The narrative of vapes as "tools to quit tobacco" really doesn't hold up. I'm not saying that you can't make it work, some people do, but it's not the primary use and it doesn't account for the explosion of vaping among young populations who weren't using nicotine before vaping. These companies aren't investing tens of billions into these products because they plan to help smokers quit and then stop using vapes.
By the same token the degree to which vapes help people quit is up in the air, some studies show strong effects in favor of quitting, others show strong effects that it's inferior to other quitting aids. (i.e. studies like https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7867832/)
"These are a way for people to reduce harm" is primarily an industry narrative at this point, divorced from reality.
Kids were using nicotine before vaping, they were smoking cigarettes. And these companies absolutely are investing in a growing market for adults who either want to quit smoking entirely or want a healthier option to cigarettes. As cigarettes prices have continued to soar and laws have become more and strict on where someone can and cannot smoke, vaping offers an alternative to get nicotine and an oral fixation. So it's not surprising that more and more adults have switched to it.
That's not a study that's a meta-analysis. You seem to have seen the one ad Juul put out to minors and assumed that is the entire industry and its purpose. This is objectively divorced from reality.
Between 1991 and 2021 tobacco use among young people dropped precipitously. Again, this shows up again and again in the data comparing ALL products containing nicotine.
So with all due respect this isn't really up for debate, it isn't a subtle signal in the data. Nicotine use (especially smoking) has been on the decline across ALL age groups, especially children, for decades, and vaping starkly reversed that trend.
I'm not sure what your point is here. It did cause a spike and once again it is going down. The trend isn't reversed, it was a data spike. Even severely anti-vaping organizations like Truth Initiative reflect this too. https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/emerging-toba...
Saying it can help people get off cigarettes doesn't mean it should be a medical device and require a prescription. Not to mention nicotine lozenges and patches are over the counter.
Fine, make them OTC. If the only reason we are allowing this is to help people quit cigarettes, then there should be a bit of friction so they aren't being used to addict teenagers.
UK is seeing a wave of people who never smoked cigarettes but went straight to vapes. It's less bad for sure but not harmless. IIRC a bump in lung cancer cases in young people was ascribed to this.
Kids already generally find it much harder to obtain cocktails than to obtain e-cigarettes. Regulating particular cocktail flavors is unlikely to have a noticeable affect on kid cocktail use.
E-cigarettes are much easier to obtain and so any product features particularly attractive to kids are much more likely to have a significant affect.
Exactly! You can go to any place that sells or offers alcohol and there are tons of different flavors available and most people consider that cultured. But when it comes to vaping it suddenly only exists to entice children.
The whole issue around abortion for conservatives is that it's not considered felony manslaughter by the Supreme Court. Hasn't been for close to 50 years now.
It can be considered a life, maybe in some hypothetical argument, but nobody actually can make that argument.
Because it's hard. There's implications of autonomy here. If an unborn baby is a life and has rights, which rights does it have? Is it an American Citizen? It must, at least, have personhood - what are the guardrails around that? Can I, for example, say that the unborn fetus is a person and is inside me, and is therefore bound by "stand your ground" laws, meaning I am free to kill it for self-defense, much like I would a grown person?
See, the Supreme Court never actually asked that question. As it stands, unborn babies are not people, they are not citizens. We, instead, said "fuck it this is hard to argue" and made exactly 1 exception for unborn fetuses - abortion.
If you want to argue an unborn fetus is alive, there are implications and consequences of that. Evidently, conservatives are too cowardly to address any of them. Ever. So, here we are, with our broken laws that make no sense.
It is not so much about what the govt can’t do. It is more about what it should not do. It is the philosophy of govt that is in the MAGA political discourse.
I am not of the opinion that govt should not be placing restrictions. That is literally the definition of laws. I am of the opinion that govt should not regulate how someone can do something.
Loosening a ban on menthol, not because it was harmful, but because it was causing addictions, was an overreach. It should have banned the Tobacco and nicotine instead.
There is no consistent agreement about what the government can or cannot do within MAGA. That's why it's not a framework for global discourse. It is a joke even within conservative circles.
"Let me control my own health" up until abortion is mentioned.
"We need better surveillance measures" up until that surveillance is used against them.
"Law enforcement needs more privileges" until they harass your daughter with the bodycam turned off.
"Don't regulate Apple/Google" up until they become politicized and collude with the government for warrantless surveillance.
"Foreign policy is too globalist!" up until Israel insists Iran has a nuke. And so on. There isn't a single neocon value that can't be forsaken by ideologues, I challenge you to name just one.
That is not inconsistency. That is double standards. They are willing to uphold a rule until it bites back against them. This is mob mentality. And a reason for why democracy does not work (unless the mob is diffused).