Within the past three years, JUULing has become a phenomenon throughout the middle school, high school and college world. Though meant for adults recovering from smoking, JUUL evolved into a new habit for teens. The craze around the product has created a giant increase in teen vaping and smoking because of the lack of understanding teens have about the repercussions vaping has on their bodies. One JUUL pod is the equivalent of smoking one pack of cigarettes, but because of the fruit flavoring and easy concealability, children don’t know or care about the consequences.

In Guilford County, JUULing has become so popular that high schools around the county are known for certain pod flavors. For example, Page High School is known for the use of mint pods and Northwest High School is known for the use of mango pods.

Due to pressure from the FDA to do more to prevent teen usage, JUUL has banned certain popular fruit flavors that high schoolers find enjoyable. However, JUUL will still sell many of their flavors online.

The ban of fruit flavored pods should positively affect the school system by making the lives of school administrators easier and allowing them to focus on the actual education of students, not trying to keep students from JUULing in the bathrooms.

However, the ban also affects people that are trying to quit smoking who have been using JUUL as an alternative to cigarettes. Banning a way for adults to get clean to keep high school students from smoking underage creates an interesting dilemma for the company. JUUL wants to position themselves as an alternative to smoking, but without the fruit pods they will loose a portion of their client base.

Also, the company no longer selling pods impacts them poorly economically, but also benefits them because people will see their stance on teenage smoking and are more likely to buy their product than another smoking alternative due to the good moral stance the company has taken.

Instead of banning their most popular pod flavors, the company could partner with the Truth Initiative, a campaign started in the early 2000s to end teenage smoking. The campaign currently produces a number of adds aimed at increasing awareness about the dangers of cigarettes. The Truth Initiative has also recently put out several ads which mention the harm of vaping in general, while not taking specific aim at JUUL.

The two companies could create ads effectively scaring children away from smoking and JUULing by realistically showing the effects of smoking on the physical and mental health of a person. Through the Truth Initative, teenage tobacco use was at its lowest point in recent history in 2017, but now with the recent increase in JUULing, teenage tobacco use is at an all-time high.

Educating people under the age of 18 on the physical, emotional, and material damages of smoking can positively affect the end to teenage smoking which the truth organization started. furthermore, Combining with a positive social campaign like Truth Initiative can help rebah JUUL’s image and allow them to stay in buiness to help those who actually need the product to quit smoking.

Beginning the process of diminishing teenage tobacco use in the United States is a great start for JUUL as parents and the FDA have been on the company’s case about doing something for years. Finally taking action to prevent underage smoking will greatly benefit the company in the eyes of parents and adults everywhere. However, due to the initial craze, children are already addicted to nicotine and will use any pod at this point.

The only way for tobacco usage to go back down to the rates before JUUL would be for JUUL to get banned as it has been in other countries.