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E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

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Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#21

Post by Jarwain »

pm90 wrote: post #12
vanadium wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who quit a 17-year cigarette habit for vaping starting in the early-ish days (2011, and it's come so far since then), nicotine salts might be the answer to those who relapse from trying to quit via vaping because it "didn't feel right." Quite frankly, the narrative to smokers who want to quit from vapers who have has been "it's different, but be patient"; if a closer analogue gets out there that closes the…

Is it really any better than smoking? I believe nicotine itself is the carcinogen, correct? Not just the ash and other byproducts of burning...

Yes it's quite a lot better than smoking.

Vaporization of juice is better on your lungs compared to inhaling smoke and tar. Less to get clogged. Nicotine itself has been shown to be significantly less addictive combared to Tobacco. Theories for this typically involve the fact that there's more than just nicotine in tobacco. There's a chemical in tobacco smoke, the name escapes me at the moment, that acts as an MAOI, reinforcing the effects of nicotine.

This isn't to say that nicotine is harmless. Rather that the consumption of nicotine via vaporization is Less Harmful compared to smoking tobacco.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#22

Post by colordrops »

aphextron wrote: post #16
robertpelloni wrote: post #4

For those who don't know, Juul is the inventor of the "salted nicotine" vaping trend which makes the nicotine spike much faster in the bloodstream than earlier vape juice, which is more like cigarettes. They have a patent but it appears to be ignored by the vape industry as "nicotine salts" are widely available (added benzoic acid). The nicotine level is also much higher, allowing for lower wattage devices and smalle…

> I think this technology is great if it can reduce the harm of smoking and get people off of cigarettes. I think this was the initial hope for e-cigs, but reality has turned out differently. These things are leading to a whole new generation of nicotine addicts at a time when smoking has fallen to all time lows in the US. Juul particularly is getting kids hooked that otherwise would have never touched tobacco, and t…

Getting everyone off very poisonous deadly substances is a fair tradeoff for getting new people hooked on something as dangerous as coffee.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#23

Post by stefan_ »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #11
gringoDan wrote: post #3

I wonder how good it is for public health if Juul is able to grow this market. Do the health benefits from cigarette smokers switching to e-cigarettes offset the young people who never would have dreamt of smoking cigarettes heavily, but regularly use Juul? I had no idea how pervasive Juul was for college students until my sister told me that multiple people were "Juul-ing" in all of her classes. Highly recommend thi…

That’s a great article, and rather eye-opening. Juul may help cigarette smokers get away from tobacco, but wow — stories about teens and young adults taking Juul hits every 10-15 minutes are something else. That’s just plain addiction, taking them far beyond the threshold of diminishing returns, even for caffeine-like self-medication. There’s definitely a lot of money in creating addictions... this can’t be a long-te…

Kids taking Juul hits every 10-15 minutes are not driving and are not drinking alcohol, so there is your public health benefit already, mostly in the former.

If you're gonna be opposed to some fidget spinner infatuation on "think about the kids" public health concerns, start at what actually kills kids.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#24

Post by robertpelloni »

aphextron wrote: post #16
robertpelloni wrote: post #4

For those who don't know, Juul is the inventor of the "salted nicotine" vaping trend which makes the nicotine spike much faster in the bloodstream than earlier vape juice, which is more like cigarettes. They have a patent but it appears to be ignored by the vape industry as "nicotine salts" are widely available (added benzoic acid). The nicotine level is also much higher, allowing for lower wattage devices and smalle…

> I think this technology is great if it can reduce the harm of smoking and get people off of cigarettes. I think this was the initial hope for e-cigs, but reality has turned out differently. These things are leading to a whole new generation of nicotine addicts at a time when smoking has fallen to all time lows in the US. Juul particularly is getting kids hooked that otherwise would have never touched tobacco, and t…

As someone who smoked cigarettes and then quit by switching to vaping and weaning myself off, I can give anecdotal firsthand testimony that quitting vaping was much easier than quitting cigarettes. It's hard to say if some new vapers would have been smokers or not, and I agree that really none of it should be legal. But while any nicotine is legal, my personal experience gives me the opinion that vaping is a product which does indeed provide harm reduction.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#25

Post by singingfish »

aphextron wrote: post #16
robertpelloni wrote: post #4

For those who don't know, Juul is the inventor of the "salted nicotine" vaping trend which makes the nicotine spike much faster in the bloodstream than earlier vape juice, which is more like cigarettes. They have a patent but it appears to be ignored by the vape industry as "nicotine salts" are widely available (added benzoic acid). The nicotine level is also much higher, allowing for lower wattage devices and smalle…

