
FDA to Ban Juul, Flavored E-Cigarettes If Industry Doesn't Change - uptown
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-09-12/fda-threatens-to-pull-e-cigarettes-to-fight-rise-of-youth-vaping
======
beager
It's still amusing to me that Juul markets itself, raises money, and
structures its ranks like a technology startup, but they're really a tobacco
company. Every trope about "growth hacking" from a traditional startup apply
here, except that "growth hacking" is most impactful with getting kids to
smoke, which I at least assumed was a non-starter for forward-thinking people
in the 21st century. Yet, here we are, with a tech startup that likely _needs_
kids to smoke in order to turn their company's financials right-side-up for a
successful exit.

~~~
hendzen
I don't know how anyone who works for JUUL Labs can sleep at night.

~~~
orangecat
It's likely that on balance they have saved many lives.

~~~
Balgair
I've heard that a fair few times before about vapes. That they are 'cleaner'
than cigs, and therefore better. But I've not yet seen a peer-reviewed study
on them that proves they are less bad than cigs. Is there one? I mean,
nicotine is itself not a good thing to be exposed to [0].

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Adverse_effects](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine#Adverse_effects)

~~~
folkrav
[https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-
independent...](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/phe-publishes-independent-
expert-e-cigarettes-evidence-review)

~~~
majewsky
Thank you (and favorited for later reference).

Here's a question that I don't see answered in this page though: I'm a non-
smoker and asthma patient (was diagnosed at age 7, the cause is most likely
second-hand smoke from my father), so I always stay clear of smokers and don't
let anyone smoke indoors while I'm around. What is a reasonable policy to
assume wrt vaping? Do we have any evidence regarding second-hand vaping? I'm
not particularly worried about getting addicted that way, but about whether
the smoke from an e-cigarette can be harmful to me as an asthma patient (or to
others).

(And while we're at it: What about Marlboro's Iqos? I stood next to someone
using one of these a few weeks ago and the reduction in second-hand smoke and
stench is remarkable.)

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seibelj
I have friends and family that either quit using vapes or substituted then
permanently. As a former half a pack smoker myself, on occasion I would smoke
a cigarette at a bar because it’s such a nice feeling, then feel guilty the
next day. Juul is the only e-cig that I really like, and since I bought one
I’ve yet to smoke a cigarette when drinking. Banning them because “think of
the children!” is extraordinarily short sighted. Why not ban fruity alcoholic
drinks too? Kids prefer those to beer.

~~~
jdhn
>Why not ban fruity alcoholic drinks too? Kids prefer those to beer.

Because alcohol use is much more socially accepted than nicotine use.

~~~
rmvt
the alcohol and tobacco lobbies are also way more powerful

~~~
ubernostrum
Juul is the first mass-market e-cigarette product I'm aware of that _isn 't_
directly or indirectly owned by a company that was already in the traditional
tobacco market.

------
folkrav
I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if
products like this didn't exist.

I don't know what more the industry can realistically do. The sales of their
products is already limited to adults, and I don't know why advertising
flavorings is supposed to be about targeting children (why would adults not
like strawberry flavoring?) so unless there is an epidemic of B&M or online
stores that keep selling to minors, they're already doing what they can.

Maybe I'm missing something, but as an outsider, the FDA seems dead set on
killing your vaping industry by all means necessary.

~~~
hprotagonist
>I highly suspect these young vapers would have picked up smoking instead if
products like this didn't exist.

personal observation, not data, but I don't think this is so. I work on a
university campus, and the proportion of people on campus that smoke has
cratered this decade. The only reliable smoking populations are foreign
students, and they seem to taper off over their undergrad years, which I can
ascribe only to peer pressure against smelling horrible -- and maybe easy
access to "study aids" like adderall.

edit: i should add that juul use has jumped just this year alone, and with
less focused of a user group.

~~~
uxp100
But doesn't that line up with the popularization of nicotine vaping?

