Live data from Hacker News

Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

bloomberg.com

71–80 of 151 posts

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to roll a cigarette either, but I think most people buy them in stores.

The entire point of the original comment was limiting underage consumption. Not sure what this proves.

You can change a lot of things before the market moves underground. You increase cigarette taxes and smoking rates go down [0]. It could have moved underground, since it doesn't take a rocket scientist to roll one, but it didn't because that's not the dominant factor. If the flavor really really matters to people maybe what you said will happen, but I'd bet against that.

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the 'big names' companies like 'Juul' and 'Blu' are heavily invested in by 'Big Tobacco'. These are the companies you see in gas stations and convenience stores across the America. But these big companies can't compete with all the Vape Shops that are insanely popular and are everywhere. This is why there is just a big hubbub over regulation and the deaths over black market Marijuana cartridges. These massive cor…

Thank you for this. I have struggled with addiction my whole life and switched to a tank based e-cig seven years ago and have not had a full cigarette since. I say fill cigarette because I use fruit flavored liquids and it helped me develop an aversion to the taste of Tobacco and smoke. A few years ago I had a few drags of a cigarette at a party and it made me want to throw up. Not saying what I do is harmless, but i…

When I smoked, I was addicted to (Korean) menthols while normal cigarettes would make me puke. So there is definitely something going on there.

I don’t vape, but if they banned flavored liquids, they better ban menthol cigarettes as well.

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All the 'big names' companies like 'Juul' and 'Blu' are heavily invested in by 'Big Tobacco'. These are the companies you see in gas stations and convenience stores across the America. But these big companies can't compete with all the Vape Shops that are insanely popular and are everywhere. This is why there is just a big hubbub over regulation and the deaths over black market Marijuana cartridges. These massive cor…

The UK picture is the big tobacco brands are everywhere and so ludicrously expensive. Yet barely sell, and don't get much point of sale love from the retailer. They feel like a line their tobacco rep gave them a discount to carry, yes just about everywhere. £1-£1.50 for 10ml in a vape shop, £1 in the Poundshop and discounters, £4-£5 in a corner shop or petrol station. You can wait out vaping 100x easier than waiting…

The tar and burning sensation were probably just as important as nicotine in building an addiction. This is why nicotine gum doesn’t do it for many people, and why vaping is more effective for smoking cessation (the steam effect brings back some of the burning tar feel, while you have something to hold...).

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#74

Smokers switching to ecigs is a good thing. Significantly proved health outcomes. But kids adopting flavored ecigs and beginning smoking is horrible. So we need to limit ecigs to the first use case and minimize the second otherwise ecigs/vaping could be an overall net negative. So I do strongly favor no advertising at all and no flavors or colors except mentol or something else which appeals to existing smokers.

Fruity flavors were a life-saver for me, because it allowed me to distance myself from tobacco flavor so much, that it made me nauseous when I would try to smoke a real cigarette again. It just so happens that the "something else which appeals to existing smokers", e.g., fruity flavors, may also be appealing to non-smokers. However, I don't see that as a strong enough argument to ban them.

I know several adults who vape, and none of them choose plain tobacco flavors. I understand that marketing to teens is horrible, but the argument that all flavored vapes should be banned doesn't make any sense to me. If Stoli decided they wanted to market blueberry vodka to teens, go after the company, don't ban all fruit flavored liquor!

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#75

And he is being replaced by a former Marlboro employee. I am sure the public will feel so much safer knowing that the advertising will be handled by a Big Tobacco veteran moving forward.

All the 'big names' companies like 'Juul' and 'Blu' are heavily invested in by 'Big Tobacco'. These are the companies you see in gas stations and convenience stores across the America. But these big companies can't compete with all the Vape Shops that are insanely popular and are everywhere. This is why there is just a big hubbub over regulation and the deaths over black market Marijuana cartridges. These massive cor…

States tend to increase per pack taxes because of the reduction in smoking. They don't engage in revenue maximization.

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/25/health/juul-teens-vaping.... > In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.” > Other schools across the country were offered $10,000 from the e-cigarette company for the right to talk to students in classrooms or after school. > In Richmo…

Given the way teenagers don’t really fawn over authority figures, this seems like the most counterproductive thing they could have done. Stupid.

It can be selective. I suspect some teens will happily accept an authority figure who says "ignore your parents and health teachers, who say vaping is bad". Juul certainly seemed to think it was worth the money.

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#77
post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Children are not equipped to make these sorts of choices about their health, regardless of what libertarians may tell you.

It’s not libertarians claiming that children can make their own life-changing healthcare decisions.

Who is?

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#78
I have a very mixed reaction to all the e-cigarette shenanigans.

There's part of me that feels like it's a health corollary to the Jevons Paradox, if you make nicotine delivery potentially less damaging, it would stand to follow you lower the risk barrier and might end up with more nicotine users than you started with.

I'm def not in high school anymore, and maybe for that reason, the messaging I've personally seen from Juul does is entirely different. Literally the only stuff I've seen from Juul in the wild has been,

* "If you weren't already smoking, don't use Juul" * "we support any effort to raise the minimum age of purchasing nicotine products to 21 (T21 laws)"

I certainly wouldn't be taken aback if this were just one face of a many-faced beast, and with the other hand they were trying to cultivate a new generation of customers.

But it's with a sort of bemused annoyance that the common refrain I've heard from activists and public policy folks ends up converging at "Juul should have never existed." The cynic in me thinks it wonderful if all our problems had the decency to never exist. It just seems aggravating of all issues, the wheels of the machine politic turn so freely for flavored e-cigarettes.

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the way teenagers don’t really fawn over authority figures, this seems like the most counterproductive thing they could have done. Stupid.

It can be selective. I suspect some teens will happily accept an authority figure who says "ignore your parents and health teachers, who say vaping is bad". Juul certainly seemed to think it was worth the money.

I disagree, they could care less. This has very little to do with what drive teen vice use, the danger/badness is part of the equation. If you take away cigarettes and vaping, they’ll just move on to marijuana or heroin, or maybe glue. Nothing about “what’s healthy” is driving their choice here.

Re: Juul Labs CEO to Step Down

#80
post #5

Also, (forgive me if I get the jargon wrong here...) isn't the vaping health crisis the article mentions due to sketchy THC vaping solutions that have Vitamin E oil in them? Not Juul's nicotine stuff? I.e. because THC isn't water-soluble, it has to be suspended/dissolved in some oil-based thing. Lipids + lungs = BAD.

Yes, the vaping deaths almost certainly are from black market, contaminated THC pods/cartridges.

But why let a few facts get in the way of perfectly good outrage?

Note: I'm not a smoker, but I feel strongly that vaping has the potential to dramatically decrease smoking deaths. More research is needed in lieu of the current media and government-driven hysteria.

Post reply on HN