Juul is what made the successful transition from cigarettes. Why the ban? I do not want to go back to the original sin.....Vexed
5
Oh sure - Run all the vaping stores out of business and totally do away with this vaping thing.
Then watch how fast many who used vaping to quit smoking cigarettes go right back to smoking.
And the kids once again get busted for smoking in the rest rooms and everywhere else. Like it used to be. $$$
Probably that's the actual goal. $$$
That's how it works in Trump and the GOP's America these days.
3
Vaping is even more obnoxious and insidious than smoking.
2
Banning vaping will kill thousands of smokers who will die of lung cancer.
In Europe the consensus is that the e-cigarette is the most effective and relatively riskless way of quitting smoking and should be prescribed by physicians to smokers who want to stop.
It should certainly be regulated ,dangerous adjuvants proscribed ,sales to minors forbidden; but it has saved thousands of lives and will save thousands more. The debate is as irrational as the debate over vaccination is.
In a perfect world nobody would smoke cigarettes or e-cigarettes ,but it is a question of choosing the lesser of two evils.
4
There is no doubt that teens are becoming addicted to nicotine through vaping. Teens that would not have smoked cigarettes. Vaping has also increased marijuana use. It is far easier to hide from parents, teachers and employers than cigarettes or joints.
1
Is there there *any* evidence, even anecdotally, of a teen who gets addicted to nicotine via vaping then moves on to cigarettes got their nicotine fix? Given the increase in cost, the inherent unpleasantness of the sensation of inhaling smoke, the limited "flavors" available compared to vaping -- it seems extraordinarily unlikely.
This "gateway" argument has always stuck me as extremely dubious. OTOH, the reverse pathway, from cigarettes to vaping, is far better documented, and makes much more sense.
3
@Abraham I used to smoke cigarettes . Quitting is the hardest thing I ever did. I can only imagine there will be a huge influx of teen smokers, even if they are not tangerine flavored.
2
"Many of the patients have said they had been vaping THC, the high-inducing ingredient in marijuana, when they became short of breath and grew sicker, officials have reported. But some said they were using just nicotine, or both."
To be clear, is there even one verified case where the patient has claimed to use only shop-bought, new, unadulterated Juul pods? If the problem is vaping refilled pods intended for one-time use, then the solution of banning "flavors", or even banning vaping entirely, strikes me as overreaction.
6
My question is: HOW did vaping products ever get to market in the first place? Where was the FDA?
1
And so the hysteria spreads. There are four separate issues here that no one is addressing separately. Recent lung illnesses and deaths: the reporting shows the vast majority of them arise from THC vaping and black-market products. People have been vaping nicotine e-cigarettes for 10 years and no rash of illnesses has been reported until now. The standard products like Juul are not to blame except perhaps in rare cases. Don't demonize the products that aren't the problem. Teen vaping: yes, this is bad, but it can easily be solved by age-verification for on-line orders or by making the nicotine vapes available by prescription only. Flavored nicotine products: These appeal to adult smokers who have switched to the vapes, not just to kids. Don't ban them for adults. Finally, the risks of vaping compared to smoking: many doctors, including mine, recommend vaping nicotine pods not as "safe", but as likely less harmful than smoking cigarettes. I would appreciate a clear-headed analysis from the media instead of scare-mongering.
11
You mean to tell me that the tobacco industry doesn't have the health and well being of consumers at heart?
Shocking
6
Take the money and run, eh Kevin?
3
Let the lawsuits roll!
3
I just have to wonder, why can we get so upset and accomplish bans on the e-cigarette that is harming youth, but we can't accomplish much of anything on gun control?
10
@me, just me Perhaps because the right to own guns in constitutionally protected?
1
@me, just me There are thousands of gun control laws on the books.
@me, just me
Because there isn't an established vape lobby like there is the NRA gun lobby...
2
OK. But how much Kevin Burns' golden parachute be, though?
2
That’s right. Make it illegal. Prohibition will work. Said no one ever in counterfeit prevention, or history for that matter.
The underground product that caused this problem will continue to thrive.
11
@Swissy People will get their fix with cigarettes.
OK.. time for a reality check here....
Juuls troubles are being amplified by a war between two big tobacco factions (Altria, which owns 35% of Juul, and Philip Morris, which wants to dominate with a competing product (IQOS).
Juuls sells a very sexy upscale vaping product that appeals to teens and trend followers.
Philip Morris wants to sell their IQOS product as an alternative to vaping products and cigarettes. IQOS is a proprietary e-cig style product that vaporizes the chemicals off of an actual tobacco insert that is placed in the dispensor.
Even though Altria and Philip Morris were in talks to merge and bring Juul fully under the big tobacco umbrella.... IQOS actually serves Philip Morris business goals better.. so when trouble began with vaping and in particular for Juul... you can bet that Philip Morris put it's full weight behind the scenes against Juul.
Keep in mind.. Juuls big mistake was applying a product and business model that directly appealed to teens. If there is one thing big tobacco does not want again.. is to be run though the regulatory and judicial grinder of targeting addictive products to teens.
