Social Media Helped Juul Dominate the Vaping Market. Now, Teens Are Using It to Help Each Other Quit

Juul Labs, the e-cigarette company so popular its name became a verb, wouldn’t be where it is without social media. In the company’s early years, a steady stream of posts from users and influencers helped turn Juul from a smoking alternative to a cultural phenomenon. So many Juul users—many of them teenagers—voluntarily posted about vaping that it hardly made a difference when the company in 2018 silenced its own accounts to help stem its popularity among underage users. Now, in the wake of a vaping-related lung disease outbreak that has sickened almost 2,700 and killed 60, teenagers and young adults are picking up where the company left off. In a stark about-face, many of the same people who might have once posted about their #JuulLife are now using social media to urge their friends to quit vaping. They face an uphill battle. With about 5 million teenagers reporting e-cigarette use as of the latest federal estimate, underage vaping is regularly called an epidemic by top U.S. health officials. And, to be sure, plenty of people still post about the habit on social media: this month, a study found that pro-vaping posts on Instagram outnumber anti-vaping posts tagged with the FDA’s sponsored hashtag, #TheRealCost, 10,000 to 1. Still, discontent among young people has been simmering. A year ago, Kamal Mazhar, now 17 and a high school senior in Virginia, walked into a school bathroom and found a dozen students jammed into two stalls, all vaping. In ...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized public health vaping Source Type: news