Profile picture
, 7 tweets, 4 min read
My Authors
Read all threads
Juul wanted to distance itself from a toxic past.

But new evidence depicts a Silicon Valley start-up that harvested the tobacco industry’s technical savvy to launch a 21st century nicotine arms race.
latimes.com/politics/story…
A review by The Times of more than 3,000 pages of internal Juul records found that the formula that makes the e-cigarette so palatable and addictive dates back more than four decades.

The key ingredient: nicotine salts.
latimes.com/politics/story…
A similar formula was tested 40 years ago, in a six-month-long chemical investigation found in the research troves of R.J. Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes. On the report was a stamp: “CONFIDENTIAL.”
latimes.com/politics/story…
Juul’s salts contain up to three times the amount of nicotine found in previous e-cigarettes.

They use softening chemicals to allow people to take deeper drags without vomiting or burning their throats.
latimes.com/politics/story…
One of the first aerosol cigarettes was introduced by RJ Reynolds, the maker of Camel cigarettes. After five months, it was pulled from the market due to low sales.

It was one of the various failed precursors to e-cigarettes over the past few decades. latimes.com/politics/story…
Reynolds had previously conducted research into nicotine salts — but ultimately never commercialized cigarettes with the formula.

It was the same type of compound Juul ultimately used for its own products decades later. latimes.com/politics/story…
How did Juul take a chemical formula out of Big Tobacco’s original playbook? Read more from @Emily_Baum:
latimes.com/politics/story…
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh.

Enjoying this thread?

Keep Current with Los Angeles Times

Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

Twitter may remove this content at anytime, convert it as a PDF, save and print for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video

1) Follow Thread Reader App on Twitter so you can easily mention us!

2) Go to a Twitter thread (series of Tweets by the same owner) and mention us with a keyword "unroll" @threadreaderapp unroll

You can practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @latimes see all

Profile picture
Los Angeles Times
@latimes
Across the U.S., asylum officers are finding ways to resist a Trump administration immigration policy they view as illegal, according to asylum officers and officials who spoke to The Times and @ThisAmerLife. lat.ms/2QkCEqI
@ThisAmerLife Doug Stephens, a former asylum officer, decided he wasn’t going to interview any more asylum seekers under the president’s latest policy to restrict immigration, known as Remain in Mexico.

It took him only two days to decide. And he’s not alone. lat.ms/2QkCEqI
@ThisAmerLife Stephens knew the interviews were set up to send asylum seekers back to Mexico, even if they were in danger. He also knew that refusing to implement government policy likely meant he’d be fired. lat.ms/2QkCEqI
Read 5 tweets
Profile picture
Los Angeles Times
@latimes
In an unlikely marriage of classic car culture and green technology, sophisticated hot-rodders – mostly Californians – are cannibalizing crashed electric cars and using their batteries to create electrified sports cars and muscle cars. latimes.com/business/story…
They are expanding the auto world’s consciousness about what can be done in the electric-vehicle space – and making good money doing it. Their price can run from $30,000 for a DIY conversion kit to several hundred thousand dollars for a full overhaul. 📸: @myung_chun
Most of the retro-EV customizers power their vehicles with batteries from wrecked Model S, Fiat 500 or Nissan Leaf cars that have less than 20,000 miles on them. Builders say they are likely to last well past the 100,000-mile mark typically exceeded by Teslas. 📸: @myung_chun
Read 5 tweets
Profile picture
Los Angeles Times
@latimes
Roughly 1.4 million Floridians had their voting rights restored last year by state voters through a ballot measure. Amendment 4 casts a national spotlight on the disenfranchisement of felons, long after they served their sentences. @kurtisalee reports: latimes.com/world-nation/s…
Within months, Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature tried to limit the effect of the initiative — passing a measure to allow voting only by ex-felons who have paid off all court-imposed fees, which in some cases amount to tens of thousands of dollars. 📸: @WallySkalij
Voting rights advocates say the action undermined the will of the people and effectively created a “poll tax,” not unlike the Jim Crow-era laws that used voting fees as a way to suppress African Americans from casting ballots. 📸: @WallySkalij
Read 4 tweets

