I'm not sure it's even possible for a nicotine company to stay successful for very long without a big lobbying effort. As soon as they're a big enough brand, they become a juicy target for political interference from the usual bootleggers-and-baptists combo of anti-tobacco activists and competing tobacco companies.

It was never a technology company. It's biggest function was marketing, and now it is going to be lobbying.

Its biggest innovation was figuring out how to avoid tobacco regulations, and it does seem likely that Washington is the next battleground on that front.

It's biggest innovation was ensuring tobacco regulations for everyone else while making sure it didn't apply to them.

San Francisco banned e-cigs as of 2020. I could certainly see Juul wanting to leave in that case.

Why? It seems short-sighted because it increases regular smoking. Plus no one cares about the ban. You can literally get away using a juul (or other device) on an airplane discretely.

Because Juul gets teens addicted to nicotine, and this outweights the public health benefits or providing an alternative to cigarettes for adult cigarette addicts.

The UK government agencies opinion is that e-cigarettes are about 1/20th the risk of smoking. So if 1% of teens switch from smoking to vaping and 19% of teens start vaping it's a wash from a public health standpoint.

And the numbers are far better than this which means it's a public health benefit.

I would disagree to a point on ecigs on health benefits - they seem to be very useful on decreasing overall tobacco use.

However, Juul has specifically targeted teens with targeted ads, influencers and 'education' on underage teens - purposefully [see FDA link].

In addition, Juul heavily promoted 'salted' nicotine, where many ecig enthusiasts or those who quit only use 3 mg to 6mg nicotine levels in their ejuice, Juuls salted nicotine push can get up to 60mg.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-vaping-juul-idUSKB... >Between 2018 and 2019, use of JUUL vaping devices doubled among U.S. young people aged 18 to 20 and more than tripled among those aged 21 to 24, a new study finds.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-warn... >he agency also sent a letter to the company expressing concern, and requesting more information, about several issues raised in a recent Congressional hearing regarding JUUL’s outreach and marketing practices, including those targeted at students, tribes, health insurers and employers.

> this outweights the public health benefits or providing an alternative to cigarettes for adult cigarette addicts

No way. It's not the e-cigs - those are vastly more helpful than harmful overall. It's Juul specifically - they're the bad player in the game. Not the only one, but the biggest of the handful - most e-cig companies just want to sell within the rules. No need to cut off the nose to spite the face. That would be detrimental.

Yeah - that's not true.

I disagree. 1300 deaths from actually smoking per day sounds way worse than 2000 people getting hospitaled and 33 deaths per YEAR

And banning vaping has increased good old fashioned cigs in teens. Teens are going to smoke or vape. Pick your poison.

How much technology is there in e-cigarettes anyway? It's basically a small electric heater and a battery.

juul pods are more sophisticated than you might think. the circuitry monitors the resistance change of the heating coil to estimate its temperature and adjusts the power to hit a target. this stops the wick from burning if it's dry (very unpleasant for the user) and delivers a consistent experience mostly independent of airflow over the coil. it takes a lot of engineering effort to make that work in such a small form factor and cheap enough to be disposable.

Juul sort of has to to survive though. Big tobacco wont tolerate an actual competitor.

Juul is not an alternative to Big Tobacco. It is just another member of the club, facing the same kind of existential regulatory pressure as the other major participants in the industry. And as mentioned by others, Altria owns a third of the company.

Possibly not for long: https://www.barrons.com/articles/altria-group-must-unwind-it...

Your comment indicates just how successful Juul's marketing has been. You didn't know that Altria Group, Inc. owns a large stake of Juul.

There is a lot of ignorance around, and PR/Advertising works, so I understand why you'd think that of me.

But consider the counter case for a moment.

Altria didn't pay 13bn dollars, for just 35% of a company that is barely 5 years because they were confident did they? Hedging your bet is a sign of fear. And you generally still want the main bet to pay off. Altria would do better if Juul were banned, they'd lose 13bn but the rest of their portfolio would go up by considerably more than that.

When you have billions of dollars hedging is standard operating procedure, not a sign of fear. Anyone in control of that kind of money who isn't hedging their main source of revenue should be fired.

He means they have to move because they ARE big tobacco who, if they don't lobby the government, will be gone.

Juul is owned by big tobacco (Philip Morris).

That was the point of the parent poster. It's better to create a limp competitor from within than leave an empty vacuum for an outsider.

Exactly. From what I understand, they're trying to get all vape products heavily taxed like cigarettes (which states are chomping at the bit to do because of declining revenue from that sector)-- they can simply sell their stuff at break-even or a loss for a while until all competition is dead. Voila! A new monopoly is born.

But juul is big tobacco?

Altria owns a 35 percent stake in them, so their interests are definitely aligned.

Juul is a huge opportunity for big tobacco.

It’s a way to get the kids hooked and make them life long customers.

What was ever 'tech' about Juul?

Their valuation!