Are e-liquids marketed to children?

Let’s talk about e-liquid. More precisely e-liquid bottles. Even MORE precisely, e-liquid bottle labels.

The same font Kraft
uses on Kool-Aid

There has been a lot of talk lately about electronic cigarettes and e-liquid being marketed to kids... Those of us that use e-liquids know that this is balderdash. Firstly, all those flavored e-liquids exist because adult like flavors. And secondly, enjoying all those flavors costs a bit of money. More money than most kids are likely to spend just to experience a flavor.

Consider that if you want flavor you need more than a cig-a-like. You need a 'personal vaporizer', and the absolute, bottom rung, minimal starter the fails miserably at flavor presentation and vapor production, is going to start at around $30... and that's before you spend $10 - $20 or more on a bottle of flavored e-liquid.  Let's just call it a $50 minimum investment for a child to enjoy one of these flavors. Now you tell me, how many kids are going to spend $50 on a low quality vaporizer and a bottle of e-liquid rather than buying flavored cola and candy?

Looks exactly like an old
Rocket Pop ad

A marginally better ‘starter kit’ can usually be found online starting around $50… the cost is generally higher in a brick & mortar shop. But if we believe that electronic cigarettes are marketed to kids because flavor And therefore kids use electronic cigarettes because flavor Then kids must be using a setup that will actually deliver flavor. For that, we need to spend some money. Accurate, full flavor presentation and vapor production is going to start at around $100. If you’re really into flavor and vapor expect to spend twice that. And if you’re really really into flavor you can expect to spend a lot more. A lot more than kids can afford to spend… that is, unless they’re out dealing drugs, or robbing houses, or mugging people… but then, electronic cigarettes would hardly be the biggest problem with such kids.

So WE all know that before anyone can use any of the ‘flavors’ that are purportedly marketed to children, they first have to be willing to invest in costly hardware. That hardware cost alone is an fairly reasonable gatekeeper preventing most kids from using e-liquids.

It sure looks like a kids juice.

But the general public doesn't know that. What the general public thinks they know is what they were told by politicians and the media… The media and the politicians are looking for the worst case examples and holding those up as proof of marketing to children. They're looking for anything that they can find that mimics a recognized product intended for kids, and anything with cartoonish labels that might appeal to kids... Sadly there is plenty out there for them to find. And we need to care. 

We need to discourage e-liquid manufacturers from using labeling that the anti-vaping zealots will use against us. We can do this by telling them how we feel about their labeling, and we can do this be refusing to purchase e-liquid with questionable labeling. We need to discourage retailers, both online and brick & mortar, from selling e-liquid with questionable labeling. Again, we can let them know how we feel, and we can chose not to purchase the liquid in question, or in extreme cases, we can choose not to purchase from the retailer at all if they carry a questionable liquid.

Lost Art Liquids changed this
label design after negative reaction
from the vaping community.

While one e-liquid manufacturer has pulled a particularly egregious label that was a nearly exact copy of a well known kids breakfast cereal box and replaced it with something that, while still questionable, isn't nearly as bad, other manufacturers are turning a deaf ear to consumer concerns.  It’s clear that some segments of the vaping industry is uninterested in self regulation, and that leaves it up to us, the consumers, to regulate for them. If we regulate what we buy, then rather quickly the vendors and manufacturers will either regulate what they sell and make, or they will go out of business. Let’s hope for the former, but either outcome robs the opposition of ammunition that they can, and will, use to sway public opinion against vaping.

Not as bad, but still questionable
labels from Lost Art Liquids