The package of the black market thc cartridge will list if it has Vitamin E Acetate?
There isn't vitamin e acetate in nicotine e-liquid because vitamin e acetate is used as a cutting agent in black market thc carts, and not used in e-liquid at all.
You can't regulate the black market, but you can make it smaller or eliminate it by legalizing marijuana.
Do you really believe zero oil/ fats from food makes it down the trachea? Of course it does! Plus you breathe in all manor of pollutants. It's a little like radiation; natural radiation is everywhere and you cannot avoid it, it becomes a major problem when the body is exposed to more than the body can safely remove/ recover from.
As I understand it, oil mists have always been considered to be an inhalation hazard. I remember warnings about this from at least 30 years ago. A lot of people may have presumed that the vaping fluids were mainly water soluble.
Yeah you're right. Problem is illegal vape carts added these kinds of oils to make the product thicker. The problem has always been illegal THC vape carts causing injuries and deaths and not their legal counterparts.
Turns out breathing in large quantities of oil droplets is really bad for your lungs...
Is that from the article? (have no access to the article, and none of the other links from another comment here say anything about this, it is all about the findings about Vit E acetate)
Surprise, what everyone in the e-cig industry has been saying all along. Many states have already started implementing very restrictive electronic cigarette laws though (to save the children of course). A few small e-cig shops near me have been gutted due to the new overly restrictive regulations. Protecting big tobacco's interests? Mission accomplished.
> Some patients say they vaped only nicotine, and state health officials consider some of those reports reliable, Dr. Schuchat said.
A good warning to ignore all the people on HN who keep trying to insist that "oh, vaping is safe as long as you aren't doing X".
We have no idea if vaping is safe. We still have no idea if vaping is safe, except we explicitly know it is unsafe (to the point of acutely poisoning you) if it involves this chemical.
Smoking has been around since at least the 1700s, it wasn't until something like 1950 that we managed to link it to lung cancer. 15 years is nothing...
I'm not sure where to find numbers about the increase in lung cancer after smoking for only 15 years, but I know most studies look at people who have been smoking for more like 30 or 50 years...
Yes, generally the health community has been talking about a minimum of 20 years to get 'long term' data on the effects of vaping
Another problem they're dealing with is that we talk about vaping being one thing - in reality there are hundreds of companies with their own solutions. Of course there are some similarities in products and in the last few years Juul has come to dominate the US market, but other products (both the devices and the liquids) are of murky origin and quality. I was recently reading a study of a scientist looking into some devices and they found some contaminants that they didn't expect to be present at all that had no reason being there other than a use of cheap/incorrect/mistaken materials
Source: various, I've been researching tobacco control broadly for the last ~5 months as part of a project, if anyone is interested I can pull together some of the more interesting reports I've read
Indeed, we're far from knowing how safe ecigs probably about 5 more yrs until we know for sure, there's always a risk, but we're not anywhere close to knowing with certainty it's dangerous like cigarettes.
All early evidence is showing vaping is far safer... even 2nd-hand smoke with vaping is way safer (no evidence of transfer via 2nd-hand smoke during vaping tests meanwhile cigarette smoke lingers around and hurts people).
There was a reason this was a big deal because it was the first time showing a direct connection to being dangerous and now its again pointing back to a small subset of THC pens and those in the business of hysteria are trying to cover their bases.
Yes, I'd agree it is worse, more concentrated and I would think the candy-like flavors in use would probably make the liquid much more desirable to kids to drink.
The concept of carcinogens is that certain chemicals are known to cause cancer. We can reasonably believe that products that don't have carcinogens won't cause cancer.
Are you assuming that vaping does not contain other carcinogens or that it does not cause other, possibly deadly, health issue? The issue is that we don’t know.
Some chemicals are known carcinogens. Many others are unknown carcinogens. It isn’t even known what chemicals are in e-cigarettes. To believe smoking e-cigarettes or vaping can not cause cancer is just dumb. Inhaling just about anything can cause cancer.
Vaping oil is much different than vaping flower or dry though.
Vaping simply means non combusted smoke which since it is under 450 degrees it reduces and removes 20+ carcinogens.
Noone thinks smoking is purely healthy, but comparing vaping to cigarettes it is a no brainer safer. Oils probably a little less safe than dry.
Also, cigarette butts are next to plastics as the most environmental damage. e-cigs and vaping is mostly re-usable and there are no butts about it.
10 years and there was no issues, suddenly a bunch of them. If you ask me that is blue ocean market sabotage. The big fish are moving in.
Altria bought Juul in December 2018, suddenly in 2019 all these issues and a big "think of the children" offensive that is typical in authoritarian and big fish take overs of markets or to keep something at the underground black market mafia level like drugs.
Prohibition doesn't work, banning and outrage create danger, it only makes it more unsafe in production when people go to the black market when a legal market was progressing and becoming more and more safe. Dispensaries had they own safety state/independent organizations. If they truly want to make it more safe, they will decriminalize and legalize marijuana, end prohibition and make the production safer while taking out the black market competitors that caused this issue.
This is America.
People not thinking it is about market power and money are naive as hell.
You think this is for health reasons? laughable.
Same with all bans and prohibitions, makes it more unsafe and more lucrative for mafias/cartels because there is decreased supply and increased demand, price goes up, in comes the underground and more danger.
> Noone thinks smoking is purely healthy, but comparing vaping to cigarettes it is a no brainer safer.
And if vaping were only done as a way to quit smoking cigarettes, that would be a relevant fact. When more teenagers have vaped than have smoked[1], this is clearly not the case. It is being treated as something entirely new and distinct from cigarettes, and should therefore be compared against not vaping.
