JUUL electronic cigarette use patterns, other tobacco product use, and reasons for use among ever users: Results from a convenience sample.

INTRODUCTION

JUUL, an e-cigarette from PAX Labs, has captured 70% of the e-cigarette market. The current study examines JUUL use patterns and reasons for initiation in a large convenience sample of U.S. adults.

METHODS

Respondents were 979 U.S. adults registered on Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) who reported ever using JUUL. Items included frequency/quantity of JUUL use, reasons for trying JUUL, flavor preferences, and use of other tobacco products.

RESULTS

The majority of participants reported only trying JUUL once or twice (59.5%), 29.2% reported regular nondaily use and 10.3% reported daily use. The average quantity of JUUL pod use was low in the overall sample (4 pods per month). Daily users reported using ~10 pods per month and engaging in 4-9 separate vaping sessions per day. The most frequently reported reasons for JUUL use were because friends were using it (26.5%), curiosity (20.5%), and similarity to a cigarette (7.7%). Approximately 26% of current JUUL users reported current exclusive JUUL use, while 56% reported using JUUL and another e-cigarette. Of the entire sample, 37.1% were former smokers. Of those, 14.9% were daily JUUL users, 21.4% were nondaily JUUL users, and 63.8% were JUUL triers.

CONCLUSIONS

This is the first study to examine patterns and reasons for use of the most popular e-cigarette on the market. In this convenience sample, nearly 40% of those who ever tried JUUL reported current daily or daily use. JUUL use may be associated with limited puffing patterns compared to earlier generation e-cigarettes. Research is needed to investigate if JUUL puffing patterns result in decreased exposure to potentially harmful non-nicotine e-liquid constituents compared to other e-cigarettes.