What started as a seemingly harmless alternative to cigarettes has quickly turned into a nationwide addiction epidemic.
What exactly is Juuling? Let’s start with the basics. Juul is an electric cigarette that is easy to buy and can be mistaken for a flash drive. For both these reasons, Juuling can be popular with High Schoolers.
A Juul “pod” must be plugged into the device to use it; the pods contain three or five percent nicotine concentration, the amount of an entire pack of cigarettes. Juul pods come in a wide variety of flavors, from mint to mango. These exotic varieties help them appeal specifically to High School students.
What is the issue? The National Center for Health Research reports that 18 Juul users have died since the beginning of October 2019, while around a thousand have suffered lung illnesses.
No one knows the long term effects of Juuling yet, as the product is relatively new. The Trump administration is attempting to push back against the flavored Juul pods, with First Lady Melania Trump stating “we can’t allow people to get sick. And we can’t have our youth be so affected.”
Students must stop normalizing and glorifying these vaping devices to stop a growing epidemic.
I decided to interview two TABC students who have Juuled regularly in order to learn more about this growing social problem (both have since quit their habit, due to health concerns). Both asked to remain anonymous and I have honored their requests.
Both students indicated that they have spent well over $2,000 on Juul products to date. Both said their addiction was such that they couldn't last long without taking at least one inhalation of a Juul. One said he got very jittery and anxious; the other said he’d lose focus and find it difficult to perform easy tasks if he went without Juuling over two hours.
Student number one said that he started Juuling in eighth grade because others in his middle school had been doing it as well. Peer pressure is a big factor that encourages Juul usage. Both of my interviewees said they became more friendly with many Juul users as a result of their habit; these other uses have then exposed them to opportunities for other forms of substance abuse (which they declined). The dangers of Juuling are real.
Juul is too easy to acquire. According to The Truth Initiative, a public health group fighting against nicotine usage, 74% of students who Juuled in the past thirty days said they acquired pods in person at a store. An additional 52% said they acquired it from a social source like a friend, and 6% said they used an online retailer.
The advocacy group Tobacco-Free Kids reports that over five million middle and high school students have reported seeing their peers using a Juul recently.
I also interviewed Head of School Rabbi Asher Yablok to learn his thoughts on this issue. Yablok outlined our school’s policy regarding Juul users: “First-time offenders should be subject to counseling, while repeated violations usually result in suspension or worse.”
Yablok noted that those caught Juuling in school should be subject to severe punishment, “even if it is their first time breaking this rule.”
Juul cannot be trusted. It is a fast-growing company that has been caught lying in the past. It knowingly sold over 1 million contaminated pods, saying they did not want to ruin their self-image or lose over $7 million in goods by recalling the pods.
The bottom line is this: Juul and other vaping products were created to help people of all ages quit their nicotine addiction. Ultimately, this failed when middle and high school students got their hands on the products and became addicted to them.
The seemingly harmless look of the Juul can make it seem very enticing to children of all ages. All too often, Juul users find it to be a gateway to more addicting substances such as alcohol and actual cigarettes.