16
@Chuck , okay--that makes the picture a lot more clear. I've been wondering what's behind all these murky, unsubstantiated suggestions that Juuls are suddenly an enormous health risk for everyone (when it seems a lot more likely that black market cartridges are to blame for the illnesses). I definitely don't condone marketing nicotine products to kids, but something has seemed amiss about the reporting on the issue, as I mentioned in another comment.
4
@Chuck
Altria is Philip Morris. Philip Morris international is a separate company, it does operate in the US.
vaping discussions do not mention/exclude "dry flower vaping" from discussions of "liquid oil based containing thc/or nicotine".This is a mistake. There is apparently no statistical evidence surrounding 'dry flower vaping", making it a far safer alternative to the alternative of "liquid oil with thc"
5
@hr , that is a marvelous little invention, and doesn't seem nearly as dicey as vape cartridges filled with God-knows-what.
Something just occurred to me...for people who still want the nicotine fix with less worry about combustion or additives (but don't want THC), could a Pax or similar device be filled with, say, rolling tobacco?
It is refreshing to see the public health community, government agencies, and now the cigarette industry responding appropriately to revelations that e-cigarettes are potentially deadly and otherwise potentially extraordinarily harmful. When the root-cause of an illness is unclear yet the vector, in this case e-cigarettes, is known, it is essential that public health agencies, government officials, and industry respond appropriately to keep society safe. And it is clear from the evidence that the root-cause of the e-cigarette associated pulmonary illnesses remains unclear: https://www.skymedicine.com/2019/09/11/electronic-cigarette-associated-pulmonary-illness-in-the-united-states/
Until answers are developed, all parties involved should keep society's interest at heart and prohibit the use of these potentially deadly products.
2
@NYT Reader
If they had responded appropriately, the NHS would not have accepted this company's bogus studies that vaping is safer and helps people stop smoking.
If the US and every other G7 regulatory body had responded appropriately, none of Juul's products would have been allowed to be mass advertised with bogus health claims, because they would have been treated as tobacco products they are.
Ironically, Philip Morris's commitment to honest dealing about what they were really selling prevented their vaping product from being approved, and allowed Juul to monopolize the market.
Steps down? These people intentionally targeted and addicted millions of kids on nicotine. Why are they not being brought to justice? Who could have imagined in 2019 we'd allow big tobacco to coming roaring back at the sake of our children? Shameful, evil and disgusting.
7
This article pleases me in many ways as Juul have driven a lot of the Teen vaping issues with High nicotine levels and a compact closed system which does not really offer a staged reduction in nicotine use that is an important part of why vaping is helping millions of Ex-Smokers around the world.
I would quite happily see Juul cease trading and in turn Altria and Philip Morris as all of these companies have lied about their products over a succession of years and decades
4
Science Daily Health News -- which reports mainstream medical research projects -- reported recently that the University of Pennsylvania Medical School took a group of people who had never vaped and had each of them vape one non-nicotine e-cigarette. That one vaping incident damaged their blood vessels. THIS NEEDS TO BE SHARED!
1
This quote from the article really says it all:
"Juul also said it would not fight the Trump administration’s proposal to ban most flavored e-cigarettes, which would severely hurt its domestic sales".
Flavored product in particular appealed to teens, and Juul management both knew this and exploited it deliberately. Couple that with the design of their e-cig and cartridges (making them easy to conceal) and you have the perfect marketing platform for vaping to under age teens.
Right out of the tobacco playbook from decades ago.. where big T knew full well that their path to customer growth was hooking teens on nicotine products early, and often.
7
My sister switched from using cigarettes to using JUUL e-cigs less than six months ago and said she felt much better in terms of lung health. As a smoker who has failed at attempts to quit with nicotine patches and gum, I had considered getting the JUUL starter kit right before the cases of severe acute pulmonary conditions caused by vaping hit the news. I'm glad I waited.
I hope the CDC soon provides solid answers regarding which specific vaping products are causing the illnesses. Is it only THC vaping products? Is it a specific ingredient that is present in some vaping products and not others?
One of these posts stated that JUUL does not use oils in its products. I went to the JUUL site. Ingredients: "Our e-liquid contains a proprietary formulation that combines glycerol, propylene glycol, natural oils, extracts and flavor, nicotine and benzoic acid." So JUUL does use oils. But why isn't everyone who uses e-cigs adversely affected if oils are the culprit?
Quitting smoking is easy. I've done it dozens of time, to wax sarcastic. A recent study showed that those with at least one copy of the APOE4 allele find that nicotine provides a much greater boost in alertness compared to people without the allele. Maybe this is part of the reason why some of us find nicotine be more addicting than heroin.
5
@kimw
//But why isn't everyone who uses e-cigs adversely affected if oils are the culprit?
Everyone doesn't use the product with the same frequency. Just like people who smoke hand rolled Cuban cigars once in a while aren't likely to have the same lung issues as a person who inhales a pack of mass produced cigarettes a day.
2
So, let's ban vaping, and get folks back on combustible cigarettes. Wonderful...
8
@Tamar
We should ban those as well, but then the South would secede again.
