older Gen Z/Millennial crowd (half of Gen Z is over 18)? I think it's really dumb to advertise to Gen Z no matter how old the age range is right now, but I'm not sure if it's malicious or just stupid.
  - MengerSponge 4y ago
    It's malicious. Millenials (myself among them) grew up before state-wide indoor smoking bans, and those of us who didn't smoke weren't interested in picking up anything resembling it. A lot of Zoomers, however, grew up in a cigarette free world, where they also didn't see addiction or substantial anti-smoking messages. The older folks (Millenials) were set in their ways, but the Zoomers were the addressable audience. It was intentional. It was evil.
    - dillondoyle 4y ago
      I think this is a great way of framing it because it kills the root of the arguments pro-vaping people make all the time as an excuse for this behavior: that it is better than combustable tobacco. They are advertising to consumers who do not smoke.
- 4y ago
RayVR 4y ago
"previously product & growth & marketing guy for @juulvapor" Given the scale and growth trajectory of Juul, perhaps you really were unaware of the numerous marketing and growth plans targeted at minors. Also likely, most of your points amount to n-th hand hearsay and your insider knowledge is actually missing many important facts. Be careful repeating stories you've heard if you are publicly associating yourself with the company. Anyway, your ignorance of their tactics isn't really an excuse when it's been covered so widely. I think you should probably not defend and attack them so easily. Stories of ignorance and incompetence can actually be well crafted PR to attempt to attempt to limit the responsibility of the company and senior management for illegal activity.
bigcat12345678 4y ago
I dont get this statement: ``` however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life. ``` Where is this from? Why not just ban all cigeratee? We all known why, because of commercial profit. Can we openly discuss the balance between human lives and profit? It's not like Capitalism is anything but balance profit and humanity, right? Why involve this "saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life." as a derivative statement. It's much clear to just balance the profit and human lives. And stop muddy the pond with dubious metrics no one can verify. PS: This does not intend to be a rant
- throwaway_95283 4y ago
  Some of us like smoking...
  - justbaker 4y ago
    I second that. Sure I know smoking or vaping isn’t the most health conscious decision, but it’s something I enjoy doing.
culi 4y ago
Can you cite any actual research supporting the claim the e-cigarettes are actually "less terrible"?
Spooky23 4y ago
When you sell high-margin, addictive products you can afford to be incompetent. Idk who they wanted to sell to, but their message was heard loud and clear at my kids school.
mherdeg 4y ago
Did Altria write everyone a $1.3 million check for Christmas? Were you around for that?
nsonha 4y ago
There are kids who would NOT smoke real cigarettes if e-cigarettes didn't exist. E-cigarette becomes the gateway cigarette for them.
sumy23 4y ago
> however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars I believe the jury is still out on whether or not smokers have more expensive health care requirements than non-smokers. Smokers tend to die younger and quicker than non-smokers, so their health care needs may actually be less than most non-smokers. They've also voluntarily paid a huge amount of additional taxes throughout their lifetime.
- FireBeyond 4y ago
  > I believe the jury is still out on whether or not smokers have more expensive health care requirements than non-smokers. Using your argument, "dying early is a benefit when it comes to healthcare costs"... "I believe the jury is still out on whether chronic drunk drivers have more expensive health care requirements than non-drunk drivers." Huh.
- scotty79 4y ago
  Dying younger is not a benefit. Years of people's lives are worth the taxes they pay during those years. And everything is taxed.
  - tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
    Are pensioners paying that much in taxes, compared to estate tax?
  - sumy23 4y ago
    > Dying younger is not a benefit. It is when talking about healthcare costs.
    - bombcar 4y ago
      Dying younger is a huge cost-savings, especially if it known non-treatable and quick. And once you're retired you're providing less tax than you're consuming (for most people) so there's a double benefit! Die at 65 and help balance the budget today!
curiousgal 4y ago
> health care dollars What are those
- zdragnar 4y ago
  Money paid through medicare and medicaid for treatment of the poor and elderly who develop cancer or COPD due to smoking, presumably.
  - pc86 4y ago
    I think this was like the ancap version of concern trolling where you pretend not to know what simple words mean in a specific context to try to make some obtuse political point.
    - mcculley 4y ago
      Why assume bad faith?
      - pc86 4y ago