Yes, regulate it and make sure that it is safe. That includes taking products off the market while investigating unknown health issues. Regulate it and control the allowed marketing for it. That includes not allowing the advertising of addictive substances to minors.
Kids are already not allowed to buy. Parents should be more active. Taking it from all people 'for the children' is a tell of your and the whole movement goals.
> That includes taking products off the market while investigating unknown health issues.
When you shut down a market or product it does not go away. It comes back in force on the black market. Shutting down the market that is legal and had safety processes, in favor of an issue from the black market, it really is backwards thinking but I'd expect that from an authoritarian prohibitionist.
You are helping the mafias/cartels of the black market and the big fish over a legal market that was working. Own it.
Again, so many bots and propaganda out about this downvoting on topic points.
This is just build up to the Executive Order coming from Trump based on how it plays with their base. [1][2]
I wonder if moderation at HN will stop these new bot brigades or not... These are not HN users but propagandists in HN and it is slowly getting worse, it will probably kill HN into the election.
The startups and small/medium businesses that run the legal market, and do have safety measures, should not be the target and banning or prohibition only helps the bigs and the mafias/cartels.
While I agree with you on the other points, I think if trying vaping is largely displacing trying cigarettes then it's fair to compare it to smoking.
If vaping were as harmful but less addictive or more addictive but not harmful, then it might fill the role more safely. If it is neither addictive nor harmful and a new generation of teenagers knows that, then vaping can't replace cigarettes any more than carrots can.
But by your same logic, while we might not have a 100% guaranteed idea that vaping is safe (I disagree we have "no idea", especially compared to other forms of tobacco use), but we do have a 100% guaranteed idea that smoking cigarettes is unsafe.
I certainly get all the hate against Juul - it is definitely well-deserved. But I still think vaping has an actual use case for people who are addicted to cigarettes who want another way to satisfy their nicotine cravings, especially in social situations.
Agreed it has a use case - but if it was truly just a harm reduction device then it could be prescribed by a doctor alongside other options like Chantix rather than being made widely available
And Chantix which was the example I used is prescription only
But my broader point was that if your argument is that vaping is a method to quit smoking, then it should be regulated or proved as such and not sold like other tobacco products or with misleading messaging. Currently IQOS (Philip Morris International via Altria in the US market) is trying to get this signoff from the FDA I think, but just for marketing purposes (and yes, this is a different product category than vaping but still in the 'novel' tobacco replacement category)
Edit Addition: I should just mention I'm more playing devils advocate on both sides of this as frankly I'm still trying to decide on my belief in this argument. I've been researching tobacco control for the last few months as part of a project and there are lots of valid arguments that many of the major vape companies and products are now owned by tobacco companies which have a history of being disingenuous at best and actively harmful/criminal at worst and so novel products like vapes should just be not trusted or even outlawed until the effects are known. But on the other side, available data so far does show that vapes generally are less harmful than cigarettes, so if someone is using it as a device to switch and that's the only thing that's an option for them (rather than quitting cold turkey) then it's not good to limit that option. But the math starts getting really fuzzy if you think about the number of new 'users' vaping and novel products could theoretically attract to a product that while probably not as harmful as cigarettes, isn't as good as not using anything at all
It's a great example of a drug that absolutely should be prescription. But I'd you don't get the terrible side effects, and it helps you to quit, it's definitely worth taking it health-wise.
Ah sorry for not being clearer, I just was talking about Chantix in particular being something that required a prescription
But I'm actually not positive that it's proven it helps you quit. Here's an excerpt from a paper I was reading the other day "The study [21] of the effect of "real world" ENDS use on the population quit rates among 1284 U.S. adult smokers showed that the adjusted odds of quitting smoking were lower for those that used ENDS at baseline (9.4%) compared to smokers who did not use ENDS (18.9%). Smokers who used ENDS daily at some point during the study period were also less likely to quit smoking than nonusers (AOR = 0.17)."
I actually am a bit confused on the NHS' stance actually - they came out strong on this but many other agencies like the WHO seem to be taking much more of a wait and see approach
Sorry I wasn't arguing chantix didn't require a prescription, only the rule "all quitting aids are prescribed" wasn't true.
I also don't understand why if something helps you quit smoking we should make it less available? If it help people quit smoking we should make it more available, and if it doesn't then make it less.
The UK royal academy of physicians and equivalent of nih think vaping probably has 5% of the risks of smoking. That means to break even we would need ~20 new vapers for every smoker who switches to vaping. And I don't think there is any way to look at the data and conclude there are 20 times as many new vapers as smokers who switched.
People totally overlook the fact that cigarette butts are also one of the biggest problems in environmental pollution [1].
The market has come up with a solution, vaping and e-cigarettes that are safer already and do not damage the environment as much.
I am strongly anti-prohibition and anti-banning as that leads to more problems in the black market and provides regulatory capture for big fish, cigarettes are fine as people choose to do with their body what they choose as it is their Right to Body. But if there is a better solution with vaping, and people are going to do it no matter what, banning and prohibitions will only lead to more involvement of mafias/cartels on the black market and give markets to big fish.
This is a blue ocean market and about to open up massively when prohibition on marijuana ends, lots of big fish and mafias/cartels fighting to win it.
Prohibitionists/authoritarians with agendas are just their pawns in this effort.
The President looks to be doing an Executive Order soon to limit vaping, just like all the Republican governors that did it. [2][3] Same play different day, big fish win, "think of the children" authoritarianism and big fish disaster capitalist raiding of the blue ocean that will be immense when marijuana is fully legalized and vaping is suddenly "safe" when the bigs run the show.
This is America.
