Unless you have been left in the dark in regards to the social life of generation Z for the past two years (no offense) then you most likely know or have seen the recent explosion and craze for juuling, vaping, and other smoking alternatives.
While I have numerous reasons behind my hate for these products, one of the main reasons is the idea that these are marketed as healthier smoking alternatives. While that may be true to some extent, I think everyone can agree that inhaling anything into your lungs besides oxygen long term is not good for you. Not to mention that there is still nicotine used in these flavorful pods, and one juul pod is equivalent to smoking one pack of cigarettes worth of nicotine.
For anyone who does not know, nicotine is the addictive part of what brings people back to smoking cigarettes. As health journals describe it, “Nicotine is highly addictive and harmful. It is normally smoked in cigarettes but can lead to further drugs misuse also.” To emphasize its harmful effects, “Nicotine is at least as difficult to give up as heroin.” Essentially these companies are using the same thing as tobacco companies but are marketing it as healthier because they are not using things such as rat poisoning in their products.
While I won’t debate that it is a ‘cleaner’ way to smoke, and I am sure there are long time smokers out there using these in effective ways to quit smoking actual cigarettes, teenage kids absolutely abuse these juuls/vapes. I don’t know where or when or how or why they blew up as being cool and fun, but they did and I think that it’s a major problem. I would love to do a survey across American teens who use juuls, and see if they even know the facts about what they are smoking. I feel like everyone who uses them just smokes them because they think it’s some harmless vapor that tastes good. If they are using this product as the first thing they smoke because they believe it’s better than cigarettes then they’re blind to the facts. Studies prove, such as the quote above, that nicotine is highly addictive and can lead people, i.e. teenage kids, to seeking the next better buzz or kick they get from juuls/vapes.
I wanted to write this article because I feel like these products could easily act as a gateway to way worse ways to get that buzz feeling, and I am wondering if and when will this craze stop or slow down before it gets out of control. Or is it already out of control? Given the recent crackdown by the FDA, I think they might have answered that question for us.
The Food and Drug Administration admonished the makers of the Juul products by forcing them to come up with a plan to keep their devices away from minors within the next 60 days. If Juul Labs and four other labs failed to completely stop the sale of electronic cigarettes to minors, the their operations will be completely shut down and taken off the market. This would mean catastrophe for those in leading positions in this multi-billion dollar industry, as well as those teenagers who are already hooked on the popular device. In an FDA report, nearly two million middle schoolers and high schoolers were found to be regular users of e-cigarettes in 2017. This is a huge dilemma today and can snowball into an even larger health crisis down the road when the consequences of smoking e-cigarettes are better understood.
sources:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/240820.php
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/12/health/juul-fda-vaping-ecigarettes.html