
The Price of Cool: A Teenager, a Juul, and Nicotine Addiction - Amezarak
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/16/health/vaping-juul-teens-addiction-nicotine.html
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Pulcinella
I am extremely disappointed in the FDA’s milqutoast response. Teenage vaping
is an epidemic. It’s an incredible problem at the school where I teach. The
USB-A sized vape units just litter the bathrooms and parking lots.

The media has also failed it’s obligations. Most news articles are practically
advertisements for e-cigarettes, promoting them as smoking cessation tools and
practically harmless compared to other tobacco products. They are not FDA
approved and the evidence for their efficacy and safety is sketchy at best.

~~~
Amezarak
I know. I've been sounding the alarm on this for years, to no avail. People do
not understand what is happening amongst teenagers with vaping.

There are _millions_ more people addicted to nicotine that _never would have
been_ absent vaping. We were winning the war, thanks to sound policy moves.
E-cigarettes might be an okay solution for helping smokers to quit smoking.
But the easy availability and marketing has led to an absolute and total
epidemic, and no one seems to care.

People get incredibly defensive about this. I've been met with outright denial
that it was even a possibility. Go back through my commenting history even on
HN, and you'll see people telling me kids will never start vaping because
"well, it's not cool." You get told well, look at all these people that quit
smoking. That's great! But I don't see why it was necessary to trade smoking
cessation among older cohorts for vaping addiction in teenagers. We have a
massive public policy failure on our hands, and it's not getting better.

The only thing we can say is well, at least the public health crisis won't be
as bad as what we had with cigarettes. Okay. But we didn't have to have one at
all. E-cig companies (many of which are actually owned by the old tobacco
giants) have successfully ensnared a whole new generation of addicts.

~~~
bobcallme
You are selling this FUD under the guise of "protect the children" when in
reality you are restarting the issues we had with traditional cigarettes. The
new regulations will pull vaping devices from stores and make it more
difficult for those who do need them, thus making them go back to using
cigarettes. People should be able to make their own informed choices and be
able to put what they want in their bodies. Prohibition never works since it
is not currently working (since all retailers are suppose to be checking IDs).
This whole thing could have been avoided if parents talked with their children
and school administrators did their jobs of enforcing existing policies /
laws. There are much worse public health issues that need to be dealt with NOW
and this is not it. Ever heard of the opioid / heroin epidemic that actually
results in death and much worse health issues?

~~~
Amezarak
You are completely wrong. "Prohibition" was working. Smoking was dropping year
after year, thanks to public policies like banning flavored cigarettes,
packaging laws, ID laws, and taxes.

Now, tons of progress has been erased because these e-cigarette brands, some
of them owned by the old tobacco companies, were allowed to get around all
those restrictions. The FDA completely dropped the ball and moved in way, way
too late. Sale to minors wasn't even banned federally until 2016!

This just puts some of them back in place so, once again, we can start working
the problem down.

> The new regulations will pull vaping devices from stores and make it more
> difficult for those who do need them, thus making them go back to using
> cigarettes.

What proposed regulation are you claiming makes it harder for an adult to buy
e-cigs? The FDA's tepid response was that flavored e-cigs must be sold in a
closed-off area. That's it. Nevermind that part of the FDA's problem is that
e-cigarette manufacturers were able to resist regulation by claiming in court
they were _not_ a nicotine replacement therapy, but in fact a new tobacco
product for people who did not want to quit.

> Ever heard of the opioid / heroin epidemic that actually results in death
> and much worse health issues?

What happened to people making their own informed choices and putting what
they want in their bodies?

Besides that - obviously the existence of other problems does not prevent us
from dealing with this one, now. The facts, according to the article, are that
our tremendous progress in eradicating nicotine addiction has been dealt a
serious setback: millions of kids are addicted, most of whom would not have
been smoking cigarettes, and vapers are more likely to become future smokers.

~~~
bobcallme
> You are completely wrong. "Prohibition" was working. Smoking was dropping
> year after year, thanks to public policies like banning flavored cigarettes,
> packaging laws, ID laws, and taxes.

The main reason traditional smoking dropped was not because of prohibition,
it's because of education and the fact that we had someone (or a lot of
someones) who smoked and we had seen what it did to them. If someone is
determined to get their hands on something, they will get it on the black
market that you are proposing to create.

> What proposed regulation are you claiming makes it harder for an adult to
> buy e-cigs?

The removal of flavored e-cigarette devices / tobacco from convenience stores.
E-cigarettes are already hidden away in most convenience stores and I've been
to hundreds of them across the country on my travels. The FDA needs to stop
using my tax dollars to lie to teens with their The Real Cost AD campaign
because it is not factual. I would support it if they were not lying to teens
and they pushed factual ADs (showing parasites is not factual or genuine). Any
teen who has had a Biology or health class will see through that (unless you
are proposing we stop factually teaching those things in schools).

> Nevermind that part of the FDA's problem is that e-cigarette manufacturers
> were able to resist regulation by claiming in court they were not a nicotine
> replacement therapy, but in fact a new tobacco product for people who did
> not want to quit.

You need proof to back up that claim.

> Besides that - obviously the existence of other problems does not prevent us
> from dealing with this one, now. The facts, according to the article, are
> that our tremendous progress in eradicating nicotine addiction has been
> dealt a serious setback: millions of kids are addicted, most of whom would
> not have been smoking cigarettes, and vapers are more likely to become
> future smokers.

More FUD and bullsh*t claims being made. The only reason vapers would start
using cigarettes is if you made e-cigarettes / vaping products difficult to
get. All of this could have been avoided if parents talked with their kids,
administrators did their bloody jobs and stop lying to teens about the things
we don't want them to do. I guess that I was lucky enough to grow up in a time
where my parents somewhat cared and I had the freedom to make my own stupid
mistakes without authoritarians like you proposing to move the bar of
adulthood later and in life.