        In the choices between concern trolling and someone literally not being able to parse what "health care dollars" means in this context, the bad faith is a horse and the lack of reading comprehension is a zebra. Possible, sure. But probably not.
        zdragnar 4y ago
        I assumed the poster was unfamiliar with the American health care system, or only familiar with vagueries and stereotypes. The phrase "health care dollars" probably didn't translate very well, since health care programs such as VA, medicare and medicaid are poorly understood in the US, let alone the rest of the world. Much easier than assuming someone was trolling.
wlesieutre 4y ago
For historical context, “Altria” is the 2003 rebranding of Philip Morris
Bayart 4y ago
> Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are _terrible_ and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. They're not « slightly » less terrible. They're not even comparable. Vaporizing glycerin and glycol is in no way comparable to burning plants. Implying it is is specious.
- fhood 4y ago
  Still a massively irritating addiction though, so I'm perfectly happy to have both be villianized. Also seems embarrassing for a grown man to emit a cloud of strawberry mango scented smoke, but to each their own.
- pclark 4y ago
  Are you implying they're much less terrible? I am not sure your point. Ultimately not consuming nicotine is good and any form of nicotine consumption is very bad, with combustible cigarettes being far worse than vaping. I like to say that vaping is slightly less terrible than combustible cigarettes because it is very clear that you. should. not vape. unless. you. smoke. cigarettes.
  - unmole 4y ago
    > any form of nicotine consumption is very bad Oh, really? What exactly is very bad about nicotine gum?
    - helsinki 4y ago
      Fucks up your throat, over time.
  - jowsie 4y ago
    Why is consuming nicotine very terrible? Do you feel the same way about caffeine?
    - pclark 4y ago
      Because with public health policy all nuance gets lost. If you say "well actually nicotine doesnt harm you but the tar in combustible cigarettes does so if you vape you're really doing no harm" people will render that as "nicotine does not harm you thus cigarettes are fine" this is literally how we got into this situation. There can be no grey area: if you do not smoke combustible cigarettes do not vape. Btw all addictive substances are bad for you by definition.
jimbob45 4y ago
<Comment deleted>
- patricknixon 4y ago
  how do you delete comments
  - bombcar 4y ago
    There's a "delete" next to edit on your comments for a few minutes. Can't delete when there are replies, maybe. hehe.
lvass 4y ago
>e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars Does the american government not spend money on retirement? In my country smoking saves like 30 times more in retirement expenses than spend on smoking-related diseases. IIRC, that's not even accounting savings on healthcare that earlier deaths cause.
llimos 4y ago
> Unfortunately before Altria acquired Juul it was a terribly ran company Altria is a terribly run company. I was part of their previous attempt at entering the e-cig market (Green Smoke and Mark Ten). Everything they touch turns to dust, so this news about Juul is not surprising. I've never seen a company with so much dysfunction, in-fighting, and ineffectiveness. When they shut us down in favor of the stake in Juul, we joked that they only took a minority stake in order to save Juul from them.
- pclark 4y ago
  My guess is that Altria doesn’t know technology at all? They have the regulatory side locked in though. Juul understand technology but unfortunately wasn’t a technology led company. (and obviously didn’t understand regulatory side)
  - llimos 4y ago
    Yes, that sounds about right. At the time I was there, Altria's entire business model was basically "let's lobby for the regulators to ban everyone but us." It also seemed like they also didn't really want e-cigs to cannibalize trad-cigs, but they wanted it in their back pocket in case it started to take off. They were not interested in increasing sales at all and sometimes seemed to be actively working against it.
    - pclark 4y ago
      Ha, that is funny. I can see why they bought Juul — explosive growth and an alleged culture of technology — a perfect compliment to Altria. Honestly, I feel slightly bad that Altria were hoodwinked into investing in Juul and having it implode like it did, all the Altria executives I interacted with were remarkably precise and lucid. BTW I think the FDA deserves 75% of the blame for their poor vaping policies (and total lack of enforcement.)
adamsmith143 4y ago
How many teenagers are now addicted to Nicotine because of Juul's effective marketing and targeting campaigns?
- pclark 4y ago
  Ha because of Juul's effective marketing and targeting campaigns? I'd wager zero! How many because Juul essentially randomly went viral and is an inherently addictive product? Unfortunately way too many.
  - adamsmith143 4y ago
    "Your honor I didn't kill that man, I only pulled the trigger. The bullet that passed through his heart killed him. I am innocent."
rgbrenner 4y ago
