Nicotine is addictive and the U.S. Surgeon General has found sufficient evidence to infer that nicotine can cause certain harms to health. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has asserted that nicotine is delivered on a continuum of risk, with combustible products like cigarettes being the most harmful and lethal, and nicotine replacement therapies like gum and patches the least harmful.
“The regulatory framework for reducing harm from tobacco must include nicotine — the chemical responsible for addiction to tobacco products — as a centerpiece. Nicotine, though not benign, is not directly responsible for the tobacco-caused cancer, lung disease, and heart disease that kill hundreds of thousands of Americans each year. FDA’s approach to reducing the devastating toll of tobacco use must be rooted in this foundational understanding: other chemical compounds in tobacco, and in the smoke created by combustion, are primarily to blame for such health harms.” — Former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and FDA Director of Center for Tobacco Products Mitch Zeller
To be clear, the best choice any person can make is to refrain from consuming any tobacco or nicotine product. However, adult smokers who have not successfully quit should completely switch to potentially less harmful alternative nicotine products.
Smoking of combustible cigarettes remains the leading cause of preventable disease and premature death in the United States. Despite progress made to help adult smokers quit and prevent non-smokers from starting, approximately 34 million Americans use cigarettes and other combustible tobacco products. Half of those who continue to smoke will die from a smoking-related disease; and the World Health Organization estimates smoking kills 8 million people per year globally. In the U.S. alone, smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year – 1,300 each day.
Adult smokers are entitled to accurate information about the relative risks of nicotine products. Accurate communications are especially important given the significant misperceptions about the relative risk of tobacco products and ENDS, as well as misunderstandings about the role of nicotine. In the United States, FDA has a process for evaluating whether relative risk or exposure communications to consumers would be appropriate for the protection of public health. We defer to FDA as the ultimate authority on this topic. We urge that appropriate communications to consumers be facilitated on the basis of sound science and evidence. We advise adult consumers to always review the advice and guidance of FDA, the Surgeon General, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when using nicotine-containing products.
JUUL products are for adult smokers who have not successfully quit. For those adults who do not use nicotine, they should not start. For adult smokers concerned about the health effects of nicotine use, the best thing to do is quit.
For further information on quitting smoking, please reference the following cessation resources provided by the National Cancer Institute (Smokefree.gov), U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Please note these references are included for information purposes only and do not imply any endorsement or approval of Juul Labs or its products by these entities.