After the Food and Drugs Administration accused the company of marketing to minors, Juul Lab announced their new desire to restrict the sale of flavor pods Nov. 13. The company said they will also enforce stricter age verifications to prove buyers are 21 years old before viewing and making purchases on the company’s site and accessing their social media outlets.

Flavors such as mango, cucumber, creme and fruit are being pulled from offsite markets while mint, tobacco and menthol are being kept in order to prevent smokers from reverting back to menthol cigarettes.
“I feel like now that there is a ban to it, it just adds another layer to get through to get the pods that makes me want to stop,” Ruben* said. “I just don’t think it’s necessary to go through all that to just get pods.”

While the announcement has deterred some users from Juuling as much, many students said they felt like the new policies haven’t impacted their use.

“Once it is out there, it is out there,” Lydia* said. “Kids will always find a way to get it, it’s just the way to get it will be different.”

The San Francisco-based company was founded in 2017 with the goal to “[improve] the lives of the world’s one billion adult smokers,” as stated on their official website, but they have found themselves as one of the primary targets of the FDA’s crackdown on the e-cigarette market to reduce the popularity of vaping among minors.

Although the timetable for the enforcement hasn’t been announced yet, Juul announced they will be enforcing a ban on flavored pod sales in many of their retail stores.

*Names have been changed