Archive: Business & Technology

Juul Labs announced Tuesday it would stop selling most of its Flavored JUUL e-cigarette pod sales to 90,000+ retail stores. The San Francisco company also said it would discontinue its social media promotions.

"We don’t want anyone who doesn’t smoke, or already use nicotine, to use JUUL products. We certainly don’t want youth using the product," said JUUL Labs CEO Kevin Burns. It is bad for public health, and it is bad for our mission. JUUL Labs and FDA share a common goal – preventing youth from initiating on nicotine. To paraphrase Commissioner Gottlieb, we want to be the off-ramp for adult smokers to switch from cigarettes, not an on-ramp for America’s youth to initiate on nicotine. We won’t be successful in our mission to serve adult smokers if we don’t narrow the on-ramp."

Burns said the company had been selling Mango, Fruit, Creme, and Cucumber flavors as tools to help adult smokers switch from combustible cigarettes, adding the company does not sell flavors like Gummy Bear or Cotton Candy, which are clearly targeted to kids.

Jeff Niederdeppe, associate professor of communication at Cornell University, studies the mechanisms and effects of mass media campaigns, strategic health messages and news coverage in shaping health behavior.

"This proposal reflects growing recognition that e-cigarette companies market these products in ways that attract young people to use them," he says. "These efforts have contributed to a public health crisis in which a new generation of young people are becoming addicted to nicotine, which in and of itself can have harmful effects on the brain. Many of these young people will transition to combustible cigarettes, which has much greater health risks."

Burns said that his company will monitor youth-oriented social media posts, and has asked for help from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat in policing posts about e-cigarette use targeted at youth.

"We asked that each platform prohibit the posting of any content that promotes the use of cigarettes or e-cigarettes by underage users," he said. "The problem of combatting social media’s negative influence on underage vaping is larger than simply removing the JUUL Labs social media accounts, and it can only be solved with the assistance of these companies. The solution to combat underage use requires a strong effort on both of our ends, and we are eager to work with these social platforms to solve these issues."

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