Washington University In St. JUULouis

My obsession with the JUUL began one Saturday night when I was cozied up in my dorm room watching YouTube videos about butchering meat. As I lay in my pajamas, knees propped up, I was deeply engrossed in the knife work of a craft butcher who was carefully demonstrating how to fillet a Denver steak. As I was watching, I heard the door creak open and a tall, thin, blonde college student with glasses walked into my room. Without saying a word, he inhaled deeply from a black stick in his hand, and before I knew it a cloud of smoke dissipated through my room now tainted with a disturbingly sweet smell. Confused and at a loss for words, my mind flashed back to other moments where I had seen the innocuous, paper-thin instrument. In line at a concert. Being tucked into someone’s pocket as they left the bathroom. In someone’s backpack. And now in my face. Whether you like it or not, the JUUL and other modern e-cigarettes like it are primed to define our conversation on addiction, the culture of smoking, and public health.

On one hand, the JUUL is an effective smoking cessation therapy and public health officials have warmed up to the idea that they can act as harm reduction tools. The UK’s Center for Substance Use Research found that 64.3% of 11,689 adults (aged 21 years or older) surveyed who reported that they were smokers when they first used JUUL, also reported they now no longer smoke cigarettes. Furthermore, a study published in the British Medical Journal found that common mutagens and carcinogens were nine to 450 times less prevalent in vaporizer smoke when compared to cigarette smoke. Clearly, many of these e-cigarettes offer a safer alternative to cigarettes and can help people switch, but they may also allow a new generation to become addicted to nicotine in an easier, more efficient way.In such cases people can search for detox locations near me as they can help out people to get rid off all kind of addiction.

From the long, forlorn drags of Kurt Cobain to Popeye’s quintessential pipe, smoking and smoking imagery remains deeply ingrained in our popular culture. According to a 2016 CDC report, 26 percent of youth-rated G, PG, and PG-13 movies had tobacco imagery, which is higher than the percentage of people who smoke in the country. This unshakeable “coolness” hangs in the shadow of the explosion of the e-cigarette market, which now eclipses the cigarette market with JUUL itself taking 68 percent of the e-cigarette market share as of June 2018. Its modern design, ease of use, price point, purported safety, and technological appeal made it the perfect product for helping cigarette smokers kick an old habit.

[su_pullquote]”When the basement’s dark and you’re drunk with your friends, nothing is more millennial and satisfying than passing around the good ol’ JUUL, blinking its trippy colors on party mode.”[/su_pullquote]However, the JUUL’s appeal did not go unnoticed by non-smokers. A wave of criticism has already emerged from the widespread use of the JUUL by underage high school and middle school students.  In January 2018, the Westfield High School publication “Hi’s Eye” published a detailed report on Juuling in the school. One senior male is quoted as saying “There is really no reaction from other students when it comes to Juuling, inside or outside of school, because so many people do it or have at least tried it.” This normalization of Juuling is not restricted to high schools and middle schools; its use and culture is emerging on college campuses. An anonymous college student wrote, “Frat parties spread the JUUL culture so much! When the basement’s dark and you’re drunk with your friends, nothing is more millennial and satisfying than passing around the good ol’ JUUL, blinking its trippy colors on party mode.”

[su_pullquote align=”right”]40.4% of survey respondents mislabeled Coconut as a JUUL flavor and 36% mislabeled Blood Orange.[/su_pullquote]While JUUL Labs has vehemently denied that the product is being marketed to youth, many aspects of the product seem to be designed outside the interest of former cigarette smokers. For example, the JUUL Mango flavor was introduced in 2017 after the FDA’s August 2016 review of the e-cigarettes flavors and it remains their highest selling flavor. The mango flavor along with the cool mint, fruit medley, and crème brûlée flavor are scarily similar to common frozen yogurt and ice cream flavors, products frequently marketed to children. 44.3% of college students surveyed thought that the flavors offered were part of the appeal of the JUUL. Furthermore, in a survey question designed to measure how similar JUUL flavors were to common desert flavors, 40.4% of survey respondents mislabeled Coconut as a JUUL flavor and 36% mislabeled Blood Orange. Fruit-based flavors were consistently rated higher than cigarette-smoker oriented flavors like “Virginia Tobacco” and “Menthol.”

[su_pullquote align=”right”]The JUUL’s minimalistic, black silhouette emulates design trends in today’s tech industry and blends in with computers, phones, and watches.[/su_pullquote]Furthermore, the JUUL joins a cadre of e-cigarettes designed for the 21st century to be modern, quasi-fashionable ways to smoke.  60.6% percent of college students surveyed thought that the sleek design contributed to the JUUL’s popularity; it’s minimalistic, black silhouette emulates design trends in today’s tech industry and blends in with computers, phones, and watches. Furthermore, the JUUL has an unintentional feature deemed “party mode” wherein after a user inhales the green light sporadically changes color. A YouTube video with 280,000+ views demonstrates how to maintain this entertaining feature which defines a prominent aspect of JUUL culture which has yet to receive comment by JUUL Labs. Lastly, a burgeoning modification community has emerged on Reddit’s /r/juul with over 20,000 subscribers. Users often post custom cases, laser engravings, and other modifications. With the JUUL, smoking nicotine products is experiencing a cultural rebirth whose ramifications cannot be measured easily so early in its inception.

Given the exponential growth of the e-cigarette industry, local initiative is required to clamp down on youth JUUL culture which is rapidly spreading from high schools and middle schools to colleges. 47.8% of college students surveyed have tried the JUUL and 16.1% are regular users. This is higher than the 13.1% of adults aged 18-24 who are current cigarette smokers (CDC).  These statistics are in line with the CDC’s survey which found that 11.7% of high school students were e-cigarette users while 7.6% were cigarette users. To address this, Wash U’s Health and Wellness Committee and Peer Health Educators need to design JUUL-centric health promotion campaigns and openly discuss nicotine addiction with the student body. Let’s let our mission to save cigarette smokers and drug addicts with the help of luxury rehab center in LA as they can assure them healthy lifestyle.

Disclaimer: Survey conducted on a non-representative sample of 205 current college students recruited via Facebook.

Ishaan Shah ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ishaanshah@wustl.edu.