I tend to think indoor smoking bans had something to do with the decline, but
I don't know the timeline for anywhere except my state.

~~~
hprotagonist
it does, loosely. However, box mods are still quite rare, so it's not super
clear that the narrative of "people stopped smoking and started vaping" really
holds -- or held until Juul took over, which is quite recent.

It's fairer to say that an age cohort basically just stopped consuming
nicotine at all, and that a new, younger generation has picked up again but
switched delivery methods.

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itdaniher
I'm astonished that there are folks in this thread who believe vaping to be as
harmful as smoking cigarettes. Are there any peer reviewed papers supporting
this assertion? I've kept an eye on literature as it's been released and
everything indicates orders of magnitude less cell death and disruption from
nicotine and flavor carrying PG/VG vape juice than cigarette smoke. Linked a
DOI supporting this understanding elsewhere, but wondering if folks have
papers supporting the opposite?

~~~
folkrav
The amount of misinformation in this thread is worrying. Seems like your
American pharmaceutical lobbies, or whoever gains in destroying the vaping
industry, have succeeded in spreading the idea that vaping is somehow more
damaging than smoking. Now that the science showed pretty clearly it's at
least way less dangerous than cigarettes in short-to-mid term, they switched
the narrative to "for the kids".

------
lightyrs
As a former smoker who was only able to quit using Juul, this is disappointing
to me. As a father of a one year old, I understand the reasoning behind this.

I think perhaps the answer is to make the Juul and similar products less
appealing to youth. How? Of course this is a complex topic but less flashy
hardware and marketing could be a small start.

~~~
glitchc
I'm afraid you haven't actually quit, merely swapped one delivery mechanism
and associated set of toxic compounds for another.

~~~
lightyrs
I was able to quit using Juul. That is to say, I no longer smoke cigarettes or
Juul.

~~~
citation_please
But this is somewhat an admission of using it as medication, which is far from
what Juul is being marketed as. It should be next to the nicotine patches at
the pharmacy. Can you even buy nicotine patches in bulk? Substances that can
be abused for something other than their primary use as medication are heavily
regulated by the FDA (think meth ingredients).

------
xanthopan
Last I checked, nicotine isn't carcinogenic. It's the tobacco that kills you.
Or, at least, there isn't enough research yet to say that nicotine alone is
harmful enough.

So I may be playing devil's advocate here, but isn't this a net improvement
over the last few decades? Kids getting hooked on something that's
significantly less deadly? It's not ideal, sure, but it's better than a slew
of cancer epidemics.

What is the FDA trying to achieve?

~~~
chimeracoder
> Kids getting hooked on something that's significantly less deadly? It's not
> ideal, sure, but it's better than a slew of cancer epidemics.

The whole point is that these are kids who wouldn't be using nicotine products
_at all_. Smoking rates have declined in the US over the last 40 years, and
yet there's been an uptick in youth nicotine usage since the introduction of
e-cigarettes.

So when talking about youth usage, no, this is clearly not an improvement, by
any measure.

~~~
falcolas
If we don't block the consumption of caffeine in youths, why should we block
the consumption of nicotine - a compound with similar effects?

i.e. Why is nicotine so much worse than THC, alcohol, caffeine, guarana, or
any number of other stimulants/depressants?

~~~
chimeracoder
> If we don't block the consumption of caffeine in youths, why should we block
> the consumption of nicotine - a compound with similar effects? i.e. Why is
> nicotine so much worse than THC, alcohol, caffeine, guarana, or any number
> of other stimulants/depressants?

Alcohol and THC are both already restricted to adults. Caffeine is restricted
as well, in that many places won't sell caffeine pills to people under 18.

Nobody is talking about preventing kids from buying tomatoes. But when we're
talking about concentrated and extracted forms of a stimulant... those are
already heavily restricted.

~~~
hndamien
Caffeine in Coca-cola or other energy drinks is not a restricted substance/
quantity based on age.

------
rileyphone
Straight from the CDC:

> Nearly 8 of every 100 high school students (7.6%) reported in 2017 that they
> smoked cigarettes in the past 30 days—a decrease from 15.8% in 2011.

>Nearly 12 of every 100 high school students (11.7%) reported in 2016 that
they used electronic cigarettes in the past 30 days—an increase from 1.5% in
2011.

While of course e-cigs aren't harmless, there's a pretty clear replacement
effect between them and cigarettes. Kids are going to do stupid things
anyways, taking away the more enjoyable of the two isn't going to stop that.

[1]
[https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/yout...](https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/youth_data/tobacco_use/index.htm)

~~~
bunderbunder
It seems like it might not just be a replacement effect, though. Adding those
numbers together, and pretending that 2016 == 2017, you get an increase from
17.3% of kids using either in 2011, to 19.3% in 2016/2017.