People not thinking it is about market power and money are naive as hell.
You think this is for health reasons? laughable.
Same with all bans and prohibitions, makes it more unsafe and more lucrative for mafias/cartels because there is decreased supply and increased demand, price goes up, in comes the underground and more danger.
> we do have a 100% guaranteed idea that smoking cigarettes is unsafe.
Not trying to be pedantic, but I don't think we have data yet to compare % of smokers who get cancer and die, vs % of vapers who get the above lung problem and die, and other such metrics.
In other words both are bad, saying vaping is ok because smoking is bad is doing everyone a disservice.
Agree with you, except the qualifier that “I certainly get all the hate against Juul”.
I certainly don’t get it. Saw the news on a TV in a bar last night, talking about the Vitamin E oil. The video clip to go along was someone using a Juul! Juul is getting conflated to be synonymous with vaping, and that is patently wrong. I guess they should be sorry for creating the best product, that so happens to be discreet enough for teenagers to hide.
Strongly second this - the data is just not out there yet on the long term effects of vaping (and keep in mind we use the term vaping broadly but there are hundreds of companies that produce devices of varied quality).
Of course, the harm reduction qualities make it interesting, but I heard a tobacco control researcher explain it like this (not exact quote) - Imagine that smoking tobacco is like jumping out of a building on the 100th story, most likely vaping is not as bad, but there's no consensus on whether you're jumping out of the 99th story or the 2nd
The best thing to do for your health (if that's what you're optimizing for) is to just quit and not replace with a new device. The CDC has a bunch of resources as do most Western Nations in the local languages. Below is a link to the tobacco cessation mobile app from the CDC
>We have no idea if vaping is safe. We still have no idea if vaping is safe, except we explicitly know it is unsafe (to the point of acutely poisoning you) if it involves this chemical.
Sure. In other news: don't vape bleach. It's bad for you.
I mean really. No nicotine vaping liquid has vitamin E in it as there's no reason to put it in there.
This would be a good time to check old HN and Reddit threads for all of the hysteria and “we told you” stuff being spread after this originally hit the news. I also noticed a bunch of health agencies took advantage of the headlines to stir up fear around using them, they never specified what types to watch out for.
I was immediately suspicious that after a decade (or longer) of vaping being popular that all of a sudden people started dying out of nowhere. If it was caused by standard e-cigarettes it there would have been a gradual increase in cases.
The early warning signs that it was strictly a small subset of shady black market THC cartridges also wasn’t a big surprise (they even look shady [1]). The vendor I’ve used in the past for (actual) THC cartridges posts lab tests for all of their vape products to show there was zero adulterants and they were doing it before the big scare.
Now we see that it was 100% vitamin E all along (which was used as a thickening agents for the lowest-quality THC, something glycol-based nicotine liquids wouldn't need).
> But Dr. Schuchat left open the possibility that other chemicals or toxins from vaping fluids or devices could also be causing the severe respiratory ailments.
> Some patients say they vaped only nicotine, and state health officials consider some of those reports reliable, Dr. Schuchat said.
> Because there is still uncertainty about what is causing the illness, the C.D.C. is continuing to urge people to avoid vaping anything, including e-cigarettes.
Just because we have identified one thing that is almost definitely killing people doesn't mean we have identified the only thing. In fact we have good reason to think that we haven't identified the only thing.
So we shouldn't wait for actual evidence to worry is what you're saying? Just be perma-scared because "maybe".
The number of deaths and hospital visits have largely stopped since Vitamin-E was identified, all data is pointing to one thing.
This has always been about Vitamin-E being added as a thickening agent to low-quality THC cartridges which would be needless in any glycol based nicotine cartridges and 100% not needed for any real CO2 filtered THC cartridge that used proper marijuana sourcing. Done right it's as safe or unsafe as it's always been.
> Some patients say they vaped only nicotine, and state health officials consider some of those reports reliable, Dr. Schuchat said.
And no, we shouldn't. Common sense should tell you that inhaling large amount of steam mixed with other chemicals is a great way to mess up your lungs.
I don't consider that solid evidence sorry, it's speculation and all evidence is 100% limited to Vitamin-E. I've never heard any reason to add Vitamin-E to a substance that is already thick. Nicotine e-cigarettes don't need thickening agents to be thick. It's like 95%+ glycol which is already thick. Why the hell would they need to add a thickening agent?
The problem has always been there was a shortage of quality weed and instead of waiting they reprocessed "shake" (the lowest quality part of the plant) and added a thickening agent.
The fact some kids won't admit they smoked THC to their parents, which put them in the hospital, also wouldn't surprise me. The numbers are very small at that.
If anything the risks with nicotine are with the various flavouring agents (which shady companies like Juul already acknowledged, another company I'd never use). I'm not saying there's zero risk or that it's entirely safe. But dying and hospital visits over Vitamin-E are in a totally different league and not something I'm not worried about with nicotine e-cigarettes. I am still worried about THC pens in general, which are way harsher than e-cigarettes, but that's not what I'm defending.
Yeah, I don't see any way for THC pens to get safer unless they get legalized and regulated like other food/consumption industries.
I personally use THC pens once and a while from reputable sources but even they still scare me. The experience of smoking it is significantly harsher than even the strongest nicotine vape devices I've used and results in sometimes scary coughing fits for most people I've seen use them, typically from taking too much. I could see that level of heat and inflammatory reaction combined with some bad ingredients result in some serious harm to the breathing passageways.
I wouldn't be surprised if smoking Vitamin-E normally without the heat/harshness of shitty THC vape pens turns out to be harmless. That's purely anecdotal though - besides some study I read where constant-heating of the throat and mouth was connected to higher infections rates with a particular drugs, even though the drug itself wasnt dangerous. (Note: temperatures are typically far lower with glycol based nicotine vape devices which doesn't require heat/burn levels that THC requires).
