Anti-tobacco campaigners are calling for the UK government to act to prevent a new kind of e-cigarette with a super-cool image from taking off among children, as it has done already in America.

In the United States, where Juul has been accused of luring children into nicotine addiction, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has launched an undercover blitz to stop illegal sales of Juul products to children and asked eBay to stop all postings.

The ultra-discreet device offers flavours such as mango and glacier mint, and campaigners say the vape pens are hugely attractive to teenagers whether or not they smoke. They warn of addiction to a drug that may be safer than tobacco but could have harmful effects on the growing brain.

Juul, which looks like a USB stick, has just launched in the UK. It is the subject of three legal actions in the US, filed in New York and California against the San Francisco-based company, alleging that the device has been deceptively marketed as safe. The New York case is brought by the mother of a 15-year-old boy who, she claims, started using Juul in school because all the other kids did and is now addicted to nicotine.

A Juul e-cigarette. Photograph: Boston Globe/Boston Globe via Getty Images

The $16bn company, which now has more than 70% of the US e-cigarette market, says it will vigorously defend itself against the actions and that they have no merit. It says it has never marketed its e-cigarettes to children and actively seeks out and sends letters to desist to those who promote Juul to under-18s on social media. It is an independent company, it says, not an offshoot of Big Tobacco, and has a global mission to help adult smokers quit.

Matt Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, called on the UK government to take action to stop Juul becoming the phenomenon among kids in schools that it is in the US.

“It is critical for adults to be aware of this and for adults to educate kids, teachers and others who influence them,” he said. “It is essential for the government to rapidly step in and prevent the sort of social media marketing that turned this into a fad.”

Juul took off in the US under the radar, he said, depicted in a launch campaign and then on on social media “being used by young, attractive adults in social, sexual settings that made it look like the coolest new thing”.

Juul social media image. Photograph: PR

He added: “It was a phenomenon different from anything I have ever seen. Those of us at the national level became aware of it not through traditional government monitoring, but we began to see stories cropping up from school principals and parents in the media who suddenly discovered their kids were using it. It looks like a flash drive. It isn’t surprising adults missed it, at all.”

There were hundreds of media reports recounting schoolkids’ experiences, he said. “The first couple of days it was ‘Juuling because it was fun’. Then it was ‘Juuling because I needed to’. Pretty shocking stuff.”

Juul is unobtrusive, high-tech in that it is recharged from plugging into a laptop, and produces little vapour or odour, he said. The nicotine it contains is more palatable, coming from nicotine salts, which are also in dry tobacco leaves, rather than freebase nicotine. In the US, the dose has been high – Myers compares the hit to Marlboro cigarettes. But European regulations will restrict Juul to half the dose in the UK.

Dan Thomson, UK managing director of Juul, said it had “a global mission to eliminate cigarette smoking” and hoped to help the 7.5 million people in the UK who still smoke. Ashley Gould, chief administrative officer, said the company had seen the stories of use by minors and was talking to the FDA, but said “there is nothing to indicate that the product was designed or marketed to children, because that has never been done”.

Studies show vaping among teenagers in the US is not going up, she said. The company was undertaking work itself to establish how many children are using Juul. “It is obvious that some kids are using the product and that is not acceptable to us,” she said, adding that Juul was designed for adult smokers.

Juul e-cigarette graphic. Photograph: Arturo Torres/Juul

“What is it that would not be appealing to an adult smoker?” she said. “It’s very easy to use – there are no buttons and no choices.”

The launch campaign in 2015 featured models who were over 21 but who looked young, and bright colours were used. “That was a very short-lived campaign,” Gould said. “It did not help us reach our mission. It has not been up for a very long time.” The social media posts were not put up by Juul, she said, and it now has a team employed to find them and get them taken down.

Public Health England (PHE) supports the use of e-cigarettes to help smokers quit. “The UK has much stricter regulations than the US,” said Rosanna O’Connor, the body’s director of drugs, alcohol, tobacco and justice.

“Juul on sale here has much lower nicotine, print and broadcast ads for e-cigarettes are banned, and selling to or buying for under 18s is against the law. Regular vaping among young people who have never smoked is very rare, while e-cigarettes have become the most popular quitting tool for adult smokers. We will continue to monitor use very carefully but don’t anticipate Juul to change this pattern and hope our experience will be useful to others.”

Steve Brine, public health minister said: “The promotion of any tobacco product to children is completely unacceptable. E-cigarettes including Juul cannot be legally sold to young people under 18 and our strict regulations are clear that it is unlawful to promote these products - including on social media platforms. Trading standards have the power to enforce this legislation.”

The UK anti-tobacco campaigning group ASH agrees with PHE and welcomes the new arrival. “Juul could be an opportunity for public health,” it said in a statement. “If this product has the same mass appeal for adult smokers in the UK as it has in the US then it may move us closer to a smoke-free future.”



But some scientists within the UK dispute the value of e-cigarettes. “The international evidence is now so strong that these products reduce the probability of quitting,” said Martin McKee, professor of European public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“I find the position of PHE utterly bizarre. Of course they are going to be promoted on social media. If you were to design a product to get children addicted to nicotine, this is exactly what it would look like.”

Steve Brine, public health minister said: “The promotion of any tobacco product to children is completely unacceptable. E-cigarettes including Juul cannot be legally sold to young people under 18 and our strict regulations are clear that it is unlawful to promote these products - including on social media platforms. Trading standards have the power to enforce this legislation.”

E-cigarettes Q&A

Do they harm your health?

Public Health England has said e-cigarettes are 95% safer than ordinary tobacco cigarettes and has strongly advocated their use to help people stop smoking. They contain nicotine, the highly addictive drug that makes it so hard for smokers to quit the habit, but without the toxic chemicals from burning tobacco that cause deadly cancers.

Does that mean they are harmless?

No, they are not harm-free, but there is huge debate over how damaging they are or might be in the future. The main concern is addiction to nicotine, so nobody wants non-smokers to start vaping and get hooked – which could also lead them to start smoking cigarettes.

There is some evidence of harm from nicotine itself. The World Health Organization said in a report in August 2016 that exposure to nicotine can damage the development of the foetus during pregnancy and “seems to be involved in the biology of malignant diseases”. It possibly has a damaging effect on the foetal and adolescent brain that could be linked to learning and anxiety disorders. E-cigarettes contain many other chemicals as well, including “glycols, aldehydes, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, tobacco-specific nitrosamines, metals, silicate particles and other elements”. Many of these substances have the potential to cause health harm. However, they are all there in tiny amounts.

Is it legal to sell them in the UK?

Yes. PHE would like to see companies get a licence for the use of e-cigarettes as medicinal products to help people quit smoking, but that’s expensive and needs a lot of trial data so no company has that sort of licence yet. But they can be sold if they comply with EU regulations, which lay down safety and quality standards and impose advertising restrictions.

Can they be marketed to young people?

Only to those over the age of 18, but just as kids would smoke behind the bike shed at school, they now try e-cigarettes because they are not supposed to. PHE says there is no evidence they are getting a nicotine habit – but of course there is no long-term data yet.

How many people are using e-cigarettes in the UK?

The latest report from the Office for National Statistics, for 2017, said 5.5% of the population aged 16 and over were using e-cigarettes when they were surveyed, 13.3% had been and 19.4% had tried them. In the youngest age group asked, aged 16 to 24, 3.1% of males and 5.4% of females said they were users. The numbers were highest in those who said they were smokers or ex-smokers.