Juul CEO "Apologizes" for Addicting Teens |
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The e-cigarette giant JUUL Labs, which dominates the U.S. market for e-cigarettes, has been in hot water for years for attracting young people to its e-cigarettes. A CNBC documentary recently featured Juul CEO, Kevin Burns. Burns was asked what he’d say to a parent with a child addicted to Juul. His response was couched as an apology, but it’s thinner than paper.
“First of all, I’d tell them that I’m sorry that their child’s using the product,” he said. “It’s not intended for them. I hope there was nothing that we did that made it appealing to them.”
Burns’ “apology” is nothing short of corporate chicanery.
Any public health expert in the country could have told Burns that social media ads featuring young models using pods of nicotine flavored to taste like cotton candy, mint, crème brûlée, and various fruits would have attracted young users to his product. As a matter of fact, public health experts have been saying just that for years ( here’s one such article from 2014, the year before Juul hit the market).
It’s a poor apology designed to engender support while Juul continues fighting attempts to regulate its products. While Burns is saying he hopes they didn’t attract youth to use Juul’s e-cigarettes, Juul lobbyists are fighting in statehouse after statehouse to ensure Juul has the ability to overturn bans on flavored e-cigarettes, taxes, and spending millions of dollars to keep laws as relaxed as possible.
Unfortunately, those lobbyists and their money have the ears of politicians. When politicians hear from people like Kevin Burns and his army of lobbyists, teens get sold nicotine. It’s only when regulators and lawmakers hear from parents concerned about their teens getting addicted to Juul that we start to see people come before profits.
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Solidarity. Support. Solutions.
Join SPCA Today!
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The Statewide Prevention Coalition Association strengthens Ohio’s prevention coalitions, professionals, and community champions with resources, technical assistance, training, networking opportunities, toolkits, and advocacy supports. SPCA is a network created by Prevention Action Alliance and comprised of community coalitions dedicated to preventing substance misuse and promoting mental health wellness. Together, we share solutions, support, and show solidarity with each other.
SPCA shows solidarity by sharing your goals and working together to create environmental changes that foster safe and healthy communities.
SPCA supports your efforts through collaboration, pooling our resources so coalitions can better support each other, promoting positive behavioral health outcomes, and prevention substance misuse.
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- Six annual SPCA meetings where members share lessons learned, strategies and practices, and learn from state and national experts in environmental prevention.
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Protect Teens from Sex Trafficking |
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More than 300,000 young people in the U.S. are at risk for sexual exploitation annually. The average age for recruitment is 14, and no child is immune to the risks of sex trafficking. Traffickers prey on young people’s vulnerabilities and then recruit, groom, and season them. Often, drugs and alcohol are used to assist the trafficker in controlling the young person.
In this Know! Parent Tip and this Know! Teachable Moment, we discuss the tactics used by sex traffickers who target teens, the red flags to be on the lookout for, and tips for parents and teachers to prevent this harrowing crime.
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Join the Coalition Institute |
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The Coalition Institute, a new initiative from Prevention Action Alliance, will provide knowledge and skills to coalition leaders about the fundamentals of community-based process.
The Coalition Institute is a cohort-based learning opportunity open to a limited number of coalitions who are either a newly formed coalition or a coalition with new leadership. The cohort will meet six times from August 2019 to June 2020 every other month on Thursdays from 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
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The Prescription Drug Abuse Action Group (PDAAG), a subgroup of the Ohio Injury Prevention Partnership (OIPP) and the Ohio Department of Health’s Violence and Injury Prevention Section, is hosting Project DAWN and Beyond. The conference seeks to increase naloxone integration within communities through the work of health departments, providers, first responders, and other key partners.
The conference will be held September 13, 2019, at the Quest Conference Center at 8405 Pulsar Place, Columbus, OH, 43240. Tickets cost $40. Breakfast, beverages, and lunch will be provided. Space is limited to the first 135 people who register— learn more and register now on Eventbrite. |
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