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 this New Yorker article to understand the cultural phenomenon: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/05/14/the-promise-of...
People use them for starting to smoke just as much as stopping and they are also heavily used for non-nicotine products as well. I don't hold any moral judgements on the brand, or customers, but I was not going to spend my effort helping that become a bigger company.
You confused your personal morality, which seems more based on "would this rule benefit everyone applied universally" with the question you were asked, which is of the "does this provide the greatest good to the greatest amount of people" variety.
It's _possible_ that in the end, ecigs are not a net positive for humanity. But that is a belief without firm proof. They could be twice as addictive, but if they kill only 1/3 of us that cigs did, they'll be a net benefit. And 1/3 the lethality of cigarettes seems to be a drastic overestimation of their harm from the evidence we have right now.
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-term, net good to society the way it’s heading now.
These chemicals are approved as food additives, though.
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.
Juul is just the perfect intersection of portable, concealable, and apparently consequence-free. Kids will use it, and I don’t see a way around it. Good luck to the poor little bastards.
If these figures are well grounded in evidence then... probably yes.
It's possible to get unflavored e-cigarette juice, and when I was using an e-cigarette (i switched to gum) i tried to get it as often as I could. But it's really uncommon, most shops don't even have one, and the one i went to was often sold out.
I don't see how anyone gains from this, other than Juul's investors.
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 gap on attempts versus quits, I really think there's a no-lose situation.
All it took was self-prepared mixes, higher in nicotine, very low in aromas and those tobacco-like, vg/pg mix just as I like it.
Came out about fifteen times cheaper than the off-the-shelf juices. Compared to the cost of cigs, even not counting health effects, vape is about two orders of magnitude cheaper.
Now I dare someone tell me that 30+ 8mg cigs a day are somehow less harmful than ~8cc of vape.
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 they're getting a lot of heat over their advertising tactics now.
Do you have evidence of this? From what I've read (the report I saw last had data in 2016), e-cig use is way up but general tobacco use among youth hasn't significantly changed.
Is benzoic acid a carcinogen?
It is considered safe only at less than a .1% concentration in a finished product (Source) When benzoic acid and vitamin C (ascorbic acid) or citric acid are present, under the right conditions of heat and light, these two ingredients can combine to create the known carcinogen, benzene.
Aside from that, what bothers me with Juul and makes it possible for a competitor to potentially usurp them, even after the momentum they have behind them is how inconsistent the pod quality is. Let alone leaking, the pods degrade really quickly and juice sometimes seems to disappear. The liquid changes color and develops dark filaments even after less than a day passed since taking it out of its packaging.
I hope I'm wrong.
* [1] - https://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/is-vaping-really...
Nicotine is highly addictive, but in itself does not kill you (at the amounts smokers/vapers are intaking it).
What kills you is the delivery mechanism. We have plenty of data for how the "burning up dried tobacco leaves" delivery mechanism kills you. However, currently, we have very little data regarding how propylene glycol does or does not kill you in the long term. That is the big open question when it comes to vaping.
2. Salt-based nicotine provides increased nicotine absorption and juul patented that. It's literally more addictive.
3. It blew the competition out if the water. The other ecig devices offered at convenience stores were underpowered, poor performing, and obviously low effort.
4. Distribution. Getting into convenience stores and gas stations was pivotal to their success but arguably the product quality drove distribution.
5. The device is sexy looking. It's a fashion statement.
A third party can't even tell their is anything special about your gum. So you would think it could be popular among high-school students and people on the air plane and the other situations that don't allow vapor clouds.
