this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Sweet is a taste not a flavour and vapes are always sweet because PG and VG is. If anything you could argue brussel sprouts vs. apples but last I checked, adults eat apples.

Also to be consistent you need to outlaw like 98% of liqueurs out there as them containing fruit obviously means they're targeted towards children.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't vape, except occasional cannabis-based products which I understand use a different solvent, so I'll have to take your word on that. But there's a difference between the presence of sweetness vs sweet flavors that typically (or more to the point are designed to) appeal more to younger people. Whether or not those flavors still appeal to adults is kinda moot--as it's been pointed out already, lots of things that appeal greatly to kids still appeal to adults.

The crux of it is if vape makers are generating flavored vapes to try and appeal to younger buyers (which carries a massive financial incentive), I think most people would agree that's not ok. Whether banning those flavors is the right answer I guess would be a matter for study and debate.

This is just a weird feeling thread to be honest, since Lemmy tends to skew massively cynical about being marketed to, especially by billion dollar corps, but the vibe I'm getting here is skepticism that those billion dollar vape manufacturers might be exploiting some simple psychology to get kids hooked early.

And for what it's worth, I'm sure liquor manufacturers do the same thing to some degree, but it's kind of a different ball game since you don't need to get people addicted to alcohol young in order to have them continue to drink as an adult, and most adults who drink are not physically addicted, as with nicotine. Maybe coffee would be a better comparison...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

It was not companies who started the whole thing. People have been vaping fruity and dessert aromas back in the days where you still had to build your own vape (usually from torches, hence the term "mod" for the battery holder/control unit: They're modded torches. Literally).

And that btw is also what would happen again if you were to outlaw those flavours: People would again buy bog-standard PG-based food aroma to mix their juice. It's a good thing that companies are actually selling vape aroma as vape aroma because it means that you can expect it to not contain some problematic stuff.

Or are you, on your crusade, going to outlaw food aroma in general?

and most adults who drink are not physically addicted, as with nicotine.

Nicotine on its own is roughly as addictive as caffeine, look at any recent study. Don't confuse it with the MAOIs in cigarettes, or indeed the MAOI/nicotine synergy. The "nicotine is more addictive than heroin" and shit line is actually a Tobacco industry thing to sell light cigarettes. Still of course contain the full brunt of MAOIs.


As to "don't advertise to kids": Yeah no shit. If companies would be using cartoon characters and whatnot we should outlaw it. There's no issue with outlawing it even if they don't. But to lash onto fruits as "evidence" that they're targeting kids is inane, you should rather look into things like disposable vapes, everything that lowers the barriers to entry away from the "screw atomiser on mod, squeeze in juice" baseline.