It's not an either/or. Juul did market to teenagers. Juul did cause an enormous rebound in the amount of teenage nicotine use, which had fallen close to zero. For you it's a harm reduction tool and that's great, but it's not why Juul is so wildly successful.
I was wondering what took so long. I vaguely remember seeing the very first juul ad and I was under the impression that they might have been affiliated with snapchat (Same vibrant color scheme etc). After finding out that they were nicotine vapes, I was truly shocked that it was so blatantly targeted towards teenagers.
Eh. Not quite the same. And it wasn't marketed to children. Apparently there's just something about blowing smoke and age restriction that is cool to teens. It is almost as if Juul was sought after by them.
Also, it isn't tobacco that is the big driver of juul sales. Weed is. And we've had a multi-decade marketing campaign about how weed carries no negative side-effects by large swaths of the population. I got shellacked on this forum when I tried to argue that it isn't normal for kids to smoke weed (apparently it is perfectly normal for kids to 'experiment'). Juul didn't do that.
JUUL was the only thing that got me off a pack-a-day 13 year habit. I think very highly of the product and it is a shame teenagers made it so 'cool'. (Much like cigarettes at one time...)
Wait, as someone overseas who hasn’t seen any of the Juul advertising what are some of the examples of them “blatantly advertising to children”? Is it just the fact that they are making flavoured nicotine products or has it been more nefarious than that. As an adult I kind of like some of the flavoured tobacco products from smoking shisha (argile, hookah etc) and they have had flavours forever and not been in the spotlight to marketing to children?
In somewhat related news, the US almost managed to get rid of teenage smoking, but Juul has been so successful that teenage smoking is back at the level of roughly 15 years ago.
No, Juul openly and deliberately advertised to children. It used to run ad campaigns featuring high-school age models vaping, and as recently as last year paid hundreds of high-school age "influencers" to peddle their products.
I have never understood the attraction to juul's but the majority of individuals who I know who use them are all young adults and it is alarming that it is so simple for them to have access to this product.
The question at hand is whether Juul intentionally marketed nicotine to people below 18.
There's pretty strong circumstantial evidence that they did. Building relationships w teenage social media influencers is part of that.
The unfortunate fact is that Juul achieved explosive popularity among high schoolers. It spearheaded a U turn in youth nicotine use rates, which had been declining for a long time and are now way up.
The investigation is here to determine to what extent this was the result of a deliberate strategy.
Cigarette smoking among schoolchildren was already on a heavy downward trend for decades until Juul made it "cool" again. In fact there has been a slight increase in recent years, as teenagers start with Juul and then take up cigarettes.
They have helped a ton of adults quit or reduce smoking, which is great, but they have also explicitly targeted kids via presentations in classrooms, paid underage Instagram influencers and lots more. There is no requirement to excuse the second because of the first.
Vaping has wiped out 20 years of reductions in teen smoking so that plan isn't working. Juul's marketing was never about a healthier cigarette replacement.
reply