Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dmix | Hacker News Reader

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A whole lot of society and social policy is about lesser of evils. It's about being realistic and practical. Which is something far more policy should be conscious of, instead of some idealistic perfect world you wish to impose on other people.

Not to mention people could just as quickly harm themselves going to a 7/11 every day to eat carbs or driving a motorcycle or drinking alcohol or engaging in 'extreme' sports. But we people do those things anyway even though there's plenty of science to show it's dumb.

Especially if those 'evils' are a) entirely non-violent and voluntary only affecting the individual and b) are not going away ala drugs and the giant shift towards harm reduction.

People seem to be mixing up the growing pains of a extremely fast-growing new industry and the long-term realities once the legal, health, business, and administrative systems mature and adapt. The rush to immediately ban everything, well before we fully understand it and/or have experimented with less freedom/fun-destroying strategies, while also accurate measures of usage and risk, doesn't help anyone.

I will admit though, the 'think of the kids' people are making quite an effective stir.

> Not to mention people could just as quickly harm themselves going to a 7/11 every day to eat carbs or driving a motorcycle or drinking alcohol or engaging in 'extreme' sports.

Motorcycling feels odd in that list of otherwise self-inflicted harms.

Sure, one can run into brick wall in a solo accident. But, often it's someone else that kills the motorcyclist.

Technicality. You're still putting yourself into a situation that's known to have a high likelihood of resulting in your serious injury or death.

You're talking like if you were to run across a live gun range and get shot it's not really your fault, but instead it was the shooter that killed you.

That may be technically true but you knew the risks were basically a certainty and chose to do it anyway.

It certainly seems like the vape industry set back social progress on this front significantly. Cigarettes stopped being cool quite a while ago, and smoking is almost never allowed indoors anymore, but hey, look these e-cigarettes are safe and trendy and all the cool kids are doing them.

Social progress is prohibition or freedom of choice?

What's the harm?

I think the harm is probably in the re-normalisation of nicotine addiction.

I smoked for a long time, and went on a vape recently, but the ads everywhere (in Ireland/UK) for various vaping services and devices are pretty concerning.

For me, it's harm reduction, but if non-smokers start vaping, that's a net loss.

Is addiction a problem, separate from cancer?

Coffee addiction is preventable, for instance.

I think vaping is a genuine improvement, provided that the law treats it like it does tobacco, i.e. no advertising, age restrictions, etc. This is an anecdote, but in countries where those restrictions are in place, just about every vaper seems to be an ex-smoker, and nobody thinks vaping is cool or attractive.

Yup, completely agreed.

Not sure that's what will happen though.

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