IN THE LAST QUARTER OF 2018, JUUL PULLED ALL THEIR FLAVORED PRODUCTS FROM WHOLESALE, EXCLUDING TOBACCO AND MINT.
Since Juul restricted the availability of its fruity, savory, and sweet flavors, counterfeit vape products in the US increased dramatically. Juul began legal proceedings and began to search for and send legal notices to producers who were selling counterfeit products in the United States. Chinese producers profited from this situation and started to flood markets with compatible seeds that contained unidentified recipes and a variety of flavors.
Shops have been directing their sales to compatible products since they started to buy fewer and fewer Juul brand products. Additionally, Juul created some bad tensions between their company and the proprietors of stores after they began to place conditions on the distribution of their products to shops. These situations require shop owners to put up their stores in a certain manner to showcase their products or even need that the store doesn’t carry compatible products.
WHAT DOES THIS MEAN FOR CONSUMERS?
If you’re purchasing compatible products manufactured by Chinese companies, you’ll save some money. The costs of products that are compatible with Juul products are roughly 50% less than what Juul Brand items cost. Juul products, such as nicotine salt, contain a higher chance of a user suffering nicotine poisoning. This is due to the benzoic acid additive in the liquid. It allows users to inhale more nicotine and not feel any effects from nicotine once the user has taken in excessively and lets the user take in nicotine at a higher rate.
The chemical formula of the liquid contained in “knock-off” Juul pods and Juul-compatible pods is not known since the manufacturers are located in China; it is hard to verify this information and make the brands accountable for any damages resulting from the distribution and usage of these products.
Business standards do not regulate fake producers. A few counterfeit producers have been investigated in China and found to have hygienic facility conditions. If the conditions of production are unsafe for these artificial Juul pods, then what could be said about the chemical substances found in the e-liquid contained within the pods? There is no way to confirm the fact that the pods are filled with genuine liquid. Thus, we cannot determine the health hazards associated with these fake Juul Pods and the compatible ones.
We can consider what happened in the case of Juul in 2018 to illustrate how markets react to a decline in flavor options. Customers will look for alternative ways to obtain products that are flavored. To get the flavor that is suitable to them, consumers may even purchase counterfeit Chinese products whose authenticity and origin are not known.
