In January, popular e-cigarette producer Juul launched a massive ad campaign encouraging adult cigarette smokers to “make the switch.” As the tagline suggests, the campaign features former cigarette smokers who explain how replacing their old cancer sticks with new cancer pods drastically improved their lives. Here’s one example:
In a related press release, Juul seems to suggest that they created this campaign with the intent of helping adults who already smoke cigarettes quit (or at the very least, lessen) their addiction. They even claim that “making the switch” is transformative: “Our success ultimately depends on our ability to get our product in the hands of the adult smokers and out of the hands of youth. When adult smokers try it, it works. And, the impact is life-changing.”
But when you consider that Juul is currently under investigation for deliberately marketing their products to teenagers, you can see how this campaign might be more about finding a new audience than actually helping people kick their nicotine habits.
Furthermore, as I concluded during my analysis of the ingredients in Juul pods, replacing cigarette smoking with Juuling is by no means healthy: “I shouldn’t need to tell you that smoking is bad, even in the form of Juuling. So if you don’t already Juul, don’t start. And if you do, consider joining the growing group of Juulers who are already trying to quit. Your lungs will be a whole lot happier.”
In fact, as I noted in another article I wrote about Juuling (in this case, about Juulers who are trying to quit), Juuling can sometimes be more dangerous than smoking cigarettes, since many former cigarettes smokers discover that feeding their nicotine addiction becomes even easier when using a Juul. As such, if Juul encouraged you to quit smoking cigarettes by using their product instead, quitting that dangerously addictive USB drive may very well be the logical next step. It won’t be easy, but with some advice from John Dicey, global CEO and senior therapist at Allen Carr’s Easyway, it’s possible.
The most important thing, Dicey says, is that you really have to convince yourself that you’re not actually missing out on anything by ditching your Juul — you’re only gaining the freedom of no longer relying on it. “If you understand addiction and the nature of nicotine addiction, you realize that the next puff of a vape, or the next puff of a cigarette, doesn’t actually provide any genuine pleasure or benefit,” Dicey tells me. “It just ends the dissatisfied condition that was created by the previous cigarette or vape.”
On the Easyway website, they explain what your thought process should look like when attempting to quit:
“Remember — you’re not quitting anything because e-cigarettes do absolutely nothing for you at all. They provide you with no genuine pleasure or crutch, they simply keep you addicted — a slave to nicotine. Get it clearly into your mind: you are losing nothing and you are making marvellous positive gains not only in health, energy and money but also in confidence, self-respect, freedom, and most important of all, in the length and quality of your future life. You’re going to enjoy being a non-vaper right from the moment you finish your last e-cigarette.”
Now, you might think that opting for alternatives — like nicotine gum or patches — would be much easier than changing your entire, extremely addicted mindset. However, as the Easyway website also explains, substituting one form of nicotine for another (like switching from smoking cigarettes to Juuling, as this new Juul campaign recommends) only reinforces your addiction:
“Do not use any substitutes. They all make it more difficult to quit because they perpetuate the illusion that you’re making a sacrifice. Substitutes that contain nicotine or so-called Nicotine Replacement Therapy; patches, gums, nasal sprays and inhalators — are particularly unhelpful as they simply keep the addiction to nicotine alive. It’s like advising a heroin addict who’s smoking the drug off foil, to start injecting it instead.”
In other words, as far as Dicey and the method he promotes are concerned, the only real way to beat a Juul-inflicted nicotine addiction is to constantly remind yourself that your Juul is the bad guy, and life without it is inherently better than life with it. As the Easyway website further explains, this means that you need to face situations involving nicotine head-on, rather than avoiding them altogether:
“Do not try to avoid vaping and smoking situations or opt out of life. Go out and enjoy social occasions right from the start and do not envy vapers, pity them. Realise that they will be envying you because every single one of them will be wishing they could be like you: free from the whole nightmare. No vaper wants to see their children start vaping which means they wish they hadn’t started themselves. Remember it’s not you who are being deprived but those poor vapers.”
All of which, if I’m being completely honest, sounds extremely difficult, especially since many Juulers already know that Juuling is bad for them. But hey, if you really do want to quit Juuling, perhaps this advice rang some bells. If so, good luck hating on your Juul and loving life without it — or at the very least, convincing yourself that’s the case.
Ian Lecklitner
Ian Lecklitner is a staff writer at MEL Magazine. He mostly writes about everyone's favorite things: Sex, drugs and food.