If you smoke cigarettes, then yes they’re less terrible. But e-cigarettes are expanding the market by marketing to teens and adding flavors like bubble gum. You can say Juul didn’t mean to market to kids, but the reality is that e-cigarettes appeal to kids and it’s a growing market with kids. Intentions are irrelevant. E-cigarettes are not better than not smoking anything.
- Fargoan 4y ago
  Adults like candy and different flavors too. Back when e-cigs had to be imported from China, people were on forums and Twitter sharing DIY e-juice recipes that usually used candy flavoring. Flavored e-cigs used to be marketed as electronic hookahs. It doesn't make sense to me that the government goes after flavored nicotine products but they're seemingly ok with a huge variety of fruity alcoholic beverages.
  - encryptluks2 4y ago
    I think the less you try to make sense of it the better of you'll be, because they have no damn clue what they are doing.
- choko 4y ago
  I credit vaping to helping me quit cigarettes and nicotine entirely. The flavors were amazing and were a great alternative to cigarettes. Vaping allowed me to wean myself from nicotine over the course of about a year. Once I worked down to a 0% solution, I quit vaping easily - and I'm not the type of person that gives up habits easily. Taking these tools away from consenting adults is morally criminal. If your main argument is "think of the children" I'm going to doubt your sincerity.
  - Hellbanevil 4y ago
    I completely agree. I don't like the company, but see always saw it as a viable cheap alternative to pricy nicotine gum/patches. I've always felt the reason why most people fail quitting any drug America deems unsafe, is because of this all or nothing approach they have to quitting. American black and white thinking. I've seen so many people quit a drug (Alcohol, nicotine, benzos, opoids, and even meth) by going cold turkey. It has dismal failure rates. Yes there are people whom have one cigarette, and they are up to 4 pack a day. Yes--there are people whom have one beer, and are buying 1.75 L of Jack daily. Those addicts are not typicical. Tapering down over a long period of time seems to make more sence. And then allow the recovering patient access to a very low dose of their drug of choice forever. Sorry about my speech. Personally, I have found cutting way back on a dangerous substance has been successful. And the way our government handled this opioid crisis has me seeing red. Yea--just make it impossible to get any regulated opioid, and then wonder why we have people dying by the hundreds daily due to street fentanyl.
HWR_14 4y ago
It's really dishonest to claim that the comparison should be between cigarettes and vaping. Most vapers seem to have never smoked before.
- ehsankia 4y ago
  Exactly, that statement would only be valid if e-cigarette had zero net impact in smoking adoption. The reality is that Juul made smoking "cool" again, just as it was going out of style. You can look at any graph of tobacco use, it was starting to go downwards and then shot up again.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    > that statement would only be valid if e-cigarette had zero net impact in smoking adoption As a minor point, it could still apply with a slight overall increase of use. The required scale is far closer to zero than what it actually was, but of how many new people vaping would you accept if it suddenly caused all smokers to never smoke. It's an interesting question of which is the best for public health.
paxys 4y ago
It isn't a choice between one or the other. We were on track to literally eliminate smoking in the US before Juul came along and started aggressively marketing to teens. Most Juul users are first time smokers. So that "lesser of two evils" doesn't really apply. The best alternative is neither.
- jdminhbg 4y ago
  > We were on track to literally eliminate smoking in the US before Juul came along and started aggressively marketing to teens. Is there any evidence for this at all? That there is a pipeline from vapers to cigarette smokers? > Most Juul users are first time smokers. This is just a simple oxymoron; vaping is not smoking.
jcranmer 4y ago
> Of all the e-cig players, Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) is the most reputable one — by far - they have by far the best technology, quality controls, compliance and regulation teams, etc. My memory may be faulty, but wasn't Juul the e-cigarette company that was launching school programs to more or less directly market e-cigarettes to students during school hours and on school property?
- monocasa 4y ago
  Yep. https://archive.ph/t7AWt https://archive.ph/t7AWt
- etskinner 4y ago
  Do you have a source for this?
  - jcranmer 4y ago
    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... appears to be the article I read.
monocasa 4y ago
Juul literally had a 'healthy lifestyles' program going into schools and telling kids that vapes were completely safe. https://archive.ph/t7AWt https://archive.ph/t7AWt
- aidenn0 4y ago
  Linked article does not support your claim that the program told kids vapes were completely safe.
  - monocasa 4y ago
    > In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”

