So young adults should smoke for a decade or three before they switch to vaping?
I didn't say that. I'm talking about marketing practices. Underaged young adults shouldn't smoke or vape, period. You can tell what niche of the population a company is marketing to by their ads. Juul's early ads showed young models who could have easily passed as older teenagers who were wearing contemporary modern clothing that would not likely appeal to anyone over twenty five.
Back in the day when I was underage to smoke or drink, we knew which stores we would be more likely to "score" from. Usually a gas station, convenience store, or a carryout that was negligent to check for ID's. Seems like things haven't changed much since then. Go into one of those establishments today and see what vaping products they sell alongside of cigarettes: Juul, Blu, Vuse. All closed system products by Big Tobacco. You don't see the open system products that vape shops sell and who have the reputation of checking photo ID's.
Going into middle and high schools to "educate" the students about smoking/vaping and declaring that their product was totally "safe" seems to be a bit excessive, especially since that went over and beyond what the FDA said e-cigarette vendors could say to customers. When I worked at the vape shop I couldn't tell customers that vaping was safe nor was it considered a medical smoking cessation tool. The only thing we could claim in the store was vaping was an alternative nicotine delivery system that didn't use combustion or smoke.
And although Juul claimed that their high nic device was "designed" for heavy, 2 - 3 pack per day smokers, they had to have recognized that the potential for youth abuse was high. That was my initial thought when I first heard of Juul's 50mg nicotine cartridges. "Kids are gonna figure out they can get a nic high using those." I'm sure I wasn't the only one.
Juul and its Big Tobacco contempories quickly gained the highest market share. A large part of that popularity was who sold their product, you could find it wherever cigarettes were sold, and also was easy for older kids to get their hands on. Vape shops on the other hand were much more responsible of not selling to youth. Their larger, open system devices were not as appealing to youth and were harder to get their hands on.
So, I don't consider Big Tobacco to be part of the vaping industry. None of the BT companies are in the vaping trade associations. Both groups took different paths in marketing, techology, and product availability. But the bad actors from BT used all of the old stunts of their combustable products and the "legitimate" (for lack of a better word) vapor companies got blamed for their poor ethics and bad play.
