
Juul Tried to Position Itself as a Responsible Actor. It Backfired - JumpCrisscross
https://www.wsj.com/articles/juul-tried-to-position-itself-as-a-responsible-actor-it-backfired-11569193666?mod=rsswn
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S_A_P
I don't think kids should vape. I don't think vaping is 100% harmless. I don't
vape or smoke. I also think that there is some contingent of people who are
excessively worried about vaping and looking for problems that don't seem to
exist. It doesn't help that there is conflation between cannabis and e cigs,
and that (based on best evidence right now) the fake cannabis liquid is
causing the handful severe lung infections.

I don't mind more regulation here, absolutely make sure it's safe and find a
set of ingredients that cause the least amount of harm to humans. Why is
vaping perceived as so dangerous? Compared with cigarettes its damn near
harmless. I don't get it.

~~~
ineedasername
I'm not sure we can say it's damn near harmless at this point. It hasn't been
around long enough to measure the really long-term health impacts, especially
considering there are chemicals present in vaping that aren't in traditional
cigarettes. They've only seen wide use for a little more than 10 years. Do we
really know what propylene glycol will do to lungs or bodies over decades?
There are also some harmful chemicals that are actually _higher_ in e-cigs [0]

In short, while available research points towards these things being safer, we
really don't know what that margin is. Even if it's, say, 10 times safer, if
vaping explodes to more than 10x the current smoking population then net harm
could still be increased. Or not! But that's my point: we really don't know.

Personally, I don't think they should be outlawed. I think fruit flavors
should be banned just like they are in cigarettes, and I think anti-smoking
education campaigns need to ramp up their message to include vaping as a "no,
just don't ever even start" part of the effort, and e-cigs should be required
to only be marketed as aids for quitting smoking.

[0][https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/4/e201735...](https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/141/4/e20173557)

~~~
atom-morgan
> I think fruit flavors should be banned just like they are in cigarettes

Should this apply to vodka and other liquors as well?

~~~
ngngngng
Does Vodka enter your lungs?

~~~
boourns311
It enters your body and is absorbed by your bloodstream. Is the delivery
mechanism the issue?

~~~
klodolph
The delivery mechanism is certainly _an_ issue here. Food additives are tested
for how safe they are to ingest, and they are not tested for how safe they are
to inhale. In general we know that there are a lot of compounds safe to ingest
which are not safe to inhale.

Just to pick an obviously stupid example, I could chug a can of soda (or
seltzer, if you prefer) in one go. It would contain around 2.2g of CO2. If you
put that 2.2g of CO2 in my lungs, I would be dead. (Well, you would have to
keep it there. It would at least be very painful.)

Or to pick another obviously stupid example, I could drink enough alcohol to
kill myself. In most situations, I would vomit or pass out before I got to the
fatal dose. But instead, I could give myself an alcohol enema and just _die_
(which does happen, from time to time). So, delivery _matters absolutely._

For the non-obvious examples we (at least) need data. If you are putting
“high” concentrations of a chemical (for some appropriate definition of
“high”) in your lungs you will want some good safety data. For ingestion we
already have an FDA approval process. You may disagree with the methodology,
but at least it’s there.

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melq
I'm all for holding companies accountable, but I don't understand why Juul
seems to get all the blame here, in a way that many other companies don't. Why
isn't underage drinking Budweiser's fault? Why are mango flavored Juul pods
problematic but mango flavored White Claws aren't? Not saying I think Juul is
blameless here.

~~~
Judgmentality
I agree with your sentiment, but to answer your specific question comparing
e-cigarettes to alcohol (or really Juul to Budweiser) - public acceptance.
Alcohol, love it or hate it, is an integral component of human cultures going
back millennia. Drugs (other than alcohol) are also important, but I would
wager alcohol on its own is more important than all of the other recreational
drugs combined (I welcome arguments against this unsubstantiated claim).

People love to hate cigarettes, especially cigarette companies. Juul just got
an enormous amount of money (almost 11 digits) from what was formerly Philip
Morris. For the most part, attempts to regulate cigarettes have been
successful. Hell, arguably attempts to regulate other drugs have been
successful (the war on drugs is a mess, but outlawing psychadelics did impact
their availability). Alcohol, on the other hand, is accepted by most people.
Attempts to outlaw it have been less than successful (contrary to popular
belief prohibition in the United States actually did decrease drinking, but it
was still _very_ unpopular).