1
“Bringing in a traditional tobacco executive who knows how to market and manage government relationships with deadly products matches the firm’s needs.”
That quote tells you everything you need to know about vaping products and how their companies view their consumers and their marketshare. And stop commenting that Juul is a good alternative to cigarettes— the only tolerable level for use of either is zero.
7
Silicon Valley — using technology to ruin one life at a time.
4
@Hammer
JUUL has nothing to do with Silicon Valley.
2
@Jane well, product design out of Stanford, venture funded, SF HQ... pernicious effect on the world but profitable. sounds like Silicon Valley to me
How is banning flavors going to solve the "crisis" that is arising from illegal THC vape cartridges? How is creating a new black market going to "protect" people?
12
Good.
Can Juul stop pushing its privately sponsored Proposition C to overturn San Francisco’s vaping ban?
10
No kidding. Wherever I go, there are Prop C workers standing at busy intersections hour after hour,, inhaling dangerous fumes to further enrich the purveyors of dangerous fumes.
1
Please don't kill Juul. I hate secondhand cigarette smoke, and would prefer a vaping sidestream cloud any day over a burning cigarette.
It appears ALL of the deaths and illnesses derive from cannabis oils, which are truly unregulated and laced with God-knows-what from China.
But of course, we're all for deregulating pot since it's so healthy and safe...
25
@Peter
This has nothing to do with the current health issues reported from vaping, it is about the illegal effort to promote a product to teens.
Juul has always operated unethically in the context of vaping products (which existed before Juul, and will exist after Juul). Juul followed the big tobacco business model of quietly making product that would appear to teens, and quietly making the product marketing appealing to teens.
Also...your statements about THC cartridges is ignorant and misinformed. ONLY where THC is illegal is there an issue... because all product comes from black market channels, absent any regulation. Where THC is legalized by a state.. with that comes requirements for safety testing of every lot of product, and well as strict restrictions as to what if anything can be included in the cartridge other then pure THC oil.
There is to date, no evidence of any legally sold THC cartridge causing the current health issues with vaping. There IS evidence of illegal bootleg THC cartridges contributing to the current health issues, and a lot of evidence that it has been the illicit addition of Vitamin E oil to the THC as one of the causes.
5
@Peter
Still second hand chemical spray whether or not it has smoke attached.
4
The lungs are only meant to breath air, anything else is a poison.
12
This guy is just trying to protect his ill gotten assets because he has seen the future.
3
Lots of noise about JUUL products, but 480,000 people/year die from tobacco related illnesses. That's absurd. But apparently, Big Tobacco has its hand in too many pockets to do anything about it. I watched my mother die from lung cancer, it was absolutely horrible. Here it is, 20 years later, my brother will buy cigarettes before he buys food, if he is low on cigarettes, those will get bought before the rent, food, water bill, gas for his vehicle or anything else, it is truly sad/sickening/disgusting/unbelievable. But making money comes first. I guess the cancer centers need to make a living too.
13
@BorisRoberts
Juul has deliberately formulated and promoted product that appeals to teens. This is the focus of the article and Juuls current challenges.
In other words.. Juul followed the big tobacco model for marketing nicotine products. And there is pretty clear evidence that for teens at least, vaping is a gateway to cigarettes for some teens.
I pity any shareholders in Juul at this time.. because Juul is going to collapse on it's own foundation of sand here.
But for people who want to vape nicotine.. do not worry... there were nicotine vaping produce before Juul and there will be products after Juul has gone belly up.
1
@Chuck - I pity the shareholders about as much as I pity the Sacklers.
1
These products have zero redeeming value and should be totally banned. If there is an argument that can be made that they wean people off smoking then, then, at best these things should be available by prescription only.
11
@MIKEinNYC Nicotine gum and patches are not prescription only, so stop trying to run other people's lives.
7
Public opinion forced a company executive to step down. Is this the America I grew up in or Stalin's Russia? Nobody forced people to vape, and their health effects are still disputed. We are less and less a country ruled by law, and more one driven by the worst impulses of humanity.
10
@Auxley public opinion did not force his stepping down... his board did. There IS a difference.
Juul was well branded and the brand had high value... such that big tobacco was willing to offer billions to buy Juul and add it to their stable of nicotine producing businesses. Big tobacco has now walked away from the deal.. and that falls squarely on the shoulders of the Juul CEO.... like it or not.
4
@Auxley You are forgetting that the "public" is a major part of an economy— it's called consumers. You are also forgetting that public opinion matters in economics. The Private Sector loves to blame consumers, when it is not only responsible to, but owes everything it has to them. Isn't, to quote you, "Public opinion forcing a company executive to step down" just the 'free market regulating itself,' as fiscal conservatives like to put it? I can't help but be confused by your comment.
2
Let me preface my comments with the confession that I am in that often eye-rolled at group known as “former cigarette smokers”. Granted, my smoking life coincided with my ‘stupid decisions/choices phase’ which started at age 12 and started to give way to more sensibility at age 19.
There is nothing human lungs are meant to or designed to ingest other than oxygen. They do a valiant job of countering all that nature (and we) assault them with. Essentially, vaping removes some health dangers of tobacco smoke ingestion, all while keeping those who vape addicted to nicotine. Smoking cessation is difficult, certainly, but vaping is obviously not the safe alternative or answer.
