JUUL

For those of us with a poor grasp of time, who can still recall when a night at the bar could be sharply revisited by a Proustian wave of stale smoke arising from yesterday’s clothes, it can almost feel as if vaping crept up on us out of nowhere. One moment, it seemed, all the authorities had firmly agreed that pushing for vaping was creepy, and were pledging to legislate and tax cigarettes into oblivion; the next, great hordes of schoolchildren were apparently free to suck constantly on little vials of liquid nicotine with sugar-rush names such as Cherry Fizzle and Blue Razz Lemonade. What happened?

Juul, the once dominant e-cigarette company, is back with a new proposed product that it hopes will rescue it from the brink of bankruptcy: age-restricted vapes.   In their attempts to make smoking less accessible for minors, the company is prepared to make the simple pleasure a pain for everyone. Users first must buy a new e-cigarette that pairs with a phone app. They will then upload their government ID or a real-time selfie to the app and have a third-party database verify their identity. A unique Pod ID chip within the Juul device will detect counterfeit cartridges made by other companies, who have flooded the market with illegal fruity flavors that appeal to minors. To further combat the problem, the new device only comes with just one flavor—Virginia Tobacco.