What evidence is there that tobacco companies are been behind the anti-vaping movement? I’d love to be proven wrong, but as far as I can tell the only reason people say this is because they’re an easy whipping boy. IMO, it’s primarily driven by a crusade of parents and real anti tobacco groups (e.g. Tobacco Free CA.)
Tobacco addiction is about monoamine oxidase inhibition and its tendency to make nicotine extremely habit-forming. Tobacco smoke contains various MAO-inhibiting chemicals, which are the primary reinforcing agent.
Vapes do not contain monoamine oxidase inhibitors, only nicotine. They are significantly less habit-forming, and the tobacco companies know this.
Edit: except Juuls, which are tobacco extract vaporizers and almost certainly contain MAO inhibitors.
That's not evidence, that's a motive. On the other hand it's a fact that tobacco companies have spent money on campaigns against various e-cigarette bans[1] and publicly argued against them as well[2].
There's not really any evidence, but it's easy to draw a line between when the media hysteria whipped up and when the tobacco industry got approval to sell their heated tobacco product in the US. Also, there's every reason to believe that the tobacco industry would hugely benefit from vaping (an industry they have a small chunk of) going away and being replaced with heated tobacco (an industry they would own).
Basically it's the only solid option (imo) that I've seen can help smokers easily quit. I was a smoker for ~10 years and have quit because vaping helped me control and phase out the habit. Marlboro bought juul to kill it, and taint vaping reputation along with, or at least to regulate the F out of it so that only they can continue and kill indie competition.
Great flavored vapes have been taking people off smokes in droves.
Source: Newport rep talk over a couple beers. Big tobacco is charting this and can see it big time. They have people all over the place basically identifying premium brand smokers, offering them significant incentives and definitely notice when they are gone.
Their most potent, hard to kick, premium bans took a big hit when nicotine salt vape also hit. Juul showed the way.
Right now there are tons of smaller players. Big tobacco wants them gone and people on to something more habit forming.
That may be true, but the number of people no longer smoking tobacco is way up, starting about when both nicotine salt and more compelling flavors hit the scene.
In general, big tobacco differentiates between less and quit. The quit numbers stand right out. For example, regular smoker gets theirs consistently at store X. Sometimes store X sells to several regular smokers. Gets price break Y to encourage and solidify that behavior.
Assuming pack a day numbers, the difference between doing less and people quitting altogether tends to stand out over a bit of time. It's quantized.
As to why?
I am not convinced flavors had quite the impact nicotine salt did. It's significant though. Some people need something very different from tobacco, and that's where flavors seem to matter. Both seem to need that "hit" where intake of nicotine is competitive with tobacco.
Juul actually adds an acid that takes habit forming to a level competitive with tobacco, and that's combined with nicotine salt, which is absorbed more readily than freebase nicotine is.
Just nicotine salt, whatever flavor, is almost as potent as what Juul sells. Many cannot tell the difference, or just don't care as it's good enough for them.
Typical move is to do both, and the negative experiences from tobacco add up pretty quick. Smell, having to manage flames, ashes, etc...
The positives from vaping add up too. Minor league smell, if any, no management of flames, ashes. But, there is charging and the fiddling with various bits.
Within a few days, depending on how impacted the smoker is, breathing differences show up, and that seals the deal for impacted smokers. Otherwise, it's just positives outweighing negatives.
Cost is a fraction of tobacco, unless one is using Juul at retail. That can be par. Does not have to be.
People using juice and their vapor delivery device of choice are going to pay much less.
I don't think that's fair to assume - PMI for sure is pushing heated tobacco and making major gains with it's IQOS product but Altria owns a massive stake in JUUL and most tobacco companies now have their own vaping products. My guess, but it's just a guess, is that tobacco companies just want new products like yesteryears "low tar" and "filtered" cigarettes that lure people into thinking something is healthier and either start or put off quitting
Tobacco companies own vaping products but they don't want to. They'd rather lose their entire vaping line and go back to tobacco because it's tremendously more profitable and they have much more control over that.
Any articles or data on the statement about them not wanting to own vaping products? I recently read PMIs and BATs quarterly reports (and last years reports as well) and they're both talking up their novel products as a new source of growth as they're getting hammered on traditional tobacco. I mean I'm sure they'd like the world to just stop taxing/regulating cigarettes and everyone forget that it kills you and stay in that business forever but that just doesn't seem like a market reality
Vaping is taking a much bigger hammering than cigarettes this year. Can you imagine owning a vape shop in Massachusetts when the governor just said, boom, it's illegal -- while cigarettes get sold next door?
Ha, yeah that's true, this year has been rough for vaping, but the general trend for the years prior was that it wasn't quite as hated as tobacco. But I don't think the blowback has been so strong elsewhere, I've been spending a lot of time in Ukraine and I think generally the news is pretty positive even for IQOS which from my understanding from the research that's out there is likely worse than vaping and closer to the harm level of traditional cigarettes
Plus just from a technical perspective because the devices aren't 'cigarettes' they're usually taxed and regulated differently, if at all, by many countries that already have high taxes and rules for cigarettes, so this is an opportunity to establish a new product category, get new customers for a few years at inflated profits because of the loose taxes and regulations, and then back to business as usual then rinse and repeat with the next generation of products
The "heat not burn" systems that big tobacco companies have been pushing as a vaping alternative recently seem like they would be better sellers than cigarettes. They appear to use less materials and cause their users to consume more as they don't smell anywhere near as much (can be used anywhere) and are simply more convenient in general. Users also end up smoking more as there's a short time window to use a stick.