by pclark 4y ago

lumost 4y ago

I don't think its a given that e-cigs are better than regular cigarettes. I was a smoker for 8+ years and an e-cig user for a short while. E-cigs remove several of the stigmas and limitations attached to cigarettes, thus leading to greater use. The chemicals in e-cig fluid have unknown long-term effect on the lungs, the byproducts of vaporizing those chemicals are even less understood. Odds are we'll find out some unfortunate truths about e-cigs in 10-20 years, meanwhile many of the consumers of e-cig products will have believed they were avoiding the worst effects.

subsubzero 4y ago

I think you are deluding yourself by saying that e-cigs are better than cigarettes. Its like saying cocaine is better than heroin, they are both addictive and destructive to a persons body, just one is more so. Another thing I don't like about Juul and other e-cigs is that when smoking was really on a downhill slope among youth, e-cigs came along and enticed a whole new generation to inhale carcinogens under the guise of it being more healthy. And I say this as an ex-smoker, I don't mind if you worked at Juul, I believe its a free country and I have no judgements against a person's profession, just be honest and say the money is good and I don't care that I am selling a product that is poisoning people.

rootsudo 4y ago
Technically, Cocaine is better than heroin. Cocaine is Schedule 2, and still used for surgeries within the USA. Heroin is Schedule 1 and is not. I understand your example, and I'm not or ever a drug user - but the opening premise is a false dichotomy. https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Cocaine-2020_1.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Cocaine-2020... "hat is its legal status in the United States? Cocaine is a Schedule II drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and has an accepted medical use for treatment in the United States. Cocaine hydrochloride solution (4 percent and 10 percent) is used primarily as a topical local anesthetic for the upper respiratory tract. It also is used to reduce bleeding of the mucous membranes in the mouth, throat, and nasal cavities." Vs Heroin https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Heroin-2020.pdf https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Heroin-2020.... Heroin is a Schedule I substance under the Controlled Substances Act meaning that it has a high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision. "Its like saying cocaine is better than heroin..." Well, it is. Legally.
- sprite 4y ago
  Meanwhile alcohol is worse than both and completely legal, while much safer drugs like LSD and shrooms remain illegal. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-the-most-dangerous-drug https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2019/06/25/what-is-...

rootsudo 4y ago

It must've been quite the fun ship and experience. I wonder if there's a way to measure afar similar companies that are this unguided - or if it was just an 10's thing, much like an 00's thing - right place, right product, right time.

error54 4y ago

> Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) is the most reputable one > Altria are a very legit operational business Worth noting that Altria used be known as Philip Morris - a company that has decades of history of marketing cigarettes to children and covering up the dangers of tobacco. They are in no way, shape, or form a "good" company.

mise_en_place 4y ago
> Worth noting that Altria used be known as Philip Morris It's quite confusing, as there is also another S&P500 component called Philip Morris International. I believe they export Marlboro branded cigarettes to all countries outside the US.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
dionidium 4y ago
The way we talk about companies is kind of weird, in my opinion. "Phillip Morris" didn't make those decisions; individual human beings did. And those individual human beings are dead or retired. You see kind of a similar thing with Monsanto (now Bayer) where someone drops into a conversation about GM crops to remind everyone about Agent Orange and it's just, like, what in the world does that have to do with the debate about GM crops? It can both be the case that the people who ran PM in the 1950s lied about the dangers of cigarettes and that Altria today is, "a very legit operational business."
- Teever 4y ago
  In the very least it important to punish companies that do shitty things by boycotting them or fining them out of existence if only as a warning to prevent other companies from doing similar things. Otherwise it's as simple as everyone standing up from they job and taking one step to the left for an identical position at a other company for us to all just absolve them of responsibility and corrective punishment.

