Juul ban leads people to point out hypocrisy in FDA ruling

On Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ordered Juul to stop selling e-cigarettes in the US after a two year review, leading some to point out the hypocrisy in the decision.

In a release, the FDA indicated Juul did not provide sufficient evidence to prove their products were not harmful to the public forcing the company to pull at products from the US market.

"Today’s action is further progress on the FDA’s commitment to ensuring that all e-cigarette and electronic nicotine delivery system products currently being marketed to consumers meet our public health standards,” FDA Commissioner Robert M. Califf, M.D said in a statement.

Juul is an e-cigarette company first launched in 2017 that became immensely popular with teenagers and young adults. Their array of "pods" or cartridges came in flavors like Mango, Cucumber, Creme, Fruit, and Mint until they were ordered to be discontinued in 2018.

Many anti-vaping advocates attribute the rise in teenage vaping to Juul as the prevalence of users doubled from 2017 to 2019. Since then, that number has only risen.

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“The agency has dedicated significant resources to review products from the companies that account for most of the U.S. market. We recognize these make up a significant part of the available products and many have played a disproportionate role in the rise in youth vaping," Califf added.

Although the move is a win for the anti-vaping movement, many people felt that the decision was foolish since cigarettes are the pre-cursor to e-cigarettes.

Juul said they plan to appeal the decision as they believe they provided sufficient evidence based on issues the agency raised.

"We believe that we appropriately characterized the toxicological profile of JUUL products, including comparisons to combustible cigarettes and other vapor products, and believe this data, along with the totality of the evidence, meets the statutory standard of being “appropriate for the protection of the public health," Joe Murillo, Chief Regulatory Officer at Juul Labs said in a statement.

The company has also maintained that their product was not targeted at young people and intended for adult cigarette smokes to transition from combustible cigarettes

But since discontinuing their pods popular with young people, Juul has become significantly less popular as brands like Puff Bar, Vuse, Smok, Mylé, and more have taken over.

"Well it'll be time for me to quit then, I've been needing a reason to," a longtime Juul user told indy100.

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