Taking alcohol away from Americans is like taking away our guns. Maybe it's
for the best, but prepare for people to literally die fighting you.
E-cigarettes however are still relatively nascent and could be banned before
they'd be anything more than a footnote in human history.

~~~
awinder
Just to nit this / expand because I liked the "integral component" aspect and
had not thought of it -- alcohol saved lives in our shared history due to it's
use in disinfecting water. Smoking has been around across civilizations for
some time, but alcohol/beer had a utility and was used everywhere.

------
dr_dshiv
It's really bad news that ecigarettes are now banned in India. Smoking is a
huge public health issue there.

This is a moral panic. Somehow it touched a nerve...

~~~
taurath
That or tobacco still has a huge lobby there. Their entire history is to lie
cheat and steal to do anything to keep their customers smoking.

~~~
lovehashbrowns
Juul got billions from Altria, parent company of Philip Morris which makes
things like Malboro. Doesn't make sense for a tobacco giant to lobby against
itself, unless it was a competitor lobbying specifically against PM/Altria.

~~~
dr_dshiv
It does! A pack of cigarettes is about $0.06 to manufacture. A world of
heavily regulated guaranteed profits is better than a world where you are
subject to technology disruption. Juul could easily be replaced by some better
tech, which almost certainly wouldn't come from Altria.

I absolutely believe the cigarette companies are behind some part of the
current PR kill-job on ecigs. They simply benefit the most.

~~~
lovehashbrowns
That could be true, yeah. boourns311's comment also helped me understand the
viewpoint a little better. I'd be a little surprised if they were investing in
Juul while also trying to sweep it away, but it's the tobacco industry.
They're always doing anything they can to keep themselves afloat.

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smileysteve
There's so much opportunity in this market to end up better than smoking.
First and foremost, by making reduced or no nicotine the standard.

Juul could have taken a play from the soda manufactures, selling people
flavored water (without the hfcs).

I believe vaping is safer (and more depending on the carrier compound) but we
know nicotine will still have its troubles.

~~~
dr_dshiv
What's wrong with nicotine? Or is it just the addiction?

~~~
neogodless
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363846/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4363846/)

"Nicotine poses several health hazards. There is an increased risk of
cardiovascular, respiratory, gastrointestinal disorders. There is decreased
immune response and it also poses ill impacts on the reproductive health. It
affects the cell proliferation, oxidative stress, apoptosis, DNA mutation by
various mechanisms which leads to cancer. It also affects the tumor
proliferation and metastasis and causes resistance to chemo and radio
therapeutic agents. "

~~~
monktastic1
"Nicotine is one of the most addicting agent (sic). The US surgeon general
(2010) has concluded nicotine to be as addictive as cocaine or heroin."

Is this really true? The last time I looked carefully into this claim, I found
that pretty much everyone conflates nicotine and tobacco, and that the
precious few studies on nicotine showed minimal addictiveness. E.g.:

"However, substantial evidence exists to suggest that nicotine's reinforcing
effects alone are not sufficient to account for the intense addictive
properties of tobacco smoking ..."[1]

If anyone has further references, that would be great.

There are also known health _benefits_ of nicotine [2][3]. Probably, just like
for every other drug, we need to better understand the risk vs reward
tradeoffs.

[1]
[https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/25/4/444](https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/25/4/444)

[2] [https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xw7agz/four-surprising-
po...](https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xw7agz/four-surprising-potential-
health-benefits-of-nicotine)

[3] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-a-
nicotine-p...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/will-a-nicotine-
patch-make-you-smarter-excerpt/)

~~~
berbec
<sample_size=1>I am 100% addicted to nicotine. I have managed to quit drinking
alcohol from a 1L/day vodka habit. I switched to vape years ago, haven't
smoked a cigarette in years, and have been cutting down the mg/ml level of
nicotine in my vape for months now. Once I go below 6mg/ml I start to get very
very unhappy, and if I switch to 0mg, I start having symptoms I recall very
well from detoxing from booze.</sample_size=1>

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marketingl
I know a lot of young people who would never smoke a cigarette (because
cancer), the kind who only eat organic, but who vape "because it's perfectly
safe and harmless"

I asked some of them "how do you know it's safe?". The typical answer is "it's
just water vapor and nicotine"

~~~
dr_dshiv
Seems rational to me. What's the implicit illogic?

~~~
AlexandrB
1\. Nicotine is not harmless.

2\. Flavor additives and other agents used in vaping “juice” are not nicotine
nor water.

