Juul – now a subsidiary of the company that owns Marlboro – attained
its $12.8B valuation by growing faster than any other vaping company,
thanks in large part to the children who bought its products, reversing decades of progress in getting teens off nicotine products while simultaneously monopolizing the market for vaping products
Juul’s other secret to success was to steadily ramp up the levels of
deadly, highly addictive nicotine in its products, being the first to
leap from 1-2% nicotine refills to 5% refills – a move that touched off
an arms-race with other manufacturers, leading to the status quo where
nearly all refills are 5-7% nicotine.
One of Juul’s key innovations was a patented “nicotine salt” that offset
the bitter flavor of nicotine, allowing users to consume much higher
levels of nicotine without having to endure a bad taste.
Ramping up nicotine levels didn’t just make Juul’s products more
addictive, it made being a nicotine addict more affordable: the major
costs of a vape refill are not the liquid, but the pod, its manufacture
and distribution.
Americans get more toxic versions of Juul’s products. The tighted
regulatory environment in countries like the UK and Israel have limited
Juul to the sale of 1.7% refills.
The vaping industry now sells liquid in non-childproof bottles that contain enough nicotine to “kill an entire preschool class.”