For some reason the Canadian government (where I live) has refused to add vape pens to the legal list which has helped keep grey market retail stores and online websites flourishing regardless of the law. It would be silly to expect THC pen's popularity will somehow stop - it really is the best way to smoke weed, hands down, and will continue to grow in popularity.
Fortunately most of the reputable [1] Canadian grey market weed sites post medical lab results and unlike the legal shops in Canada have zero issues with supply management. Meanwhile the legal shops are constantly out of stock as supply from legal grow-ops outpaces demand because the licensing system (like all gov processes) is extremely slow, backlogged, and full of highly questionable road blocks.
[1] There are tons of forums, review sites, and Reddit threads where consumers can share information about good grey market stores. That plus whether they post lab tests on their websites... which typically come from the same labs who test the gov licensed grow ops products.
iirc 14% of them claim this. People lie all of the time, especially about drugs. We have ten years of people vaping without dying and a sudden outbreak where all of the evidence points to black market THC cartridges and vitamin E.
But yeah, let's just trust your 'common sense' and take away the single most effective way of quitting cigarettes.
>I also noticed a bunch of health agencies took advantage of the headlines to stir up fear around using them, they never specified what types to watch out for.
They'd no early insight into what was causing the issues, only that it appeared en masse at a time where vaping suddenly got very popular, especially among teenagers.
It would have been negligent of them to try and throw darts at a root cause without having done the due diligence to research the cases and results thoroughly, and so it's fair that their warning was about vaping in general.
It was pretty clear looking at the numbers from the beginning. A high percentage (I think it was 88%) of the people admitted to using black market THC vape cartridges. The other people were probably teens too afraid to admit it. I understand they can't give the all clear, but the headlines and statements by the CDC were vague and pointed toward nicotine products.
Ethical? Depends what he is saying, and whether it's true/reasonable or not. I think you meant to ask whether it's still politically correct, and the answer would be 'probably not'.
This problem isn't down to vaping, it's black-market THC products that were the problem. The ingredients in vape products are very safe (similar formation to the ingredients in asthma inhalers, and many other places).
Yes, a dozen or so people have died from this, but this is a fraction of the 500,000 people die per year from smoking-related deaths in the United States alone.
You have to seriously question the motives behind the "Vaping Deaths!" headlines. Most things in excess are harmful; food, even water! It's all a question of context, and how safe something is compared to the alternatives. Instead of encouraging people to move from smoking to vaping, quite the opposite is happening, like trying to ban flavoured vaping products for instance. There's underage drinkers, but banning any type of flavoured alcohol product would sound ridiculous.
I vape CBD as it is the most effective way to consume it to reduce muscle spasms. I have never smoked, I hate smoking, and that's before my dad died from lung cancer. So I have been following the story very closely, it's actually quite scary how low public health factors in the scheme of things. Big tobacco is still very big (and powerful).
I'd like to think of it as 'big tobacco' - but most of them own vape brands, so would have thought they'd be most happy to carry on selling nicotine products, without being beaten up with them killing people.
Now - I don't think big tobacco is 'clean' here. EU's "Tobacco Products Directive" was pretty much written to hand the market to large suppliers selling small refills.
My guess is that it's just the latest 'think of the children' scare. Juul and teenagers seem to be the main cause/victim here. Seems to gloss over the 'fewer teens are smoking' benefit here.
We had novels, rock music, gansta rap, video-nasties, murder-simulator games... and now we have vaping. Eventually we'll get over it.
This reminds me of defective/poisoned alcohol in the prohibition era causing blindness and whatnot.
If you're going to create a black market via regulation, you better be damn sure the cure isn't worse than the disease. In marijuana's case, that's definitely not true.
The book Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser covers the unintended consequences of black markets in depth and I can't recommend it enough. But pretty much any Schlosser book is great.
The denatured alcohol during prohibition was a government attempt to prevent people from drinking. This was manufacturers allegedly (the reason isn't clear) cutting THC with something that's safe for ingestion, but not inhalation.
If your assertion is that all tainted liquor during the prohibition era came from the government then you're going to have to provide a source, because that's simply bullshit.
If it is 'intentional' it still could be sabotage.
A decade of no issues like this then suddenly a bunch at the same time the bigs are buying into vaping and the legal market for marijuana is growing. The blue ocean of vaping and marijuana is here, both the black market mafias/cartels and the big fish want it and to shakeout the small/medium suppliers you need an event like this. Not to mention the anti-smoking and cigarette lobbies in with the prohibitionists and presidential and governor executive orders, mere months after Altria buys into Juul (Dec 2018), very sketchy and suspect. Top it off it is a big target of propagandists and bot networks right now. Add all that up and it seems like a planned event after sabotage.
The bigs and the mafias/cartels can weather the storm, the small startups and small/medium businesses that have made safe products for over a decade are the target of attack.
In my opinion it was market sabotage on purpose. Every new blue ocean market has events like this and it is from various sources: big fish, underground mafias/cartels, prohibitionists, authoritarians, puritans and moral patrols.
This is America.
People not thinking it is about market power and money are naive as hell.
You think this is for health reasons? laughable. From the country that can't even get healthcare to everyone?
Same with all bans and prohibitions, makes it more unsafe and more lucrative for mafias/cartels because there is decreased supply and increased demand, price goes up, in comes the underground and big fish and more danger.
Vitamin E doesn't give you cancer, the Vitamin E filler Acetate that cheap production was using to stretch supply is not good for your lungs and creates this sickness.
