In today’s society, teenagers and young adults consider smoking cigarettes to be gross, cancerous, and that they cause you to smell. Alternatively, vaping is the new craze that has become quite popular, more specifically a small device called a Juul, the only issue is that teenagers and young adults do not truly understand the harmful side effects from using this device.
A Juul is a small rectangular vape that is very high in nicotine content, and can become highly addictive. They cost about forty to sixty dollars to start out, but every refill you buy after that costs twenty dollars for four “pods”. A pod is a small cartridge that you put into the actual Juul device that holds the vape liquid. The Juul pods come in ten different flavors, each varying from three to five percent nicotine content.
The Juul company was founded by two men, James and Adam, who were both former smokers. Their goal of inventing the Juul device was to help improve the lives of adult smokers. The founder’s intent is that, “As scientists, product designers and engineers, we believe that vaping can have a positive impact when used by smokers, and can have a negative impact when used by nonsmokers. Our goal is to maximize the positive and reduce the negative. These alternatives contain nicotine, which has not been shown to cause cancer but can create dependency. We believe that these alternatives are not appropriate for people who do not already smoke” (JUUL Labs, 2018).
Given that the founders of the Juul device did not intend their device to be used by people who were not previously smokers, it has turned into a popular device for teenagers and young adults to use. One of the large issues is that the audience that mainly uses the Juul do not understand the consequences it can have on them in the future. Angelica LaVito from CNBC says in her article, “The inspection comes weeks after the FDA announced a crackdown that requires e-cig manufacturers, including Juul, to submit plans to address youth use of their products within 60 days. The agency also threatened to ban some flavored nicotine liquids, which critics say attract kids to e-cigarettes” (7). It is good that companies such as the FDA are trying to make advances in order to make sure that young adults are not getting addicted to nicotine, but if they really wanted to teens and young adults could get their hands on flavored Juul pods in order to fuel their addiction.
Angelica LaVito also states, “The e-cigarette craze has driven what’s arguably the largest uptick of teen nicotine use in decades. That follows years of cigarette smoking among teens dropping to record lows” (10). If teens were more educated on what nicotine does to their bodies, they may be more hesitant to pick up a trend such as the Juul.
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