jimmydddd 4y ago

Re: "Juul never wanted to sell to youths." In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.” Other schools across the country were offered $10,000 from the e-cigarette company for the right to talk to students in classrooms or after school. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping....

pclark 4y ago
I wanted to reply since that NYT article is so damming and it's absurd for me to be parent comment about Juul and not reply (since obviously I saw your comment and have thoughts) and was thinking about how best to, I am not sure of the details of this but: * I cannot reiterate enough just how incompetent Juul was in 2017. Everyone was running around with their hair on fire and had zero of the skills or experience to deal with these issues * I believe that Juul did a lot of really really really stupid things like going into schools and trying to hamfistedly state that vaping was bad but safe — again, Juul had a lot of very inexperienced executives who were obsessed with doing things they thought were really smart but were just plain stupid * It's worth noting that these actions didn't actually contribute to making youths vape. Vaping was exploding amongst teens because of social media and being a meme — in what world would going to a school and talking about Juul make youths want to use that product? that is what makes all this so hilarious - Juul did a stupid thing, has to live with the consequences, and the underlying thesis of why they did it in the first place was totally ridiculous. Again, I was a Juul employee - I do not believe Juul consciously or explicitly wanted youths to use Juul, but I am sure that their incompetence meant that their communication and actions blurred their dreadful attempts at dealing with the issues. The very fact this NYT article exists without a clear rebuttal and explanation from Juul says it all, really.
- mike00632 4y ago
  You keep saying Juul was "incompetent" and "stupid" when it's neither. Marketing to children is a very calculated and well-tested means of peddling drugs. A better way to describe it is malicious, diabolical or downright evil.

resoluteteeth 4y ago

How is this the top comment? This attempt to whitewash juul is complete nonsense considering that juul is known to have gone into schools (!) to promote their products. Trying to pass that off as simple incompetence is absurd.

freebee87 4y ago

There was the free business class trips for everyone (not just higher management), the frenetic office building (at one point we had offices in over 100 countries), and hundreds of millions in WIP/inventory. Definitely not a well run but a blast to work for.

prepend 4y ago

> slightly less terrible alternative to those. E-cigarettes aren’t slightly less terrible. They are much less terrible / much better than traditional cigarettes in that they do not cause lung cancer. Lung cancer is the main problem with cigarettes and e-cigarettes don’t do this. So that’s a huge improvement. Of course they have other problems but none of them are as bad as a 15x chance of lung cancer [0] [0] https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm https://www.cdc.gov/cancer/lung/basic_info/risk_factors.htm

mmaunder 4y ago

> Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are terrible and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. In a world where cigarettes are so terrible however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life. Nicely done. Rollies are worse. Think of the lives filtered cigarettes are saving.

toolz 4y ago
Was this supposed to be sarcasm? Filters did save a ton of lives. Are you suggesting cigarette smoking would've went away if no one created filtered cigarettes?

thecassandrist 4y ago

Capping the pods at 2mg, the same as quitting smoking amount, I feel it solve multiple problems.

dillondoyle 4y ago

There is a ton of evidence that they targeted kids. Including lawsuits which they settled. Just focused on advertising alone here is NyTimes summary with link to MA lawsuit. They fired the first ad company who suggested reasonable adult oriented ads and directed the new one to run youth focused ads and youth targeting. Cartoon network, kids websites, teen magazines. I don't believe you can brush aside those decisions by just calling the company 'terrible.' True you can never look into someone's brain and know their intent. But the evidence is pretty clear. If we give everyone a pass like this because of terrible management or incompetence we'd never hold anyone accountable. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsuit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/juul-vaping-lawsui...

xmprt 4y ago
Genuinely question, but how much of that is Juul wanting to advertise to kids versus Juul wanting to advertise to an older Gen Z/Millennial crowd (half of Gen Z is over 18)? I think it's really dumb to advertise to Gen Z no matter how old the age range is right now, but I'm not sure if it's malicious or just stupid.
- MengerSponge 4y ago
  It's malicious. Millenials (myself among them) grew up before state-wide indoor smoking bans, and those of us who didn't smoke weren't interested in picking up anything resembling it. A lot of Zoomers, however, grew up in a cigarette free world, where they also didn't see addiction or substantial anti-smoking messages. The older folks (Millenials) were set in their ways, but the Zoomers were the addressable audience. It was intentional. It was evil.
  - dillondoyle 4y ago
    I think this is a great way of framing it because it kills the root of the arguments pro-vaping people make all the time as an excuse for this behavior: that it is better than combustable tobacco. They are advertising to consumers who do not smoke.
4y ago

