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Comment by wyldfire | Hacker News Reader

They went to schools to tell kids "You should not use our product, our product is for adults. OBTW our product is very safe!" Even teenagers saw through the smokescreen: this wasn't an anti-vaping message, this was a sales pitch.

Also, they design their products to be usable while hidden within your palm. Some adults might like this but this is clearly intended for teenagers to be able to get access to nicotine discreetly while still in school.

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Eonsmoke even posted this image on Instagram with the caption "Mom! It's a USB Drive!": https://www.masslive.com/politics/2019/06/mom-its-a-usb-driv...

I think it's a stretch to say that just because the item fits easily within your palm it's, "clearly intended for teenagers to be able to get access to nicotine discreetly while still in school."

I don't think so at all. If I put myself in the shoes of marketing or R&D, it's totally obvious that "easily hidden in the palm" would have probably come from a brainstorming session where one of the items was was some version of "teens want to avoid getting caught". It's not necessarily what happened, but it's miles from unrealistically cynical.

Why would they want to sell to teens? Like, the market is huge enough to sell to over 18, selling to 12-17 year olds is only going to get you in trouble.

They're not directly selling to teens, but they are indirectly selling them... and the entire big tobacco industry has been doing so for decades. You get them hooked early in life so you have a lifetime customer... that's been their tactic

Most adults who didn't smoke as teens never pick up the habit. Smoking lives on through peer pressure - something that matters less and less as a person matures.

It isn't shown as "cool" in movies like it used to be, so adults who are "set in their ways" are lacking most of the remaining peer pressure tactics that typically works for adults.

Wait for vape scenes in the movies. You can be reasonably sure there's a lobby group working towards it. How about a "FBE Teens try different healthful Vape Flavours"?

Yeah, it's an industry that historically kills it's best customers and needs a high intake (addictive) method of creating new lifelong customers. It's usually cheap, "cool", even easy for teens to start using any nicotine product but that usually creates a long term costly habit. They can't be directly marketed or sold to but that doesn't mean they aren't paying attention.

Same reasons as the other nicotine companies, new markets and new customers are always a plus since most of them will remain customers.

it's a pretty big leap to go from "discreet device" to "designed for teens". have you seen people using old-school vapes with the huge battery pack and dense clouds? I'd argue that adults are more interested in avoiding that image than teens.

I don't know why you are getting downvoted.

Yes, I don't get that either. My comment got smacked down also. It was an absurd claim. People don't want to carry around bricks, when a tiny pen will do. That's part of why juul's are popular with adults. You can save the pocket space and don't have to announce to everyone, look at me, I'm vaping!

Rather than downvoting me, you could explain, happytoexplain, why you are downvoting

They do that for portability reasons. It's convenient to have the product in a smaller package (less vapor too). Ecig devices like these are nothing new. They were around for years before juul.

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