A similar point to be made, we tried this style of legislation in Australia.
Under the guise this was for the publics interest, the only 'legal' vapes you can buy in the country now are manufactured by Phillip Morris International and other big tobacco companies.
The blackmarket continues to thrive and with it organised crime grows, have yet to see a pharmacy that stocks 'legal' vapes.
Police in my local area are either paid off or get black market tobacco products for free to turn a blind eye to this issue, can't imagine thats limited to my area only.
I'm all for regulation around nicotine products but I sure as shit wouldn't trust a pollie to make decent legislation around it at this point in time.
I thought about going into all of that, but at this point in the US it's still mostly speculative, since they haven't gotten the bans in place yet, and these pretentios fucksticks would never believe it anyway.
I didn't know that it's actually happened in Australia. That's unfortunate, but it'll provide me with an example in the future.
It's a fairly standard corporate move though. The biggest corporations lobby for a bunch of restrictions and requirements on their own industry because they're in a position to meet them, but they'll serve as a barrier to entry for potential competition.
So it's possible - arguably even likely - that these self-righteous asshats crying about the evil tobacco companies are actially effectively (or even literally) working for those very companies.
Which is just another reason why I have nothing but scorn and disdain for them.
Eh, their argument is that children vaping leads to nicotine addiction leads to smoking. It's not a great argument, but it's not entirely without merit. Someone who is using vaping as a more healthy alternative to smoking is already accustomed to the flavor of cigarettes. Flavored vapes aren't necessary for the smoker to switch.
Nicotine juice has been flavored from the very start. Way back in the day when premixed juices didn't even exist and vapers - who were pretty much exclusively smokers looking for a safer alternative - had to buy propylene glycol and nicotine extract and mix it themselves, we also bought flavoring, because the simple fact of the matter is that unflavored nicotine juice doesn't taste like cigarettes - it tastes sorr of like hand sanitizer mixed with ear wax.
This whole uproar about flavored vapes is a bizarre fiction being promoted by busybody assholes and idiots - by crusading fuckwads using something they self-evidently know absolutely nothing about to feed their desperate and pathetic need to feel self-righteous.
After thirty years of trying and failing to quit smoking, vaping is almost certainly the only reason I'm alive today, and these foul busybody shitbags want to ruin that for me and everyone else in the same position, and bluntly, fuck them. They're fucking scum.
I kind of love how you acknowledge how addictive nicotine is, yet can't fathom tobacco companies, the same people who lied to their customers for decades to keep their industry afloat, making products specifically to entice new users at an easily suggestible stage in their life.
It's not that I "can't fathom" it as that I know that it's complete snd total bullshit.
Tobacco companies didn't invent vsping - ordinary people did. And tobacco companies didn't originate the idea of flavoring it - the same ordinary people did. We did it because we prefer it that way.
And then years later, some bunch of self-righteous twats who know absolutely nothing about yhe actial history of ot come stumbling along and start blathering a bunch of fucking nonsense about the evil tobacvo companies flavoring juice to enticevkids.
Motherfucker - I was flavoring juice myself when tobacco companies didn't even know vaping existed - when it was just a handful of people on a forum experimenting with attaching homemade nichrome coils to modified flashlights.
So don't fucking presume to tell me what I can or can't "fathom."
So, if can only assume that you don't believe tobacco companies did the other things they did because North Americans were growing, drying, and smoking tobacco for thousands of years before those companies came into existence.
Everything you described is what happens when niche hobbies become mainstream. That doesn't mean malicious organizations can't see the potential for profit and engage in predatory practices. And it doesn't mean that something that wasn't particularly harmful to society can't become harmful when it goes from a niche activity to something mainstream and commercialized.
Sweet response that addressed almost nothing they said and only chose to condescend to them. Are cigarettes unflavored? Because I sure preferred that taste and only continue to not smoke because I enjoy vaping fruity flavours, and know that it's better for me than smoking. And hell yeah, let's get rid of one use devices and bring back RDAs, RDTAs and all the other stuff that initially helped me quit smoking, and then let's further legislate and ban the sale of vapes from gas stations and crack down on vape shops who sell to minors. Bet you that works a lot better than anything you'd suggest.
I think there is a big difference in the appeal of vapes to younger audiences when we account for the flavors. Tobacco and other boring flavors are great for quiting. An arrary of sweet and fruity flavors make people want to try more flavors and also vape more frequently because the brain is itching for that hit of sweetness as well as hits of nicotine.
Fair enough, I've never vaped. I quit smoking cold turkey 20 years ago, before vapes became popular. Quitting was fucking hell, and I don't begrudge anyone whatever tools or transitions help them manage the process. I never recommend anyone quit cold turkey, because I know first hand what a nightmare it was.
My only point is that the manufacturers of nicotine products do not have your best interests at heart. They want to keep you addicted, and get new people addicted. If they could make a product that delivered nicotine and tickled your genitals at the same time, they would.
With less appealing flavors, it might help people like yourself reduce your nicotine intake. Smell and taste are strongly linked to the neurological pathways for pleasure and memory.
When I smoked, a friend of mine would frequently smoke cloves, and so when I was quitting the smell of vanilla or spices would make me crave a cigarette. Associating nicotine with certain flavors will make you crave nicotine when you smell or taste those flavors. Making it less pleasurable over time would reduce cravings.
Either way, if your goal is to stop, then flavors aren't helpful.
With vaping, and self mixing your own juice, you can control the nicotine content. I found it very useful in weaning myself off cigarettes, primarily the nicotine. I also found it helpful in not eating sweet junk food. Was well on my way to also ditching vaping when the Australian gov't decided to blanket ban Vaping. I'm back at square one, craving sugar and nicotine. sigh
I did agree with some of the controls put in - not in public/shared spaces, not for kids, etc. But a total ban? That only creates a black market and a shiny for kids who want to rebel.
Why not ban both? There are nuanced approaches you could take that wouldn't immediately force every addict to quit cold turkey, or turn to the black market.
Banning is not and will never be part of a "nuanced approach" to anything. It's the approach preferred by shallow, self-righteous, authoritarian shitheads.
And there are likely a dozen things you did today that are more harmful than vaping. The only thing that makes them any different is that they're not things that have become focal points for shallow, self-righteous, authoritarian shitheads
Flavoured vapes (except menthol and smoke flavour) is illegal in Denmark, and guess what? Everyone and their mother vapes illegal vapes. The prices has actually somewhat gone down after the ban plus today I see kids vaping everywhere, didn’t do that as much five years ago.