On the corner of Fifth Street and Washington Street, a group of three young people entered a convenience store. They remained quiet and stiff, moving quickly around the room, keeping their shopping trip short. The cashier said very little as the students handed cash to him. Once he gave them a plastic bag containing their single purchase, he wished them a good night. The students left the store and giggled. Luckily for them, they hadn’t been carded. While walking back to Stevens campus, they began to unbox the sole item they sought: a pack of Juul pods.
Juul (pronounced “jewel”), a popular e-cigarette device marketed as a rehabilitation tool for cigarette users, has been a major concern for public health experts. For the last several years, electronic-obsessed teenagers and young adults have been targeted by social media campaigns and shown imagery intended to demonstrate the coolness of Juul, according to an ongoing Food and Drug Administration (FDA) investigation.
@doit4juul, one unofficial Instagram account with over 100,000 followers which has now been banned by the platform, showed a variety of different videos to its followers: two cute guys in the back of a classroom blowing smoke rings, a teenager sharing his Juul with a police officer, and a young woman exhaling and immediately re-inhaling the vapor through her nose (a technique known as the “French inhale”).
The message: if you’re young and cool, you use Juul.
To Juul — the brand has become a verb — is to inhale vaporized nicotine without the fear of tar, carbon monoxide, smelliness, or stigma that comes with smoking a cigarette. The device itself is sleek and admittedly futuristic. A small, green light in the center of the device appears when someone is using the Juul (“taking a hit” is the correct slang). If someone shakes the Juul while it’s on, the light flickers through different colors — white, blue, purple, pink, green — in what is described as “party mode.” People who are unfamiliar with the Juul often mistake it for a flash drive (either because of the device’s small shape or because of its ability to be recharged in the USB port of a computer).
Juul pods — the nicotine juice vaporized by the Juul and inhaled by the user — come in eight different flavors. (The mango and mint flavors tend to be the most popular with Juul users.) A pod, which contains the same amount of nicotine as one cigarette pack, easily attaches to and detaches from the Juul device and is bought in a pack of four pods. One pack of pods can cost anywhere from $14 to $25 when purchased in Hoboken.
High schools across the nation struggle to curtail the use of Juul in their classrooms and bathrooms, according to reports by the Wall Street Journal. Colleges and universities, unsure of the health risks and authority they have over the device’s use, passively accept the vaping practice occurring in its academic buildings, dorms, and campus. And Stevens is no exception.
“It seems like wherever you go at Stevens, someone has a Juul,” a second-year student said, agreeing to speak under the promise of anonymity.
In New Jersey, a person must be 21 years old to purchase a Juul or Juul pods. However, most convenience stores in Hoboken don’t check identification. Hoboken Smoke Shop and 7-Eleven, both of which are on Washington Street, are popular spots for underage students to get Juul pods since they don’t card and have relatively low prices, according to several underage people who said they have bought from these businesses.
Workers from both Hoboken Smoke Shop and 7-Eleven claim that these allegations are false and that they always check identification.
It is rare for someone to buy a Juul for their first use. (Depending on where you go, a Juul device can cost upwards of $49.99.) Most often, students have their first Juul use by sharing a device with friends in a social setting.
Sometimes after a few uses, students buy their own Juul pods and attach them to someone else’s Juul. “I didn’t want to commit to buying a Juul yet, but I didn’t want to leech off of someone else’s pods, so I just bought my own pods,” said a third-year student.
Despite clearly violating school policies, many on-campus residents at Stevens, predominately first-year students, are comfortable with using a Juul in their dorms. The vapor from the Juul rarely triggers fire alarms. And since the vapor lacks a smell, identifying when someone is using a Juul in their dorm is nearly impossible for resident assistants.
At fraternity parties, mixing the highs of nicotine and alcohol isn’t uncommon. Most students, wobbling around dance rooms, have a Solo cup or beer in one hand, and a select few students, in their other hand, have their Juul.
The popularity of Juul is so known to students that at some of these fraternity parties, people will jokingly offer an item resembling a Juul to other students who are drunk enough to fall for it. “People do it as a joke,” said Sam Coumans, a third-year student. “I’ve seen people hold up things like open cases of pencil lead or USB drives, and say, ‘Take a hit, take a hit.’”
Malcolm McDaniel, Assistant Director of Fraternity and Sorority Life at Stevens, was unaware of the existence of Juuls and unsure if the use of a Juul — at fraternities in general or at parties — violated any specific policies of Stevens. “If it’s not breaking Hoboken ordinances or Stevens policies, then it’s fine,” McDaniel said.
This use of Juul in social settings at Stevens — at parties, in dorms, with friends — quickly transitions to nicotine addiction for some.
One second-year student who frequently uses Juul said, “When I was getting ready to go out last semester, I was taking hits [from the Juul]. And, like, my roommate was doing it a lot, so I kept doing it. It was a social thing, but now it’s not. Now I do it to feel buzzed.”
Cigarette users said the same thing in the 1960s when cigarette use was at its highest: they didn’t start smoking with the hope to develop a problem. Addiction was the unfortunate consequence of consuming an addictive chemical.
Nowadays, Juuls are casually used all across campus: on Wittpenn Walk, in front of academic buildings, on Schaefer and Palmer lawns, and occasionally in the library and Pierce Dining Hall, according to several students and faculty members who have seen this behavior.
Before class, some students use their Juul in the bathrooms of academic buildings. In fact, the few who opt to bring their Juul to class sometimes leave the classroom momentarily to take a quick hit, said some Juul users who admit to this. Some non-Juul users recounted instances of when they were in class, turned around briefly, and witnessed a puff of vapor from a Juul float to the ceiling.
Most regular Juul users recognize that using a Juul isn’t a healthy decision, but they contend that the health risks aren’t significant because it’s better than cigarettes. These misconceptions about the healthiness of Juul might contribute to students’ initial and continued use of Juul, according to Theresa MacPhail, a medical anthropologist and assistant professor at Stevens.
“Most people think it’s healthy, and that’s the biggest problem,” said MacPhail. “Because [the Juul] is not tobacco and not smoke, they think that it’s not doing anything to their lungs, but they’re totally wrong. The studies are pretty well in on that. It is doing damage to your lungs.”
In April of this year, the FDA firmly stated that the health risks associated with e-cigarette devices, particularly Juul, are clearly present. This statement rebutted claims by e-cigarette device companies that e-cigarettes aren’t addictive.
“The nicotine in these products can rewire an adolescent’s brain, leading to years of addiction,” said FDA Commissioner, Scott Gottlieb, in the agency’s April statement. He acknowledged that Juul devices “may offer a potentially lower [health] risk” than cigarette products. “But the viability of these products is severely undermined if those products entice youth to start using tobacco and nicotine.”
The risks of Juuling might be insignificant for students, who instead prefer the “pleasant feelings” and distractions of nicotine, according to the American Cancer Society.
“Nicotine is great; it’s a stimulant,” said MacPhail. “It does help people focus, so I’m assuming that’s why students use it. It gives them a hit when they’re up until midnight, and they want that extra focus. But the cost is increased heart rate, decreased sleep, and increased anxiety, which, on this campus, is probably not a great thing.”
Most names in this story have been redacted at the request of the individuals. Their reasons vary; however, two primary reasons provided by the interviewees are (1) privacy, and (2) fear of persecution for their illicit purchases and use of narcotics. If you have questions about this story, please contact the author through email: mcunnin2@stevens.edu.
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