“Refusal skills are not a strength of many kids,” says Graham. Others had friends who offered them e-cigarettes all the time, making it harder to resist.
In a survey by the Truth Initiative, many teens reported being the only ones in their social groups who were trying to quit. For vapers, the feeling of being done only comes at the end of a pod, when they’ve inhaled about an entire cigarette pack’s worth of nicotine.Īnd since vaping is now so prevalent, teens can find it socially isolating to try to quit. “Kids typically smoke a cigarette until they’re done with the cigarette, and that signals when they’re done,” says Amanda Graham, who studies nicotine addiction at the anti-smoking nonprofit Truth Initiative. Pods vary widely between manufacturers, but of the two nicotine strengths Juul sells, its stronger pods contain the equivalent of 200 cigarette puffs, or roughly one pack of cigarettes. “I have kids who were doing well over the summer and were saying, 'I don’t want to go back to school, because I know I’m going to walk into the bathroom and everybody’s going to be handing me a Juul,'” says Levy, referring to the largest American e-cigarette maker.Į-cigarettes’ design also encourages high nicotine consumption. Teenagers can take a quick hit in the hallway or during class, or hang out in bathrooms, sharing each others’ e-cigarettes, and holding the vapor in their mouths long enough that it dissipates without releasing that telltale vapor cloud.