
In the ‘Juul room’: E-cigarettes spawn a new form of teen addiction - bredren
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/helpless-to-the-draw-of-nicotine-doctors-parents-and-schools-grapple-with-teens-addicted-to-e-cigarettes/2019/07/25/e1e8ac9c-830a-11e9-933d-7501070ee669_story.html
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quelltext
We should make sure teenagers are getting the right support and try to prevent
exposure to addictive substances.

At the same time we should be skeptical of anecdotes like the ones in the
article.

> But it was his demeanor that scared her most. Cade Beauparlant’s anxiety and
> mood swings worsened, his outbursts so sudden and so explosive that his
> mother said she came to fear him.

I really think that might for the most part simply be due to this thing called
puberty.

> “We kind of lost four years of Cade to this addiction,” Kristin Beauparlant
> said. Now that he has cut back, “He just seems like a different kid. You
> can’t help but say there’s a correlation.”

Yes, a correlation maybe, but who is to say of what nature.

When I was a teenager I also had a pretty rough time dealing with my family
and in particular my overprotective mum. So did many of my mates to varying
degrees.

Nicotine addiction certainly doesn't help, but at that age people are easily
"addicted" to many things. I believe video game addiction was more common than
tobacco in my peer group (, my point being that it might not matter too much
whether that thing is vaping or some other activity that's addictive and,
important, frowned upon by parents, unlike for instance sports). Also a time
to engage in generally stupid and dangerous behavior. Nobody likes to get
their favorite thing/toy/or freedom to go out get taken away. In puberty
teenagers start to realize that they can actually try to stand up to their
parents. Parents are scared when their precious child doesn't follow the
rules, or speaks up, which ends up in a spiral of back and forth that
sometimes escalates to the point where parents "don't recognize their kids
anymore".

Then typically after a few years shit calms down again with stabilized
hormones, everyone having pushed and explored their boundaries, and the
prospect of only a short amount of time left under the parents' direct control
before leaving for college.

~~~
nr2x
I started smoking as a teen and quit smoking regularly over a decade ago. If I
so much as smell a cigarette I immediately want one, if I see people smoking
in a movie or real life I want one, and hell, if I'm just having a shit day I
want one. Thinking about it _just now_ makes me want one.

So yes, puberty does things to you, but they tend to be temporary. The
cognitive triggers of nicotine addiction stay long after you "quit".

~~~
quelltext
Yeah, because you enjoyed smoking cigarettes and then decided to give it up.
On it's own there's nothing bad or surprising about wanting to smoke again.

People who have given up eating meat for health reasons will also often lust
for a steak when they see one being eaten in a movie.

But my intention is actually not to claim there's no such thing as nicotine
addiction.

My claim is that I find it unlikely that it's vaping or smoking that turns
teenagers into crazy impulsive, and moody people.

------
t-writescode
Why aren’t we stopping kids from getting them?

Changing the flavor sounds needlessly draconian, as adults like apple and
bubblegum, too.

You can flood your system with caffeine using over the counter caffeine pills,
or ultra-high caffeine drinks.

You can flood your system with alcohol with everclear or unconventional
ingestion methods.

Neither of these behaviors are as common as this article is trying to push
about nicotine, probably mostly due to education and possibly due to the
relative addictive nature of caffeine and alcohol.

This whole article, though, talks about teens, presumably underage ones,
vaping. Isn’t that already illegal? Shouldn’t we get better at that part
before we add more things?

~~~
dgacmu
Because people are awfully good at getting around laws preventing the purchase
of things, particularly when those things are legally purchasable by adults --
c.f., cigarettes, alcohol. It's not crazy to think that a multi-pronged
approach would be more effective: Try to reduce sales both sales _and appeal_
to underage people. We do this with alcohol, for example, particularly high-
alcohol malt liquor [1]. We ban or restrict advertising when it's likely to
reach children. [2]

[1]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5391327/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5391327/)

[2]
[https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/who_ban_t...](https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2013/who_ban_tobacco/en/)

