Recently Juuls have become a problematic trend for students in our school. On average six to ten Azle students a week get caught with and using Juuls during school hours.

Juuls are a type of e-cigarette, the main ingredient is nicotine salts that are found in leaf-based tobacco and have become 68% of the $2 billion e-cigarette market. (source)

“Tobacco use amongst teens and anybody under the age of 18 is already a problem, the reason Juuls are a furtherance of that problem is that they are even more difficult to detect the use of,” Azle’s Student Resource Officer (SRO) Corporal Jordan MacQuarrie said.

Corporal MacQuarrie explains that while he attended high school dipping was the trend it was easier to detect compared to Juuls, hence why Juuls are problematic.

“You can tell when somebody had it in there but there’s not really anything that a Juul does to omit some kind of odor that’s really strong to detect it that way,” MacQuarrie said.   

However a Juul is only available to people that are over the age of 18, underaged students still find a way to get their hands on one.

“I got one from a friend that was no longer using it so they gave it to me, and they got it from someone who was 18,” anonymous student said.

Many students have spread rumors that Juuls contain less nicotine than regular e-cigarettes but that is not the case, Jjuuls contain twice the amount of nicotine than regular e-cigarettes, having a higher risk for a student to develop a nicotine addiction.

“People at school bring them and I tried it a couple times, I didn’t like it at first but then it kind of gives you like a buzz,” anonymous student said.

In fact, many students have confessed to going through one Juul pod a day, one Juul pod contains as much as 20 cigarettes worth of nicotine and they come in a variety of flavors in which makes it more addicting. (source)

“They’re like $14 a pack so, normally each pack comes with four, last me four days, I spend 30 bucks a week,” anonymous student said.

Students may not know the dangers of juuling, but Juuls are as hazardous as regular cigarettes, many of these students have not suffered from the consequences of using tobacco yet.

“Unless your 18 stay away from it and then once your 18 you can make your own choices as an adult but even still consider the risk,” MacQuarrie said. “That’s something that you kind of have to weigh the benefits of how it makes you feel versus what it could be doing to you long term that’s something that you could pay for later on in life.”