What is known to cause cancer is carcinogens and vaping does not combust like cigarettes so that is 20+ less carcinogens going into lungs.
Smoking isn't healthy, but smoking cigarettes is way less healthy and more damaging. Not only for cancer but for heart and circulatory issues. However people smoke all their lives, most of that damage is prevalent at the end.
People should have a Right to Body and there should be safety/health alerts like there are with smoking to let people decide on their own, bans and prohibitions only make the product people will use more dangerous and unsafe, as well as create cartels/mafias that make everyone unsafe.
Well I meant that, whatever substance is the cause, if it was intentionally introduced, then someone had to know in advance it would be harmful and at the same time it couldn't be common knowledge or it would have been banned. If that's what happened, then how can the accusation hold? How would anybody prove it?
I thought the Vitamin E was only being added to the illegal marijuana vapes though. I believe someone else on a previous story on here pointed out that Vitamin E makes the THC more potent so they can lower the dosage they actually give you and save money.
> The investigation has found that many of these products patients used were bought online or received through friends or family, rather than through vaping shops or at licensed THC dispensaries.
But the official policy was that anyone who got hurt had only themselves to blame.
"By mid-1927, the new denaturing formulas included some notable poisons—kerosene and brucine (a plant alkaloid closely related to strychnine), gasoline, benzene, cadmium, iodine, zinc, mercury salts, nicotine, ether, formaldehyde, chloroform, camphor, carbolic acid, quinine, and acetone. The Treasury Department also demanded more methyl alcohol be added—up to 10 percent of total product. It was the last that proved most deadly."
I don't get why this is written in the past tense or treated as something that ended when one special program ended in the article. The US started demanding denaturing or taxes in 1909, made it deadly during prohibition, but the US still requires a deadly mix on untaxed ethanol today.
When making moonshine first destillation products contain large amount of toxic methanol and are typically discarded. Methanol boils at lower temperature than ethanol.
If an unscrupulous or unknowinh bootlegger sells it anyway this is potentially dangerous.
> As long as the government (ie the people) don't have to pay for it, what's the problem?
Doesn't necessarily apply here, but there are things that people believe are such a detriment to society that keeping them around would incur an unacceptable cost to the government and it's people that might outweigh any benefits it brings.
The market was sabotaged plain and simple because the big fish are moving in. The result will be regulatory capture that make sure the small/medium companies that created the market hand it over to the bigs.
Vaping oil is much different than vaping flower or dry. Vaping simply means non combusted smoke which since it is under 450 degrees it reduces and removes 20+ carcinogens.
Noone thinks smoking is purely healthy, but comparing vaping to cigarettes it is a no brainer safer. Oils probably a little less safe than dry.
Also, cigarette butts are next to plastics as the most environmental damage. e-cigs and vaping is mostly re-usable and there are no butts about it.
A decade of vaping, no issues. Suddenly lots of bunk production where the problem isn't nicotine or THC it is people trying to stretch supply by putting in harmful filler (vitamin E oil). If you ask me that is blue ocean market sabotage. The big fish are moving in.
I predict the market of vaping suddenly being "safe" when the bigs are in. It was safe before, until it was sabotaged for the misinformation/disinformation to create the outrage and distraction. It is almost too easy with our social tabloid outrage market now to manipulate to keep the big fish richer and richer, while people fall for the scam.
Prohibitions and banning does not work, makes it more unsafe and obliterates harm reduction.
Safe markets that are convenient and available beat black markets. But you shouldn't help the bigs squash the small/medium that are already testing within their states in their respective legal state limited markets. This happens at the beginning of all large new markets that are blue oceans, the shakeouts happen on the regular by the bigs.
The legal market here shows how it can improve these areas and find issues quickly. This was a black market sabotage move that was quickly rooted out. It has been turned into another authoritarian prohibitionist banning movement using children again. Overreaction and banning ONLY helps the big fish or the black market, makes everything more unsafe and obliterates harm reduction.
The big fish can weather this storm, the small/medium that were doing it right cannot and you just side with the big fish when you do this. Nearly all prohibitionists/authoritarian people end up doing that just like in this case.
Vaping is already illegal by age, no need to harm adults that have Right to Body. We need a Right to Body amendment that could have a whole political party around it, it could change the world. It would remove all laws and illegality around owning your own body including: drugs, sex/sex working, choice, etc for adults and legal markets that are safer.
Parents need to step up to stop kids from vaping under age. We don't need the whole country or government to be Big Daddy, that is what an authoritarian system has like China or Russia.
Companies shouldn't be able to market them like cigarettes or alcohol, but taking from all because of a few ends up in tyranny, even if you think that small step is harmless, it is not. Otherwise they'll start banning video games, sodas, food, candy, coffee, etc etc.
You have to understand human nature, anything banned increases in value due to black market, anything legal where clear information gets out, starts to help the issue and safer production. Just like in this case, the market was legal, the problem was found to be Vitamin E Acetate quickly.
Think it isn't black market or big fish sabotage? Note the time when Altria bought in Dec 2018 and note when the outrage happened, 2019, see a timeline pattern? [1] Stay tuned, they need people temporarily being against this to win this market as well, keep up the outrage for nothing and they will win.
"But think of the kids!!" Oldest trick in taking over markets disaster capitalist big fish book.
Will you still be saying "think of the kids" when they ban reddit? How about video games, sodas, food, candy, coffee, etc etc? There are plenty of prohibitionists that want to ban all of that and have tried with cases like this many times. They even tried with reddit for FOSTA-SESTA bills after the Craigslist/Backpage classified section shut down because the bigs wanted that and it was one of those "think of the kids" moments that ended up being complete lies [2].
