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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: 5, Touché) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:10PM (30 children)
It's been well over twenty years since cigarettes could legally be sold to minors.
It's unlawful to cell e-cigarettes and their juice to minors. That law is _quite_ clear in that respect. So don't criticize the FDA for hassling a company that they have good reason to believe targets minors.
If you want to criticize the government, criticize it for permitting the use of Stingrays.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:17PM (15 children)
Yeah, thats the weird part, why?
Imagine some brewery invented star trek synthehol with no negative effects of alcohol, no liver damage no cancer no drunk driving not even fattening. Then Big Brother bans it because "hurr-durr beer is bad 4 U causes cancer and makes the frogs gay"
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:26PM (12 children)
Among the reasons that children are not permitted certain things is that they are presumed to be incapable of making rational decisions.
Whether they really can or can't be rational is a different argument; that's why things are forbidden to children, because that's the assumption.
Among the rights given to adults when they reach their majority is the right to harm themselves in a great many ways.
Another factor in the laws regarding children is the presumption that were they to make a rational decision, they would decide not to do the thing that is outlawed for them.
That's similar to the rationale behind the medical treatment of unconscious people. Consider a gunshot victim; he needs surgery or he will bleed to death, but surgery all by itself can kill you; it does so all the time, you just don't read about it in the news because it doesn't sell papers or ads.
Surely we cannot operate on unconscious gunshot victims without their informed consent! But we do so anyway, with the presumption that were they conscious, they would grant that consent.
That very same rational is used an a very annoyingly regular basis to admit me against my will to a nuthouse, four-corner me - that is, strap me to a bed by my ankles and wrists - and forcibly inject me with powerful drugs.
One time I was forced to submit to Zyprexa injection. After pointing out that I would happily permit them to inject me with anything _other_ than Zyprexa, I fought like a wildcat, because Zyprexa is well-documented to cause diabetes, and I have diabetes in my family.
It took two strong men quite a lot of effort and struggle to pin me down, then a third to inject me.
Next time, I'll grab the syringe then inject _them_.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(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]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @03:01PM (2 children)
You see, that is not a rational decision. Rational decision is to look at a situation and decide if this is your decision or not. If not, then fighting against it will just make things worse, for you.
Secondly, this medicine does not cause diabetes "by magic". It's a side-effect, like side-effect of gaining weight, which is a side-effect of these types of medicines in general. So, if you don't want diabetes, lose weight or don't gain weight.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:41PM
The reason I'm so sternly opposed to Zyprexa is because a witch doctor spent an entire year discussing with me whether he should prescribed it. From the very start he warned me that it could cause diabetes.
You are correct in a sense, in that it is common for the mentally ill to be diabetic: many psychiatric medicines increase one's appetite, and it is very common for mental illnesses to lead one to be totally lethargic - catatonic even - to the point that I myself have on several occasions spent a couple months on the couch, never getting up other than to use the can or to eat.
But neither that lethargy nor that appetite was what causes Zyprexa's diabetes: if you take Zyprexa it will directly elevate your blood sugar. Enough of that and your cells will defend themselves by decreasing their response to Insulin, whose function is to catalyze the absorption of sugar by our cells.
Enough Insulin resistance and its _permanent_.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:49PM
"Shooting redcoats will just make things worse for New World colonists".
By beating the crap out of two men and breaking a psychiatrist's eyeglasses in two I made a statement: to forcibly inject Zyprexa is morally reprehensible.
My violent defense against Zyprexa won't all by itself lead them to stop forcing it on us, but it will contribute to that happening some fine day.
Just now I read that a whole bunch of women are blocking the streets around Portland's Federal courthouse by lying on said streets. The have a specific list of demands - stop appointing rapists to SCOTUS and the like.
"blocking traffic with their own bodies will just make things worse" because they'll all get arrested. I expect most of them will take it to the jury despite being unquestionably guilty, again just to make a point by burdening our legal system.
