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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 4th, 2023

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  • 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…


  • Adults also liking something in no way negates the idea that the marketing and flavors are designed to hook in kids.

    Honestly, aside from a little thing like ethics, vape manufacturers would be stupid to NOT try and hook kids while they are young and impressionable, so the default assumption has to be that they are trying.

    Look, I’m open to discussing in good faith, but we’re clearly talking past each other and this feels more like bickering, so I don’t see much point in continuing, other than to collect downvotes 😅


  • It’s less a “think of the kids” issue and more that the vast majority of smokers and vapers start as teens / young adults so there is a huge incentive to get them started and hooked early. It would just be naiive to think cig and vape makers don’t know this and take advantage.

    Just as a thought experiment, imagine a strawberry flavored cigarette was released tomorrow. It would be so transparent the maker would be absolutely crucified the moment it hit shelves.

    All that said, legislation should be based on data and solid studies, not just gut feeling and common sense. I could be wrong here, but the profit motive to get people hooked on addictive products early is just too strong to not look verrrry suspect.


  • Really…?

    I get you’re being sarcastic here, but you and I both know that advertising and marketing can be incredibly subtle and insidious. Hell, that exact complaint is half the content posted to Lemmy. Making your product in flavors that appeal primarily to kids is about as blatant as it gets. What makes you think vape manufacturers are so honest?

    In case you’re being serious, take a stroll down the candy or cereal aisle at your grocery store and see if you can pick out which ones are marketed to kids vs adults just by the flavors.



  • That’s a fair question. My POV is that not being able to buy sweet fruity flavors might be inconvenient to some adults, but it’s hardly something that could be argued to cause an undue burden on vape users.

    It would probably be straightforward to commission a study (or leverage existing study data) to identify the flavors that underage users are most likely to use and start there. If data shows that removing or restricting those flavors is not an impediment to underage vaping, then at that point reconsider the regulations.

    Even if some manufacturers choose to skirt the regulations (no this isn’t “grape”, it’s “purple berry”!), larger companies with the biggest market share are probably not going to want to get tangled up in high visibility lawsuits, and so the likely outcome is that availability goes down, and therefore so does the access and use rate.



  • This is kind of a weirdly phrased question.

    Mathematically, THE argument of the sine function is the angle in question. One definition of sine, using the sides of a right triangle, is the ratio of the opposite leg to the hypotenuse of said triangle: sin(theta)=opposite/hypotenuse.

    Edit: it occurred to me that maybe what you’re asking is how to compute the angle, theta, for which sin(theta) = a certain ratio of opposite/hypotenuse. There is an inverse sine function (often called arcsin) that does just that. Arcsin(opp/hyp)=theta. That’s the case where it would make sense to take the side lengths as arguments.