~~~
dr_dshiv
Thanks.

1\. Many in the scientific community believe that the evidence suggests that
nicotine is _relatively harmless_ , on par with suntanning or coffee (which
contains acrylamide). You are right, nicotine isn't harmless, but many in the
scientific community believe that nicotine is _relatively harmless_.

Nicotine isn't why cigarettes are bad. It isn't why 85% of smokers will die
from smoking related disease. Nicotine itself is a cognitive enhancer, like
caffeine.

2\. I agree. It's an issue. We should also know more about how specific vape
hardware "cooks" the juice and creates new chemical compounds. There should be
industry standards and consumer-safety regulations.

Sigh... the thing is, I wish we could approach this non-politically -- like a
design problem.

 _Let 's design vapes that are safe and good for you!_ Which, of course,
vapers(?) want as normal product consumers. But, it becomes politics because
the thought of healthy and effective new consumer drugs absolutely terrifies
people. People want it, though. Why can't they have what they want in a manner
that is as healthy and effective as possible?

Know what I mean?

~~~
AlexandrB
> People want it, though. Why can't they have what they want in a manner that
> is as healthy and effective as possible?

You’ll find no argument from me. The comment you were originally replying to
though pointed out that some (many?) vapers are currently unaware of or are
trivializing the risk of “cooked juice”. And that it’s ironic that many
seemingly health-conscious people are doing so.

That is not a rational response. That is trying to justify a behavior that
still has unknown long-term health implications.

------
ticmasta
>> Why is vaping perceived as so dangerous? Compared with cigarettes its damn
near harmless

Vaping is also much more expensive than cigarettes. If Juul contributes to
getting huge amounts of young people addicted to nicotine what do you think
they'll do when they can't afford e-juice? We've already seen the results with
fentanyl being the trade-in of choice.

~~~
boourns311
>> Vaping is also much more expensive than cigarettes.

Are you serious? A pack is between $5 and $10 depending on where you live. You
might go through that in half a day.

A bottle of e-cig "juice" is like $30 and lasts you for a month.

And I don't even understand the allusion to fentanyl...

~~~
whynaut
juul is considerably more expensive than other products.

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boourns311
This whole thing has nothing to do with keeping kids off nicotine and
everything to do with keeping people of all ages on cigarettes.

Vaping is safer than smoking.

Let's say I'm Phillip Morris. I sell Marlboro and a slew of other cigarette
brands. E-cigs come along, offering a safer alternative that is importantly
much more cost effective. They're eating my lunch.

How do I kill this industry? I buy Juul. I remove the fruity flavors (which
people of all ages enjoy more than tobacco flavors) and I claim that I'm doing
it to protect the children.

Juul is now much worse off; big tobacco gets to claim that it's looking out
for the kids; last step is to manufacture a public crisis to have cover for
over-reaching legislation that bans what would otherwise be the least harmful
of all age-restricted products.

Keep smoking.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _Vaping is safer than smoking_

We don't have evidence for this. Vaping appears, due to its lack of
combustion, safer than cigarettes. But we don't have the science to say it's
safer.

This unfounded leap--from reasonable hypothesis to finding--is part of what is
getting Juul in trouble.

~~~
ModernMech
Okay, let's say we accept this. We have plenty of science and evidence to say
that smoking cigarettes directly leads to cancer, yet we are fine with
cigarettes being legal. Why are we ready to ban vaping because of what we _don
't_ know, but we're fine keeping cigarettes despite what we _do_ know?

~~~
macintux
Cigarettes are heavily regulated, rarely allowed in public places any longer,
banned for sale to minors, taxed, and societally increasingly unacceptable.

We’re not making them illegal, but we’re making them as undesirable as we can.

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dr_dshiv
Keep in mind that America bans college students from drinking until they are
21. Because that helps the children.

