An epidemic. That is the new term being used to describe the problem of youth e-cigarette use in the US.
It started with an announcement from the Food and Drug Administration declaring the problem of minors using e-cigarette products an epidemic of addiction. The agency is considering drastic actions against the five e-cigarette manufacturers that control 97% of the market. According to the FDA press release the five: JUUL, Vuse, MarkTen, Blu e-cigs, and Logic have 60 days to return to the FDA with “robust plans” to address the problem of minors using e-cigarettes.
Some steps FDA has proposed taking include banning some or all flavored e-cigarette products and requiring companies to change sales and marketing tactics. That’s only if the five manufacturers cannot prove that they have taken significant steps to change their practices.
“Industry must step up to this challenge,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in the release. “The companies selling the brands that resulted in the most illegal sales in our enforcement blitz have 60 days to respond with forceful plans of their own or face regulatory consequences.”
One Indiana University student does not think the problem is as bad as the FDA is making it out to be.
“I wouldn’t say it’s a huge problem, but if you are under the age of 18, I don’t think you should be Juuling,” Indiana University freshman Ana Ehinger said.
She started vaping roughly 5 months before arriving in Bloomington, and she’s been through five Juul vapes, including the three she currently owns. Ehinger makes sure to clarify that they are all hand-me-downs and that one of the current three remaining is actually broken. She’s only ever bought the disposable pods containing e-juice: liquid nicotine, that comes in flavors like her personal favorite, mint.
Ehinger started in high school when she was 18, but she said she knows a lot of people that started before the legal age. In fact, they were some of the same people that got her into Juuling.
She and her friends, especially those that began before 18, are the demographic the FDA worries about. In the release, Commissioner Gottlieb pointed to trends his agency has monitored over the last year, the same period during which Ana and most of her friends began Juuling.
Ehinger said the FDA’s concerns are unnecessary.
“It’s a little ridiculous,” Ehinger said. “Some people start smoking cigarettes before they are 18. It’s the same concept.”
The IU Health Center would disagree with Enhiger’s sentiment about the seriousness of the problem. In a statement, Dr. Beth Rupp, M.D. with the Center said that an increased number of patients have reported using e-cigarettes over the past year and that she is very concerned with the use of e-cigarettes by adolescents and young adults.
“While we do not have a lot of long-term research to know all of the health consequences of vaping, seeing kids and young adults becoming hooked on nicotine and being exposed to harmful chemicals so early in life is very concerning,” Rupp said in her statement.
This concern is shared by Anthony Passwaiter, a sales representative with Indy E-Cigs, a local vape shop. He has worked in the business for four years, has 3 children, and said the FDA concern is warranted.
“I base that on the fact that I see a lot of freshman coming into this town and then coming in and buying Juuls or whatever with an experience, knowledge,” Passwaiter said. “You tell by the way they talk about things that they know what this is, they know how it works to a certain extent or that they have been using it for a while.”
He said parents should not be buying e-cigarettes for their underage children or allowing them to use any nicotine product under their supervision. Once his kids are of legal age, Passwaiter said they can do whatever they want, but no moment sooner.
Passwaiter does not agree with the FDA as far as the option of proposing a flavor ban or restriction if the five manufacturers don’t show signs of change after 60 days.
“I’m not in favor of the flavor ban at all I think it would kill our industry,” Passwaiter said. “I think it would kill a lot of people’s desire to use e-cigarettes and just go back to cigarettes or something of the like.”
Passwaiter said if not for the variety of flavors he never would have kicked the habit of smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. On the other hand, he said that the same colorful packaging and the seemingly endless choices in flavor that got him to quit cigarettes is what draws in minors.
He said he hopes the FDA keeps in mind all the legal users of e-cigarette products that have benefitted from having an alternative to cigarettes. For now, he and everyone else will have to wait to see how the five companies react and whether the FDA deems their actions to be sufficient.