Wildly popular but controversial Juul e-cigarettes deliver 16-times more nicotine than similar devices, a new study found.
Juul has cornered nearly 75 percent of the e-cigarette market, but it’s also become the most popular brand among underage users, many of whom claim the devices got it hooked on nicotine, a charge echoed by US health officials.
Researchers at Pennsylvania State College of Medicine found that the trendy vapes deliver more nicotine in a shorter period of time than either similarly shaped, older e-cigs or more powerful ‘push-button’ devices in a small study.
The study authors say that Juul’s nicotine punch is about comparable to that of a cigarette, which is okay when smokers first want to switch from cigarettes, but presents a problem when they actually want to quit – and especially for young people who had never been smokers to begin with.
A graph shows the surge in nicotine blood levels among six people who took 30 puffs on Juuls. They hit their max around the eight minute mark, with one person’s blood content of nicotine spiking over 50 ng/mL (gray) – significantly higher than what a cigarette delivers
The research team recruited six people who were experienced e-cigarette users to take puffs for science.
Each person had to take about 30 puffs of their Juuls over the course of 10 minutes.
On average, they found that within 8.7 minutes, the vapers’ hit their maximum blood levels of nicotine.
And that max was 28.6 nanograms of nicotine per milliliter of blood.
It is slightly difficult to make a direct comparison to similar experiments designed around cigarette smoking, as smokers are typically asked to take about 10 drags in five minutes (rather than 30 in 10).
But at four minutes, the blood serum level of a smoker tracks closely with that of a Juul user, said study co-author Dr Jonathan Foulds.
‘It’s consistent with the idea that the nicotine delivery is like a cigarette and the addiction is like a cigarette,’ he told DailyMail.com.
Dr Foulds, lead study author Dr Jessica Yingst and their team also measured how addicted the Juul users were to their devices, compared to addictions cores of users of other e-cigs as well as users of traditional cigarettes.
‘The Juul average score was 14, exactly the same as an average smoker,’ said Dr Fould.
‘Compared to a cohort of long-term e-cigarette users [assessed in a prior study],’ Juul users did report higher dependence compared with other e-cigarettes,’ added Dr Yingst, referring to another study the team did on 3,000 e-cigarette users.
‘The nicotine delivery of Juuls [is]…almost three-times more nicotine in that time period than older or advanced pen-and-button devices.’
Dr Fould says that Juul’s high nicotine content was neither a total shock nor necessarily an issue, on its face.
‘If you look at their original documents, the company is quite clear that that was their intention – and I think they’re right – that it’s going to be much easier for smokers to switch’ to a device that delivers as much nicotine as cigarettes, than to weaker, older e-cigs, said Dr Fould.
‘They’re actually taking market share from cigarettes, and I do think that’s what they intended.’
A recent Reuter’s investigation, including interviews with former Juul employees, suggested that the company did intend to make potent e-cigarettes, and in fact was worried enough their would be too powerful and addictive that it considered designs for a device to throttle the delivery of nicotine – but ultimately scrapped the plans.
Juul eventually started selling pods with a nicotine concentration of three percent – instead of five – but only went to market with the higher potency pods.
The real problem, however, is Juul’s size and advertising, in Dr Fould’s eyes.
‘Because it’s a small device and can be hidden easily and because it does pack a punch, then young people, some of whom were not smokers, have taken to it,’ he said.
‘And clearly that’s something that the company and the FDA have taken seriously.’
He thinks that premarket FDA approval will help stem the youth vaping crisis, as would raising the federal age limit for purchasing all tobacco products – including e-cigs – to 21, as New York state did this week.
‘It’s not because we think that at 21 they’re an adult, but just because 18-year-olds, half of them are high school seniors, so that just makes them dealers for the younger students, and that’s clearly a bad idea,’ said Dr Fould.
