Bowing to government and public pressure, vaporizer company Juul announced plans Tuesday to remove most of its e-cigarette flavors from stores as well as halt all of its social media promotions.
Starting immediately, Juul will no longer accept retail orders for mango, fruit, creme, and cucumber Juul pods. The company will continue to sell menthol, mint and, tobacco flavors at retail stores. The flavored pods are reportedly exceptionally popular with middle and high school students. Since the Juul device resembles a small flash drive and the vapor dissipates quickly, those students were allegedly able to vape without drawing the attention of their teachers or school officials.
Beyond halting retail sales, Juul plans to shut down its Facebook and Instagram accounts promoting the flavored pods and will ask Twitter and Snapchat to “police” posts so they’re not shown to underage users, The New York Times reports.
Juul will still sell its popular flavored cartridges online; however, it plans to add an age-verification measure by the end of the year to prevent the sale of those cartridges to anyone under the age of 21.
Juul was able to reach and exceed the $10 billion valuation level last month, just seven months after its first venture capital raise, the fastest any company has ever achieved the status.