5
@Janelle Seavey But "vaping is certainly the *safer* alternative or answer."
3
@Peter
Except it's not.
2
@Janelle Seavey
"There is nothing human lungs are meant to or designed to ingest other than oxygen."
Lungs evolved, they weren't designed. Who knows what muck evolution rendered them resilient to in the process. Air is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen, so lungs are pretty good at handling at least nitrogen too.
If all tobacco products were made illegal today the money saved from treating tobacco related illnesses would be enough to provide health care to all of the United States.
6
@Rob L - Nicotine addiction doesn't just go away, you'd create a new black market that would kill tons of people, just like alcohol prohibition did. Just because you don't like or understand something doesn't mean it should be banned.
7
@Rob L
Learn a lesson from the US amendment to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcohol.
The people who profited from alcohol prohibition ended up being...... criminals and was largely responsible for the rapid and persistent rise in organized crime in the US.
You cannot legislate your way out of a product people want and will seek through illegal channels if necessary.
7
Finding ways to ban teen vaping and to stop the vaping products from being used to get new customers addicted to nicotine - are two things most everyone agrees with.
What is shocking is that most people are not outraged that the tobacco industry has moved in to take over its biggest threat. In this article, it makes it difficult to separate out the fact that the biggest dangers - people getting sick from vaping THC - have nothing to do with Juul and their products. And most scientists and health professionals who have weighed-in on this subject agree that vaping products such as Juul ARE much safer that smoking cigarettes.
Juul was started as a product to get active smokers to switch to something safe. Unfortunately, a CEO came in in 2017 who moved the product marketing and focus into areas that greatly appeals to those who weren't yet addicted to nicotine and in many cases, were teenagers.
What needs to happen is to more strictly regulate the sale of unregulated and dangerous vaping products sold over the internet; to regulate teen vaping as or more stringently as alcohol; to prohibit the sale of flavored vaping products.
And if anyone thinks that big tobacco is a long term solution to anything, they have not studied history.
12
What started as an interesting entrepreneurial idea to aid people in getting off cigarettes has proven to be the scourge of our day.
To get my teenage daughter's attention, I recently told her that I'd rather she take up smoking, which might take 40 years to kill her, than continue vaping which could kill her quickly from acute respiratory disease.
When I started to find Juul cartridges all over our apartment, along with spliced chargers, I finally realized that her room had been turned into a vaping den. I thought back to the Summer in 1983 when I was a teenager and my friends thought it was cool to smoke cigarettes dipped in clove juice. I ended up hospitalized with a severe abscessed tonsil in excruciating pain - it turned out that the combination suppressed the immune system.
All vaping products should be banned - find a safe way to get unhooked from cigarettes. I did, with will power, when I was pregnant with my daughter -- her health was more important than even the most addictive drug on earth.
10
@Wbb
I appreciate your concern for your daughter- no underage person should be using e-cigarettes- however I question your tactics.
Many articles don't mention this, but the majority of these cases of lung illness have been linked to THC products containing vitamin E acetate, often black market products. In Illinois over 75% of those who got sick reported using THC products, a number which may be underreported in places where marijuana is still illegal. Furthermore, Juul and other e-cigs are regulated by the FDA thus not allowed to change their formulas. This illness outbreak has been rapid and unique to the US, suggesting it is linked to a new substance being vaped. Vapes have been around for 10 years and there are 45 million people who vape worldwide. Why then, is this outbreak so sudden and specific to this country? Also, it's important to note that this illness outbreak is happening around the same time that THC products are becoming legal in certain localities.
I think your personal story of clove cigarettes are good proof to why it isn't preferable to smoke cigarettes to vaping. Cigarettes kill 480,000 people a year. Vaping has killed 9, with e-cigarettes killing even fewer.
E-cigs are by no means safe, especially for teens, but you should understand the illicit appeal of tobacco products for teens. Banning e-cigarettes would fuel the illicit vape industry which is to blame for much of this illness outbreak in the first place.
4
I absolutely believe that Juul has been extremely negligent and calculating and deceptive in its (non-) efforts to market to "adults only." I'm 58, and use tobacco-flavored Juuls only at night (I think I always just liked the hand/mouth thing about smoking more than the nicotine--even when I was young I usually only smoked after 5 pm). I can't understand how a grownup would be interested in those other, candy-like flavors.
But I still feel that there is something amiss in this supposed inability to pinpoint the reasons for the rather sudden spate of illnesses and deaths. It can't be THAT difficult, and in the meantime it seems that there's an awful lot of fear-mongering, based on vague guesswork, going on. I would be willing to bet (and I could be proven wrong) that the illnesses are caused by vaping black-market THC (plus whatever viscous liquid the "manufacturer" has sitting around in the garage) cartridges.
I will think it outrageous if store-bought vape products, which can and should be regulated, are banned outright with no hard evidence. (Not to mention, as an aside, that legal cannabis is cannabis that can be regulated for safety. Just sayin'...)