~~~
t-writescode
How is this different from flavored alcohol in appeal, though? You could buy
bubble gum or chocolate or any other sort of flavor for alcohol, and primarily
hard alcohol, at that! Or harder, at least (30 proof+)

~~~
joezydeco
It's a lot harder to consume alcohol in public as an underaged kid. A lot of
it happens in private, after hours or on weekends.

A lot of the vaping done by underaged kids is happening in public - some of it
during school hours right inside the building. As a parent of teenaged kids I
hear a lot about their peers vaping right in the middle of a classroom.

~~~
wutbrodo
Is it? Put your liquor in a thermos or a water bottle or a soda bottle and you
look like any other innocent teen having a legitimate beverage. Hell, you can
do it while talking to an authority figure. Vaping seems much harder to
disguise than this.

~~~
tylergetsay
Except the smell and puckered face every time they drink it. Vodka in a water
bottle produces bubbles while water doesn't. School staff is super aware of
this stuff.

------
seisvelas
If nicotine addiction is relatively harmless without conventional cigarettes,
who cares? A lot of teens also have mild coffee addictions.

Is this as harmful as, say, Pringles? Or trampolines? I think the reason this
stirs up outrage is because it's 'smoking' which is seen as an adult activity
that children must be shielded from, whereas many other harmful behaviors are
associated with children and thus 'okay'.

~~~
darkpuma
> _If nicotine addiction is relatively harmless without conventional
> cigarettes, who cares?_

Because we aren't doing anybody any favors when we permit the industry to give
teenagers a chemical addiction to their commercial product, even if their
product were harmful in no ways other than financial.

(Yes, I also object in strong terms to other addictive substances in consumer
products, don't even bother replying with whataboutism.)

~~~
tempguy9999
Were nicotine harmless I'd be ok with teenagers getting hooked on it. After
all many of them are hooked on excessive sugar consumption and that is _not_
harmless. Better to care about where the harm really lies than where it
doesn't (again, _if_ nicotine is harmless).

Please don't say "aargh, drugs!" and lose your cool. We need a rational not
emotional response or things will be made worse.

------
klondike_
Juul and other e-cigarette makers should be required to sell 0 nicotine
versions of all of their flavors.

Like alcohol, it is impossible to totally prevent teens from getting ahold of
them as long as it is legal for adults.

If you completely ban vaping devices, smokers lose an effective option to
quit.

Mandatory 0 nicotine juices would allow the adults who buy these products for
underage users to discreetly give underage users non addictive juice. I
suspect that kids don't really want a nicotine addiction, they just vape
because it's trendy. If 0 nicotine juice were the default kids wouldn't get
addicted and would get bored of vaping just like any other fad.

~~~
tj-teej
Not being snarky, but have you ever seen kids drinking 0% beer? I sympathize
with your idea but I don't think that it would play out that way in real-life.
I think taboo plays into the attraction of these kinds of drugs.

------
lunias
I'm tired of the "harming our youth" angle. It's pointing out a needlessly
specific example of our complete and systemic inability to control substances.

Educate people the best you can as a society, use legislation to support the
distribution of truth, and allow natural selection to take care of the rest.

If your teen is addicted to vaping and it bothers you, then you have failed
yourself as a parent; don't put that guilt on others. At least your son /
daughter has one of the least hazardous addictions in human history.

