2. Yes, they are easier to get, for a couple reasons: once you have a juul you only need juul pods, and additionally you don't need to purchase a lighter (which you need to be over eighteen a lot of places to purchase).
edit 3. They are far more discreet (you can vape in a classroom if you are in the back and it is dark) and deliver more nicotine.
Why is it easier to buy juul pods than a pack of cigarettes?
And I'm not aware of any place in the states you need to be over 18 to buy a lighter - and as a former dumbass teenager, I don't think kids have difficulty in figuring out how to light things on fire.
Discretion makes sense, but I feel like rationalizing an irrational decision here. Wouldn't it be more discrete not to vape?
I personally remember being a teenager in California trying to buy a lighter to smoke and it was not straightforward. Indeed, I ended up being successful, but I had to use a stove lighter we had lying around my house.
Huh? Are you saying that teenagers behave completely rationally? We just wanted to rip our magic flight launch boxes while watching bill nye. It would have been more discrete to sit down and shut up.
MtG doesn't have any health downsides other than possibly being a marker for being too sedentary. Vaping has direct health consequences over "not vaping" even without nicotine.
The "safety" of vaping is predicated on being compared to "smoking cigarettes". If a bunch of non-smokers picks up vaping, that calculus evaporates.
Consequently, selling vaping to a non-smoking, teenage market should come under extreme scrutiny.
In addition, everything about the vaping experience is designed to be addicting. I had a friend who believed exactly as you do until he tried one of the flavored, non-nicotine pods. They have a very strong attraction.
I do not think you can develop a physiological dependence to Magic the Gathering cards. Additionally, the cards do have some market value, so it was more of a poor use of money than throwing money away.
Are you claiming that people develop physiological dependence to non-nicotine pods? Nicotine is very addictive, but that's why the parent poster said "if there’s no nicotine, then who cares?" People may get all kinds of strong weird habits with oral fixation e.g. biting nails and such, but that's generally not considered as physiological dependence.
Nicotine is not what mainly makes smoking addictive or even dangerous. There are plenty of bad chemicals that are much worse than nicotine that vaping could (and shouldn’t) include.
If they have nicotine, then who cares either? Nicotine is addictive when combined with other substances in regular cigarettes. Not as a stand-alone chemical.
(Of course avoiding getting any kind of particulate in your lungs is better than getting it.)
Nicotine by itself doesn’t seem categorically different than caffeine (coffee, tea, yerba mate, guarana, ...) or other stimulants (khat, coca leaves, ginseng, cinnamon, ...). Yes these are generally addictive, but not necessarily life ruining. Dosage, frequency of use, etc. matters a lot.
Frequent long-term use of any stimulant is probably not great for you; e.g. my mother has a pretty severe coffee addiction (she typically drinks 4–8 cups per day), and gets headaches and shakes if she goes a couple days without. But compared to other kinds of drugs, it doesn’t seem like such a huge public health threat that we should freak out about it.
I think you’re partly right. However comparing nicotine to caffeine is like comparing apples to oranges. They are similar, but nicotine affects the brain in a much more different (and arguably more addictive) way than caffeine does.
Maybe because of this list of research papers collected by Gwern claiming that nicotine alone doesn't have strong addictive properties (not beyond caffeine level):
I've smoked tobacco for 30-ish years. Organic, additive-free tobacco is definitely less problematic for me. Lately I've been growing my own Nicotiana Rustica [0], which contains plenty more nicotine than regular tobacco but is nowhere near as addictive.
I know what I would do if I was selling drugs and didn't give a crap about anything but profits, I would make them as addictive as possible.
To take it a step further (since it's something I've thought about), even if it is highly addictive, does it matter? It's an obvious problem with tobacco products for health reasons. But AFAIK pure nicotine isn't particularly bad compared to many things we consume, apart from the withdrawal effects. Though perhaps I'm misinformed there.
I believe that most teens buy juul pods from peers, so network penetration is its own facilitating factor. Furthermore, the price differential between wholesale and word-of-mouth high school black market is likely high enough to drive a pretty brisk trade.
Lighters are inexpensive, common, and last a long time.
Juul pods are age-restricted consumables, just like cigarettes.
I think the lack of odor, more agreeable flavors, and less health or social stigma are more important. I doubt e-cigarettes differ much from cigarettes in how easy it is to get ahold of when underage, although perhaps adults are more willing to sell them to or buy them for teenagers on the belief that they're harmless.
A juul vaporizer does last longer than a lighter, but at a significantly higher cost. Lighters cost a buck or two and last for hundreds and hundreds of cigarettes. The juul vaporizer is also just as easy to misplace/lose as a lighter. As a former CA teen, lighters were absolutely trivial to get—and far less hassle than getting a juul vaporizer. Hell, you can find matches pretty damn easily, too.
Edit: Assuming the average teenager has limited funds, a lighter and pack of cigarettes is far cheaper than a juul vaporizer and pack of pods. Even once you have the juul, the pods are still more expensive than buying a new lighter and cigarettes in many areas.
I'm not going to argue that it was major obstacle. Not at all. In fact I'm willing to concede that it is so much a non issue that I should not have included it on my list of reasons.
But there was definitely a year of my life less than six years ago when I was not able to purchase a lighter from any gas station in the bay area, and I'm absolutely certain that it has only gotten more difficult for teenagers since cigarettes now require you to be 21 to purchase.
And I should mention there is no law preventing the sale of lighters. People will just flat out refuse if you don't have an ID.
I had an experience as a teenager as well and "must produce fire" wasn't a meaningful obstacle. Of course your mileage may vary but lighters (and if not that, then matches certainly) were and are commonly found in households, ready to go missing.
And they last such a long time that frequency of replacement just does not matter compared to the cost and frequency of either cigarettes or vaping consumables.
As someone who used to get lighters as a teenager just to have one, without using it to smoke (though in my later teens I smoked), I find this fascinating. Are smaller matchbooks also prohibited? Like others have mentioned, I never had trouble starting a fire as a teenage boy, it's like this inborn survival instinct.
There is literally zero statute or law preventing the sale of lighters to anyone. That being said, gas station attendants and Walgreens cashiers in the particular area I grew up (which was the bay area) would not sell them to anyone under 18. I have no idea about matches - I couldn't find them.
I'm sorry, I meant a lighter isn't an obstacle to smoking. You can use a household stove lighter, a match, a car cigarette thing.. there are lots of opportunities.
I always think, "the two letter 'e's are discrete from each other, but the two letter 'e's hide away discreetly." Or something like that. It works, I swear!
2. Yes, they are easier to get, for a couple reasons: once you have a juul you only need juul pods, and additionally you don't need to purchase a lighter (which you need to be over eighteen a lot of places to purchase).
edit 3. They are far more discreet (you can vape in a classroom if you are in the back and it is dark) and deliver more nicotine.