Juul Update
March 7, 2019
Juul addicted teens are nothing new, but will the epidemic cease to exist? At the end of 2018, Juul followed the FDA’s guidelines and changed its policies in order to save their company. Helping to solve the nation’s major teen addiction to vaping, the company felt restricting flavors like mango, fruit, and creme at most stores and raising the age from 18 to 21 would be the best solution. Since these major changes in sales practices, teen usage has decreased.
The company claims to have made major improvements by keeping advertisement solely adult based and making it harder for underage students to access Juul’s Instagram or website. However, accessing their website content is easy with a click of a button “confirming” the customer is age 21 or older. Not only that, but customers are still able to buy the banned flavors online. Was Juul’s answer to students problems an easy way out instead of sacrificing their own profits? Teenagers still continue to use illegal products and there is no current end in sight. This quick fix to a significant problem will not and has not helped the U.S come to a close end on this widespread dilemma for students.
Is Juul or any drug company coming up with a solution? Or are they too busy trying to make a profit? Have they ever shown the initiative to help prevent students from living a life with popcorn lung, addiction, lung disease, insulin resistance, chronic bronchitis, and an increased heart rate and blood pressure? If so what is going to help fix our nation’s headache?
“It’s just too hard to quit. I tried it a couple of times with my friends, just to see what it was like, and now I can’t go a day without it. None of us can. I wish I could take it back, but I can’t.”
— Anonymous Student
A off brand Juul? Just like Juuls started out by “unintentionally” influencing teens to use their products, Suorins have a created a company that uses the same concept. With flavors like cotton candy, cookie, and tropical, teens are shown a flashy new product to use while Juul is becoming an older product. Suorin also uses decorative cases and devices in the colors “Pink Pearl” and “Baby Blue.”
48% of Arapahoe students have JUULed
83% of students have friends who JUUL
65% of students report seeing no change in their or their friends’ consumption of JUUL pods since JUUL stopped producing certain flavor pods
