No device right now is as worrisome as the Juul — because, of both its explosion in popularity and the unusually heavy dose of nicotine it delivers.  A new survey suggests that the public, and parents of teens who use Juul e-cigs just aren't aware of the risks.

In the public imagination, vaping has become associated with a techier, dweebier slice of the population. But as early as 2015, e-cigarette use by high-school and middle-school students had eclipsed cigarette use.

Through social media, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat, you will find they’re flooded with college kids finding creative ways to display their prowess with, or devotion to, their Juuls: teens hitting their Juuls at their parents’ dining room table over fall break; kids hitting their Juuls in the hospital after a bloody drunken escapade. You get the idea. Most appealing, these devices are sleek, small, and everywhere. There’s no need to refill them with liquid — just pop in a new JUULpod. They even recharge via USB.

Although the JUUL website requires you to be eighteen and older to purchase, the device has had no problem getting into the hands of younger teenagers. In fact, the issue of vaping at school has gotten so out of hand that schools in Kentucky, Wisconsin and California have already begun to amend school policy, and some schools have even gone so far as to ban USB drives completely because of how similar they look to the JUUL device.

Only now, scientists are starting to learn how e-cigs like the Juul can affect your teen — and the results are troubling. Watchdogs and health experts are particularly concerned about the brand Juul which packs the same nicotine content per pod as a pack of cigarettes. Nicotine is the chemical that causes addiction. These high amounts are a serious concern for youth, who are already more likely than adults to become addicted to nicotine. The chance of addiction is so high that the U.S. Surgeon General has warned that the use of nicotine by youth in any form is unsafe.

Gobi Support Inc is a nonprofit organization dedicated to helping teens and their families rethink their relationship to drugs and alcohol.  Gobi is not a treatment program.  Gobi's digital offerings encourage self-knowledge, reflection and problem solving, to build better communication within families.