Some of the LinkedIn Responses are direct and on-point, and also hilariously/depressingly based depending on how you look at it:
EDIT: In hindsight, I think I should've looked into posting this in a different community.. It's closer to a silly "innovation".. soo.. is this considered FUD? I also don't support smoking or vaping, especially among kids. Original title had "privacy-violating" before the "solution".
Naah in all for the ban on fruity flavours. A lot of people, myself include, growing up didn't smoke because it tasted like trash. Imagine if cigarettes tasted like hot chocolate!
It doesn't remove all vapers, but it doesn't increase the numbers either.
It's preposterous. First of all, you aren't my mother, you don't get to decide what other adults do with their own goddamn body, this includes "inhale flavoring."
Now with that out of the way: The flavor bans are not for kids, kids are also banned from the "tobacco" flavors as well, the bans are targeted at the customers and legally that is supposed to be only adults. And as me and the other guy you're responding to are proof of, it isn't the yummy flavor that originally attracted us to things like fucking Marlboro Reds as children, and the flavor that was present was not a deterrent. Frankly, if we're banning good flavored ecigs because "kids who aren't supposed to get them anyway want them more" then so too must we ban flavored vodkas like Ciroc, and hard ciders, white claws, most mixed cocktails, hell even sour beers and delicious trappist ales are too sweet, any alcoholic beverage that doesn't taste like an oak barrel has to go, because adults can't like good flavors so those must be to entice children to buy them even though just like the vape store the sign on the liquor store door says "must be 21 to enter."
The point of the flavor ban is to make it so that adults who are legally able to buy it in the first place have a less enjoyable experience trying to quit or switch from analogue cigarettes, and as a result are more likely to go back to the cigarettes. It was lobbied for by the big tobacco and pharma corps, you're spreading their propaganda unwittingly.
Regular full flavored vape juice is by far the most effective and successful smoking cessation or harm reduction tool available to us to date, better than patches, gums, pills, yadda yadda. The tobacco corps want you using their products, and big pharma wants you to take Chantix, they do not want you vaping because they want to take your money while they kill you, and they can't do that if you have something that is 95% safer than their arsenic and fiberglass sticks and tastes like Pineapples.
I mean mothers don't decide for adults either, hopefully. But I think you missed my point.
We know that: Tobacco and alcohol companies tried (and still do try) very hard to get kids to smoke & drink, because a child who smokes/drinks will likely become a significant customer for life.
Regulators also know this, so they began aiming at removing the marketing which was clearly influential to age groups not legally allowed to consume alcohol/cigarettes. I know for example Australia banned alcohol ads during kids tv shows, tobacco advertising has been banned since the 90's.
Then along came vaping, which was neither a tobacco or alcohol product and could circumvent the regulations in place.
There is a significant young population size who will take up smoking/vaping for its social appeal - whatever that is. Let's call them pot #1.
There is also a significant young population who will try smoking/vaping, realise it tastes like ass or is too much effort and decide to not continue with it. Let's call them pot #2.
Pot #1, which it sounds like would include you for cigarettes, cannot be influenced and these regulations trying to reduce smoking/vaping would annoy them.
Pot #2 however can be influenced as long as those factors are address, e.g. ban the selling of the child friendly flavours, reducing exposure and limiting supply.
By reducing pot #2 for harmful activities like drinking, smoking and vaping, you reduce the burden on your public health system in the long term.
The big vape companies have been bought out by the big tobacco companies now, so they are one in the same.
You do know that the "tobacco" flavors are nothing like actual tobacco, and are instead still sweet just with a particular taste vape companies decide is "close enough to tobacco," right? Some people do actually prefer them to fruity or desert flavors. You have to have some kind of flavor to cover up the taste of raw Nic suspended in VG, nothing is flavorless in reality, tobacco flavors just taste bad to me, some of those kids may end up preferring it. With that said, what is really stopping pot #2 from being like "well societal pressures are high enough I chose to do it, and it doesn't taste that bad, I still wanna be cool." Then they get addicted in the meantime like pot #1? Nothing really.
Furthermore, Ok fine, ban flavors for kids. I'm not a kid, I should still be able to buy it. Flavored vodka is banned for kids, but I can still buy that, do you think we should also ban Ciroc since that's what many teens start with, or not?
Btw your link to phillip morris vapes that nobody has ever used in the history of the workd is funny as hell, I didn't even know they made these, really controlling the market, huh? Who owns Smok, Geekvape, Elf Bar, Juul, or any of the popular ones? I'll give you a hint, it isn't Phillip Morris nor is it R. J. Reynolds. And are those on PM's site disposable ones or are they supposed to be refillable? PM doesn't want you to use the good stuff that people like, they want you to have to use whatever drivel they put out.
Btw Juul is the only company who was sued for marketing to kids, do you really think it's pertinent to go after flavors adults enjoy to spite the customers of an entire industry not just that company, instead of just attacking the advertisements and companies themselves like we do for alcohol? Again then why not ban the flavored drinks for adults as well?
Also were those ads targeted ads? Why wasn't google's adsense involved in the lawsuit if so? You'd think the platform that targets ads would be involved in the suit about targeting 21+ ads to kids (which google/apple do know they're doing since they do have that sort of data on all their customers). I propose this is because it isn't about the ads for kids, and is instead about hurting the vaping industry for adults (who again, also like flavors, liking pineapples isn't exclusive to children), and pushing the big vape companies out of the way to make room for your never before seen phillip morris brand things with flavors designed to push people right back to analogue.
It's clear you don't understand grouping from this conversation.
IQOS may not be big in all markets, but their share is not negligible.
The juul lawsuit triggered a lot of regulation changes and created legal precedent.
That is all I have time for.
I notice you're avoiding answering if you think this ban should also be applied to alcohol. Is it perhaps because you agree that the literal exact same logic used against vape flavors is stupid when it's used on the thing you may like?
I have a life to attend to.
In theory, similar bans should apply to all harmful substances e.g. fizzy drinks, alcohol, fast food etc. This is obviously an extreme take and difficult, if not impossible, to do in practice.
I also drink, have consumed illegal substances and consume fast-food on a rare basis.
My reasoning is that I do not want extensive costs being lumped into the general public to pay for the needed health care, due to the availability of harmful, non-beneficial products in our society. I do not believe extra tax on these products is appropriate or sufficient as these products tend to be used by those with lower education or lower income groups - and it is not fair to further burden these groups in life.
Then I expect to see you campaigning to ban all those things too and quit the ones you do partake in, don't just single out something that actually helps people quit analog tobacco and may help more than it hurts tbh, unless you'd rather everyone who switched had instead continued smoking gross flavored cigarettes.
Banning fruity flavors sounds like it would inadvertently ban all of the drug-free vapes... Flavor-only vapes get you all the big clouds and cool-factor that's a big drive for kids, with none of the Nicotine or weed. Just inhaling the vapor on its own can be fairly safe.
Would anyone really start vaping just to blow clouds of flavoured smoke?
I'm not being facetious here, genuinely curious.