The 5 year price graph is much nicer to view.

I have a life to attend to.

In theory, similar bans should apply to all harmful substances e.g. fizzy drinks, alcohol, fast food etc. This is obviously an extreme take and difficult, if not impossible, to do in practice.

I also drink, have consumed illegal substances and consume fast-food on a rare basis.

My reasoning is that I do not want extensive costs being lumped into the general public to pay for the needed health care, due to the availability of harmful, non-beneficial products in our society. I do not believe extra tax on these products is appropriate or sufficient as these products tend to be used by those with lower education or lower income groups - and it is not fair to further burden these groups in life.

It’s clear you don’t understand grouping from this conversation.

IQOS may not be big in all markets, but their share is not negligible.

The juul lawsuit triggered a lot of regulation changes and created legal precedent.

That is all I have time for.

Would anyone really start vaping just to blow clouds of flavoured smoke?

I’m not being facetious here, genuinely curious.

I mean mothers don’t decide for adults either, hopefully. But I think you missed my point.

We know that: Tobacco and alcohol companies tried (and still do try) very hard to get kids to smoke & drink, because a child who smokes/drinks will likely become a significant customer for life.

Regulators also know this, so they began aiming at removing the marketing which was clearly influential to age groups not legally allowed to consume alcohol/cigarettes. I know for example Australia banned alcohol ads during kids tv shows, tobacco advertising has been banned since the 90’s.

Then along came vaping, which was neither a tobacco or alcohol product and could circumvent the regulations in place.

There is a significant young population size who will take up smoking/vaping for its social appeal - whatever that is. Let’s call them pot #1.

There is also a significant young population who will try smoking/vaping, realise it tastes like ass or is too much effort and decide to not continue with it. Let’s call them pot #2.

Pot #1, which it sounds like would include you for cigarettes, cannot be influenced and these regulations trying to reduce smoking/vaping would annoy them.

Pot #2 however can be influenced as long as those factors are address, e.g. ban the selling of the child friendly flavours, reducing exposure and limiting supply.

By reducing pot #2 for harmful activities like drinking, smoking and vaping, you reduce the burden on your public health system in the long term.

The big vape companies have been bought out by the big tobacco companies now, so they are one in the same.

Naah in all for the ban on fruity flavours. A lot of people, myself include, growing up didn’t smoke because it tasted like trash. Imagine if cigarettes tasted like hot chocolate!

It doesn’t remove all vapers, but it doesn’t increase the numbers either.

I thought telegrams encryption was more or less non-existent? Am I missing something?

Does it say that in the article? I don’t understand who this person is or why this discredits everything that Reuters as a news provider does.

No idea about this dude, but literally in the article you link, they reference Zenz as an independent researcher who says:

“Although it is speculative…”

Before providing his estimate and also provides other details which appear to support the story, but the article does not present as clear, hard “facts”. Also, the title isn’t some clickbait trash, and even directly says “could”.

I can recommend Reuters, given it still has a little bit of sports and opinion, but I find it’s good at providing neutral facts and sources it’s knowledge from appropriate experts for its opinion pieces.

It only lacks in providing local level news, where I turn to my country’s national broadcaster.

Your post history is outrageously dramatic. I would advise you to find a healthy hobby or two, preferably away from the internet.

I would add that to use these stores it is HELPFUL (not mandatory) to understand what they are presenting.

F-Droid is a store for open source software, normally maintained (or not) by teams of passionate people or volunteers.

Aurora store is a mask over the Google play store, which can use an anonymous account to download files from the Google play store. The Aurora store may not be ideal of you are working with paid apps, but it is worth reading up before you blindly jump in here.

There is also the [email protected] or [email protected] groups which can help if you want to de-google.

You are correct, re-loading the aurora store after shifting my vpn to the target country (and anonymous login) seems to change the aurora storefront too :)

Some apps are not available in my Google store due to geoblocking. Can aurora circumvent this? Or is it a front end of the “local” google play store?

I do not understand why German mobile data is so heinously expensive!

E.g. in Austria https://www.hot.at/tarife.html

No an overly helpful suggestion maybe, but I used to look for servers hosting the cars service manual whenever I had issues. But that was in the early 2010s, so not sure where to look for them now.

I like the first half of your comment, but the second is really hard to swallow. I guess you meant “severe” or “debilitatingly” painful/disabled life, and I don’t think you meant malice in what you’re saying - but I know some people living with disabilities that would see your comment as calling them worthless.

Not sure I’m ready for suicide memes.

India is a world leader when countries are ranked by population. It’s time will come, as the middle class grows and imports from other nations increase, but that is not happening in the next 5 years in my opinion.

India’s inability to remove the caste system leads IMHO to an equivalent of middle eastern country’s inability to allow women a meaningful place in their society, and is a massive hindrance to reaching its potential socially and economically.

On the positive side, absolutely has the best cuisine in the world

I don’t normally blindly down such comments, but without credible explanation and evidence of what you mean, I made an exception here.