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Comment by nathias | Hacker News Reader

Yes obviosly, as any smoker that was into vaping could and did tell you. I had the chance to follow the whole development of vaping from a niche scene to an industry and it really has been eye opening. How news and studies were deployed offensively to spread FUD and then regulated just enough that all the value created by innovators and communities could be captured by the big tobacco companies.

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Yep to be honest the whole vaping scene is a good template for what regulatory capture looks like in the USA.

I'm not sure if it's due to lawmaker/parent ignorance, or an actual plan by larger tobacco companies.

Probably a mix of both.

Both the incumbent tobacco companies and the state have a huge financial interest in ensuring that a) competition stays out or b) they get the right sized cut from any competitor.

The states scrambled to delay and regulate ecigs just enough to figure out how to tax it because they were afraid of losing revenue from cigarette taxes. They were not just haplessly corrupt but active in that effort.

> states scrambled to delay and regulate ecigs just enough to figure out how to tax it because they were afraid of losing revenue from cigarette taxes

I hear permutations of this theory mentioned a lot, but I'm not sure I buy it. The political incentives just aren't there on an individual level. It would require politicians on both sides of the aisle to be actively interested in budgetary policy. The reality is that there is a strong survival bias among politicians to be almost obsessively focused on party fund-raising and perpetual campaigning. It has become exceedingly rare for politicians to be bothered working on bi-partisan legislation that isn't culture war bullshit.

Because of the Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement in 1996, states get money based on the smoking rate (units sold). When the smoking rate goes down, they get less money. Like it or not, states /pols are incentivized to keep smokers around.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco_Master_Settlement_Agre...

>It would require politicians on both sides of the aisle to be actively interested in budgetary policy.

They are much more so at the state level because states can't print money.

It's not obvious, that's why we're studying it. In fact some studies have shown that e-cigarettes may not lead to cessation.

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/2020-smoking...

E-cigarette aerosols vary greatly, as well as the temperatures that various devices heat them to.

> as any smoker that was into vaping could and did tell you

Anecdotal evidence may be unreliable due to cherry-picked or otherwise non-representative samples of typical cases.

I've seen much more cherry picking from official studies than in my anecdotal evidence, but thanks.

Which ones?

the ones about vaping, when tobacco money paid for the studies it was weird how they always found a lot of danger that people then had to be protected from ... but when you would look at the data you would see they were using it in a way that noone actually used it (like using bad coils and completely overheating them) etc. Really a pure scam but because it's done in the form of 'science' its supposed to be more credible than people's experiences ...

Which studies in specific? Can you cite one?

The tobacco industry is making lots of money off of these and can sell them in flavors that were banned in cigarettes a long time ago (opening up the market to kids again).

https://tobaccotactics.org/wiki/e-cigarettes/

No I can't it was some years ago, in the time when they didn't capture the market yet. You can easliy find them online, just go through related subreddits from around 2016, and watch for studies people are complaining about.

edit: I have just written my comments in good faith. I don't know what distorted view of yourself you have, to expect people will prove something to you.

The onus is on the person making the claim (you) I'm afraid.

> in the time when they didn't capture the market yet

Big Tobacco entered the market around 2012-2013.

Well the problem is it might originally have been about giving a better alternative for cigarette smokers, a habit that has been on a massively downward trajectory in the US, it quickly started gaining hard core usage amongst the youth who weren’t smoking. Flavors aimed at kids like bubblegum doesn’t help.

It’s not so black and white, and it’s definitely not niche anymore.

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