Live data from Hacker News

E-Cigarette Maker Juul Labs Is Raising $1.2B

bloomberg.com

71–80 of 133 posts

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

#71
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

E-cigs didn't destroy the kid's market for traditional cigarettes, though. When I was in high school (right before vaping took off), smoking was only "cool" for a small subsection of the school. For everyone else, it was a stupid thing and kinda trashy. I'm guessing that the set of high school aged kids who would have picked up cigarette smoking if not for vaping is really quite small. So, we worked for decades to el…

Is there really evidence of an uptick in kids smoking traditional cigs due to vaping?

Even if there was, traditional cigarettes are on their way out, and what we are left with is something as dangerous as coffee and a bit more expensive.

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

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High schools too, it's amazing how many kids use juul. I think a lot of them aren't even aware it's nicotine.

They know, they don’t care. It was hard enough to convince people, especially kids, that smoking was bad for you and that was with something that made you hack up yellow slugs, and stank. I would guess that convincing people that vaping nicotine is harmful decades before the harm is readily apparent, in ways that are not well studied will be essentially impossible. Juul is just the perfect intersection of portable, c…

There is startlingly little evidence that pure doses of nicotine are harmful without smoke.

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

#73
I have heard that you can’t find a stall to save your life at my kid’s high school because they are all constantly being used by Juul-ers. One has to wonder whether this is a good idea, hooking kids on nicotine, even if it’s free of smoke.

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

#74

Very dubious about the long term health effects of e-cigarettes. Unfortunately, a startup can move much faster than proper regulation. I hope I'm wrong.

E-cigs have been on sale for like a decade now. What kind of regulations are you hoping for?

Hopefully regulations that spell out the dangers of nicotine addiction (which are non zero) and which protect children to the maximum extent possible. Take a leaf from Canada’s new Cannabis Act, which is incredibly harsh on those who sell and distribute to minors.

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

#75
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They know, they don’t care. It was hard enough to convince people, especially kids, that smoking was bad for you and that was with something that made you hack up yellow slugs, and stank. I would guess that convincing people that vaping nicotine is harmful decades before the harm is readily apparent, in ways that are not well studied will be essentially impossible. Juul is just the perfect intersection of portable, c…

There is startlingly little evidence that pure doses of nicotine are harmful without smoke.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/

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

#76
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They know, they don’t care. It was hard enough to convince people, especially kids, that smoking was bad for you and that was with something that made you hack up yellow slugs, and stank. I would guess that convincing people that vaping nicotine is harmful decades before the harm is readily apparent, in ways that are not well studied will be essentially impossible. Juul is just the perfect intersection of portable, c…

There is startlingly little evidence that pure doses of nicotine are harmful without smoke.

Everyone in here is caught up in the physical harm of smoking. Celebrating moving from cigarettes to eCigs. I'll admit that's important. But for me, most of the harm cigarettes have (and also eCigs) is not how bad is it on your physical health.

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

#77
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methadone is safer than heroin and is widely used in substitution therapy. Either way, the bulk of health damage from smoking was from the complimentary products of burning. You ain't getting lung cancer from nicotine.

As far as I remember you are getting cancer, although at a lower risk, at least accordingly to some study posted here in the past that I can’t pinpoint right now.

Here's one :) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/

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

#78
post #33
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…

There are a lot of people who weren't smoking at all starting to vape as well. I would consider that a pretty big lose.

Why? There’s no way nicotine inhalers are as harmful as drinking alcohol. The research on nicotine’s health effects qua nicotine is about as strong as that for caffeine. The long term health effects are small and ambiguous.

The negative health effects from smoking are from inhaling burning plant matter, overwhelmingly. If we go from the current rate of smoking to 100% of adults vaping the health effects on a population level would still look good. Smoking is really bad, vaping is new, stupid and may in the long run have some negative effects on your health but we don’t have any strong evidence it does.

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

#79
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression is that nicotine is "essentially" harmless but caffeine is actually harmless, maybe even good for you (kind of like a glass of red wine a week).

Try taking a whole bunch of caffeine pills, definitely not harmless.

The dose makes the poison and tablets are about the only way you could overdose on caffeine. Your stomach will be telling you to stop long before you get to 40 cups, which isn’t enough for a healthy adult to overdose on.

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

#80
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

E-cigs didn't destroy the kid's market for traditional cigarettes, though. When I was in high school (right before vaping took off), smoking was only "cool" for a small subsection of the school. For everyone else, it was a stupid thing and kinda trashy. I'm guessing that the set of high school aged kids who would have picked up cigarette smoking if not for vaping is really quite small. So, we worked for decades to el…

Because the entire human experience shouldn't be an exercise in neurotic min/maxing and risk avoidance. I'd rather live in a world where people occasionally smoke or gamble or have unprotected sex than one where everyone is driven by Type A obsession with health and money and living forever.

If a kid picks up a nagging but ultimately harmless nicotine habit, is that really the end of the world? Given what we know so far about vaping and its safety, I'd say you could make an argument for the pleasure of flavored nicotine outweighing the annoyance of addiction.

Post reply on HN