“You can vape in bed. You can vape anywhere,” a young adult acquaintance recently pointed out. As a former cigarette smoker, I almost gasped. Would I have ever been able to quit smoking if I could sneak a cigarette anytime, anywhere?
It’s been four years since I published this blog below regarding how Juul’s storytelling via advertising negatively impacts teens and young adults.
The problem has gotten worse.
Not only can vapes contain very high amounts of nicotine and THC, they can contain toxic chemicals as pointed out in NPR’s segment (updated February 2025), Vaping weed is very popular, but users should be aware it carries risk, “In 2019, for example, 68 people died and thousands of others fell ill with mysterious lung damage eventually traced to e-cigarettes laced with pot and an additive called vitamin E acetate.”
Teens are at risk
The pre-frontal cortex, the judgment center of the brain, continues to develop until about age 25 or 26. Nicotine is a stimulant, a drug. In addition to damaging the heart and lungs, the CDC points out that it can negatively impact a teen’s developing brain, “Nicotine can harm the parts of an adolescent’s brain that control attention, learning, mood, and impulse control.”
Vaping weed is very popular, but users should be aware it carries risk also points out:
- “…Whereas the average cannabis flower contains about 17% or 18% THC, the concentration in vapes can reach 95% or higher. And that, D’Souza says, has other implications for public health, especially among teenagers and young adults, who are at greater risk of both addiction and marijuana-induced psychosis.”
- “The young brain is much more vulnerable to addiction; concentrates are more likely to get people addicted to it,” he (D’Souza) says. And as marijuana goes more mainstream, he says, that’s a message that’s often drowned out.
- (D’Souza refers to “Dr. Deepak Cyril D’Souza, a psychiatry professor at Yale who’s researched the effects of THC on mice for three decades.”)
Interestingly enough, when used with medical guidance, nicotine lozenges, nicotine gum, or nicotine patches can help manage some symptoms of ADHD.
Here are two more links regarding how vaping can harm youth and young adults.
- How Social Media Promotion of Vaping Targets Teens (Yale School of Medicine, Nov. 22, 2024)
- The Hard Truth About Marijuana Vapes (Cal State Fullerton’s The Daily Titan, Jan. 27, 2025)
Could Juul’s marketing team have been that clueless? (June 2021)
How Juul Got Vaporized: Inside the Rise and Fall of the Vaping Company (Time magazine, May 17, 2021) addresses corporate responsibility in terms of marketing.
Marketing identifies audiences and connects products with those potential consumers. Marketing facilitates sales. Copywriting and content development are part of the marketing process and therefore part of the overall sales process. They are also a type of storytelling.
Juul’s 2015 marketing campaign told the story of glamor and chic and a charmed lifestyle that included parties full of stylish and carefree twentysomethings.
As I contemplate focusing more on freelance copywriting, I am becoming hyper aware of which products and services I would feel comfortable creating copy for.
On June 7, North Carolina attorney general Josh Stein enters court with his state’s lawsuit against Juul, which alleges e-cigarette company Juul Labs intentionally targeted teenagers with its products. Many others are primed to sue as well.
Social media factor
Marketing in the age of omnipresent social media presents new challenges. Ads can become viral overnight and be shared with any and every audience. Juul’s ads and images of teens using Juul e-cigarettes flooded the Internet.
Juul claims that they didn’t design their ad campaigns to appeal to a teen or young adult audience, and, therefore, the lawsuits against them are without merit.
Could Juul’s marketing team have been that clueless?
It is possible to live in a bubble and ignore everyone and everything outside that bubble. However, when the product you sell contains nicotine, a highly addictive substance, and the long-term use of nicotine has been linked to addiction and long-term health consequences, it’s time to venture outside your cozy bubble.
How Juul Got Vaporized quotes an Ad Age article in which a spokesperson from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids said, “We are concerned any time a new product or new advertising campaign goes public regarding cigarettes and tobacco and their addictive nicotine.”
Nicotine is addictive because it activates receptors, structures, in your brain, which release dopamine. Dopamine makes you feel good. However, when you regularly smoke, eventually your brain does not produce as much dopamine on its own, and you need to smoke to feel good.
JUUL’s seductive design
“Nicotine delivery and cigarette equivalents from vaping a JUUL pod,” a study published by the NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information points out that because JUUL’s sleek pens deliver nicotine along with enticing flavors in a gentle burst of steam as opposed to a harsh blast of smoke, it tends to make them hard to resist, especially for teens and young adults. The study states, “Minimizing harshness and adaptive to user experience, JUUL’s design facilitates initiation to a high nicotine, and ultimately, highly addictive vaping product.”
Higher stakes for teens and young adults
Research reveals that the younger you begin smoking, the longer you end up smoking. Like maybe your whole life! According to cdc.gov, “Nearly 9 out of 10 adults who smoke cigarettes daily first try smoking by age 18, and 99% first try smoking by age 26.2”
The part of the brain responsible for judgment, decision making, and impulse control is not completely developed until 25 or 26. In addition to nicotine addiction, this makes the developing brains of teens and young adults particularly vulnerable to long-term consequences, such as mood disorders, challenges with attention and learning, and permanent lowering of impulse control.
According to the SurgeonGeneral.gov/KnowTheRisks, “The nicotine in e-cigarettes and other tobacco products can also prime the adolescent brain for addiction to other drugs such as cocaine.”
Selling story, creating tragedy
First off, there is the expense. Once you’re addicted to nicotine, your habit becomes a bill. Something you need to pay every day, every week, and every month.
Then there’s the opportunity cost, the time it takes to smoke and the distraction it provides that takes you away from getting to know yourself.
And then there’s the health aspect. Prematurely aged skin, stained teeth, tainted lungs and heart—potential tragedy. This reality is the story the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids is tasked with telling.
What copywriter wants to contribute to tragedy?