Juuls were presented to the world as the safe alternative to smoking, and before that, it was the Vape, and before the Vape it was the nicotine patch.

While all different products in their own right, they all have one thing in common: they are still addictive like actual cigarettes.

What’s worse is that because teens, and other people think that  it’s still better than smoking, they don’t think they’re dangerous, but they’re wrong.

At first it doesn’t seem very likely that e-cigs (Juuls and vapes), and the patches still carry the addictive qualities of the cigarette, but the more studies that show someone’s dependence on each of these products are conducted, the more similarities appear.

An example would be a study done by the University of Southern California that included 181 teenagers from 10 different high schools who were then given a survey. After compiling the data, researchers  concluded that juuling in high concentrations during high school would result in a habit of smoking or vaping in even higher concentrations later in life.

Juuls consist of a salt-based nicotine while vapes contain freebase nicotine. This may not really sound important, but it is, as it was concluded that salt based nicotine is 27 percent more addictive than freebase nicotine.

The reason why these alternatives were created was that voluntarily inhaling nicotine infused with salt is (in a sense) better than inhaling nicotine mixed with tobacco as it was the lethality of tobacco that made people think twice about buying the tobacco industry’s products.

Frankly, Juuls are not good, and neither are the other “safe” alternatives because they still contain some of the harmful carcinogens that were in real cigarettes, like propylene glycol. These substances are capable of causing cancer.

And those other bad effects that cigarettes cause don’t necessarily go away either.

Even though these alternatives don’t contain tobacco, they still cause nicotine dependence just without the tobacco.

These risks are real and are prompting groups like the Food and Drug Administration to take action.

The FDA announced that it will hold a public hearing on Juuls on Dec. 5.

Shortly after this happened, Juul Labs announced a temporary call-back of several flavors found in Juuls.

Juul Labs also plans to eliminate some of its social media accounts, such as its Instagram and Facebook accounts.

The Juul Labs twitter account is limiting its posts to non promotional pieces.

Boone health teacher Molly Petty suspects the companies have targeted teens just as the tobacco industry did.

“I do believe companies are targeting teens because they realize they are not as educated about them and are hoping for lifelong users out of them,” Petty said.

Over time, research revealed how harmful cigarettes and lightable tobacco can be.

Compared to that, research barely knows anything about Juuls, but it has revealed enough to show that the devices are dangerous.

Just because people currently thing that Juuls are safer than cigarettes does not mean they are safe.

The safest option is to avoid cigarettes altogether, whether traditional or vape based.