RayVR 4y ago

"previously product & growth & marketing guy for @juulvapor" Given the scale and growth trajectory of Juul, perhaps you really were unaware of the numerous marketing and growth plans targeted at minors. Also likely, most of your points amount to n-th hand hearsay and your insider knowledge is actually missing many important facts. Be careful repeating stories you've heard if you are publicly associating yourself with the company. Anyway, your ignorance of their tactics isn't really an excuse when it's been covered so widely. I think you should probably not defend and attack them so easily. Stories of ignorance and incompetence can actually be well crafted PR to attempt to attempt to limit the responsibility of the company and senior management for illegal activity.

bigcat12345678 4y ago

I dont get this statement: ``` however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life. ``` Where is this from? Why not just ban all cigeratee? We all known why, because of commercial profit. Can we openly discuss the balance between human lives and profit? It's not like Capitalism is anything but balance profit and humanity, right? Why involve this "saving billions in health care dollars and quality of life." as a derivative statement. It's much clear to just balance the profit and human lives. And stop muddy the pond with dubious metrics no one can verify. PS: This does not intend to be a rant

throwaway_95283 4y ago
Some of us like smoking...
- justbaker 4y ago
  I second that. Sure I know smoking or vaping isn’t the most health conscious decision, but it’s something I enjoy doing.

culi 4y ago

Can you cite any actual research supporting the claim the e-cigarettes are actually "less terrible"?

Spooky23 4y ago

When you sell high-margin, addictive products you can afford to be incompetent. Idk who they wanted to sell to, but their message was heard loud and clear at my kids school.

mherdeg 4y ago

Did Altria write everyone a $1.3 million check for Christmas? Were you around for that?

nsonha 4y ago

There are kids who would NOT smoke real cigarettes if e-cigarettes didn't exist. E-cigarette becomes the gateway cigarette for them.

sumy23 4y ago

> however, e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars I believe the jury is still out on whether or not smokers have more expensive health care requirements than non-smokers. Smokers tend to die younger and quicker than non-smokers, so their health care needs may actually be less than most non-smokers. They've also voluntarily paid a huge amount of additional taxes throughout their lifetime.

FireBeyond 4y ago
> I believe the jury is still out on whether or not smokers have more expensive health care requirements than non-smokers. Using your argument, "dying early is a benefit when it comes to healthcare costs"... "I believe the jury is still out on whether chronic drunk drivers have more expensive health care requirements than non-drunk drivers." Huh.
scotty79 4y ago
Dying younger is not a benefit. Years of people's lives are worth the taxes they pay during those years. And everything is taxed.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 4y ago
  Are pensioners paying that much in taxes, compared to estate tax?
- sumy23 4y ago
  > Dying younger is not a benefit. It is when talking about healthcare costs.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Dying younger is a huge cost-savings, especially if it known non-treatable and quick. And once you're retired you're providing less tax than you're consuming (for most people) so there's a double benefit! Die at 65 and help balance the budget today!

curiousgal 4y ago

> health care dollars What are those

zdragnar 4y ago
Money paid through medicare and medicaid for treatment of the poor and elderly who develop cancer or COPD due to smoking, presumably.
- pc86 4y ago
  I think this was like the ancap version of concern trolling where you pretend not to know what simple words mean in a specific context to try to make some obtuse political point.
  - mcculley 4y ago
    Why assume bad faith?
    - pc86 4y ago
      In the choices between concern trolling and someone literally not being able to parse what "health care dollars" means in this context, the bad faith is a horse and the lack of reading comprehension is a zebra. Possible, sure. But probably not.
      - zdragnar 4y ago
        I assumed the poster was unfamiliar with the American health care system, or only familiar with vagueries and stereotypes. The phrase "health care dollars" probably didn't translate very well, since health care programs such as VA, medicare and medicaid are poorly understood in the US, let alone the rest of the world. Much easier than assuming someone was trolling.