Prohibitions and banning never works on things people choose to do with their own bodies, it will only benefit the black market and the wealthy big fish as well as the cartels/mafias.
Nearly all authoritarian prohibitionist people end up helping authoritarian and big fish in the market just like in this case.
Altria will benefit the most, they can take the temporary setback and it is even some false opposition going on to help this. Juul was bought into recently (2018) and the outage started months after (2019) [1]. Altria also ousted the CEO from before, now they will be able to own more of it with reduced value. This was a simple disaster capitalist big fish play and prohibitionists fell for it.
Prohibitionists are out here fighting for big fish killing off innovative small/medium companies that were doing it right. If you are in the outrage state, pro-prohibitionists and own it, you are letting the big fish take the market from the small/medium players that were doing it right, or the black market mafias/cartels.
This had nothing to do with the legal market, the legal market is the only way forward with age limitations and safety testing/regulations that don't squash the small/medium at this stage.
Just be aware, the bots and trolls are out pushing this. The President looks to be doing an Executive Order soon to limit vaping while easing up on cigarettes, just like all the Republican governors that did it. [3][4] Same play different day, big fish win, "think of the children" authoritarianism and big fish disaster capitalist raiding of the blue ocean that will be immense when marijuana is fully legalized and vaping is suddenly "safe" when the bigs run the show.
This is America.
People not thinking it is about market power and money are naive as hell.
You think this is for health reasons? laughable.
Same with all bans and prohibitions, makes it more unsafe and more lucrative for mafias/cartels because there is decreased supply and increased demand, price goes up, in comes the underground and more danger.
I can appreciate the value of linking to the CDC directly, but I'm curious about why you think the science news article is better than the nytimes one?
When this story first came out several months ago, an HN commenter in the vape liquid business fingered this as a possible source of the problem. Can't find the comment now, but always impressed by the nuggets of real information that crop up on HN.
There was another comment, and the poster was talking about cutting the THC concentrate with Vitamin E oils which is dangerous to vaporize and inhale. I can't find it too though.
It costs $0.06 cents to manufacture a pack of cigarettes. Cigarette companies have a HUGE incentive to suppress vaping -- and I suspect they played no small role in the PR against vaping. While Altria bought Juul, it had no long term competitive advantage. Altria has no capacity to compete in a future where smoking is a technology. We were watching smoking get disrupted by a safer and better technology. That is a huge risk to big tobacco. Cigarettes will be tolerated by governments and the companies will make big profits from a small number of consumers, year after year.
Why is the media, continuously and erroneously tying tainted THC cartridges with flavored nicotine vapes targeting children? It's not just one time either. There's an interstitial on NPR which offers an informational website about the dangers of flavored nicotine to address the toxic cartridges. It's completely illogical, which makes me think that some sponsor is pushing an agenda.
I don't think that's fair to assume - PMI for sure is pushing heated tobacco and making major gains with it's IQOS product but Altria owns a massive stake in JUUL and most tobacco companies now have their own vaping products. My guess, but it's just a guess, is that tobacco companies just want new products like yesteryears "low tar" and "filtered" cigarettes that lure people into thinking something is healthier and either start or put off quitting
Tobacco companies own vaping products but they don't want to. They'd rather lose their entire vaping line and go back to tobacco because it's tremendously more profitable and they have much more control over that.
Any articles or data on the statement about them not wanting to own vaping products? I recently read PMIs and BATs quarterly reports (and last years reports as well) and they're both talking up their novel products as a new source of growth as they're getting hammered on traditional tobacco. I mean I'm sure they'd like the world to just stop taxing/regulating cigarettes and everyone forget that it kills you and stay in that business forever but that just doesn't seem like a market reality
Vaping is taking a much bigger hammering than cigarettes this year. Can you imagine owning a vape shop in Massachusetts when the governor just said, boom, it's illegal -- while cigarettes get sold next door?
Ha, yeah that's true, this year has been rough for vaping, but the general trend for the years prior was that it wasn't quite as hated as tobacco. But I don't think the blowback has been so strong elsewhere, I've been spending a lot of time in Ukraine and I think generally the news is pretty positive even for IQOS which from my understanding from the research that's out there is likely worse than vaping and closer to the harm level of traditional cigarettes
Plus just from a technical perspective because the devices aren't 'cigarettes' they're usually taxed and regulated differently, if at all, by many countries that already have high taxes and rules for cigarettes, so this is an opportunity to establish a new product category, get new customers for a few years at inflated profits because of the loose taxes and regulations, and then back to business as usual then rinse and repeat with the next generation of products
The "heat not burn" systems that big tobacco companies have been pushing as a vaping alternative recently seem like they would be better sellers than cigarettes. They appear to use less materials and cause their users to consume more as they don't smell anywhere near as much (can be used anywhere) and are simply more convenient in general. Users also end up smoking more as there's a short time window to use a stick.
Basically it's the only solid option (imo) that I've seen can help smokers easily quit. I was a smoker for ~10 years and have quit because vaping helped me control and phase out the habit. Marlboro bought juul to kill it, and taint vaping reputation along with, or at least to regulate the F out of it so that only they can continue and kill indie competition.
Great flavored vapes have been taking people off smokes in droves.
Source: Newport rep talk over a couple beers. Big tobacco is charting this and can see it big time. They have people all over the place basically identifying premium brand smokers, offering them significant incentives and definitely notice when they are gone.
Their most potent, hard to kick, premium bans took a big hit when nicotine salt vape also hit. Juul showed the way.
Right now there are tons of smaller players. Big tobacco wants them gone and people on to something more habit forming.
