Juul – Fun Facts!

Posted on | May 14, 2018 | 5 Comments

Mike Magee

Most everyone by now has heard about Juul, the leading brand name for e-cigarettes. But, for most of us, that’s where our knowledge begins and ends – except for a growing awareness that there’s a controversy brewing about risk, teenage use, school policy, and profiteering by Big Tobacco which is getting a piece of the action.

So here are the facts:

Juul is a thin high tech vaporizer about half the width and half the weight of a Bic lighter – which means it’s easy to hide and conceal in your hand. It costs $34.99. The habit forming experience is called “vaping.” Juul is the market leader with 60% of all e-cigarette sales.

A juul is the energy required to produce one watt of power for one second. So there’s that, but also the name evokes the preciousness of a rare jewel as well.

It’s flavored nicotine package, called a pod, is the size of a thumbnail and comes in eight flavors (mango and mint are the best sellers). The pods each contain the amount of nicotine in a pack of cigarettes. The nicotine makes up 5% of a pod’s weight. A pack of 4 pods caosts $15.99.

40 million Americans continue to smoke cigarettes. Cigarettes remain the #1 cause of preventable death in the U.S., killing about 500,000 Americans a year.

Teen smoking of cigarettes continues to decline, but new school “vaping” in on the steep incline. Sales are up 25% over last year at $5 1/2 billion (still small compared to $120 billion in U.S. cigarette sales).

E-cigarettes were invented by Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik who patented the heating device that vaporized liquid nicotine in 2003. Juul’s high tech vaporizer comes from China. It’s liquid nicotine is stored in five-gallon containers and is made in the U.S. but no one knows where – big secret!

A cigarette has over 600 ingredients. Juul has five – glycerol, propylene glcol, nicotine, benzoic acid, flavoring.

Juul employs 400 workers. The 54 year old CEO, Kevin Burns, came from Chobani in 2017. He’s their positioner, saying that Juul is the “cigarette killing company.” The company has its own PAC now and is trying to fight off FDA regulation.

High school administrators are going nuts trying to keep Juuls out of the classroom. Use under age 21 is technically illegal. But you can get it on the Internet and there’s a brisk drug trade inside school walls by enterprising students. Kevin Burns has a new wave answer – Jule’s new “mindfulness curriculum” – and a new Android app to track your nicotine intake.

Jonathan Winickoff, former chair of the American Academy of Pediatrics Tobacco Consortium, isn’t too impressed. He says: “Juul is already a massive public health disaster.” The Heart Association and Lung Association also oppose exposure to this “lethal and addictive” substance.

But David Abrams, former director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the NIH, isn’t too worried about kids vaping their brains off. It’s only nicotine, adding reassuringly, “It changes your heart rate a little bit…” As for the pediatricians, he adds: “The AAP is doing its job. And we should be protective of kids. But there are adult lives at stake, too.” Abrams believes that over 6 million lives a year would be saved if 10% of American smokers switched to Juuls.

Guys like Abrams like to quote anti-smoking guru Michael Russell who said in 1976, “People smoke for the nicotine, but they die from the tar.”

The kids love the Juul in part because it’s distinctly their’s with its sleek design, ability to be personalized, armed with its own circuit board, and upsetting to school officials and parents alike. It’s deliberately “not their parents cigarette” – no tip glow, no rounded tube – and yet it still “peps you up while calming you down.”

And that’s why 50% more middle-schoolers and high schoolers in America now vape than smoke.

Comments

5 Responses to “Juul – Fun Facts!”

Femiint
May 17th, 2018 @ 12:59 am

nice article.. thanks for sharing
Cricket
May 17th, 2018 @ 1:32 pm

The Counsel on Alcohol & Drugs has research that said “the solvents found in most e-cigarette “e-liquids” emit toxic Chemicals. Emissions of Toxic Chemicals from single-coil E-Cigarette”. Nicotine isn’t the only problem. There are 10 toxic ingredients including Formaldehyde,& Acolein. The center for Tobacco Control Research & Education list 10 cancer-causing chemicals in e-cigarette vapor put out by the council ON ALCOHOL & DRUGS.
Mike Magee
May 17th, 2018 @ 1:41 pm

Thanks for this. As one CDC spokesperson said in 2017: “Safer is not the same as safe.”
Rachel Sweeney
August 23rd, 2018 @ 6:05 pm

I do think it’s unfortunate that so many kids are using these, but I hope the desire to keep them out of the hands of kids leads to them being over-regulated or banned outright. I think that would be terribly shortsighted.
Mike Magee
August 23rd, 2018 @ 6:41 pm

As with Marijuana, we need to balance risk and benefit, and then make the most informed and wise decision we can.