The Price of Cool: A Teenager, a Juul, and Nicotine Addiction
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
The media has also failed it’s obligations. Most news articles are practically advertisements for e-cigarettes, promoting them as smoking cessation tools and practically harmless compared to other tobacco products. They are not FDA approved and the evidence for their efficacy and safety is sketchy at best.
There are millions more people addicted to nicotine that never would have been absent vaping. We were winning the war, thanks to sound policy moves. E-cigarettes might be an okay solution for helping smokers to quit smoking. But the easy availability and marketing has led to an absolute and total epidemic, and no one seems to care.
People get incredibly defensive about this. I've been met with outright denial that it was even a possibility. Go back through my commenting history even on HN, and you'll see people telling me kids will never start vaping because "well, it's not cool." You get told well, look at all these people that quit smoking. That's great! But I don't see why it was necessary to trade smoking cessation among older cohorts for vaping addiction in teenagers. We have a massive public policy failure on our hands, and it's not getting better.
The only thing we can say is well, at least the public health crisis won't be as bad as what we had with cigarettes. Okay. But we didn't have to have one at all. E-cig companies (many of which are actually owned by the old tobacco giants) have successfully ensnared a whole new generation of addicts.
Now, tons of progress has been erased because these e-cigarette brands, some of them owned by the old tobacco companies, were allowed to get around all those restrictions. The FDA completely dropped the ball and moved in way, way too late. Sale to minors wasn't even banned federally until 2016!
This just puts some of them back in place so, once again, we can start working the problem down.
> The new regulations will pull vaping devices from stores and make it more difficult for those who do need them, thus making them go back to using cigarettes.
What proposed regulation are you claiming makes it harder for an adult to buy e-cigs? The FDA's tepid response was that flavored e-cigs must be sold in a closed-off area. That's it. Nevermind that part of the FDA's problem is that e-cigarette manufacturers were able to resist regulation by claiming in court they were not a nicotine replacement therapy, but in fact a new tobacco product for people who did not want to quit.
> Ever heard of the opioid / heroin epidemic that actually results in death and much worse health issues?
What happened to people making their own informed choices and putting what they want in their bodies?
Besides that - obviously the existence of other problems does not prevent us from dealing with this one, now. The facts, according to the article, are that our tremendous progress in eradicating nicotine addiction has been dealt a serious setback: millions of kids are addicted, most of whom would not have been smoking cigarettes, and vapers are more likely to become future smokers.
The main reason traditional smoking dropped was not because of prohibition, it's because of education and the fact that we had someone (or a lot of someones) who smoked and we had seen what it did to them. If someone is determined to get their hands on something, they will get it on the black market that you are proposing to create.
> What proposed regulation are you claiming makes it harder for an adult to buy e-cigs?
The removal of flavored e-cigarette devices / tobacco from convenience stores. E-cigarettes are already hidden away in most convenience stores and I've been to hundreds of them across the country on my travels. The FDA needs to stop using my tax dollars to lie to teens with their The Real Cost AD campaign because it is not factual. I would support it if they were not lying to teens and they pushed factual ADs (showing parasites is not factual or genuine). Any teen who has had a Biology or health class will see through that (unless you are proposing we stop factually teaching those things in schools).
> Nevermind that part of the FDA's problem is that e-cigarette manufacturers were able to resist regulation by claiming in court they were not a nicotine replacement therapy, but in fact a new tobacco product for people who did not want to quit.
You need proof to back up that claim.
> Besides that - obviously the existence of other problems does not prevent us from dealing with this one, now. The facts, according to the article, are that our tremendous progress in eradicating nicotine addiction has been dealt a serious setback: millions of kids are addicted, most of whom would not have been smoking cigarettes, and vapers are more likely to become future smokers.
More FUD and bullsh*t claims being made. The only reason vapers would start using cigarettes is if you made e-cigarettes / vaping products difficult to get. All of this could have been avoided if parents talked with their kids, administrators did their bloody jobs and stop lying to teens about the things we don't want them to do. I guess that I was lucky enough to grow up in a time where my parents somewhat cared and I had the freedom to make my own stupid mistakes without authoritarians like you proposing to move the bar of adulthood later and in life.
