It's time "Juul" is added to The Dictionary

A blinding light reflects off plastic cartridges as I walk to class at Santa Clara University. An array of colorful cartridge caps reminiscent of legos lay scattered across the sidewalks. The unabating threat of the Juul has infested college campuses across the country and has infiltrated the the routines of American adolescents alike. At this rate, the discovery of cartridge caps mixed in a toddler’s lego bin would leave me nonplussed yet unfazed. Today's youth grow up at an unprecedented rate with tantalizing ideals and transgressive content flooding their Instagram feeds. They trade their awkward phases for Brandy Melville crop tops and the habits of their seemingly rebellious and cool older peers. This is America. This is the Juul.

Just as Earth orbits around the Sun, a loop leads life and trends are cyclical. Nicotine has yet to escape the cycle. Cigarettes hooked our grandparents in the first half of the 20th century, with bombardments of advertisements solidifying their lure and the development of efficient rolling machines producing them at an unprecedented rate. In the early fifties, medical journals and the press began publishing evidence linking cigarette smoking to lung cancer. Big Tobacco responded dubiously, and while cigarette consumption never ceased, it gradually diminished with government anti-smoking campaigns and taxation.

However, in 2015 nicotine found revival in the form of a Juul and eager customers in the disillusioned youth. The Juul is an electronic cigarette, a smokeless, non-toboacco device that delivers a nicotine buzz. Five years ago if asked to describe a vape, I would imagine a big box with a button triggering fat clouds of opaque smoke, and I would identify vapers as health conscious ex-cigarette smokers. This is not the Juul. Its sleek and slender structure renders it a similar glamour that was associated with cigarettes during their nascent years. And “juulers” are reputed to be curious teenagers. However, the Juul’s attraction extends beyond a mere interest. It’s draw is a direct consequence of the environment in which children mature in. Today’s technology addicted teenagers experience the dopamine inducing and instantly gratifying effects of addiction at an unprecedented level and earlier stage. Children look to likes and notifications for validation and happiness rather than face to face interactions with loved ones. Social media and texting lend a normalized delivery of instant gratification. This false sense of fulfillment is embedded in the experience of today’s teenagers and has left them more depressed than any preceding generation. When mass school shootings and an unremitting reel of poignant news reportage augments this loneliness, vulnerable nihilists result as teenagers, and they often fall even more susceptible to drug use. Like a iPhone, the Juul is a technological means to an immediately satisfying ends, only unlike a phone our grandparents can reminisce on the Juul’s defining property: nicotine.

Morgan Slain, faculty of Santa Clara University’s Entrepreneurship Department, spoke to my class about his meeting with Juul’s co founders, Adam Bowen and James Monsees. He relayed his impression that the entrepreneurs entered the market with an earnest conviction to curb cancer by developing an alternative to smoking, the Juul. However, the company has faced fierce scrutiny for their unethical business practices. Rapper and producer 88-Keys released the single "That's Life" this month. The song features vocals from Sia and late rapper Mac Miller. The beloved rapper Miller proclaims "See my cash got deeper and my morals disappeared." Money and success tainted Bowen and Monsees's vision. They positioned the Juul as a force to drive out cigarettes from the market and ostensibly targeted adult smokers. However, the company sold a 35 percent stake to Marlboro maker Altria Group and furtively marketed to teenagers by developing children-friendly flavored cartridges like mango and cucumber. And when accused of their unethical ways, the company denied the implication. With each cartridge containing the amount of nicotine equivalent to a pack of cigarettes, addiction is inevitable. The FDA calls youth e-cigarette use an epidemic. Teenagers are 16 times more likely to “juul” than any other age group, and 1.3 million more teenagers claim to have juuled in 2018 than the amount reported in 2017.

The Juul’s home city has turned it’s back on the e-cigarette. On Tuesday, San Fransisco introduced a contentious ban on all e-cigarette sales, unless FDA approved, which is set to inaugurate in 2020. The city’s political statement casts a justified condemning light on e-cigarette companies like the Juul for their involvement in hooking teenagers on nicotine, but the ordinance is likely to have public health ramifications. A new generation is undeniably addicted to nicotine and will undoubtedly find their fix, legally or not. The question remains: will they suffer similar health consequences from excessive vaping as their grandparents or great grandparents did from cigarette smoking? Why take the risk? My dad emphatically disdains cigarettes. His father, a chain smoker, died from the habit, and his mother lost her life due to second hand smoke inhalation. My mom too, hates cigarettes. Her mother avidly smoked throughout her childhood. Nicotine skipped a generation. The nicotine cycle sparred my siblings and I from growing up in tobacco fumed households, but the clean air perhaps made us ignorant to smoking’s, or nicotine’s, health consequences, giving way to our juuling susceptibility.