I'd join them but my strange reluctance ever to join anyone's protest eventually led me to conclude that Collective Action is simply _not_ the way I work, rather it is Individual Journalism: lots of folks love to hate my writing but the fact is, my essays articles rants and manifestos are wildly popular and have been for twenty years.
By hanging out on SN and Facebook for by now twenty-one hours, I've posted the rough drafts to ten or twelve essays that I will later copy down to my desktop mark up and fix up, then publish on my website. All but a few of my screeds started that way - mostly as replies to someones Series Of Tubes post.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:58PM (1 child)
It's already worse than that.
Around here they decided a couple years ago to ban the sale of tobacco for hookahs, with the reasoning being that any kind of flavored tobacco must be banned because it's clearly designed to be sold to children. As far as I know, there's no such thing as unflavored tobacco for a hookah, so they just banned the entire category.
So what did the hookah shops do? They switched from normal tobacco products, which could not legally be sold to minors, to sugar cane syrup. Since there's no tobacco, that stuff CAN legally be sold to minors. I refuse to buy the stuff though, because the few studies I've found about it showed that it actually causes more lung damage than tobacco.
So they banned a product that was harmful and could not be sold to children and replaced it with a product that is potentially MORE harmful which CAN be sold to children. And they claimed they did it to protect the children...
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @08:54PM
I expect it was Ronald Reagan that originated the notion that it was cool for legislators and executives to be idiots.
In reality, Ronald Reagan was quite a lot more educated and intelligent than he ever let on, it's just that it worked really well for him to pretend he was a simpleton.
Lather rinse repeat and we have a President and lots of Congresscritters who really _are_ simpletons.
Get This: recall that South Carolina recently received God's Wrath in the form of a thousand-year flood. It happens that South Carolina has a law that specifically _forbid_ the state government to use science when considering regulations having to do with sea level rise.
You just can't make this stuff up, folks.
There's also the Christian preacher who asserts that "Liberals created hurricane Florence to cover up widespread voter fraud". A facebook friend in response posted "You can't argue with batshit crazy".
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:30PM (7 children)
No. Marketing to minors is NOT a clear thing.
How do you distinguish ads that appeal to 18 year olds from those that appeal to 16 year olds?
Unless they are putting ads in Boy's Life magazine (read by Cub and Boy Scouts, for those who don't know), leave them the fuck alone.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @12:37PM (6 children)
-ly:
My parents subscribed me to it the whole time I was a cub scout and a boy scout.
On the back page of _every_ single issue was a full-page ad for Daisy Rifles, along with the advice that one should handle guns responsibly.
It happens that I have an Idaho Gun Safety Card, and my sister - still an Idaho resident - has a concealed carry permit. Jean is a librarian; she carries a gun in her purse to the fucking _library_.
I generally agree with _responsible_ gun ownership, yet I _strongly_ support gun control legislation for the specific reason that actual experience has abundantly demonstrated that few Americans can be trusted to handle guns responsibly.
Quite aside from mass shootings: consider that I once was a babysitter. Yes, Really. One day my charge met me at the front door with his father's hunting rifle pointed directly at my heart.
"Put the gun _down_ Eric."
"Oh, it's not loaded!"
"You don't know that. PUT THE GUN DOWN! NOW!"
I eventually convinced Eric to put the gun down, then spent the evening contemplating whether to tell his father. I really should have, that's how I feel _now_ but the reason I didn't was that I was concerned that his father would beat Eric so severely as to injure or even kill him.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Thursday October 04 2018, @01:05PM
According to my local police report (some communities put them online) the two locations in the city with the most police calls in my low crime suburb are the trashy dive bar for underage college students and the public library. Both have about three arrests per week.
So assuming she doesn't hang out at underage college student dive bars, the most dangerous place she can visit in her city is likely the library. Now if she lives in Baltimore there are more dangerous places than a library, whatevs.
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday October 04 2018, @04:10PM (4 children)
In this very article you complained about being restrained against your will.