That may be true, but the number of people no longer smoking tobacco is way up, starting about when both nicotine salt and more compelling flavors hit the scene.
In general, big tobacco differentiates between less and quit. The quit numbers stand right out. For example, regular smoker gets theirs consistently at store X. Sometimes store X sells to several regular smokers. Gets price break Y to encourage and solidify that behavior.
Assuming pack a day numbers, the difference between doing less and people quitting altogether tends to stand out over a bit of time. It's quantized.
As to why?
I am not convinced flavors had quite the impact nicotine salt did. It's significant though. Some people need something very different from tobacco, and that's where flavors seem to matter. Both seem to need that "hit" where intake of nicotine is competitive with tobacco.
Juul actually adds an acid that takes habit forming to a level competitive with tobacco, and that's combined with nicotine salt, which is absorbed more readily than freebase nicotine is.
Just nicotine salt, whatever flavor, is almost as potent as what Juul sells. Many cannot tell the difference, or just don't care as it's good enough for them.
Typical move is to do both, and the negative experiences from tobacco add up pretty quick. Smell, having to manage flames, ashes, etc...
The positives from vaping add up too. Minor league smell, if any, no management of flames, ashes. But, there is charging and the fiddling with various bits.
Within a few days, depending on how impacted the smoker is, breathing differences show up, and that seals the deal for impacted smokers. Otherwise, it's just positives outweighing negatives.
Cost is a fraction of tobacco, unless one is using Juul at retail. That can be par. Does not have to be.
People using juice and their vapor delivery device of choice are going to pay much less.
What evidence is there that tobacco companies are been behind the anti-vaping movement? I’d love to be proven wrong, but as far as I can tell the only reason people say this is because they’re an easy whipping boy. IMO, it’s primarily driven by a crusade of parents and real anti tobacco groups (e.g. Tobacco Free CA.)
Tobacco addiction is about monoamine oxidase inhibition and its tendency to make nicotine extremely habit-forming. Tobacco smoke contains various MAO-inhibiting chemicals, which are the primary reinforcing agent.
Vapes do not contain monoamine oxidase inhibitors, only nicotine. They are significantly less habit-forming, and the tobacco companies know this.
Edit: except Juuls, which are tobacco extract vaporizers and almost certainly contain MAO inhibitors.
That's not evidence, that's a motive. On the other hand it's a fact that tobacco companies have spent money on campaigns against various e-cigarette bans[1] and publicly argued against them as well[2].
There's not really any evidence, but it's easy to draw a line between when the media hysteria whipped up and when the tobacco industry got approval to sell their heated tobacco product in the US. Also, there's every reason to believe that the tobacco industry would hugely benefit from vaping (an industry they have a small chunk of) going away and being replaced with heated tobacco (an industry they would own).
The FDA really wants flavored nicotine vapes banned, like flavored tobacco was banned ten years ago. I think the tainted THC vapes are being used as a convenient excuse to do so.
I've been suspicious of a few agendas on NPR. That's one, another is putting the brakes on legalization.
They had that Refer Madness 2.0 book guy on within the past year selling FUD. The way they setup a lot of these interviews/segments without people on representing a coherent counter point is suspicious to me to say the least.
EDIT: Derailing some form of universal healthcare is another one I'm suspicious of.
The fight against tobacco grew into a very large and lucrative industry consisting of a lot of lawyers and nonprofits; experts and pharmaceutical companies with smoking cessation products and programs; and employing a lot of lobbyists, government grant writers, and PR people.
After the big tobacco settlements were done and the restrictions on advertising, packaging, flavoring, and describing cigarettes made federal law, this industry was decimated. The people left behind simply look for any possibility of generating income from anything they can connect to cigarette consumption.
I honestly think it's purely venal. They're attacking a product with a tiny health risk as compared to cigarettes, but using the same language and intentionally and carefully equivocating between the health effects of the two. If they were actually concerned about people's health, the emphasis would be on lobbying for regulation, inspection, and testing of vaping products - which have been a complete free-for-all of an industry which was long overdue to have killed people with a run of tainted product. That it happened in the corner case of vaping and cannabis made it even less overseen, but was also probably a bit of good luck. More people vape tobacco and people who vape tobacco vape more. If some new (or old) ingredient in some widely-distributed line of "vape juice" turned out to be killing people, it would kill a lot more people. That has nothing to do with nicotine or tobacco, though, the reason we even have an FDA is because of dangerous cosmetics, so I don't know how things like "supplements" and vape juice get defined as unregulatable other than through bribery. And I don't know why these groups fight for ultimately unattainable bans rather than proper, strict regulation other than that going for bans generates endless work. If vaping is safer than cigarettes then we want smokers to vape, and if vaping can be made absolutely safe by changing how it's made and inspecting what is sold, then we should do that and as a society stop telling people not to vape.
NPR is simply pushing the agenda of whoever is willing to give it money and send it press releases, and that's probably a lot of law firms looking for a new tobacco-style feeding frenzy and a bunch of government regulators and counterpart lobbyists considering collaborating on that. I would guess that there may have been internal lobbying at some point that would keep NPR from accepting money from tobacco companies anyway, and Altria isn't part of Kraft any more, so there's really no avenue for them to have a say in NPR content.
As much as I support states refusing to wait for the feds to end our disastrous war on drugs policy, this is a reminder that unless we legalize and regulate marijuana at the federal level and make serious efforts to make the legal market work for everyone, there will continue to be a black market. That black market will continue to land people in jail (disproportionately black, Latino, and economically disadvantaged people), help to prop up drug traffickers, and even, as appears to have happened here, needlessly sicken and kill the consumers in an effort to meet demand for products popularized in legal markets. I worry that the marijuana business will be content with descheduling and stop pressing for action as soon as they can use the financial system, and our political system, through inertia, will leave everything else to an ineffective patchwork of state laws.