By the way, I just found out that Blu now sells tobacco-flavored vape cartridges with 0% nicotine, and ordered some to see what they're like. I assume that there are others who, like me, just like to have something to puff on with a glass of wine from time to time.
8
I nominate the board of Altria for a MacArthur Genius grant for nominating one of their people to run Juul company.
Brilliant people, aren’t they?!!
1
I've been vaping for two years. I have had no debilitating symptoms from vaping. I spoke to the man who sells me my vaping products and we talked about Juul. He said "Juul has ruined the market for these products."
17
@susan "I've been vaping for two years."
Out of curiosity, why do you do it?
8
I’ve been vaping for about 6 years. I quit smoking but was getting pulled back into it and moved to e-cigs instead when I learned about them. I am active and fit and while I am under no illusion that vaping is healthy, the difference in how I feel relative to cigarettes is enormous.
I find the reporting and hysteria around these vaping illnesses - almost surely the result of black market thc vapes - utterly depressing. The ease with which even the NYT conflates the two very different products is discouraging.
The calls I see among frustrated parents to ban ecigs and the recent decisions by some states’ officials to do so, will almost certainly make the problem far worse. It seems people never learn and prohibitionist mindsets are alive and well.
What we need are better regulations and testing regimens of legal products (including full, federal legalization of marijuana and related concentrates).
16
@susan
Lots of folks smoked all their lives and never got a smoking related illness. That does not mean smoking cigarettes is safe. It should have triggered some sort of medical interest in why these folks bodies did not react normally to smoking.
3
Wow - Chobani to Juul ... quite a change in product niche. Perhaps he actually believed that e-cigs were a healthier alternative. The repeated ads I heard on radio certainly implied this, and explicitly said they were much more socially acceptable than cigarettes.
4
The government needs to stop conflating two separate issues that are problematic and worth looking with steady, rational hand, not the hammer of extremism and paranoia.
It's fair to assume companies like Juul are/were marketing to teens. Cigarette companies did. It's not right, but they are a company and money making is their job.
Maybe the answer isn't banning the product, but fining the company and taxing the product. And maybe it's our job as parents and teachers to regulate and educate our children.
This country has a deep history of criminalizing/banning substances to tremendous negative effect. Vaping will not go away because the government "said so". It will be pushed to an underground and even more dangerous market, where it seems the second issue of illness is actually coming from. An illness the CDC is loathed to specifically attribute to tainted, unregulated THC/(and maybe) nicotine products.
Here's an idea - legalize THC nationwide and then have the government make sure the product as safe as it can be, while reaping the monetary benefits of taxing the legal product.
I am not advocating pushing nicotine on children or for black market products. I am advocating a little perspective, some personal responsibility and rational thought.
30
In the past several weeks I had seen a few interviews with Kevin Burns and no one ever asked the question I thought should be asked - Did he ever use the product he was pushing? Did he ever risk his lungs and life with it? Probably not.
6
@acm I've been using Juul for years, it got me off cigarettes, which had caused tar and carbon to collect in my lungs. I don't have any of those problems with the Juul.
2
@Joe -It's time to start thinking of quitting nicotine entirely now. Juul may no longer be available in the near future.
1
Juul designed its pods to look identical to USB drives so that teenagers could hide these while at school. They directly marketed to teens. We are just seeing the beginning of chronic lung disease caused by vaping. The retiring executive gained a fortune at the expense of these kids. His money should be confiscated and he should be in jail
13
Another Silicon Valley startup Master of the Universe CEO is found to be a liar harming the public. When will Wall Street, the media and the public learn?
5
Kevin Burns. I've always wondered who the people are behind these types of products. How they can live with themselves. I guess one fewer. Kevin Burns.
4
@Scientist
Whenever you are discussing or thinking about Silicon Valley or or Wall Street investment culture in general, "take the money and run".
Cigarettes kill 480,000 in the U.S. every year. Vaporizers are implicates in a handful of deaths. And those seem to be due to vaping THC, which Juul does not sell. This makes zero sense. Ban cigarettes.
17
@Jake
Cigarettes have been with us for years and most people know the harm they cause to users by now. Vaporizers and e-cigarettes are fairly recently available products and not much research had gone into its potentially harmful effects on users. How many people's death do you think is acceptable before it should be banned? Any product that is potentially harmful and possibly lead to death of its users should be banned altogether. These kinds of products are evil and they hook you (especially the young who are easily impressionable) and ruin lives. Let's not legitimize what is essentially a dependency-inducing drug.
10
@Expat Nicotine vaping is legal elsewhere. The US is not the world. As a Brit you should know that nicotine vaping wouldn't be legal there if authorities weren't assured it was far safer than smoking. Medical scientists working for the NHS believe this to be the case.
Inhaling oil is dangerous and stupid, so the companies that make these products need to improve them. There are too many people who have quit cigarettes with the assistance of vaping devices to ignore the potential benefit, but there are also too many sick people to ignore the harm of inhaling oil-infused nicotine vapor. Let's fix this.
8
@mimi Juul does not contain oil. Nicotine is water soluble.