Perhaps you can make an argument that, lacking tar and being (purportedly?)
less addictive, e-cigs are enough less bad that a net increase in the number
of kids consuming nicotine is an acceptable price for halving the number of
kids who are smoking cigarettes. That's a more arguable argument, though.

------
hprotagonist
I have long been confused how Juul manages to avoid getting taxed into
oblivion.

A cart has ~2x packs of cigarettes worth of nicotine, yet is regularly sold
for ~$15 in my state, which is a 50% or greater savings over traditional
cigarettes. I don't entirely understand how this is legal.

The FDA is in an interesting regulatory bind here, too -- I think nicotine is
unique in their regulatory scope in that the FDA is concerned with efficacy
and safety and tobacco products are known to be unsafe and ineffective
therapeutic agents.

~~~
higginsc
Not arguing your main point at all, but I wanted to correct your last
statement. While not considered safe, cigarettes have proven to be remarkably
protective against the development of Parkinson's disease in a slew of studies
spanning decades of research. This is relatively little-known outside of the
field. I did my PhD in Parkinson's drug discovery, and it was one of those
findings that is frustrating due to the lack of other effective therapies for
PD prevention and the obvious deleterious effects of smoking on heart disease,
lung cancer, etc. Here's a relatively recent review paper on the topic:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494127/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5494127/).

Relevant excerpt: "Population-based studies have shown that smoking was
associated with approximately 40–50% reduced risk of developing PD. [10, 11]
This inverse relationship between smoking and PD was dose-dependent: age-
adjusted relative risks (RRs) of PD were 0.8, 0.6, 0.5, and 0.4, for 1-9,
10-24, 25-44, and 45+ pack-years, relative to never-smokers, as shown in a
large prospective cohort study [9]. There is also a temporal relationship
between cigarette smoking and PD risk [9, 17]. Individuals with more years of
smoking, older age at quitting smoking, and fewer years since quitting smoking
had lower PD risk. Researchers prospectively observed a significantly lower
risk of PD for smoking as early as 15 to 24 years before symptom onset, but
not for smoking 25+ years before onset (n = 143,325) [17]."

~~~
skybrian
Interesting. I wonder if vaping would have the same effect, or if it's some
other ingredient?

------
givinguflac
This is just stupid. Until the government wants to ban crap like watermelon
vodka, this is just a win for traditional tobacco companies. Should we be
encouraging anyone to smoke or Vape? No. But that doesn’t mean shitty
retailers breaking the law aren’t the bigger problem. Do parents have no
responsibility here anymore?

------
deckar01
Time to pivot to caffeine vaporizers. Or one of the many other stimulants that
are found in energy drinks and are legal to sell to children.

------
scarcely
If they are to be consistent they should also ban Facebook and video games
like league of legends.

------
lightyrs
In what I'm sure is unrelated news /s, Altria Group stock has spiked to a
5-month high today [1]. Although there are legitimate reasons to consider
banning E-Cigarettes, we should also be cognizant that Big Tobacco sees this
as a benefit to their business. That alone makes me very suspicious of the
potential benefits of this considered ban.

[1] [https://www.nasdaq.com/article/altria-group-inc-mo-has-
spike...](https://www.nasdaq.com/article/altria-group-inc-mo-has-spiked-to-
nearly-a-5month-high-20180912-00717)

------
pstuart
My daughter says that half the kids in her high school have one of these.

~~~
ubernostrum
Sounds like a lot of nice fines or jail terms to be handed out to whoever
sold/gave them to the kids. What kind of investigation is being conducted to
find out who's responsible?

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Most people get stuff like that through friends and family members. Aggressive
enforcement of minor laws like that tends to be harmful to society in the long
term.

~~~
ubernostrum
If there was an epidemic of binge drinking in a school, I'm pretty sure the
local police would start running sting operations to figure out who's
supplying the alcohol.