> I think this technology is great if it can reduce the harm of smoking and get people off of cigarettes. I think this was the initial hope for e-cigs, but reality has turned out differently. These things are leading to a whole new generation of nicotine addicts at a time when smoking has fallen to all time lows in the US. Juul particularly is getting kids hooked that otherwise would have never touched tobacco, and t…

I'm not able to accept this without decent evidence. There's some pretty clear psychopharmacology related to burning tobacco that is absent for ecigs. Specifically one of the byproducts of burning tobacco is a compound related to early anti-depressants - a mono amine oxidase inhibitor. The effect of this compound seems to be to potentiate the addictiveness of nicotine. That is move its addictiveness from O(n) similar to caffeine to greater than heroin (citations available). This is why the buzz you don't really get a buzz from ecigs that you get from cigarettes, and also why people who are using ecigs to give up smoking should initially start with a very high nicotine concentration (i.e. as high as they can tolerate) to saturate their system, so a relapse to cigarettes does not give any satisfaction. Additionally at low doses typical of ecig use, nicotine seems to be about as harmful as caffeine. It's the byproducts of combustion that seem to be the real problem.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#26

Post by danieltillett »

My concern is more about the young age of many of the new users and the perception that vaping is safe. While I don’t doubt that vaping is much safer than smoking, I am not sure if I want to see 13 year olds vaping given it appears to be just as addictive as smoking.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#27

Post by pnloyd »

robertpelloni wrote: post #24
aphextron wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this technology is great if it can reduce the harm of smoking and get people off of cigarettes. I think this was the initial hope for e-cigs, but reality has turned out differently. These things are leading to a whole new generation of nicotine addicts at a time when smoking has fallen to all time lows in the US. Juul particularly is getting kids hooked that otherwise would have never touched tobacco, and t…

As someone who smoked cigarettes and then quit by switching to vaping and weaning myself off, I can give anecdotal firsthand testimony that quitting vaping was much easier than quitting cigarettes. It's hard to say if some new vapers would have been smokers or not, and I agree that really none of it should be legal. But while any nicotine is legal, my personal experience gives me the opinion that vaping is a product…

Right, and your personal experience would probably be the same as other _pre-existing_ smokers trying to quit, and it would be providing harm reduction if it worked for you.

But doea the harm reduction to pre-existing smokers outweigh the increased uptake in youth populations?

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#28

Post by gervase »

blowski wrote: post #18
Nursie wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

e-cigs have been proclaimed as between 95 and 99% less harmful than smoking, by some health charities. If these figures are well grounded in evidence then... probably yes.

Is it better to have 10 kids smoking traditional cigarettes, or 1000 using Juul? But perhaps that's a false dichotomy. My worry is that by creating new addictions, we will end up with 1000 using Juul AND 100 kids smoking traditional cigarettes. I don't see how anyone gains from this, other than Juul's investors.

Given the existing socioeconomic patterns of smoking [0], I think this is the most likely scenario. Given a Venn diagram of people who smoke (low socioeconomic status) and people who "Juul" (high socioeconomic status [1]), the overlap in users is likely quite small.

It doesn't seem like they're cannibalizing an existing market, as much as they are forging a new one.

[0]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22092035 [1]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/the-promise-of...

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#29

Post by Splines »

stefan_ wrote: post #23
TimTheTinker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a great article, and rather eye-opening. Juul may help cigarette smokers get away from tobacco, but wow — stories about teens and young adults taking Juul hits every 10-15 minutes are something else. That’s just plain addiction, taking them far beyond the threshold of diminishing returns, even for caffeine-like self-medication. There’s definitely a lot of money in creating addictions... this can’t be a long-te…

Kids taking Juul hits every 10-15 minutes are not driving and are not drinking alcohol, so there is your public health benefit already, mostly in the former. If you're gonna be opposed to some fidget spinner infatuation on "think about the kids" public health concerns, start at what actually kills kids.

If you're going to pick something to say "Kids doing X don't drink a drive", vaping would probably be pretty low on that list.

Re: E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

#30

Post by TimTheTinker »

stefan_ wrote: post #23
TimTheTinker wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a great article, and rather eye-opening. Juul may help cigarette smokers get away from tobacco, but wow — stories about teens and young adults taking Juul hits every 10-15 minutes are something else. That’s just plain addiction, taking them far beyond the threshold of diminishing returns, even for caffeine-like self-medication. There’s definitely a lot of money in creating addictions... this can’t be a long-te…

Kids taking Juul hits every 10-15 minutes are not driving and are not drinking alcohol, so there is your public health benefit already, mostly in the former. If you're gonna be opposed to some fidget spinner infatuation on "think about the kids" public health concerns, start at what actually kills kids.

> start at what actually kills kids

Sounds like you’re categorically ignoring whatever negative things don’t directly kill people... well-being encompasses a lot more than not dying.

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