Related threads

Profile picture
Andrew Thompson
@vaper_the
This opinion piece by a few Ozzies is so full of contorted thinking & debunked logic it is worthy of a @Clive_Bates 13K word smack-down, but I expect he's busy on other things so I'll post some brief points.
@KielanMcalinden, S. Sohal, @sharmalabonline
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
"Maternal smoking and intrauterine exposure to tobacco smoke and nicotine have been linked.."
Nicely snuck #nicotine in there. Onya!
If U don't understand that CO and tar are largest source of harm from #tobacco #SMOKE then perhaps U should stay in the shallow end of the pool.
"These devices still deliver nicotine .."
You say that like it's a bad thing.
The evidence to support that needs to be balanced by evidence of healthful effects re Alzheimer's, Parkinson's disease, Dementia, ADHD, Schizophrenia..
Read 18 tweets
Profile picture
Matt Jameson
@RogueNotary
Peter Thiel has been crusading against higher ed and the media for over a decade. Thiel formed an actual conspiracy to take down Gawker. Then his right-hand man showed up out of nowhere and formed a group of crusaders against higher ed and the media, and nobody's connecting dots.
I guess it's just one of those lucky coincidences that the brother of Thiel's right-hand man, who had spent decades at the most ridiculous leftist university in the country, found himself in the middle of a giant campus free speech kerfluffle and began serving Thiel's agenda.
"Are you implying Peter Thiel paid all the Evergreen students to get really mad at Bret Weinstein?" IDW kids say the darnedest things. Of course the students' response was genuine. Was Bret's involvement genuine? Who knows. But a billionaire conspiracy veteran was never far away.
Read 31 tweets
Profile picture
Pé Resists
@4everNeverTrump
Silicon Valley is terrified of Elizabeth Warren's proposal to break up the tech monopolies; they view her as an existential threat.

Silicon Valley is far more threatened by its own reckless disregard for customers' privacy than anything Warren could ever do.
One could say that Warren's proposal to decentralize power in Silicon Valley is something that could save the industry from itself.
Facebook, Google and Amazon have an absolutely terrifying amount of power over our day-to-day lives.

They can shape our reality with a tweak of an algorithm.
Read 3 tweets
Profile picture
Erika Hall
@mulegirl
So I'm going to try something here. I'm going to do a monster thread about using stories to help visualize the relationship between design and business in order to make more intentional, ethical choices.

Let's go!
For all the efforts of smart and well-meaning professionals, the interfaces between humans and the economic entities we’ve created seem not to be so much on the side of the humans and trending worse.

This is *the* central problem of digital interactive systems design.
The tendency for designers to consider system design only from the point of the user—and emphasize empathy—has contributed to this.

Design is only as “human-centered” as the business model allows and designers have been treating business models as givens.
Read 26 tweets
Profile picture
Rhys Jones
@rg_jones
This is EXTREMELY concerning. New research centre on Indigenous smoking is being funded by the tobacco industry.

Yes, you read that right: *funded by the tobacco industry*

medianet.com.au/releases/16667…

(Thread)
It was all smiles and accolades at the launch, but everyone seems to be glossing over the centre’s funding source and the huge ethical problems that raises.

The centre is being funded by The Foundation for a Smoke-Free World. Here’s their President, Derek Yach, talking about the new research centre. vimeo.com/285901659
Read 9 tweets
Profile picture
Mark Harris
@meharris
Scoop! Silicon Valley start-up Swarm Technologies gets slammed by the FCC for launching unauthorized satellites that could endanger other spacecraft. Four tiny CubeSats flew on January’s PSLV mission after FCC denied permission spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aero…
Previously unknown Swarm, still in stealth mode, is planning an orbital satellite network for use by IOT devices anywhere in the world, promising “orders of magnitude” cheaper comms, with light, cheap data relay platforms. swarm-technologies.com
But Swarm’s 0.25U satellites were too small for the FCC, which denied launch permission citing concerns about tracking and collision avoidance. Apparently, Swarm launched anyway. I think this would be the first unauthorized launch of commercial satellites ever.
Read 5 tweets

Trending hashtags

#FACTSMATTER #WANTED #evidence #incubator #DIRTYLAWYER #EVA #FactCheck #Silicon #RHETORICAL #LesBarbouzesDeLElysee #fusible #DIRTYLAWYERS #ChargeDeMission #technology #XavierNiel #MAGA #creativity #AlexandreBenella #NEW #Floridaman #LOL #globalMBA #LooseBull #GabrielAttal #8mai
Follow Us on Twitter!

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just three indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3.00/month or $30.00/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!