But you support gun control because some people can't be trusted to handle guns responsibly.
In both cases, I can't see any way of assuring that we don't have any false positives.
And in both cases I am very worried about being able to weaponize the process itself. To take this position to absurdity, half the people here argue like they would lock in a nuthouse anyone they consider a SJW given half a chance; And I have no doubt that the other half would consider anyone they deem alt-right unfit to possess weapons.
What I fear is a return of the "House Un-American Activities Committee", and I don't want to grease their way by given them any additional legal processes to deprive citizens of rights.
Side question, would your ideal gun control legislation have really stopped Eric's father from owning and improperly storing a gun? Eric was obviously a child, he shouldn't have had access, but it doesn't sound as if he should be tried as an adult either. The storage was obviously not proper, but was that accident or intent, and how could you possibly prevent that before the fact?
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:26PM (3 children)
Even my staunch Republican father, who registered Libertarian when "Ronald Reagan betrayed the Republican ideal by raising taxes", when asked about the Un-American Activities Committee by my father quietly, quite sternly replied "It was unconstitutional".
Eric was nine at the time - young enough not to be trusted with an un-supervised gun, but old enough that by then his father should have already instructed him in gun safety.
"lock SJWs in a nuthouse": the Soviets actually did so with political dissidents starting around the early eighties, when they realized they would get bad press were they to imprison or execute them.
Eric's father was a USAF fighter pilot, Eric himself was very much The Son Of A Fighter Pilot. I expect that's why Eric's dad wanted _me_ specifically to be his babysitter, as I was seventeen at the time, so in general Eric really did respect my authority.
California and I expect some other states made it a felony for a parent's failure to secure a gun to lead to their child's injury or death. That is, to store a gun insecurely wasn't a crime in itself, but were a child to shoot themselves with it, at that point the parent would be guilty of unsafe storage.
There is a ballot proposition in Oregon right now - to be voted on in November - that will require gun safety instructions in public schools. The left - almost all of Portland's population, but almost none of the rest of the state's - heavily opposes it as they expect it will result in greater opposition to gun regulation.
But I personally am very strongly in favor of gun safety being taught in the schools. That Gun Safety Card I mentioned, I got that in seventh grade PE, they even set up a target range in the gym as it was cold outside.
What's more, I think that to teach gun safety in gang-ridden inner cities would go a long ways towards reducing gun violence. Just a couple days ago a young father was killed by the police in downtown Portland, when they stumbled upon a shootout between that young father and several other young men.
It's quite common for drug gang members as well as those who merely think looking like a ganger member is cool to own big, powerful guns as well as to flaunt them publicly, to pose with them for photos and so on.
Were they all taught proper gun safety, I expect that at least some of them, if not actually choosing not to own a gun, wouldn't carry guns with them everywhere they go, and so wouldn't open fire on some other gang member just because he happens to be a member of a different gang.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by insanumingenium on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:03PM (1 child)
It is easy to condemn it after the fact, that but is very much something that happened in living memory, and I have no reason to believe it couldn't happen again. So I would rather not have, say, an established secret court they can issue classified subpoenas, or any other process which would make it easy to disenfranchise anyone of any of their rights.
Gun safety in school seems like common sense to me, though you know what they say about common sense. Sadly I can also see where it would be a political lever arguing over whether the curriculum needs graphic gunshot wound photos or is better spent on a discussion of the "proper" interpretation of the 2nd amendment. That might just be my misanthropy acting up again.
I don't know if your conclusion that it will lead to gang members carrying less guns has any merit at all. I would love for you to be right, I just don't think it is such an obvious consequence. What it might do is prevent some of the stupid accidents while posing with guns that make the news. Side note, why does is seem it always a gang banger or a cop (or, my favorite favorite, gun safety instructor) that seems to get reported on having accidentally shot themselves.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:20PM
A while back some cluebot was awarded the Darwin for having attempted to shoot someone, then upon his round failing to discharge, looked straight down the barrel so as to ascertain why.
