Juuling, is the act of smoking a Juul, which is a small, extremely discreet type of vaporizer. So discreet in fact, most people can’t even tell it’s an e-cigarette at all.
According to Neilsen market data, Juul vapes have become the best-selling e-cig in the market since its inception in 2007. Juuls are small enough to fit in the palm of a small-framed hand, and they can be plugged into any USB port to be charged, so the device is commonly mistaken for a flash drive. Take the easy-to-hide design and couple it with the fact that Juuls make their own pods in a variety of exotic flavors, and it’s no surprise that they are becoming increasingly popular among teens.
As it turns out, however, Juuls (and e-cigs in general) are not a safe alternative to traditional cigarettes. It’s actually quite the contrary. For starters, these electric cigarettes getting kids addicted to nicotine at the same rate as regular ones. According to 14-year old, high school freshman Margarida Ferreira, she leaves class multiple times a day to take a few hits of her Juul when stressed. I kind of need it. It’s just a part of my life now,” she reluctantly stated. “I know it’s bad but I can’t stop.”
Fourteen-year-old Margarida Ferreira said she’ll leave class if she’s stressed to hit the Juul. “I kind of need it. It’s just a part of my life now,” she told the cameras. “I know it’s bad but I can’t stop.” Sixteen year old Fletcher Faden is in the same boat. “I’m ‘juuled’ in class sometimes, and pretty much all the time when I’m not in class,” he told interviewers.
Furthermore, the limited information available about e-cigs still indicates that they carry their own list of cancerous ingredients. Not to mention the fact that they’re so new in our society, we haven’t had time to study the long-term side effects like we have with regular cigarettes for many years now. “This is not a safe alternative,” says Michael Blaiss, M.D., the executive medical director of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology. “Is it safer than a tobacco cigarette? Yes. The problem is that nicotine itself can have major effects.”
For reference, one Juul pod contains the same amount of nicotine as a pack of cigarettes. On average, users are consuming 1.5 to 2 Juul pods every single day. This is equivalent to nearly 40 traditional cigarettes per day.
[Image Credit: Juul]