------
goda90
On reddit there is often talk about subtle corporate manipulation of front
page content. Memes, "interesting facts", etc that are subtle references to
some brand can be found quite often. Vaping memes were definitely big for
awhile, and I would not be at all surprised if some of them were made by
someone paid by an e-cigarette maker.

~~~
bredren
OP here. I am no corporate shill. My friend had some guests visiting who were
grown adults and seemed totally addicted to their juul. It was kind of sad how
they talked about the device and worried over its whereabouts.

Also, I'm not sure but I think that this post was hidden from display?

------
tempguy9999
AIUI nicotine is not especially addictive on its own; without a type of
chemical known as an MAOI
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoamine_oxidase_inhibitor))
it is minimally addictive ([https://www.biopsychiatry.com/nicotine-
mao.htm](https://www.biopsychiatry.com/nicotine-mao.htm))

" Although nicotine is generally considered to be the main compound
responsible for the addictive properties of tobacco, experimental data
indicate that nicotine does not exhibit all the characteristics of other
abused substances, such as psychostimulants and opiates. [...] Because tobacco
smoke contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs) and decreases MAO activity
in smokers, we have combined MAOIs with nicotine to determine whether it is
possible to obtain a locomotor response to nicotine in C57Bl6 mice. [...]
Finally, it was found that, whereas naive rats did not readily self-administer
nicotine (10 mug/kg/injection), a robust self-administration of nicotine
occurred when animals were pretreated with tranylcypromine (3 mg/kg). Our data
suggest that MAOIs contained in tobacco and tobacco smoke act in synergy with
nicotine to enhance its rewarding effects. "

Tranylcypromine is an MAOI
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranylcypromine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranylcypromine))

Does anyone know what a locomotor response is? I did a search but got nothing
usefu.

Ciggies contain MAOIs, vapes don't (I believe, and they should never be
allowed to, but...). Nicotine is seemingly much less addictive without it.
This fits in with my own experience, I used nicotine tablets for smoking
reduction as a recreational drug, and as an alternative to coffee to wake me
up (it's a light buzz, no more). I don't find it addictive, meaning I don't
use it much and it doesn't 'call to me' in the way chewing tobacco did when I
tried that.

~~~
GuB-42
I didn't realize tobacco contains MAOIs.

I wonder what happens when mixed with DMT.

For information, DMT is a powerful psychedelic hallucinogen found in several
plants. It isn't active orally because it is destroyed by MAOs. To make it
active, it can be mixed with MAOIs, that's how Ayahuasca is made. A MAOI/DMT
mix called Changa can also be smoked, but AFAIK, it doesn't contain tobacco as
a main ingredient, Ayahuasca vine is used instead.

~~~
tempguy9999
I'm aware of DMT and its need for MAOIs. If you don't have this
[https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychedelics-Encyclopedia-Peter-
Sta...](https://www.amazon.co.uk/Psychedelics-Encyclopedia-Peter-
Stafford/dp/0914171518/) may I recommend you race to the local bookstore and
order it. It's a fantastic, thorough and scientific book.

And at less than 30 quid, that's cheaper than 3 packs of cigs and a damn sight
more interesting.

------
Animats
It's all part of the plan to keep the masses drugged and quiet. Along with
marijuana legalization and weak regulation of prescription opiates. The drugs
being encouraged are all ones that cause passivity. That's what we need to
keep the useless part of the population passive.

~~~
tk75x
If they're "useless" as you say, what's the problem with keeping them passive?
Your arguments about marijuana legalization and weak regulation of
prescription opiates also don't jive with your "keep the population passive"
stance. Marijuana was made illegal with the intent of making it easier to
incarcerate non-white populations and weak regulation of opiates was intended
to keep people addicted so the big pharmaceutical companies could keep
profiting.

------
chaseha
The biggest issue w/ vape pens like Juul is the discreteness factor - I have
coworkers that use them constantly at work, even at client sites.

Older box-style vaporizers are not inconspicuous, chic, or sexy - but the
sleek form factor of a Juul is easy to carry around and looks cool.

Maybe restricting their size/portability would help make them less attractive?

------
Hasz
Barrage of anecdotes ahead, in the absence of good data. I also have a pretty
big interest in the company, despite not vaping. I have a small write up on
designing my own Juul pods (delving into the chemistry) on my site
[https://ethanmye.rs/fixed/projects/juulpods/](https://ethanmye.rs/fixed/projects/juulpods/)

I am a college student (probably Juul's main target audience) in the US.
Juuling in unbelievably popular, for a couple of big reasons.

