The Second Life of Juul: Why the Brand’s Return Matters for Public Health
The demonization loop lived by Juul is a prime illustration of the real barriers to harm reduction progress and the public heatlh cost of stifling innovation in reduced risk technology.
For the first time after being cast in the shadows, Juul Labs appears to be launching a strategic reset. The company — once valued at close to $40 billion — became a central figure in the public debate over underage vaping in the United States. Juul became the symbol of the teen vaping crisis, the “moral panic object,” the story that produced clicks, ratings, hearings, and lawsuits. Juul paid $1.7B in settlements in 2022 alone. Altria exited its stakeank and bruptcy was openly discussed. In 2022 the FDA issued a marketing denial order — effectively a ban — then reversed, paused, re-reviewed, reversed again.
Juul is now focusing on the Juul2 platform: a redesigned device that is already in market in the UK and awaiting U.S. authorisation. The product integrates age verification checks, Bluetooth connectivity, a digital display, stronger battery and pods with embedded chips that interact with an optional app. The intention is to reduce underage access while improving usability for adult smokers who are seeking non-combustible alternatives.
More importantly the brand is still focused on the core harm reduction principle that started all of this in the first place: adults smoke for nicotine — but die from the smoke, not the nicotine. This is the part that almost no mainstream coverage ever acknowledges: Juul actually worked – many vapers will tell you that Juul is the device which helped them kick their smoking addiction.
The cost of rejecting innovation
Historically, major public health improvements — sanitation, water purification, vaccines, food safety — required both technological development and regulatory frameworks able to recognise their value early enough to prevent unnecessary delay. In tobacco control, the policy and communication environment has frequently made innovation harder rather than easier.
This is an extremely important context to consider, because this cycle (the demonization cycle) is the core architecture that has blocked harm reduction innovation for decades. From RJR’s Premier… to Eclipse… to Swedish Match snus… to Star Scientific’s lozenge… to modern day vaping… and now nicotine pouches… the pattern repeats. Products that can drastically reduce harm are attacked harder than the cigarettes they replace. The cigarette is legal. The lower risk innovation is framed as threat.
When safer options are restricted or over-taxed, conventional cigarettes remain the default consumer product by force of policy rather than consumer choice. That creates a paradox in which the most harmful product stays ubiquitous, while lower risk competitors face higher barriers and higher perception risk.
The silver lining
Last July, the U.S. FDA finally authorised five JUUL products again for U.S. sale (tobacco and menthol formats) after reviewing additional evidence submitted by the company. The agency stated the benefits to adult public health — by potentially displacing cigarettes — outweighed risks, including youth appeal. Juul came close to bankruptcy following the federal ban in 2022; the reversal and more structured regulatory pathway now create a clearer environment for re-entry.
Meanwhile, the global market Juul returns to is materially different. Smoke-free alternatives — including closed pod systems, open systems, heated tobacco and nicotine pouches — now exceed $35 billion annually. Established players such as Reynolds American, Imperial Brands, Altria / NJOY and independent manufacturers are active across multiple regions. Companies in this space now compete not only on nicotine formulation and experience, but on trust, compliance, verified adult access, and regulatory stability.
The demonization loop
Juul still faces legacy litigation. Lawsuits alleged the company marketed to minors and did not adequately warn users about risks. Several large settlements with states including New York and California were reached in recent years. However, legal counsel firms that once pursued Juul now state they are no longer accepting new claims.
The broader tobacco harm reduction field has consistently seen this demonization cycle in different eras. Safer nicotine technologies — from early NRTs to heated tobacco prototypes to Swedish snus — have repeatedly faced resistance rooted not only in risk evaluation, but moral framing, political positioning, liability anxiety and cultural perception. Much of the public still associates nicotine with the diseases of smoking, despite decades of evidence that it is primarily the combustion of tobacco that drives mortality.
Can technology repair the trust that fear destroyed?
For the harm reduction community, the larger question is not whether any individual commercial product is flawless — but whether regulatory systems allow iterative technological improvement to occur at all. Without space for better products, public health benefits remain theoretical rather than achieved.
The return of Juul to the regulated market provides another case study — and a reminder — that the future of reduced risk nicotine will depend on a balanced combination of product innovation, regulatory proportionality, accurate risk communication, and adult consumer access.
If the THR movement allows punishment and demonization of innovators to permanently erase incentive to innovate — then the world loses more lives to cigarettes. That is the stakes scale. Innovation, not prohibition, is what will deliver the public health breakthrough.