Juuls: A Youth Crisis

Soomin Lee.

With flavors such as mango, mint, and crème brulee, Juul has grown into a $15 billion company in the span of 15 months. Juul is a new type of e-cigarette that involves heating up a cartridge filled with oils to create vapor that quickly dissolves into the air. Although the minimum age to purchase Juuls is 21+, “Juul-ing” has become increasingly popular among underage youth. In a survey performed by the CDC, it was reported that “3.6 million middle and high school students said that they were current tobacco product users, and more than half used e-cigarettes.” According to a Tufts article, “the percentage of high school students who reported using e-cigarettes . . . had increased from 1.5 percent in 2011 to 11.7 percent in 2017.” This dramatic increase is probably due to Juuls offering an assortment of appealing flavors as opposed to cigarettes which, to many, give off an acrid smell. Juuls are also the size and thickness of a USB stick, making the device extremely easy to hide and carry around.

A majority of teenagers hold the misconception that e-cigarettes are a safer alternative to cigarettes but, in reality, there is a lack of basic consumer protection by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over the product. In a study done by the NIH, when teens were asked “What do you think is in the e-cigarette?” 66% said flavoring, 13.7% said they didn’t know, 13.2% said nicotine, 5.8% said marijuana, and 1.3% said other. Juul creators purposely concentrate the nicotine levels in each pod so that the produced effect can replicate the feeling that one gets when smoking a regular cigarette. Each pod has 59 milligrams of nicotine per milliliter of liquid which is three times the nicotine levels permitted in the European Union. Juuls also vaporize liquid “that has nicotine salts (a freebase nicotine) which are absorbed into the body at almost the same speed as nicotine in regular cigarettes . . . without the unpleasant feeling in the chest and lungs that cigarette smoke does.” In addition, some studies of e-cigarette products showed that the e-cigarette vapor contained “known carcinogens and toxic chemicals, as well as potentially toxic metal nanoparticles from the device itself.” For example, e-liquids could contain “high levels of nickel and chromium, which may come from the nichrome heating coils of the vaporizing device” as well as low levels of cadmium which is known to cause breathing problems and disease.

Early research studies show that “e-cigarette use may serve as an introductory product for preteens and teens who then go on to use other tobacco products.” For these reasons, it is urgent that e-cigarettes be placed on the same strict regulations as cigarettes. It should be mandatory for e-cigarette companies to register their product information to the FDA. Furthermore, the FDA should establish regulated quality controls for product requirements, manufacturing quality control, labeling restrictions, and contaminant limits. In compliance with the American Heart Association, the FDA should restrict marketing to children by childproofing its packaging and banning the use of candy and fruit flavors.