[UPDATE] FDA Set to Ban Juul E-Cigarettes as Soon as Today

[UPDATE] It is official as the FDA has banned Juul e-cigarettes tied to teen vaping surge.

The FDA claims that Juul may have played a "disproportionate" role in the rise of teen vaping. They also claim that in their application, Juul didn't have enough evidence to show that marketing their product  “would be appropriate for the protection of the public health.”

Original Story is Below

According to a report, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration would take Juul Labs Inc.’s e-cigarettes off the market as early as Wednesday (6/22).

Why is Juul Being Taken Off the Market

According to the report by former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb and the Wall Street Journal, the FDA will order Juul Labs to take its e-cigarette off the US market.

Juul has been previously accused by the FDA of using predatory marketing tactics that may have influenced teens and children. Back in 2019, Juul made an attempt to pacify the FDA by pulling their fruity and sweet flavored e-cigarette pods, while keeping the menthol and tabacco flavored nicotine pods on the market.

However, following a two-year review, the FDA has decided to ban Juul products.

Approximately 2.55 million students in middle and high school reported current (past 30- day) use of tobacco products in 2021, according to the 2021 National Youth Tobacco Survey.

“As previously reported, e-cigarettes were the most common tobacco product currently used among middle and high school students (2.06 million) in 2021,” the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. “This was followed by cigarettes (410,000), cigars (380,000), smokeless tobacco (240,000), hookahs (220,000), nicotine pouches (200,000), heated tobacco products (170,000), and pipe tobacco (80,000).”

What Happened to Juul

Touting their product as a healthy alternative to traditional cigarettes, Juul products account for 33% of the e-cigarette market, according to the Winston-Salem Journal.

The Juul ban opens the market for other e-cigarette companies to take more of the proverbial pie. Vuse brand as well as NJOY brand are expected to dominate the e-cigarette market. Currently, Vuse holds 35% of the market share.

Juul is credited with single-handedly saving the e-cigarette market. Launching in 2015, it faced enormous growth, and by 2018 had captured 75% of the e-cigarette market. The company was valued at $15 billion. By December 2018, Juul Labs Inc. had reached a value of $38 billion after Altria Group Inc. (formerly Philip Morris Companies Inc.) took 35% stake in the company.

As fast as it grew, Juul lost much of its spark after lawsuits and reports about the potential dangers of vaping and combustible e-cigarettes surfaced.

Once standing on a $38 billion value, Altria valued Juul at $10 billion in 2020, then plummeted to a $4.3 billion value in March 2020.