13
@mimi There is no oil in Juul, and unlike cigarettes no tar either. The strong opinions from the uniformed public are WAY over the top on this issue.
13
@Alan Hamde
So you imagine you are smoking water with nicotine in it then?
You would be wrong.
1
Classic. Less than 10 deaths nationwide and the government is talking about an outright ban, yet millions are dead, dying or disabled from cigarette smoking and the government does nothing.
46
@TyroneShoelaces
Cigarettes have been around for over a hundred years and by law it is not possible to ban them. E-cigarettes are new, and dangerous, so now is the time to tackle them before they become similarly entrenched.
Saying that government does nothing about cigarette smoking is absolutely false. The federal government spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually attacking the tobacco use problem. Look up the FDA/Center for Tobacco Products and the CDC/Office on Smoking and Health to see all that they do. Further, states spend just as much as the feds dealing with tobacco use and all its associated problems. Look up the sophisticated programs in California, New York, Massachusetts, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, and many other states if you're interested.
21
@Brett Banning commercial grade vapes like Juul is wrong headed if we are going to leave conventional cigarettes on the market. Juul is a wonderful product for those adults who are already addicted to nicotine. It is orders of magnitude more safe than cigarettes. Removing vapes without removing cigarettes will drive users back to smoking cigarettes - and to all the attendant illness and death.
13
@TyroneShoelaces And three million deaths a year worldwide are attributed to alcohol. But it has a huge lobby too, so its true toll is a shock to many.
2
How about shut down the whole industry? Before the lawsuits start flying...
3
@Gucci Marmot the only ones that should be facing lawsuits are the people making the black market THC and other pods. Not the manufacturers who do not include the oily ingredients in their product.
1
Such swift moves to take a dangerous product out of the market. Too bad the same can’t be said about guns.
60
Great. An executive from a tobacco company now leads Juul. Tobacco is a deadly product--flavored or otherwise. Any one in a decision-making position who supports marketing such an awful product to adults or children is making a decision that puts lives at risk.
18
But think about how much money he'll make! He should probably run for President.
4
@KC Juul is not tobacco. Cigarettes are deadly because of the delivery mechanism, not the nicotine.
8
@Sam Francisco
Are you telling me that tobacco is only harmful if smoked? I've known people who have developed mouth and throat cancers from chewing tobacco. From what I know it is not the delivery mechanism that is deadly, it is the nicotine which is a poisonous alkaloid in tobacco that has potential to kill - however way you take it in.
2
Not sure how cigarettes and tobacco products get such a pass but it's pretty scary how Juul et al so quickly wormed their way into kids brains and now we have a new epidemic...or more. How did this happen? It's quite disturbing.
17
@Kim
It happened because they are legally not classified as a tobacco product anywhere in the world, and as such can advertise everywhere.
They were successful in getting the NHS to accept their bogus studies that this product would help people stop smoking and is "healthier" because it doesn't produce second hand smoke.
11
@Kim — Marketing. It’s been implied that e-cigs are less harmful than cigarettes. Plus, there is the ever-present “cool” factor. It looks a lot more sophisticated, I guess, cupping a vape in your fist with a scented cloud wafting above your head, rather than holding an ugly butt between your fingers and smelling like stale tobacco.
I’m convinced black market products are behind most of the health epidemic, but as we saw with Prohibition, banning it won’t necessarily cure the problem.
Kids were smoking when I was in 8th grade, despite all the warnings and diseased-lung presentations by the Cancer Society. I have a lot of regrets looking back over my life, but being a nonsmoker is not one of them.
6
Is Burns leaving to go to jail? (Guess not.) Will Juul still sell their self-harm devices? (Nope.) Will Altria or PM quit trying to hook teens on them and others, with the utter cheek to market them as a "safe" alternative to their old death sticks while intending them to have the same deadly and addictive effects? (With IQOS, evidently not.)
No? Then nothing and no one has paid for this great crime.
Time to help save the teens and ban ALL e-self-harm devices. Prohibition of alcoholic beverages failed, but back then we didn't have face-creeping tech or even much in the way of metal detection. Now we can use that tech for some actual good, for once. In ending e-cigs (and, as I've suggested before, stopping anti-vaxxers), it might even redeem itself from its usual intolerable use as a protest deterrent, privacy smasher, and tyrant helper.
There's no reason to allow self-harm devices to make Juul, Altria, or PM even more blood money.
6
(By "Will Juul still sell", I mean "Will Juul stop selling".)
You might know it. Just when Trump & Co. finally do the right thing, the "smoke" (much like the cloud that envelops the heads of vapers) clears and evidence warranting an "impeachment inquiry" finally surfaces.
Another example of the old saying: No good deed goes unpunished.
@Glen
The "right" thing? So those of us that have been smoking for over a decade are wrong to want to quit this way?
5
@Josh
In a word, Josh, yes.
I smoked for 18 years, Marlboros and Old Golds, mostly, at one point early during my year in Viet Nam, 4 packs/day. I quit, permanently and quite easily at the age of 36. My secret? Every time I felt an urge to light up, I peeled and ate an orange instead. It worked. Barely two months of that and I had reached the point where the smell of a cigaret or of a smoker's breath revolted me.
