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Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

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161–170 of 247 posts

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay. But there's a double standard when it comes to food. Why do fat people get a pass? Why is it legal to eat cheeseburgers and drink soda? The health risks from obesity are statistically just as bad as smoking. It's the leading cause of preventable death in the US. 1/3 of America is obese. It's a larger problem than smoking, statistically. I don't smoke or vape. But it's a glaring double standard. McDonalds can ma…

Because you have to eat, and eating a Big Mac isn't unhealthy. Eating a Big Mac several times a week is. You don't have to intake nicotine, at all.

> Big Mac isn’t unhealthy

Neither is nicotine, necessarily. Neither is smoking if it isn’t done long term and on a regular basis. But of course people who eat Big Macs tend to do it more than occasionally.

People don’t have to intake sugar. They don’t have to intake meat either.

You think I’m being facetious, but I’m dead serious. I’ve lost one family member to obesity and another suffers from type 2 diabetes.

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes down to personality and biochemistry, not everyone is that hooked on the stuff. If you ban everything that is addictive you end up doing a disservice to people who can handle the substance or item in question. Banning addictive substances because some people can't handle them goes against my philosophy of the purpose of government. Do we need some kind of super-citizen test where you have to prove your knowl…

This isn't legal advice, but a lot of the restrictions around buying and using explosives on your own land for personal purposes is waived for binary explosives. You can go and buy tannerite, mix it on-site, and use it as an explosive firearms target and blow stuff up. Zero licensing required to do this. NB: Do not do this if you have a felony conviction since this that makes it a crime.

I just read Ignition! so I have lots of ideas about doing irresponsible things which are fundamentally incompatible with a Mountain View apartment. Converting a bit of a cornfield into a rocket test stand is a reasonable thing to do, right?

But if anyone wants a remote employee in a central time zone moving back to the family farm so I have a few hundred acres to screw around with instead of about 20 sq ft...

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#163
post #74

> 28% of high school students this year said they had used an e-cigarette at least once in the past 30 days Holy smokes! If you look at data from a few years ago [1] that's more than double what you'd see for cigarette smoking (eyeballing the numbers here, the data is more granular). Is it easier for kids to get e-cigs than cigarettes? Or do they just want them more? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK294302/table…

Here's data that shows vaping has wiped out almost 20 years of reductions in teen smoking. https://www.motherjones.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/blog_...

That chart is incredible

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t get behind this argument when we live in an economy driven by a massive industry of personalized marketing and advertising. You espouse free will as if it’s some absolute, but studies show that human behavior is primarily the product of environment and is, to an extent, easy to predict the likelihood of someone becoming a smoker based on their age, race, income and zip code. How can we justify giving mega cor…

You're talking about marketing, I'm talking about availability of products. I don't think anybody is going around discussing the philosophy of government because they're concerned that they aren't free enough to be advertised to. There is a marked difference between governments interfering with an individual's freedom to act on themselves and interfering with an individual's freedom to manipulate the actions of other…

They absolutely do have this. Juul has spent millions marketing on the internet and social media, and recently was advertising on TV until the networks began to refuse ads _within the last week_.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/business/juul-vaping-ads-...

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#165

Vaping under 18, I get it, you’re young and dumb and succumbed to peer pressure. It happened to the best of us. But vaping after 30? It’s like they’re saying: Hey I want you to take me seriously while I am willfully destroying my body in front of you. If you don’t care about yourself, you can’t be trusted to care about anything.

If that's your thoughts on vapers then I can't imagine how low your opinion of cigarette smokers must go.

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to stop research into super-heroin as a product in that world? Just come up with the most psyche-abusive substance possible and enjoy an army of essentially slaves. People with the notion that free will is some sort of absolute confuse the heck out of me. I guess sibling post is right, it's just an issue of fundamental worldview being different.

The government banning tobacco from sale is the same sort of free-will exercise by humans for humans as is me banning tobacco from my own body, just on different levels. The government can just as well have "addiction" problems with things that are bad for the population which are supported by the population. The difference isn't free-will or not, it is only the level on which it is applied. I prefer personal free wi…

Banning plants has always been highly effective... it worked for weed, blow and of course heron. Highly effective ;)

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#167

Vaping under 18, I get it, you’re young and dumb and succumbed to peer pressure. It happened to the best of us. But vaping after 30? It’s like they’re saying: Hey I want you to take me seriously while I am willfully destroying my body in front of you. If you don’t care about yourself, you can’t be trusted to care about anything.

That's a very short sighed view of addiction.

Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#168

A tainted, unregulated THC product killed people. That is bad. That does not mean we should immediately ban all vaping devices. There should be long term studies done on devices and juices in order to determine health effects, and there should be audits on vape juice manufacturers to make sure they aren’t putting really bad stuff in them. I don’t understand the moral panic. Marketing nicotine products to kids may be…

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Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#169
post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Not really sure what the prosecutors could glean from this in terms of hard evidence of a crime. That's why it's called an investigation, you follow leads not knowing whether they will pay off.

It is called snitching. Do not report people when you are not clear what the crime is and who the victim is. It wastes taxpayer money on needless investigations.

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Re: Federal Prosecutors Conducting Criminal Probe of Juul

#170
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why is it easier to buy juul pods than a pack of cigarettes? There are non-nicotine pods. And they have all of the social addictiveness even if they don't have actual nicotine in them.

if there’s no nicotine, then who cares? Magic the Gathering cards and pogs were addicting back in the day, but kids could still buy them.

Because you don't breathe playing cards into your lungs?
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