wlesieutre 4y ago

For historical context, “Altria” is the 2003 rebranding of Philip Morris

Bayart 4y ago

> Important to remember that combustible cigarettes are _terrible_ and e-cigarettes are a slightly less terrible alternative to those. They're not « slightly » less terrible. They're not even comparable. Vaporizing glycerin and glycol is in no way comparable to burning plants. Implying it is is specious.

fhood 4y ago
Still a massively irritating addiction though, so I'm perfectly happy to have both be villianized. Also seems embarrassing for a grown man to emit a cloud of strawberry mango scented smoke, but to each their own.
pclark 4y ago
Are you implying they're much less terrible? I am not sure your point. Ultimately not consuming nicotine is good and any form of nicotine consumption is very bad, with combustible cigarettes being far worse than vaping. I like to say that vaping is slightly less terrible than combustible cigarettes because it is very clear that you. should. not vape. unless. you. smoke. cigarettes.
- unmole 4y ago
  > any form of nicotine consumption is very bad Oh, really? What exactly is very bad about nicotine gum?
  - helsinki 4y ago
    Fucks up your throat, over time.
- jowsie 4y ago
  Why is consuming nicotine very terrible? Do you feel the same way about caffeine?
  - pclark 4y ago
    Because with public health policy all nuance gets lost. If you say "well actually nicotine doesnt harm you but the tar in combustible cigarettes does so if you vape you're really doing no harm" people will render that as "nicotine does not harm you thus cigarettes are fine" this is literally how we got into this situation. There can be no grey area: if you do not smoke combustible cigarettes do not vape. Btw all addictive substances are bad for you by definition.

jimbob45 4y ago

patricknixon 4y ago
how do you delete comments
- bombcar 4y ago
  There's a "delete" next to edit on your comments for a few minutes. Can't delete when there are replies, maybe. hehe.

lvass 4y ago

>e-cigarettes end up saving billions in health care dollars Does the american government not spend money on retirement? In my country smoking saves like 30 times more in retirement expenses than spend on smoking-related diseases. IIRC, that's not even accounting savings on healthcare that earlier deaths cause.

llimos 4y ago

> Unfortunately before Altria acquired Juul it was a terribly ran company Altria is a terribly run company. I was part of their previous attempt at entering the e-cig market (Green Smoke and Mark Ten). Everything they touch turns to dust, so this news about Juul is not surprising. I've never seen a company with so much dysfunction, in-fighting, and ineffectiveness. When they shut us down in favor of the stake in Juul, we joked that they only took a minority stake in order to save Juul from them.

pclark 4y ago
My guess is that Altria doesn’t know technology at all? They have the regulatory side locked in though. Juul understand technology but unfortunately wasn’t a technology led company. (and obviously didn’t understand regulatory side)
- llimos 4y ago
  Yes, that sounds about right. At the time I was there, Altria's entire business model was basically "let's lobby for the regulators to ban everyone but us." It also seemed like they also didn't really want e-cigs to cannibalize trad-cigs, but they wanted it in their back pocket in case it started to take off. They were not interested in increasing sales at all and sometimes seemed to be actively working against it.
  - pclark 4y ago
    Ha, that is funny. I can see why they bought Juul — explosive growth and an alleged culture of technology — a perfect compliment to Altria. Honestly, I feel slightly bad that Altria were hoodwinked into investing in Juul and having it implode like it did, all the Altria executives I interacted with were remarkably precise and lucid. BTW I think the FDA deserves 75% of the blame for their poor vaping policies (and total lack of enforcement.)

adamsmith143 4y ago

How many teenagers are now addicted to Nicotine because of Juul's effective marketing and targeting campaigns?

pclark 4y ago
Ha because of Juul's effective marketing and targeting campaigns? I'd wager zero! How many because Juul essentially randomly went viral and is an inherently addictive product? Unfortunately way too many.
- adamsmith143 4y ago
  "Your honor I didn't kill that man, I only pulled the trigger. The bullet that passed through his heart killed him. I am innocent."

rgbrenner 4y ago

If you smoke cigarettes, then yes they’re less terrible. But e-cigarettes are expanding the market by marketing to teens and adding flavors like bubble gum. You can say Juul didn’t mean to market to kids, but the reality is that e-cigarettes appeal to kids and it’s a growing market with kids. Intentions are irrelevant. E-cigarettes are not better than not smoking anything.