Try it. You might like it.
4
Good news. I do hope investigators get to the bottom of this vaping problem. They will ultimately find that cheap imitation products are to blame. These products should be treated like cigarettes and alcohol when sold but of course they shouldn't be banned. That's silly.
18
An executive from a tobacco company to take over a product increasingly feared unsafe to the lungs and breathing?
How is it that companies such as this can spend hundreds of millions on public relations and yet be so unable to relate to the public?
I give this decision a few days at most to play out and fall apart. I'd like to hear someone give it more time.
4
So these kids were vaping nicotine or THC. If vaping THC is also suspect, why are those companies not being targeted? Wondering because my older friend has been vaping THC for pain and started to develop shortness of breath. He had to be on oxygen because the doctor was alarmed at how low his oxygen level was. My friend suspects that his vaping THC IS the problem. I would agree. Inhaling strongly-scented, oily vapor into the lungs can't be good. One can manage certain levels of pain with edibles.
23
@CLee You falsely equate all THC vape cartridges. Likely you will find an additive, such as PEG or vitamin E oil is the culprit. Many do not contain any of these products.
9
Why not explain the motivations for the Philip Morris split and now the plan to remerge that was just canceled. This story is a missed opportunity to explain the real drivers, the money story, behind the corporate death cult.
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@TJM ^^ THIS ^^
We have had ever more frequent "missed opportunities" for journalism to actually enlighten the readership.
5
Wonder how much his Golden Parachute is....just saying. Seems like those who make bad corporate choices are the ones who always come out unscathed. Look at our "president".
17
Someday I’d like to wake up to headlines about people making money and achieving success by making the world and other people’s lives better.
Need about the people whose entire focus in this world is improving people’s lives instead of using them and their weaknesses to exploit them to cash in on greed.
Just once I’d like to wake up to a newspaper full of inspiring, hopeful, and beautiful stories about the human condition.
Just like changing our ways to save the planet, it would be nice if the NY Times devoted an entire new section of the paper to things that DO work, and elevate us all, and instill hope in our beaten down sprite - instead of the endless tsunami of what is ugliest and most desperate in the human condition.
Just one little section about how an evil empire crashed and burned. How a dictator’s rule was quashed. How a lake or estuary was saved. How a sacred land was kept from exploitation and desecration by mining and fracking -preserved by high consciousness and the lovers of the Earth.
I want to wake up to that news.
That world.
Endless coverage of human degradation, enslavement to material garbage, and the adulation of false egos, is just a soul killer. Give it a shot NY Times. I think good news sells too. Use your awesome global reach to be an instrument of secular social inspiration. If we are all going to purportedly save this planet, all paradigms will have to shift. Lead the pack in being the first media source to infect the world with hope!
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@René Pedraza Del Prado - US Veteran
The fact is that it's a newspaper's primary job to tell us about things that are n-o-t working right and may harm or threaten people, animals, nature and/or the environment.
Who else would do it with a reach of mass proportions if legitimate news organizations didn't?
The problem is that there's just so much dire news out there at present that it seems to rain down upon us at almost every turn. And that's hardly the fault of the Times, other legitimate newspapers or outlets.
There are certainly positive stories to be told, and they are. But who would read a full and constant diet of them?
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@René Pedraza Del Prado - US Veteran
I was just thinking the same thing. Waking up to a dozen articles about the impeachment inquiry and more Juul coverage. Yeah, we need to know about this stuff, but does all the front page real estate need to be devoted to it?
1
@René Pedraza Del Prado - US Veteran I hear you, I just don’t think it’s in our DNA. It’s real hard to be hopeful right now. The look on Greta’s face when she saw the evil one made me smile for a minute.
5
Thanks Juul for giving young Americans pretty poison! See you soon in an upcoming litigation.
14
What damages are done to those vaping nicotine (not THC)? Name one study. You have a sample size 10.8MM.
4
@Russell - What damages? A fierce addiction that will be difficult to overcome.
1
Ban all cigarettes, and vaping products period. This is a no brainer. Cigarettes are as evil as opioids.
Why we allow cancer sticks to be sold at Walgreens for examples a health and wellness store?!
16
If nicotine is the addictive substance, why not slowly reduce the amount of legal levels of this drug allowed in products, and therefore wean off people en masse.
3
@Nope
Or maybe make it outright illegal to sell all nicotine products so that it will be difficult for young persons to start the habit altogether.
@Oh My or hoe about we let adults choose for themselves what they wish to do? Sorry but underage victims are just collateral damage.
2
Juul, the WeWork of tobacco. Also not a tech company but somehow fooled Altria by its San Francisco address and growth promise into overpaying and is now a candidate to be the worst corporate merger in history.
3
Hold the executives, and those who signed off on the marketing plan, accountable. So many young people have been damaged by their greed.
21
Now the real danger comes: counterfeit E cigarettes that are made in China. I predict that these will be available in the US quite soon, if they are not already. And heaven knows what sort of toxic, deadly waste products will be inhaled by those who purchase them.
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@David H
Same toxic, deadly waste products that people knowingly and voluntarily inhale every time they light a cigarette.
