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posted by Fnord666 on Friday December 21 2018, @07:51PM   Printer-friendly
from the two-faces-of-Juul dept.

Altria board approves $13 billion investment in e-cigarette company Juul

Altria's board of directors has approved its $12.8 billion investment in leading e-cigarette manufacturer Juul, with a formal announcement planned for Thursday before market open, people familiar with the matter told CNBC. Juul's board is meeting to consider the deal.

Tobacco giant Altria will invest $12.8 billion for a 35 percent stake in Juul, which values the e-cigarette company at $38 billion, the people said. The deal combines the maker of the best-selling cigarette with the best-selling e-cigarette and comes as both companies are under pressure.

The deal marks a turning point for Juul. The company has positioned itself as anti-tobacco, with a mission to help to wean adults off combustible cigarettes, which are responsible for killing about half a million Americans every year. With this deal, though, it will be partly owned by one of the world's biggest tobacco giants.

As such, Juul stipulated a number of conditions to help ensure the Altria deal furthers its goals. As part of the agreement, Altria would add Juul coupons to Marlboro and other cigarette packs and give Juul some of its prime shelf space, the people familiar said.

Also at NYT, Reuters, and The Verge.

See also: Marlboro maker Altria nears deal to take 35 percent stake in leading e-cigarette company Juul, sources say
$1.3 million: the average bonus Juul employees get after a deal with a cigarette maker

[$38 billion] makes Juul Labs Inc. more valuable than Airbnb and Elon Musk's SpaceX, according to Bloomberg News.

Previously: E-Cig Maker Juul Valued at $15-16 Billion
FDA Raided E-Cigarette Maker Juul to Look for Evidence That the Company Targets Minors
Juul Boosts Lobbying Spending as Potential E-Cigarette Regulations Loom
Marlboro Owner Invests $1.8 Billion in Cannabis Company


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  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:18AM (8 children)

    by edIII (791) on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:18AM (#777409)

    One of my biggest concerns, and why I vape marijuana only when I need discretion, are the possible health effects. I've heard of medical doctors talking about "popcorn lung" as a side effect. That and dabbing, can be extremely dangerous if you don't take the temperature down.

    If they identify some horrible disease as a result of this, it's the same crap with cigarettes all over again. I'm not convinced it's safe, just perhaps safer than smoking filtered cigs. That, and certainly more preferable out of doors.

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  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:34AM (3 children)

    by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:34AM (#777412) Journal

    Have you considered using edibles?

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    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:58AM (2 children)

      by edIII (791) on Saturday December 22 2018, @02:58AM (#777416)

      *wipes crumbs from face* They make those? ;)

      Sometimes they're too strong for going out and about. Seems easier to control with a vape pen, whereas an edible is more like a roller coaster. Once you leave the station you're going for the ride no matter what.

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      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday December 22 2018, @04:10AM (1 child)

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Saturday December 22 2018, @04:10AM (#777432) Journal

        I'm not too knowledgeable about it, so one of the soystoners will need to pitch in. But I imagine that if a product is well labeled, it will tell you almost exactly how much THC and CBD it contains. This should be mixed into stuff like butter or chocolate that gets evenly mixed throughout the entire product, so that if you cut it in half with a knife, or break a square off, you are getting a reasonably accurate fraction of the contents. Then all you need to know is how much it takes for you to feel a certain effect, which should be achievable with some (enjoyable) trial and error over a week or two.

        Furthermore, if it's about taking it in gradually rather than all at once, a subdividable chocolate bar or something would help. Snap off a square, eat it, repeat every 15 minutes. Maybe more complicated trial and error, but it seems possible.

        Maureen Dowd wrote her dumb column [vice.com], but nobody has to be a square like her. Play it smart. You can ingest the devil's lettuce.

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        • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 22 2018, @08:52PM

          by edIII (791) on Saturday December 22 2018, @08:52PM (#777654)

          Ohh, that's no longer possible in Northern California. They completely killed the edible industry. You used to be able to find relatively affordable edibles in the $10-$25 price range that had 200-300mg THC/CBD in them. I think some fucking newbs ruined it with a low tolerance person losing their shit on a 350mg THC candy bar eaten all at once. Now the regulations are designed to artificially inflate prices to reduce consumption, and vastly increased taxes, along with neutering the strength. I cannot afford $75 to get the same amount that $15 used to buy. Any product is limited to 100mg in it, and they must be made into individual servings of 10mg each. So unless I want to gain a ton of weight eating unnecessary chocolate, that isn't always gluten free, I'm out of options in the market.

          That's why it is literally 50 times less expensive for me to buy gluten free brownie mix and use some ground up weed. There are recipes to make canabutter, but again, getting the dosages right in a home kitchen is not easy at all. It always depends on the weed you get, so every batch needs to be "hand tested". Which means I got to take a Sunday off, put my helmet on, and see just how far into space it's going to send me.

          A vape pen is like an order of magnitude easier, and it will be our conveniences that kill us :)

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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Saturday December 22 2018, @07:27AM (2 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Saturday December 22 2018, @07:27AM (#777464) Journal

    Popcorn lung is a condition that arises from inhaling diacetyl (used in artificial butter flavor) at too high a concentration. It has primarily affected people who worked in plants that packaged artificial butter flavored microwave popcorn, but is thought to have affected one or two people who prepared and ate a LOT of microwave popcorn.

    At the time the reports came out, vape suppliers were mostly small businesses that lived and died on reputation. The vast majority of them purged diacetyl from their products within a month even though none of them contained enough to violate the new OSHA regulations (that only came along two years later). The few that didn't purge it put warnings on the flavors that contained diacetyl or went out of business due to poor reputation.

    Of course, that market is mostly interchangeable rebuildable atomizers and ecigs where you wrap your own coils when needed and fill them with bulk e-juice (either ready made or self formulated), so isn't what the kids are in to.

    Stick to those vendors and you should be fine. As for Juul, as a large corporation I wouldn't be surprised by anything that's in their juice as long as it's the cheapest they can get.

    The other relevant chemical of concern would be Acetaldehyde, but you shouldn't find much of that in an e-cig as long as you don't run it hot enough to buirn.

    TL;DT version, the Mon'n'Pop e-cig industry has been much more careful than required by any regulatory agency, and still is. Meanwhile, even using Juul, the great fear of teens vaping is overblown since it's mostly the kids who would otherwise be sneaking cigarettes (probably menthol or ultra-lights).

    • (Score: 2) by edIII on Saturday December 22 2018, @09:19PM (1 child)

      by edIII (791) on Saturday December 22 2018, @09:19PM (#777664)

      Thanks for information. I don't vape tobacco or these flavored juices. I exclusively vape THC/CBD products, and looking at my pen I notice that those products run on a lower temperature. What I don't know is what is in the THC laden "syrup" inside the cartridges.

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      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Sunday December 23 2018, @02:18AM

        by sjames (2882) on Sunday December 23 2018, @02:18AM (#777720) Journal

        Probably not diacetyl, since that is a flavoring. Commonly in nicotine juice, vegetable glycerin or propylene glycol are used as a carrier, but no Idea what may be in your juice other than the active ingredients.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @01:49PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 22 2018, @01:49PM (#777529)

    From the research I've done on the subject, popcorn lung is caused by diacetyl used in some commercial vape juices. This is one of the big reasons that I mix my own fluids. All of the reputable flavoring sources will tell you if the flavor you use contains diacetyl, and it is FAR cheaper (order of magnitude /at least/) to mix your own.