Like many parents, vaping and e-cigarettes caught my wife and me by complete surprise. Two years ago we asked our oldest child how many kids he knew in his high school who were vaping. He said, “it will be much faster to list the kids who aren’t vaping.” We were stunned. We knew very little about vaping, and at the time I assumed it was some kind of fringe product used by adults already addicted to nicotine.
Unfortunately, studies indicate that one in five high school kids have tried vaping, but in my unscientific observation I believe the number is higher. Still, there are more than fifteen million kids in enrolled in public high schools in this country, so even if the number is “only” one in five, this means over three million public high school children have either tried or are currently using vaping products like JUUL.
What we do know is that e-cigarettes are extremely popular and profitable for the companies selling the devices. The primary manufacturer, marketer, and seller of these vaping devices is a company called JUUL Labs, Inc.