I feel that a quick look toward McDonalds, as a convenient example, debunks the majority of this^. Honestly. Or Diet Coke. Or... any one oa a million products and businesses that are sold by interests fully aware of how bad their products are for people but just don't care, do it anyway, and get away with it 'cause most people just DON'T KNOW or DON'T CARE.
First, we must define the terms of the malfeasance if we are to discuss this matter in good faith. If you're equating the inclusion of diacetyl in e-juice with the sale of fatty foods -- equating the potential harm of vaping diacetyl with the harm of eating a greasy cheeseburger -- then you and I simply have an irreconcilable difference. And if that's the case, then frankly I find your worldview scary and depressing; you would enable the corrupt prohibitionists who are our biggest enemy right now.
If, on the other hand, you refer to a more specific and proximate harm caused and concealed by McDonalds -- the inclusion of per-se unsafe ingredients for example -- then sure, I can agree with you, to a point. Unfortunately it's a crucial point: in order for a business to do as you say, on purpose, there must be a clear incentive. If, for example, a given ingredient is a known danger but it's orders of magnitude cheaper than the alternative, then yes, absolutely a large corporation like McDonalds might roll the dice.
McDonalds, after all, is basically too big to fail. A single wrongful death lawsuit isn't going to destroy McDonalds or Coca-Cola. We see the same thing, more often I'd argue, in the automobile industry, because the extreme cost of effecting a recall of a defective car, both in terms of PR and cash, is a deep gulp -- and usually car companies can survive the fallout from a cover-up.
So don't get me wrong: I do believe that a company like FlavorWest would
intentionally fail to analyze its flavorings. I do believe that a company like FlavorWest might even lie about having done such an analysis. What I cannot believe is that FlavorWest would
intentionally put ridiculously large amounts of diacetyl in a flavoring that they sell on the vaping market. There's no upside. We're not talking about a billion-burger-a-day business that can save millions upon millions of dollars by using a cheap ingredient. We're talking about an artificial-flavoring company that can't possibly derive benefits in real profit to offset any negative consequences for maxing out on diacetyl.
Do you see the distinction? It is unreasonable to argue that any business would deliberately
poison its customers when there's nothing to gain in the exercise. I suspect that you and I share a similar distrust of enormous corporations. Where we appear to differ is that you would paint all businesses with that same brush. Greed and a lack of scruple unite all businessmen, arguably, but the practical cost-benefit analysis for each differs wildly.
Thing is, the vape community doesn't have the capital or clout to absorb the operating costs of lawsuits and legal issues, nor the ability to lobby effectively for our interests against those that wish to squash us completely.
Things like this are just more ammunition, like actual and legitimate reasons, for regulation, on top of all the BS that is already out there. And it won't simply go away by itself.
Everyone has the capital to pursue a
wrongful death lawsuit, if god forbid the matter should come to that. In any case, and although I'm definitely sympathetic to the notion that
class-action suits are usually a waste of everyone's time (hardly benefiting anyone
except the lawyer), we're back to the essential problem, which is that no rational business owner would pursue a course that could end in a potentially ruinous lawsuit unless there were an obvious and immediate benefit in doing so.
And actually, our little community's done a pretty good job at policing itself, all things considered. The Flavorwest thing is problematic, but look at TFA and FA. And as noted previously, once we lick the diacetyl (and analogues) problem, there's very little left to do, because
mankind has yet to identify the practical danger of the vast bulk of the remaining flavorings commonly used in e-juice. Unfortunately, only time and widespread use will identify new dangers.
If you expect any industry, regulated or not, not to have similar controversies, then you're too optimistic about the healing power of government.
If as a community we don't want Big Bro Fn-up our seen, we need to handle things like this as a community. This is not a "vape it if you want" solution. It is a "we need to purge our community of these people/businesses before they F us all."
So, like I said: BOYCOTT. Make a list of suppliers who just seem to not give a .... about us. Tell your local B&M you don't want to vape their flavors. Tell your friends to not vape them. Make them change their ways before bad sh~ happens.
Don't just say "vape it at your own peril".
Agreed. I don't recall saying anything to the contrary. What I
did say is that apart from a handful of known-to-be-unsafe flavorings, we simply do not know what other flavorings
might prove similarly dangerous down the road. So sure, promote manufacturers like TFA and FA; boycott FlavorWest -- but as a general principle, if you vape flavored juices you are to some degree a guinea pig. We cannot be protected from harms that no one has identified.
I appreciate the discussion.
