Congressional documents show Juul Labs met with eight Native American tribes about its vaping device. Native Americans still have the highest smoking levels in America, 22 percent versus 14 percent overall, so if this was 2015 I'd argue 'of course they should talk to tribes, everyone who smokes should be approached with smoking cessation and harm reduction tools' but the evidence is clear that Juul was not just appealing to smokers, they were creating new markets. And people who see racial profiling, legitimately or as an overarching conspiracy, will say they targeted vulnerable communities.
But the meetings were that vaping in general, and Juul in specific, is a valid tool for smoking cessation and harm reduction. And it is. While smoking kills, nicotine is no more harmful than caffeine. The only person who has even tried to commit suicide using nicotine took 500X the LD50 dose and it failed to kill him.
Just because Juul have been questionable in some tactics doesn't mean everything they did is corrupt. We don't throw the whole smoking cessation and harm reduction markets out because of Juul's behavior, any more than Monsanto's questionable behavior with dicamba means the goal of affordable food is bad. But behavior of companies does count and Juul has done a lot of damage with its mercenary tactics. Most people assume that the vaping illnesses which hit last year were due to nicotine, when it was really marijuana products that have to be adulterated to create a vapor. Juul had nothing to do with that, but the stigma for all vaping is because of them. And that's a shame.
As Smoking Plummeted Elsewhere, Juul Marketed To Native Americans To Boost Its Vaping Device, But Was That Wrong?
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