Cigarettes have become the nicotine version of the VHS player; obsolete and seemingly useless to today’s newest generation of young-adult smokers. According to thetruth.com, one of the most reputable sources for all nicotine and cigarette related statistics, electronic cigarette and vape use has created the same level of addiction and dependence on nicotine as previous generations. The unsettling part of that statistic is the level of addiction is present in a generation that was statistically unlikely to start smoking nicotine products in the first place. Due to the increased level of enforced education against cigarettes, tobacco, and nicotine, millennials and the kids of generation z were actually on the road to be the first generation to be tobacco and nicotine free, for the most part.
However, ever since Juul was introduced to the market in 2015, smoking and vaping in young adults seemed to sky rocket. The original purpose and intended use for the Juul was for people who already smoked cigarettes, and they were supposed to use the device to help them quit. In fact, according to a quote from Melanie Milin, co-founder of Vapor4Life, in an interview with the New York Times, she said her company had “always told prospective customers not to start vaping if they don’t already smoke. The company offers products in a range of nicotine levels to encourage people who vape to taper off and quit.” The new generation of young adults have just gone straight to the Juul.
Juul, as a company, also started the trend of creating pods that had fun and creative flavors, which would market to the younger generations. Flavors like Fruit Punch, Creme Brulee, and Mango we’re meant to appeal to the younger group of potential addicts, and it worked.
The FDA caught onto this marketing technique and decided to take action, since the fall of 2018 the company of Juul has now removed all flavors besides Mint, Menthol, and Tobacco from store shelves, however, plenty of electronic cigarette competitors have created compatible pods that work with the device and can still provide the same fun flavors that young customers were used too.
According to The New York Times, “Many public health and school officials believe Juul’s early marketing campaigns, which highlighted the “coolness” of the devices, helped make them fashionable with teenagers and led to rising nicotine addiction among young people who had never smoked.”
In the same New York Times article, Joshua Raffel, a spokesperson for Juul, actually expressed his concern about all the counterfeit flavored pods that were accessible to teens today. “We are taking aggressive actions against counterfeit and compatible products because they are a direct threat to our plan to combat youth usage”.
Whether this effort to remove the counterfeit pods was actually with concern for teenage use or just simply a marketing decision, is unclear, but it’s an effort nonetheless.
Regardless, young adults still have easy access to these products, keeping nicotine and tobacco relevant in a world where it should have disappeared. The counterfeit pods are cheaper, have more flavors, and are found in any corner store or deli that most likely has a teenager working behind the counter who doesn’t check if a group of 15 year olds are actually legally able to purchase the mango pods they’re stocking up on.
It’s important to understand the layers of an issue as large as this one. It’s not just about preventing teenagers from becoming addicted to a chemical, in reality the world does not know a lot about the content of these electronic cigarettes and vapes. We know there’s a high concentration of nicotine, obviously addictive and negative, but beyond that the facts about how this chemical affects a growing teenagers development and function is vague.
There have been multiple incidents within the past year of teens going to the hospital for lung problems. Within all of these cases, there has been no definitive way for doctors to connect the issues with the hospitalized teens to vaping. However, every single medical case that’s been reported has shown that all the teens were smoking or vaping some sort of product weeks leading up to their hospital visits.
Unfortunately, even with companies like thetruth.com, who are constantly trying to enforce anti-tobacco/nicotine use, the problem still persists and frankly has gotten much worse.
There have been numerous lawsuits against many of these companies, many are still pending but all are in a larger effort to get these products out of the hands of young adults and teenagers. However, until those cases are complete, the epidemic will continue.
Experts constantly encourage parents and guardians to make sure they’re enforcing a non-nicotine/tobacco household, as well as keeping an eye on their child and what they might be putting into their lungs.
Eric Mastrota is a Contributing Editor at The National Digest based in New York. A graduate of SUNY New Paltz, he reports on world news, culture, and lifestyle. You can reach him at eric.mastrota@thenationaldigest.com.
