How Juul Created a Teen Vape Epidemic
March 19, 2020
Par: communication@cnct.fr
Dernière mise à jour: March 19, 2020
Temps de lecture: 3 minutes
Internal Juul company documents and statements from its founders reveal that the e-cigarette maker co-opted tobacco industry trade secrets to market its highly addictive vaping products to young people at a young age. The company’s marketing plan proved effective, doubling the U.S. vaping market and crushing its competitors in just three years. Throughout the summer of 2019, as members of Congress combed through 55,000 documents that Juul Labs had never previously made public, a well-honed strategy emerged to expose American children to one of the world’s most addictive substances. The documents revealed a perfected campaign of stealth marketing, sleek design, and high nicotine doses that Juul Labs apparently designed to fly under the radar of adults, buying time to hook kids on the company’s vaping products. Congressional investigators found that Juul Labs “deployed a sophisticated program” that paid schools up to $10,000 to allow company representatives to deliver its message directly to young people. In at least one presentation, without teachers or parents present, a company representative showed children how to use a Juul e-cigarette. Other evidence showed that Juul Labs also targeted preteen children through summer camps and after-school programs. At the same time, researchers published detailed studies of the company’s advertising campaigns targeting youth-oriented social media channels. In March 2020, hundreds of lawsuits against Juul alleging personal injuries had been consolidated into a mass litigation in a California federal court. Lawyers estimated that the litigation could one day expand to thousands of similar cases. In addition to Juul Labs, many of the lawsuits involve Marlboro cigarette maker Altria, which owns more than a third of Juul. Juul’s design and early marketing campaign allowed it to go unnoticed by most adults for months after its launch. Parents and teachers mistook the sleek, small Juul devices for USB drives as kids vaped in schools. Juul deliberately avoided running ads on TV, radio and traditional media, where adults were most likely to see them, and focused on social media outlets popular with kids. Youth vaping rates soared as Juul sales soared. As the Surgeon General[1] declared a youth vaping epidemic, Juul Labs had cornered nearly three-quarters of the U.S. e-cigarette market.
The full study (in English)
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[1] Office of the Surgeon General. E-cigarette Use among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/e-cigarettes/pdfs/2016_sgr_entire_report_508.pdf.
[1] Office of the Surgeon General. E-cigarette Use among Youth and Young Adults: A Report of the Surgeon General. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 2016. https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/sgr/e-cigarettes/pdfs/2016_sgr_entire_report_508.pdf.