It's unbelievable that people do this to themselves, and that we allow them to spew toxins in the air and cigarette butts littering every corner of our planet.
6
@David H Sure let's throw some racism or xenophobia into the mix. I get my nicotine solution from China. Vaping it compared to smoking is like drinking water from a clear spring compared to drinking water from a muddy puddle. When I smoked the feeling in my throat and chest and my poor fitness told me I was obviously hurting my health. Those feelings are gone and I'm much fitter now that I'm vaping.
@David H . Juul products are made in China. And China has no regulation or motivation to keep god-knows-what out of them. That's the point.
1
Only Philip Morris could saddle themselves to a product that is less safe than cigarettes. I could never work for these merchants of death.
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@Deirdre the only unsafe products are the black market THC cartridges that contain viatmin e oil. These are NOT tied to the nicotine pods that are manufactured by JUUL, BLU, and other e-cigarette companies.
1
Meanwhile, one can still walk into a supermarket and buy a pack of cigarettes.
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@Miss Anne Thrope
And foods loaded with sugar or trans-fats.
6
Kids are able to buy cigarettes. Not legally, but they're getting them anyway.
2
Amazing to watch the tumult over a half dozen deaths from e-cigarettes when hundreds of thousands, millions around the world, die harrowing, torturous deaths from the real thing.
Plus, the real thing kills innocents, non-smokers forced to indulge in the habit thanks to careless smokers in the same air space.
(As a stand up comic once said as part of his act, paraphrasing to edit out profanity, “if smokers don’t care about themselves, why on Earth would they care about anyone else?”)
Is it about the billions raked in by cigarette manufacturers and which politicians get paid off? Or the billions more harvested by our corrupt health care system that sees ill health as a business opportunity (and which politicians get paid off?)
Seems a huge blind spot and disparity between the way these two related addictions are treated. A being from another planet would be dumbfounded trying to find any logic in this.
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@Ben K Ben, it's not all about the deaths, it's the shock of of parents and teachers discovering teens are addicted to nicotine from out of nowhere. And again, it's neither nor - that's the vaping propaganda, the majority of these millions of teens would have never gone near regular cigarettes. BIg tobacco has coming roaring back thanks to vaping. JUUL and others simply exploited a way to get to them.
4
@Ben K . Almost 50% of e-cigarette users also smoke and consume much more nicotine. The rest are children. There is no evidence e-cigarettes have any public health benefit at this time.
2
@Ben K I'm with you Ben. I wouldn't have thought this hysteria was possible in the US regarding vaping products. It seems to me that vaping companies are being blamed for the failure of US governments to regulate them properly. Then there is the conflation of the deaths from use of solutions produced by rogue operators - still not identified at this stage - containing oil and the massive take-up of vaping by teens using Juul products. Let's be clear: no-one has died from using Juul products, the UK's NHS believes vaping involves "a fraction of the risk" of smoking, and many of the teens now using Juul products would have taken up smoking instead if they weren't available for sale, and will do so if they are removed from sale.
3
This is what market forces do. Vaping could have spread more organically, and the spread would have stabilized over time. The shady marketing, influx of bad players etc is driven by investor interests.
2
This needs to be combined with a ban of all flavored conventional cigarettes, or there will be a spike in smoking rates among both former menthol cigarette smokers who moved to menthol vaping products, and children who have been vaping and are now addicted to nicotine. Those people are not just going to quit cold turkey and will turn to conventional cigarettes which are just as easily available, and the increase will be especially visible among high schoolers.
30
Good for Massachusetts for taking strong action against vaping - a four month suspension of the sale of any vaping products starting immediately.
Martha Coakley, the former AG in Massachusetts, signed on a few months to be the head of Juul's national lobbying team.
As usual, she had made the wrong call at the wrong time.
16
@Cousy
No, it was a foolish shortsighted move. Pure feel-good Charlie Baker nonsense. The ban covers nicotine as well as both medical and recreational cartridges. Many THC cartridges contain pure extract only, not any of the additives that are suspected of causing the illness. This will absolutely drive people to black market problems which will surely have more adverse effects. Let alone the extremely low incidence of this health issue which is being blown way out of proportion by the media.
15
@Cousy
A four month suspension of the sale of any vaping product may lead to those who have a nicotine addiction a.) going back to, or b.) beginning to rely on old fashioned cigarettes to fulfill their craving. More money back to big tobacco.
4
Too little, too late.
Teens are already hooked.
We're seeing problems now (vaping lung, etc.) but imagine what we're going to see 30-40 years down the line.
Just like cigarettes...
75
The kids who are already hooked will turn to conventional flavored cigarettes, and we will see a spike in smoking rates. At a bare minimum we should ban all flavored tobacco products or this isn't going to solve the issue and we will have erased decades of efforts at reducing teen smoking, and be back at square one.
10
@Ken How about just enforcing laws against selling to minors, and actually enforce the laws in the schools, and let adults do what they wish?
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@Alan Hamde There was a time when this was a reasonable thought but we are all connected now, by health insurance, and we all pay for the costs of cigarettes effects.
10