Fargoan 4y ago
Adults like candy and different flavors too. Back when e-cigs had to be imported from China, people were on forums and Twitter sharing DIY e-juice recipes that usually used candy flavoring. Flavored e-cigs used to be marketed as electronic hookahs. It doesn't make sense to me that the government goes after flavored nicotine products but they're seemingly ok with a huge variety of fruity alcoholic beverages.
- encryptluks2 4y ago
  I think the less you try to make sense of it the better of you'll be, because they have no damn clue what they are doing.
choko 4y ago
I credit vaping to helping me quit cigarettes and nicotine entirely. The flavors were amazing and were a great alternative to cigarettes. Vaping allowed me to wean myself from nicotine over the course of about a year. Once I worked down to a 0% solution, I quit vaping easily - and I'm not the type of person that gives up habits easily. Taking these tools away from consenting adults is morally criminal. If your main argument is "think of the children" I'm going to doubt your sincerity.
- Hellbanevil 4y ago
  I completely agree. I don't like the company, but see always saw it as a viable cheap alternative to pricy nicotine gum/patches. I've always felt the reason why most people fail quitting any drug America deems unsafe, is because of this all or nothing approach they have to quitting. American black and white thinking. I've seen so many people quit a drug (Alcohol, nicotine, benzos, opoids, and even meth) by going cold turkey. It has dismal failure rates. Yes there are people whom have one cigarette, and they are up to 4 pack a day. Yes--there are people whom have one beer, and are buying 1.75 L of Jack daily. Those addicts are not typicical. Tapering down over a long period of time seems to make more sence. And then allow the recovering patient access to a very low dose of their drug of choice forever. Sorry about my speech. Personally, I have found cutting way back on a dangerous substance has been successful. And the way our government handled this opioid crisis has me seeing red. Yea--just make it impossible to get any regulated opioid, and then wonder why we have people dying by the hundreds daily due to street fentanyl.

HWR_14 4y ago

It's really dishonest to claim that the comparison should be between cigarettes and vaping. Most vapers seem to have never smoked before.

ehsankia 4y ago
Exactly, that statement would only be valid if e-cigarette had zero net impact in smoking adoption. The reality is that Juul made smoking "cool" again, just as it was going out of style. You can look at any graph of tobacco use, it was starting to go downwards and then shot up again.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  > that statement would only be valid if e-cigarette had zero net impact in smoking adoption As a minor point, it could still apply with a slight overall increase of use. The required scale is far closer to zero than what it actually was, but of how many new people vaping would you accept if it suddenly caused all smokers to never smoke. It's an interesting question of which is the best for public health.

paxys 4y ago

It isn't a choice between one or the other. We were on track to literally eliminate smoking in the US before Juul came along and started aggressively marketing to teens. Most Juul users are first time smokers. So that "lesser of two evils" doesn't really apply. The best alternative is neither.

jdminhbg 4y ago
> We were on track to literally eliminate smoking in the US before Juul came along and started aggressively marketing to teens. Is there any evidence for this at all? That there is a pipeline from vapers to cigarette smokers? > Most Juul users are first time smokers. This is just a simple oxymoron; vaping is not smoking.

jcranmer 4y ago

> Of all the e-cig players, Juul (which is now majority owned by Altria) is the most reputable one — by far - they have by far the best technology, quality controls, compliance and regulation teams, etc. My memory may be faulty, but wasn't Juul the e-cigarette company that was launching school programs to more or less directly market e-cigarettes to students during school hours and on school property?

monocasa 4y ago
Yep. https://archive.ph/t7AWt https://archive.ph/t7AWt
etskinner 4y ago
Do you have a source for this?
- jcranmer 4y ago
  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... appears to be the article I read.

monocasa 4y ago

Juul literally had a 'healthy lifestyles' program going into schools and telling kids that vapes were completely safe. https://archive.ph/t7AWt https://archive.ph/t7AWt

aidenn0 4y ago
Linked article does not support your claim that the program told kids vapes were completely safe.
- monocasa 4y ago
  > In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”