You are partially responsible for this. Why is it the first response to blame everyone else but it is never the fault of those who are on the front lines (teachers, parents, people in the community)? I am stick and tired of the parents who can't F' talk to their kids ("the government needs to do more!"), school administrators who are not doing their job (last time I checked, having any tobacco / nicotine products on school grounds is quite illegal for both students and faculty : with fines and possible jail time) and the fact that there are much more dire issues in many communities that need to be addressed (maybe the opioid and Heroin epidemic?). The fact that there are much more harmful things that teens can get a hold of should be a priority over this FUD.
> The media has also failed it’s obligations. Most news articles are practically advertisements for e-cigarettes, promoting them as smoking cessation tools and practically harmless compared to other tobacco products. They are not FDA approved and the evidence for their efficacy and safety is sketchy at best.
The media has no obligation to you or me to do anything. E-cigarettes have helped quite a few people I know stop smoking (to the point that they don't even vape anymore). Running factually inaccurate ads like this [1] NSFW is much more harmful than any AD sponsored by big tobacco / e-cigarette companies. Lying to teens is not going to have the desired effect that you are looking for and it's going to make them want to do the opposite. As for the health effects, it is going to be just like anything else that can have undesired / dangerous substances if it comes from a questionable source. I'm sure that e-cigarettes are much better than inhaling traditional combustible cigarettes (I'm not denying that there could be health issues if use continued over X time).
[1] NSFW FDA AD / The Real Cost https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYuyS1Oq8gY
Edit: missing word
The article explicitly discusses how easy it is for teenagers to vape in secret, without parents or teachers knowing. "Matt" in the article was able to keep it a secret from his parents for two years. When his parents found out, they absolutely did talk to him. But he was already an addict.
> having any tobacco / nicotine products on school grounds is quite illegal for both students and faculty : with fines and possible jail time
I don't know where you live, but this certainlky isn't true everywhere. Smoking generally isn't allowed in school buildings anymore (possibly there may be a few schools with old-school faculty smoking lounges, I don't know), but many or most places allow faculty to smoke outside.
This of course ignores the problem with vaping anyway - it's much harder to detect. There's no smoke smell, and vapers often believe they have a right to vape anywhere and everywhere, because "it's not smoke." This is certainly true for kids in school. The article even mentions how the teenagers were avoiding being caught. What are you going to do, strip search every day?
> E-cigarettes have helped quite a few people I know stop smoking
That's great. That doesn't excuse their easy availability and the clear marketing toward children. That's how the media and government need to be held accountable.
> there are much more dire issues in many communities that need to be addressed (maybe the opioid and Heroin epidemic?).
That there are more dire issues doesn't mean we can't tackle less dire ones. The real tragedy is if the government had been on the ball, this would have never been a problem in the first place. E-cigs should have been much more heavily restricted, no flavorings allowed, etc., then people could have still quit smoking and we wouldn't have a teenage nicotine addiction epidemic. As it is, e-cigs have been sold as something basically completely safe and fun, and consequently millions of children are now addicts.
Also, from the article:
> “Nicotine may disrupt the formation of circuits in the brain that control attention and learning,” said Dr. Rachel Boykan, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics at Stony Brook University School of Medicine and an executive member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ section on tobacco control. “And there is a higher risk of them subsequently becoming tobacco smokers.”
E-cigarettes helped your friends stop smoking. Great! But apparently they're helping other people start.
Care to provide a link or example? Because I have yet to see any. Every convenience store that I have been in has most tobacco products hidden and any ADs have just text and no pictures.
> That there are more dire issues doesn't mean we can't tackle less dire ones. The real tragedy is if the government had been on the ball, this would have never been a problem in the first place. E-cigs should have been much more heavily restricted, no flavorings allowed, etc., then people could have still quit smoking and we wouldn't have a teenage nicotine addiction epidemic. As it is, e-cigs have been sold as something basically completely safe and fun, and consequently millions of children are now addicts.
My personal opinion is that you can't expect the government to protect me or you from every single threat. Adding more restrictions, creating a black market and lying is not going to help address this. I still want to see example of ADs that appear to be targeting children to buy e-cigarettes.
> E-cigarettes helped your friends stop smoking. Great! But apparently they're helping other people start.
So, the real question is WHERE are they getting them since all sources require an ID to get them and making them more illegal or difficult to get most likely won't stop them from getting them.
My opinion is that energy would be better spent at addressing immediate health issues and this issue could have been avoided if parents + school administrators + the community were more involved. I don't buy "we could not smell it" since most vaping stuff does have a sweet smell to it.