Edit: Just on the subject of ongoing concerns over vaping and health, another critical thing legalization would allow is research. While this particular health crisis for now looks to be mostly or entirely caused by vitamin E oil, there is a lack of science on the long term effects of vaping weed in oil or flower form. There isn’t even that much research on smoking due to the prohibition, and the evidence we do have, which indicates that smoking weed has similar carcinogenic effects to tobacco, isn’t widely known.
You state that smoking weed has carcinogenic effects similar to tobacco which very obviously is not the case. They are completely different drugs with completely different side effects. Smoke from marijuana does not equal smoke from tobacco. I am not saying its without negative consequences but they are apples and oranges.
Of course we have research on smoked flower. 1000s of years of research. Mankind has been smoking this plant longer than recorded history and Ill take that any day over the literature at pubmed. I would love for the feds to allow more research of course but its still schedule 1 so not much to be done.
This kind of discussion really gets on my nerves. EVERY single type of smoke is carcinogenic. Period. There is a famous study of a sample of boy scout camp councilors/leaders who are non smokers having as much of an incidence of lung cancer as smokers. Why? Because they are constantly standing over campfires inhaling the smoke. There are similar studies about how bad incense is for your lungs.
In conclusion, while both tobacco and cannabis smoke have similar properties chemically, their pharmacological activities differ greatly. Components of cannabis smoke minimize some carcinogenic pathways whereas tobacco smoke enhances some. Both types of smoke contain carcinogens and particulate matter that promotes inflammatory immune responses that may enhance the carcinogenic effects of the smoke. However, cannabis typically down-regulates immunologically-generated free radical production by promoting a Th2 immune cytokine profile. Furthermore, THC inhibits the enzyme necessary to activate some of the carcinogens found in smoke. In contrast, tobacco smoke increases the likelihood of carcinogenesis by overcoming normal cellular checkpoint protective mechanisms through the activity of respiratory epithelial cell nicotine receptors. Cannabinoids receptors have not been reported in respiratory epithelial cells (in skin they prevent cancer), and hence the DNA damage checkpoint mechanism should remain intact after prolonged cannabis exposure. Furthermore, nicotine promotes tumor angiogenesis whereas cannabis inhibits it. It is possible that as the cannabis-consuming population ages, the long-term consequences of smoking cannabis may become more similar to what is observed with tobacco. However, current knowledge does not suggest that cannabis smoke will have a carcinogenic potential comparable to that resulting from exposure to tobacco smoke.
In your example you mention combustable fire created smoke, which campfires and cigarettes do.
The reason why vaping is so prevalent and popular is there is actual science behind it. When you don't reach 450 degrees there is no combustion. Vaping is from high 100s to low 400s depending on the device and user setting.
When something combusts it releases 20+ more carcinogens, when it doesn't it still isn't great for you but there are less carcinogens.
I think everyone is pro less carcinogens right? Or should we stop regulating car exhaust because "smoke is carcinogenic", less of bad things is good. Vaping does that.
Vape, or non combusted smoke, is also less invasive in public areas as non-combusted smoke doesn't have the tar and stickiness that really smells more intense.
Vape smoke also does not contain paper like rolled cigarettes or joints, so there is less paper combusted materials also going in.
No butts either that are fiberglass and a massive pollution problem.
A huge problem with this issue is that it is vaping oils that is the area of attack, vaping bud or flower is much, much safer. They are attacking vaping as if it is all one thing from dry, flower to oils, to legal market and black market all in one term. It is more nuanced than that.
Another aside, vaping removes all cigarette butts from pollution, it is one of the biggest problems in our oceans and drainage systems and they last forever. Vaping is a market solution that takes away cigarette butts and most vaping devices are reusable, both vaping and cigarettes still have packaging but eliminating butts is a huge win.
No butts about it, vaping is safer and cleaner for the environment.
Tobacco was smoked for hundreds of years too, that doesn’t make something healthy.
Any type of smoke in the lungs is bad for them. Whenever marijuana is legalized at the federal level we will finally get the studies showing it, the only thing I can think of is maybe pot smokers don’t end up inhaling nearly as much smoke as an addicted cigarette smoker does.
>As much as I support states refusing to wait for the feds to end our disastrous war on drugs policy, this is a reminder that unless we legalize and regulate marijuana at the federal level and make serious efforts to make the legal market work for everyone, there will continue to be a black market
Canada legalized and regulated marijuana at the federal level over a year ago and yet 40% of users still prefer to get it from the black market.
Vaping weed became very popular here also and there's no official source for THC vape cartridges.
>That black market will continue to land people in jail
Yes, breaking laws may result in incarceration. Even if you legalize it and regulate it, there will still be many people who'll roll the dice and try to undercut the market for their own gain.
Based on what I've heard from others (I don't smoke), the black market in Canada still exists because of poor quality relative to cost, and low supply. Supposedly.
Also, the black market is probably running off inertia due to existing supply, and how easy it is to grow plants as an individual. I don't think anyone expected the black market to disappear overnight. It's only been a year.
I’m not familiar with the situation in Canada but here in California we have excessive taxes (counties and municipalities can layer on more tax beyond the state excise tax) and not enough dispensary licenses to meet demand (again, the fault of municipalities more than the state). The legal businesses that do exist are more likely to be run by green field entrepreneurs than people moving away from the black market. That’s what I meant by making the legal market work for everyone.
Now perhaps they can stop the hysteria and put in some effective regulatory control instead.
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