[wtvanhest]

Absolutely not good for public health long-term. Their recruiter reached out to me last December and it was a hard no for me based on what I understood about the industry.

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.

[awakeasleep]

Tobacco kills 7 MILLION PEOPLE A YEAR

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.

[flyingcircus3]

You, in fact, conflated the original question with a essentialized, worst case scenario that shoehorns a multivariate determination into a binary proposition. There are, after all, other methods of smoking secession beyond nicotene alternatives.

In fact, there are some methods of quitting an addictive substance that work by actually stopping the ingestion of the addictive substance in the first place.

Nicotene alternatives are akin to advertisers recommending you to take a break from Facebook when it's too overwhelming, instead of just deleting your account entirely, like a person with self control and agency might do when products and services continually make you regret ever starting to use them in the first place.

[seanmcdirmid]

You misunderstand what is really bad about cigarettes. It isn’t the nicotine, but the tar (the burning of it). Heck, nicotine gum has long been used as a safe smoking cessation aide. Not to mention it is present in many new works vegetables.

Getting rid of the burning tar is a HUGE win for smokers, healthwise.

[arkades]

(1) nicotine gum is used as a weaning assist, not an ongoing alternative

(2) you chose to overlook his point that vapes are also an on-ramp to smoking, not just an off-ramp.

(3) people really oversell the whole “vape isn’t combustion” bs. Both the solvent and the flavors form toxic aldehydes when vaped, and their long term safety has not been assessed.

[strathmeyer]

The only reason you could want a smoking-cessation product to not be available is because it causes big tobacco to lose money. Why are you telling lies that other people have to be paid to tell? Why are you doing it for free?

[flyingcircus3]

Welcome to the Oppression Olympics, where there are always exactly two points of view.

Back here in the land of analog spectra, there are people who are concerned that an addictive product wildly successful with teenagers is generally problematic, regardless of what it is displacing. Astroturfing with crocodile tears exacerbates these concerns.

It is possible to acknowledge a problem, and, at the same time, criticize suboptimal solutions as kicking the can down the road, while maintaining the general goal of solving the problem.

Stop foisting binary propositions upon your interlocutors.

[arkades]

No, reasons to not want a supposed smoking cessation product to not be available - which by the way, wasn't a position I was taking - is because it has other harms, and the magnitude of those harms has to be weighed against the magnitude of the harm of smoking.

Nor did I lie; nor did you have a single lie to point to.

And suggesting that I'm a paid shill - or worse than that, an unwitting shill - without even having grounds on which to criticize what I said is both a value-less contribution to this discussion, and well below the HN standard.

[lotsofpulp]

The really bad thing about cigarettes is that it harms other people. If people want to exchange a little bit of their future for some pleasure now, then I don't think that's so bad. Some do it with alcohol, some do it with adrenaline rushing activities, some with sugary desserts, or unhealthy sitting and lounging around habits, etc. Everyone's just trying to get that hit of dopamine or whatever in their brain. But just do it without causing inconvenience to others, as much as possible.

[flyingcircus3]

I, in fact, possess no such misunderstanding. I can certainly appreciate that holding the tar up as the boogieman, to give coverfire to nicotene, makes good marketing material for up and coming businesses looking to disrupt established tobacco companies. However, there is a faulty assumption in your copy. And that's to defang addiction as a problem, and to anchor all of the negative effects of smoking to the respiratory system.

Of course tar is bad for lungs. It turns out that products such as tobacco can have multiple health hazards. I do not besmirch people for improving the health of others. I simply detest marketing that acts as if addiction is something to strive for.

[seanmcdirmid]

I tried to quit smoking with earlier vapes and failed because I wasn’t really addicted to the nicotine at all. I eventually figured out how to quit, but it was the burning plant matter that had me hooked more than what you can get in a bunch of tomatoes.

[wtvanhest]

I made my own assumptions and came to the conclusion that this was net negative not net positive.

I guess we will find out in 30 years.

[awakeasleep]

Well I am interested in what other features you considered in your analysis (not to disputed them, just curious about what elements spoke to you).

[toomuchtodo]

Kudos for the ethics.