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from the truth-campaign-makes-anti-smokers-look-dum dept.
F.D.A. Seizes Documents From Juul Headquarters
The Food and Drug Administration conducted a surprise inspection of the headquarters of the e-cigarette maker Juul Labs last Friday, carting away more than a thousand documents it said were related to the company's sales and marketing practices.
The move, announced on Tuesday, was seen as an attempt to ratchet up pressure on the company, which controls 72 percent of the e-cigarette market in the United States and whose products have become popular in high schools. The F.D.A. said it was particularly interested in whether Juul deliberately targeted minors as consumers.
"The new and highly disturbing data we have on youth use demonstrates plainly that e-cigarettes are creating an epidemic of regular nicotine use among teens," the F.D.A. said in a statement. "It is vital that we take action to understand and address the particular appeal of, and ease of access to, these products among kids."
Previously: Tobacco Roundup (U.S. to Crack Down on Tobacco, Electronic Cigarettes)
E-Cig Maker Juul Valued at $15-16 Billion
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:52PM (8 children)
I won't argue with that, but I still don't get the point. We strongly encourage kids either directly or indirectly to experiment with all kinds of addictive stuff. Sugar, sodas, caffeine, energy drinks, video games, shitty TV shows, shitty teen movies, alcohol, sex, pr0n, more pr0n, the internet is for pr0n, fast food, processed food, junk food, sugar coated breakfast cereal and bars, probably more stuff. But here's something the chemists have worked really hard on making non-fatal unlike most of the above, so we gotta ban it, here kid have a nice safe shot of whiskey before going out on a drive instead.
I donno... some do get addicted to reading, and they might read the wrong books. We should Fahrenheit 451 all the books (at least burn all the Jewish leftist books) and replace those addictive books with nice healthy corn syrup energy drinks, like what could possibly go wrong?
Vaping might not be as good for their future as studying homework, but realistically, given how real world teens act, its better than the realistic alternatives like meth or beer.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by insanumingenium on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:30PM (6 children)
The idea that vaping is harmless isn't supported. It is almost certainly less harmful than smoking, yet there are people who question even that statement, and I will listen to them when they can put some science behind their concerns.
Nicotine addiction, even assuming no other consequences, might be something best left to people able to make legal decisions about their lives, and clearly is under current laws.
If you are a smoker, switching to vaping is very likely a hugely safer thing to do, but if you have a clean slate, there are no positives to picking up that nicotine addiction.
I can vouch from experience, that even a "harmless" caffeine addiction might be something adult me wouldn't have chosen, but that teenage me welcomed with open arms. I am quite glad I was too chickenshit to get into cigarettes or anything else at that age.
Harm reduction is a real and important concept, but you are conflating it with encouraging a lesser harm.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday October 04 2018, @06:35PM (2 children)
I don't disagree in principle but I absolutely do disagree with the state having any authority to legislate from a parental vector. They are most certainly neither my parent nor the parent of any children I may eventually have.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:06PM (1 child)
I support state-mandated parent for the very same reason I support gun control laws:
I am very much in favor of responsible gun ownership, but actual experience quite clearly demonstrates that an abundance of gun owners are not so responsible, for example leaving loaded pistols out in plain sight so one of their kids kills the other while they're playing Cops And Robbers.
The other day someone at Facebook gave me grief for advocating Sex Ed in schools, quite bluntly stating that it was not the schools business to teach her child things about sex that she - the parent - was profoundly opposed to.
After some discussion I concluded that this particular parent had been diligent about teaching her kids about sex but then pointed out that before Sex Ed, as well as today in areas where its not taught in schools such as the rural south, teenage pregnancy and STDs are endemic.
Depending on who I'm arguing with, I am accused alternately of being a Commie Pinko or John Bircher. This because I quite firmly believe that there is a proper role for government regulation of certain crucial things that a great many people simply refuse do, are religiously opposed to or too ignorant to regulate themselves.
However in many respects I really am a Libertarian: politically I am quite certain that I am a Pre-Soviet Marxist: I'm heavily into "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs", a slogan composed by Marx himself.
Yet I am self-employed, and since 1994 have been quite outspoken about my opposition to applying for government disability despite suffering what is arguably one of the very worse mental illnesses there is.
I don't regard _any_ of this as a contradiction: that I'm a coder and not a physicist is that I can be out of my tree yet still able to write solid code. That has never been the case when I've actually studied physics or worked as a physicist. That I _can_ provide for myself leads me to conclude that I _must_.
Yet I know a great many people who are either incapable of providing for themselves or who lack the skills to do so. For the incapable, I am very strongly in favor of the government paying for their food and housing. For those who lack the skills, I am strongly in favor of that too, while at the same time training or educating them.
It happens that I'm certified SCUBA diver. I got certified in a _very_ special class: half the students were either paraplegic or quadruplegic. Two of us able-bodied divers would suit up a quad then take them out for an underwater drag in the ocean.
One of my disabled dive buddies was Foster Anderson. He had enough control over his arms to operate a specially equipped wheelchair-lift van, but he couldn't hold a pencil in his fingers. Despite that, at the time he commuted every day fifty miles from Santa Cruz to San Jose where he worked as an engineer.
A year or so after our dive class, Foster appeared on the cover of a surfing magazine, riding a surfboard.
He published a book called "My Second Life", his first being up until his motorcycle accident at seventeen, his second he wrote about specifically to encourage other disabled people not to accept the widespread notion that their disability limited them.
These days he owns and operates a company called Shared Inventors where he teaches paraplegics and quadriplegics such things as rock climbing. As with our SCUBA class, two able-bodied climbers fit a disabled climber with a harness, helmet and the like - then take them straight up a cliff a couple hundred feet high.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 05 2018, @01:15AM
And you're morally incorrect on both counts. Government in this nation was never meant to be anyone's master; it was meant to be our servant. Dictating how children will be raised against the wishes of their parents goes against that in about the most fundamental way possible.
And just FYI: over 99% of legal guns will never be involved in the shooting of a human being, so there is most assuredly not an abundance of badness that needs dealt with.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:43PM (2 children)
I have come to regard my own caffeine addiction is incredibly harmful.
A while back I kicked coffee cold turkey then was completely overcome with nausea and powerful headaches for a solid month, at which time I went to my monthly witch doctor appointment. Said witch doctor advised me to start drinking coffee again.
For a while now I've been planning to cold-turkey again, but have never felt that I've been in a position to be completely useless for a whole month, so I've continued drinking it.
If I don't drink coffee I cannot function until I do drink it. Yet if I drink coffee whenever I feel like something hot, black and bitter, by the end of the day that coffee tastes foul to me and my stomache hurts.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday October 05 2018, @01:16AM
Tyrone's fat Black clove-flavored Juul cigar may be kinder on your colon than your other "hot, black, and bitter" alternative.
(Score: 3, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday October 05 2018, @01:21AM
MDC, you're being dumb. There is more than one approach. Lessen your caffeine intake by a minimal amount every few days and you won't even get irritable. Slowly dilute your coffee with an increasing amount of water or decaf and you'll have kicked your addiction within a month or three with no symptoms.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:37PM
"Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh"
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]