Millions of teenagers around the world are hooked on Juul e-cigarettes. Whether it’s the device's fruity flavor or its easy hold-and-hide style, Juul has caused a health crisis among teenagers. A large contributor to this epidemic are companies who lie to the public about how much nicotine is in the devices. With so many teenagers catching onto the craze every day, more teens are threatening brain development and risking an addiction to cigarettes in their future.
Research
In 2015, Pax Labs created Juul e-cigarettes, a sleek and thin smoking device that aimed to be a safer alternative to smoking. While some health officials believed that vaping was safer than smoking cigarettes, it was still incredibly harmful to adolescents. Even though the smoking age in the United States is 21, Juul has continuously appealed to teens due to its fruity flavors, false advertising, and use of social media and influencers.
In their 2015 launch party in New York City, Juul influencers were seen carrying Juul devices and Juul merch. Given the adolescent attraction to the lives of social media stars, Juul’s featuring of young celebrities at their parties and young models in their campaigns directly engaged impressionable teens. Teens were trying to mimic their favorite celebrities, not realizing the damage they were doing to their body and mind. They were exceptionally clueless, especially given that Juul failed to disclose that the pods contain nicotine. This was extremely dangerous to not only teens but also adults and smokers trying to quit: a single pod could have the same amount of nicotine in it as 20 cigarettes. Due to Juul’s failure to disclose its nicotine content, 63% of teens, studied by Truth, didn’t know Juul had nicotine in it. Vaping, in general, is posed as a safer alternative to smoking cigarettes, which was how vulnerable teens easily caught onto the trend. Independent of the misleading and campaigning towards youth, Juul also used faulty online age verification that allowed underage people to easily buy them.
The years of unlawful lying has finally caught up to Juul. Multiple states, including the Dakotas, Hawaii, and Ohio, sued Juul in 2021. In September of 2022, Juul reached a settlement of $439 million with 34 states and territories. The investigation revealed Juul’s dirty business practices. States began requiring Juul to make payments in a six to ten year timeline. The settlement would require Juul to restrict its promotion to people under the age of 35, implement effective age verification, regulate online and in store sales and regulate advertisement. More specifically, the settlement required them to cease advertisements with cartoons, marketing to people under the age of 35, and paying social media influencers. Juul was also sued by individuals and nine other states in separate lawsuits.
The money, which is only 25% of Juul’s yearly online sales, from the lawsuits are going to vape prevention in some states like Connecticut. This would take a toll on Juul and cost them in sales, but with the amount of buyers and underage smokers, and their tactics to get past age verification, the lawsuit will be unable to make a significant change in underage smoking. The 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey showed that 14.1% of high school students vape, while other surveys have shown even higher numbers. What was not shocking was that the survey showed that 85% of the smokers used flavored and disposable e cigarettes. These surveys, and those like it, proved that teen smoking would decrease if flavored e-cigarettes were taken off the market completely, which the FDA attempted in June of 2022, but put a hold to collect more information. Consequently, Juul is still available for purchase and will continue to wreak havoc on young lives.
What you can do
Spreading awareness and pushing for education on the dangers of vaping and underage smoking. If you know someone looking to vape to quit, talk to them about different ways to quit. Awareness won’t fully help without laws and strict prevention in place, though. Find out what kind of laws your state, providence, country, etc. has and how you can help laws get passed whether it’s talking to a representative or signing petitions.
References
Alltucker, K. (n.d.). Survey: More than 2.5 million middle and high school students still vape, despite crackdowns. USA TODAY. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2022/10/06/teens-vape-flavored-e-cigarettes-survey-finds/8193382001/
Commissioner, O. of the. (2022, June 24). FDA Denies Authorization to Market JUUL Products. FDA. https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-denies-authorization-market-juul-products
Ducharme, J. (2021, May 17). How Juul Got Vaporized. Time. https://time.com/6048234/juul-downfall/
Fox, M. (2019, January 7). How to stop teen vaping? Make e-cigarettes harder to get. NBC News; NBC News. https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/how-stop-teen-vaping-make-e-cigs-harder-get-n955811
How much nicotine is in JUUL? (2019). Truth Initiative. https://truthinitiative.org/research-resources/emerging-tobacco-products/how-much-nicotine-juul
Juul to pay $440m after years-long investigation into teen vaping. (2022, September 7). The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/06/juul-teen-vaping-settlement-us-states
Lavito, A. (2019, September 5). Lawmaker accuses Juul of illegally advertising vaping as a way to quit smoking. CNBC; CNBC. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/05/juul-accused-of-illegally-advertising-vaping-as-a-way-to-quit-smoking.html
Paxton Announces $439 Million Multistate Settlement With JUUL for Deceptive Marketing and Sales Practices; Texas to Recover $42.8 Million. (n.d.). Texas Attorney General. Retrieved October 9, 2022, from https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/news/releases/paxton-announces-439-million-multistate-settlement-juul-deceptive-marketing-and-sales-practices