The benefits of e-cigarettes for adults have been well documented and proven. However, e-cigarette usage among teens and youths has proven to be extremely dangerous. It is now being viewed as an epidemic, and the FDA has declared a war on underage vaping and the crackdown on the e-cigarette industry has gotten intense.
FDA Head Scott Gottlieb made a string of tweets on the issue, stating that he is reaching out to the heads of various e-cig companies to have meetings concerning the epidemic of underage vaping.
The biggest target is Juul Labs, creators of the popular Juul pods, and dominant leader in the U.S. e-cig market.
Juul Labs came under fire months ago, after ads from 2015 clearly marketed towards teens surfaced. Back in October, the FDA launched an unannounced raid on Juul Headquarters, and seized thousands of documents related to the marketing and sales practices of the company.
Juul Labs has made numerous efforts at limiting the exposure of their products to children, lifting Juul pods from stores, making ordering from their website a lot harder for minors to do, and removing certain content from their social media pages. In the past, Juul has stated that they support efforts to limit underage vaping, so it seems likely that they will be open to meeting with the FDA to address the issue and discuss how to combat it.
