Juul Ethical Dilemma

The internet right now is blowing up with discussions and debates about the E-Cigarette industry and about the recent changes Juul has made and what they could mean for the E-Cigarette industry and even the tobacco industry. A spokeswoman for the Tobacco-Free Kids campaign by the name of Caroline Renzulli, addressed that it's just a little too late.  "Juul's social media marketing fueled its popularity with kids and now that it has captured 75% of the E-Cigarette market, Juul no longer needs to do social media marketing because its young customers are doing it for them"  This is an argument that I can agree with about Juul's motives to back off their social media, because Juul has become such a widely known product, that most of the marketing and advertising done for it isn't even done by the company itself.  You have pages like 5thyear, Barstool Sports, and totalfratmove on Instagram that are filled with college kids smoking Juul's, and there are meme ...

The main ethical situation that Juul is dealing with is the amount of young kids smoking because of their product.  Chief Executive of Juul Labs, Kevin Burns, quoted "Our intent was never to have youth use Juul."  As I mentioned in a previous blog post, the actions taken by Juul have been major and could massively impact the money being made by the company. Techcrunch.com posted an article with statements by CEO Kevin Burns where he said "We fully support FDA's efforts to curb underage use of tobacco products, and we believe restricting access to flavors will negatively impact current adult smokers in their journey to switch from combustible cigarettes. We encourage FDA to allow for further scientific exploration on the role flavors play in helping adult smokers transition away from cigarettes." Juul has created very strict restrictions on their product and the consumption and purchasing of their products.  Instead of having to be 18 years of older, the requ...

Pax Labs was founded by James Monsees and Adam Bowen in 2007 who were in graduate school at Stanford when they both applied their backgrounds in product design to the challenge of finding better alternatives to smoking.  Being smokers for years, they couldn't find an appealing alternative to cigarettes which led them to realize they had a great opportunity to put their credentials and knowledge together to enter the smoking industry.  The Juul launched in 2015 when it spun out of Pax Labs and became its own individual company. Their goal is to be committed to innovating with adult smokers in mind, and on their website under the "Our Mission" section it says "Improve the lives of the world's one billion adult smokers."  On their website they mention that they believe vaping can have a positive impact when used by smokers, and can have a very negative impact when used by nonsmokers, and their goal is to maximize the positive and reduce the negative. In 2...

     If you're under the age of twenty-five, there's a very high chance that you know what a Juul is and there's a good chance that you have even used one.  The company Juul Labs has been undergoing a lot of heat about underage smoking related to their product and they will no longer be supplying stores with it's flavored nicotine pods, and is even going to be removing themselves from social media platforms Facebook and Instagram in pursuit to lessen the popularity of vaping among youth.  There have been several critics that believe Juul Labs tactics were directly aimed for minors. There have also been rumors that the FDA will soon ban all flavored nicotine to reduce the amount of young smokers in America.  Although this ban by Juul is temporary, I expect that if the results show that the youth smoking rates are going significantly down, a permanent ban to retail stores will be set in stone.  The flavored nicotine pods will still be available on the th...