If there's an epidemic of e-cigarettes, why aren't they doing the same? And I
guess I may be ignorant of how the market for these works, but I've never
actually seen them in regular shops. Where would I go to buy a Juul? I know
there are dedicated vape shops, and also tobacco shops that sell e-cigarettes.
Could you run stings there the way many US states run them at stores that sell
alcohol?

~~~
kn0where
They've advertised Juul and similar pretty heavily in convenience stores like
Circle K.

------
jdanp
Is there anyway to reverse course in the USA and remove power from these
alphabet agencies that claim they know what's best for us? What happened to
being a free people who could make their own decisions?

~~~
jimktrains2
> What happened to being a free people who could make their own decisions?

I'm glad you have the time, knowledge, expertise, and experience to thoroughly
investigate the safety and long term affects of every product you use on
yourself, second hand effects on others, and the environment. Not everyone is
so lucky to be blessed with so much time, energy, and knowledge that they
themselves can do what thousands of people so full time.

~~~
claydavisss
The point is the government is not consistent about what is permitted and what
is banned.

If you are banning vices that cause societal harm, alcohol is far ahead of
anything else. DUI victims, destroyed families, physical abuse,
homelessness...alcohol is reliably correlated to all of these but since it
brings in lots of tax $$$ and educated voters enjoy their Pinot, we look the
other way.

~~~
jimktrains2
Where did I claim it was a perfect system? My point was that it's a better
system than the alternative of everyone fending for themselves.

Also, alcohol sales and marketing are heavily regulated, along with tobacco.

~~~
folkrav
Then regulate the vaping industry as well. Outright banning it because of
current issues is damn short-sighted.

~~~
jimktrains2
> The Food and Drug Administration is threatening to pull flavored electronic
> cigarettes like Juul off the market if the tobacco industry doesn’t do more
> to combat growing use of the products by children and teens.

They're not "Outright banning", they're threatening to if the industry is
unable to stop advertising to or otherwise making it appeal children. This is
par-for-course for how regulation works: you don't comply and refuse to become
compliant, you can't do business.

They're not just destroying an entire industry without working with said
industry to mutually reach their goals.

------
JayJee
"Your usage has been flagged as a violation of our terms of service".

Sweet can't browse bloomberg with links. Nice.

------
draw_down
Pathetic. But not surprising; the moral panic around kids vaping has been
building for a while now.

~~~
glitchc
It's not moral panic. Vaping is just as harmful as smoking. Combustion is
still the main chemical reaction, and the resultant compounds are just as
toxic. They only smell nicer.

~~~
function_seven
There’s no evidence of this. Everything I’ve read indicates that vaping is
likely (and dramatically) less harmful. The levels of toxins are orders of
magnitude lower or nonexistent in vapor.

Also, there’s no combustion when liquid-based nicotine solution is atomized.

~~~
glitchc
I grant that vaporization occurs at a lower temperature than combustion, but
it is still a chemical reaction that relies on a heating element. Proponents
of e-cigs have always argued that this makes e-cigs safer, and it does not
produce the same compounds that yobacco burning does. What is not clear is
whether the compounds produced are safer.

~~~
itdaniher
Vaporization (boiling) is not a chemical reaction.

------
glitchc
Long overdue. Vaping should be regulated much like smoking. It has the same
deleterious side effects for individuals as smoking, and much the same
negative impact on society (through second hand smoke).

~~~
lightyrs
The Royal College of Physicians strongly disagrees with you. This is the same
group that sounded the alarm on cigarettes in 1962 with their groundbreaking
report "Smoking and health" [1]. Their 2016 report, "Nicotine without smoke:
Tobacco harm reduction" [2] stands in staunch disagreement with your
statement.

[1] [https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/smoking-and-
hea...](https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/smoking-and-health-1962)

[2] [https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/nicotine-
withou...](https://www.rcplondon.ac.uk/projects/outputs/nicotine-without-
smoke-tobacco-harm-reduction-0)

~~~
glitchc
Thanks for the article, will read at home. The conclusion isn't unanimous
however.

------
marcoperaza
Why is it the company’s responsibility to stop kids from using their product?
This seems like something that _parents_ should be responsible for.

And what is the company to do in the first place? As long as something is
available for adults, and teenagers want it, teenagers will find a way to get
it.

~~~
danharaj
We live in a civil society which means we figure out together what our mutual
obligations are. Did you not get the memo?

