| I'm kind of torn on this. On one hand it seems ridiculous to me when I read that the FDA is investing Juul for advertising to minors citing the fact that their ads included "bright colors" and young adult models as evidence of that. That's very clearly bullshit, and we wouldn't hold anyone else to that insane standard. On the other hand, it also seems insane that the tobacco industry knew their product was both addictive and killing people, and that they lied about that for decades even spending massive amounts of money trying to intentionally mislead people into thinking otherwise, but instead of jailing executives and breaking up companies like Philip Morris/Altria we just let them continue to go on killing people for profit with barely a slap on the wrist. I'd say that given their actions, the tobacco industry doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt, that everything they do should be considered first in the worst possible light, and that we'd be crazy not to question their motives at every opportunity. I just can't bring myself to be sympathetic to the industry now even when I can see how people are overreacting. I realize there are new players in the game today, and entire secondary industries are getting caught up in the whole vaping thing too, but at the same time, anyone working anywhere near the tobacco industry should expect it. If we'd gone after them properly instead of letting them off the hook for 40 years of lies and countless deaths maybe I'd feel differently, but here we are. |
Governments are banning Juuls overnight and not cigarettes. Even with Altria - an incumbent - as an investor it isnt preventing this curbstomping.
The relative morality is my main point.
You are talking about the entire nicotine/tabacco industry and that plays into this as well but its not really the point here. Yes theyve slithered into our society and nothing is going to be done about that. But the observation with e-cigs just highlights how fast anything could be done, which is sad.