Too Cool for Juul

Uncanny Valley | WIRED

WIRED

Technology

4.1 • 572 Ratings

🗓️ 14 July 2022

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Do you even vape, bro? Well if the United States Food and Drug Administration has its way, that answer might soon be a hard "no." Last month, the FDA went after Juul, the reigning champ of the e-cigarette industry, and effectively banned the selling of all Juul products in the US. Of course, Juul fought back, and a judge stayed the order. Now, as Juul fights for its life, the rest of the multibillion dollar market of nicotine-dispensing tech has billowed in to fill the space.

This week on Gadget Lab, WIRED senior writer Arielle Pardes joins us to talk about Juul's battle with the FDA and what it means for vaping and nicotine products as a whole.

Show Notes

Read Arielle’s story about the battle between Juul and the FDA. Follow all of WIRED’s coverage of Juul and vaping. Read the GQ profile on actor Jeremy Allen White.

Recommendations

Arielle recommends Nixta licor de elote, if you’re of booze drinking age. Lauren recommends the show The Bear on Hulu. Mike recommends The Copenhagen Trilogy by Tove Ditlevsen.

Arielle Pardes can be found on Twitter @pardesoteric. Lauren Goode is @LaurenGoode. Michael Calore is @snackfight. Bling the main hotline at @GadgetLab. The show is produced by Boone Ashworth (@booneashworth). Our theme music is by Solar Keys.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Mike.
0:00.8	Lauren.
0:01.5	Mike, have you ever vaped?
0:03.0	I feel like I should know this about you, but I don't.
0:05.0	I used to vape all the time.
0:25.3	You did? That's when it was all the rage about, I don't know, five, six years ago, yeah. Oh, so I just missed your vaping stage because I joined Wired about four years ago. Yeah, I think so. What would you do if the world ran out of vape juice? I would probably just smoke a cigarette. Oh, really? All right, we have to talk about this.
0:54.5	Hi, everyone. Welcome to Gadget Lab. I'm Lauren Good. I'm a senior writer at Wired. And I'm Michael Colori. I'm a senior editor at Wired. Welcome back, Mike. Thank you. We really missed you. I missed you. I'm speaking for our audience, too. I'm assuming they missed you. I missed you and our audience as well. Well, this week, we're also joined by someone else who I'm sure misses you. Wired Senior Writer Ar Ariel Pardez, our former Gadget Lab co-host and still a friend of the pod. Hey, Ariel.
0:59.5	Hi, it's so good to be with you guys again. It's great to have you back. Okay, so today we're
1:05.1	talking about vaping. It's origins, why it caught on so fast, and what the future of vaping might be now that regulators are cracking down on it.
1:15.4	So for those not totally hooked, vapes are those electric nicotine sticks that your high schooler might hide up their sleeve.
1:22.6	This market of e-cigarettes has taken off over the past few years.
1:26.2	It's now a multi-billion dollar industry.
1:28.8	And at the front of all of it has been Jewel. That's J-U-U-U-L. Back in 2018, Jewel Labs, which is the
1:36.7	company that makes the jewel vape, was valued at $38 billion. But that wouldn't last very long.
1:43.2	Last month, the FDA moved to effectively ban
1:46.7	Jewel products from being sold in the United States. Now, Jewel objected and a judge stayed the
1:51.6	order, but Jewel's fate still kind of hangs in a limbo of legal battles. Arielle, you wrote a story
1:57.8	about all of this for Wire.com. Before we get into the FDA's crackdown on
2:01.6	nicotine products, tell us a little bit about Jules' backstory. Like, when did it launch? And why has
2:07.7	this particular vape appeal to so many people? Sure. So the Jule's story really begins in
2:14.4	2014, which is the year that the product was introduced. Jules co-founders had been
2:20.3	kind of iterating on an e-cigarette for about 10 years prior to that. They both met at Stanford,
	...

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