She Couldn’t Quit Smoking. Then She Tried Juul.

 

Try as she might, Brittany Kligman couldn’t free herself of a pack-a-day cigarette habit, eight years in duration. and she or he ached too.

She was mortified the time that a taxi driver sniffed as she entered his cab and remarked, “You’re a smoker, huh?” (And she had just showered!) She was getting more sinus infections.

Because her chest felt uncomfortably tight when she exercised, she stopped high-intensity interval training.

Then SoulCycle classes. Finally, she quit understanding. Then Ms. Kligman, 33, tried Juul, the sleek vaping device she credits for her liberation.

Since last January, it’s been hello nicotine salts, goodbye tar.

Juul gave her everything she enjoyed about cigarettes — the nicotine jolt also as something ritualized to try to together with her hands — but without the stink, the stigma, and therefore the carcinogens.

“The last cigarette I smoked was on July 5 once I ran out of pods,” Ms. Kligman said, pertaining to cartridges of mango-flavored liquid, as she took discreet hits while chatting at a downtown Manhattan cafe. “I couldn’t finish it — it made me sick.

And I thought, ‘How did I exploit to try to do this?’ ” But in the week, struggling to stay its products far away from teenagers, Juul announced it had been suspending sales of the many of its flavors (including Ms. Kligman’s beloved mango) at retail stores.

The next day, the Food and Drug Administration issued new requirements that stores can only sell flavored e-cigarettes from closed-off spaces that are inaccessible to minors, a stipulation that would force many shops to prevent carrying the products.

The new restrictions make smokers-turned-vapers like Ms. Kligman uneasy. “If you’re getting to sell an adult product, you've got to be prepared to secure it,” she said.

“But it also looks like they’re making tons of steps and loops for people like me. They’re removing a flavor I used for smoking cessation. ”

She not only intends to refill on mango at her corner smoke shop but is functioning up an idea B: “I’ll switch to Juul’s tobacco flavor.

I can get around this. a bit like the kid's will — they will always find how .”

Nicotine, the chemical in tobacco cigarettes that makes the addictive stranglehold that's so difficult to interrupt, is presumably a signature reason that Juul and other e-cigarettes help former smokers as Ms. Kligman quit.

In making the switch, smokers can satisfy their nicotine hunger without inhaling the handfuls of cancer-causing carcinogens released by a burning cigarette.

Juul especially may go better than nicotine patches and gum not only due to the quantity of nicotine during a Juul pod but because an e-cigarette’s means of delivery — into the lungs and brain — is more immediate than through skin or saliva.

Although studies of e-cigarettes are increasing, they, just like the devices themselves, are still within the early stages.

The first e-cigarettes arrived within us around 2006, but most versions now on the market are much more recent.

And while these products were conceived as smoking alternatives, the Food and Drug Administration has not yet formally approved them as smoking cessation aids, and research is mixed about their effectiveness.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggest that they will be effective in helping smokers quit “if used as an entire substitute for all cigarettes and other smoked tobacco products.”

Like Ms. Kligman, about 30 percent of adult users do exactly that, but nearly 60 percent use both, the C.D.C. said.

According to a national health survey released earlier this month by the C.D.C., the number of adult cigarette smokers within us dropped to about 34 million last year, while the number of adult e-cigarette users rose to about seven million.

But the report didn’t find sufficient evidence to link the 2. Though e-cigarettes are supposedly safer in most respects than combustible cigarettes, they're not benign. Nicotine isn't known to cause cancer.

It can induce feelings of delight and alleviate stress. But additionally, to its powerful addictive properties — researchers suggest that the typical smoker tries to quit 15 times over a lifetime, with many the maximum amount as 30 — nicotine can irritate bronchial pathways and lift the heart rates.

According to a 2018 comprehensive evaluation of e-cigarettes by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the products are particularly challenging to review because mechanisms and content vary widely.

The report said that additionally to nicotine, the long-term effects of the products’ metals, chemicals within the aerosol, and flavorings might be problematic.