Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Surgeon general warns of teen risks from vaping
WASHINGTON — Surgeon General Jerome Adams is taking aim at the best-selling electronic cigarette brand in the country, urging swift action to prevent Juul and similar vaping brands from addicting millions of teenagers.
In an advisory Tuesday, Adams said parents, teachers, health professionals and government officials must take “aggressive steps” to keep children from using e-cigarettes. Federal law bars the sale of e-cigarettes to those under 18.
For young people, “nicotine is dangerous, and it can have negative health effects,” Adams said. “It can impact learning, attention and memory, and it can prime the youth brain for addiction.”
Federal officials are scrambling to reverse a recent explosion in teen vaping that public health officials fear could undermine decades of declines in tobacco use. An estimated 3.6 million U.S. teens are now using e-cigarettes, representing 1 in 5 high school students and 1 in 20 middleschoolers, according to the latest federal figures.
Separate survey results released Monday showed twice as many high school students used e-cigarettes
That level of technology so far is absent from most other retailers, especially at airports. Saunders said that some airport stores may have options to order ahead using an app. But travelers usually don’t think about what they’ll want for lunch, or which snacks and magazines they’ll want to grab, too long before boarding their flight. Then you add travelers who may be running late and don’t have much time to consider their options anyway.
Even order-ahead apps “require the consumer to put in some effort,” Saunders said. “It’s fair to say something has been done, but no one has been as comprehensive about it as Amazon.”
Granted, travelers still find time — and money — to shop. In 2017, travelers spent more than $1.7 billion at dozens of the country’s largest airports’ newsstand and travel convenience stores, according to this year’s Airport Experience News Fact Book.
But many items stocked on those shelves see some kind of price hike. Given how expensive everyday items can be at airport stores, Saunders said Amazon may see an opening to undercut that pricing.
Ryan Hamilton, a professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, said Amazon Go stores have to factor in the steep price of installing a sophisticated system of cameras and sensors. But given how few employees work at the stores, Amazon won’t have to worry as much about the high cost of wages — which tend to be the largest expenses for small businesses. That could give Amazon an opening to drive down its prices, Hamilton said.
“This would be hard for a mom-and-pop store to replicate,” Hamilton said. “They’re not going to be able to kick down $100,000 for a complicated system.”
An airport store like Amazon Go could also tap into peoples’ urge to impulse-buy while they travel. Kit Yarrow, a professor of psychology and marketing at Golden Gate University, said shoppers reliably spend more when they don’t have to go through a checkout, let alone stand face-to-face with a cashier.
And at airports especially, Yarrow said people often grab items without thinking much about price, knowing they’ll soon be in the air with even fewer options for snacks and entertainment.
Ramon Lo, publisher of Airport Experience News, said Amazon Go’s model would work especially well at large hubs, such as Atlanta, Dallas or Houston, where hoards of travelers are looking for quick, efficient options in between connecting flights.