It's discrete -- no visible vapor, smell is noticeable, but not an obscene
scent.

Widely available - pods can be bought anywhere, pawned off friends, etc

Crazy addictive -- there's someone else here talking about research into MAOI
prompting nicotine, but it's important to note nicotine is available in two
forms -- as a freebase, and as a salt. Previously, vapes were limited in
concentration of freebase nicotine to a few mg/ml of nicotine, owing to the
harshness of anything higher. Juul turned freebase nicotine into a salt,
allowing them to push the concentration waaaaaaaaaay higher. IIRC, it's
something like 60mg/ml. They use benzoic acid, but also have patents on
basically every acid you could think of, even choices that would be terrible
for you, like sulfuric acid. The patent info is a wealth of interesting
tidbits -- vaping a salt pushes nicotine into the bloodstream way faster than
basically any other method except IV.

Excellent marketing. They say they don't market to kids, but let's be honest
-- that ad spend is getting in front of kids well under 18, and they know it.
All the need is the plausible deniability to say they didn't target 18 years,
and they're good.

I should also point out these guys are making money hand over fist. They're
selling, for $4, a pod with 700uL of liquid in it -- this works out to about
$15,000 a gallon, for maybe $10 in ingredients, $20 if they switch to
synthetic nicotine, which would let them push concentrations even higher. It's
a printer and ink model, except the printer is probably the most addictive
chemical we know of, other than maybe meth.

I should mention that while I greatly respect Juul's business savy, I have
nothing but disdain for them otherwise.

They could EASILY create a program to taper smokers off cigarettes or their
own product. There's a fucking microcontroller in the Juul, just reduce the
total dose by say, 2% a day and sell pods with decreasing nicotine
concentration until people are free of nicotine.

Regardless of what they say in front of congressional panels, their marketing
IS reaching large number of kids, something that is just too convenient.

Their pod design also sucks. Not refillable, complicated, and leaky. Offer a
program to buy back old pods (or a discount on a new purchase), or design a
new pods.

~~~
bredren
Thanks for this post. See my other comment about noticing friend's adult
guests who were addicted to their Juul. I'm deeply suspicious of this company
and its products.

------
013a
Articles like this come dangerously close to insanity with respect to their
reflection of the truth.

I hear people say: "They make such sweet, fruity flavors to appeal to kids."
Uh; what? Have you tried Juul Mango pods? (No, you haven't. Yet you write
about it.) They aren't sweet. They aren't fruity. They're basically just north
enough of _disgusting_ to be palatable. They taste like what I imagine six
year old freeze-dried astronaut food mangos steeped in embalming fluid would
taste like.

I hear people say: "These nicotine addictions are so bad, they're so hard to
quit." Uh; what? Have you ever _had_ a nicotine addiction? (No, you haven't.
Yet you write about it.) Not cigarettes; tobacco has additional MAOI chemicals
which make the addiction substantially worse. I'm talking about pure nicotine.
I'd grade quitting it as 25% worse than a caffeine addiction. I'd imagine it's
worse for developing brains (which is why all nicotine should be 21+ at
least). But it's not like we're talking about meth here.

I hear people say: "Juul is to blame for this." Shut the fuck up. _Your_ kid
_illegally_ obtained a nicotine delivery device and is somehow _illegally_
keeping it topped up with pods. The _audacity_ that you have to sue Juul for
this is, quite frankly, astounding. He may be going through 3 or 4 pods a
week, maybe more; how the hell is he getting these? That's on _you_ , first
and foremost, as the parent. Secondly, and strictly secondly, there is an onus
on society to make sure distribution of these chemicals is regulated and
enforced. We've got some work to continue doing here, but let's be clear:
getting rid of the "sweet" and "delicious" fruit flavors won't help even a
little bit.