While not an actual Darwin Laureate, some guy was using his gun's flashlight to illuminate the keyhole in his door, then shot his own finger off.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 06 2018, @01:55PM
"What's more, I think that to teach gun safety in gang-ridden inner cities would go a long ways towards reducing gun violence. Just a couple days ago a young father was killed by the police in downtown Portland, when they stumbled upon a shootout between that young father and several other young men.
It's quite common for drug gang members as well as those who merely think looking like a ganger member is cool to own big, powerful guns as well as to flaunt them publicly, to pose with them for photos and so on.
Were they all taught proper gun safety, I expect that at least some of them, if not actually choosing not to own a gun, wouldn't carry guns with them everywhere they go, and so wouldn't open fire on some other gang member just because he happens to be a member of a different gang."
this is so stupid it seems like a troll.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 04 2018, @02:02PM (5 children)
Ho-hum. Color me in contempt. As GP stated, either a substance is legal, or it is not legal. I'm certainly not affected today, but I remember when I was good enough, mature enough, to carry weapons, and to hold lives in my hands, but I wasn't good or mature enough to buy a legal fucking beer.
The age of majority in this country is 18. An 18 year old should have no restrictions, based on age. None. Alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, whatever. A 17 year old who is in the service, ditto. He/she is man/woman enough to take a life, then he/she is old enough to purchase any damned thing they can afford.
As for the under 18's and non-military - time we stop babying them. They aren't babies by the time they leave elementary school. Some of those kids are more mature than their parents ever were, or ever will be. By the time a kid is mature enough to get a driver's license, he/she should be mature enough to make any damned decision they ever need to make in life. Marriage? Give the couple some counseling, and then give them your blessing. Cigarettes? FFS, if you haven't brainwashed them by the time they are 16, forget it, you're not GOING to brainwash them. Free country? Stop pretending.
Lest you misunderstand my position - FUCK UNJUST LAWS!! Damned CTRL-Left.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:32PM (2 children)
Maybe broaden your scope to "fuck authoritarians" instead of always saying "the left". I know, you like to play like Fox News. "Fair and balanced" laaaaawl
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday October 04 2018, @07:44PM (1 child)
Oh, but wait a second. Just hold on. Righties in their tighty whiteys were happy to sell cigarettes to minors, thirty or forty years ago. Righties will sell you strychnine with which to commit suicide, so long as there is a profit in it. As far as I can see, it's the CTRL-Left whose panties are wadded up over this vaping crap. The CTRL-Left is most interested in controlling kids until they are over age 21. Righties? They want to show a profit, and they just don't care so much for all that control. They are more interested in a different kind of control.
(Score: 2) by sjames on Friday October 05 2018, @12:41AM
OTOH, the right is typically more interested in controlling pot banning abortion and restricting birth control, even while telling lower income people they shouldn't have children.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Thursday October 04 2018, @09:14PM
In California specifically - which I am no longer a resident of - I have the idea of proposing a ballot proposition that will grant the right to vote in state and local elections to _anyone_ who has passed the California High School Proficiency Examination.
I did so myself, so I could enroll at the Community College when I was sixteen. While I stayed in high school it would have been completely cool with everyone other than my mother to have simply stopped attending high school that I could attend college full-time. Two years at Solano College, and I could have transferred to Berkeley as a Junior when I was eighteen.
But I digress: the CHSPE is rather more rigorous than the GED, and because it's administered by the state, were this ballot proposition to pass, the state could ensure that the CHSPE would never be diluted so as to give just any fool the vote.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by physicsmajor on Friday October 05 2018, @02:18PM
A robust body of work clearly shows that people on average do not fully weigh the consequences of their current actions on their future until they hit 25. Now, there is of course a bell curve but if you want to set a bar, only the car rental people have it right.
This becomes rather relevant when it comes to substances with horrible addictive potential combined with terrible consequences to long term health. I am a libertarian, but free markets have to be informed; lifting restrictions further is NOT the way to go.