Became a bigger issue in 2019. Andrew i think it was a combination of factors that really drove this to the front of the policy debate this year. One was just a year over year increases in the number of teens who are reporting ecigarette use. Thats been increasing for several years, but 2019, we saw another significant increase over last year. Another was interrelated, but sort of distinct issue that we saw, starting over the summer with vaping related illnesses that were beginning to emerge, that weve now seen thousands injured and dozens dead from this. Thcs related to illicit vaping, which is distinct from the problem of ecigarette use. But the urgency of those illnesses i think really prompted policymakers to want to respond more broadly to the vaping issues were dealing with in the u. S. Host and the Administration Starts the new year with an announcement about vaping and ecigarettes. Andrew, youre covering this story. What did they say . Andrew so, the Administration Says that in early february, products like juul, which are the most popular among young people, use nicotine philpott and cartridges filled pods and cartridges. Previously, juul had been available in flavors like mint, mango, fruit and otherwise. The companys already taken those products off the market a few months back because of public pressure. Anticipation of flavor restrictions. But products similar to juul, other things that arepod or cartridgebased, they will have to take their products off the market. The other type of ecigarettes available, there are these devices that have tanks that the users can refill them with liquid nicotine themselves. These tend to be more popular among adults. Theyre harder to conceal than products like juul, and the shops that sell the flavors for those will continue to operate as they currently have as long as they have strict age verification procedures in place, and as long as theyre not selling flavors obviously marketing to children. They wouldnt be able to sell things like flavors based on serial or Something Like that cereal or Something Like that. So, those shops will continue to operate as they normally have. Host President Trump was at maralago over the holiday break, and on new years eve, he previewed the announcement, speaking with reporters. Lets take a listen. Pres. Trump yeah, the vaping is coming out. Were going to be announcing it very shortly. Some know about what were doing. We have to protect our families. At the same time, its a big industry. We want to protect the industry. Were taking off certain flavors for a period of time. Were going to protect our families, our children, and our industry. Hopefully, if things are safe, they will be going quickly back onto the market. They will be checked. People have died from this. Theyve died from vaping. We think we understand why, but were doing a very exhaustive examination and hopefully everything will be back to the market very shortly. Look, vaping can be good from the standpoint you look at ecigarettes, he stops marking you stop smoking. Thats a big advantage. Well be working to get them on the market quickly, but we have to protect the children. We have to protect the families. Same time, we have a very big industry. Were going to take care of the industry. Host were going to show you some of President Trumps public deliberations on the issue later. Right now, part of a hearing from july. Well hear from High School Students and their parents. Two of the students say a representative of the ecigarette company juul gave a presentation to their ninth grade classroom and said that ecigarettes are totally safe. I im meredith berkman, and represent parents against vaping ecigarettes, a Grassroots Group founded over a year ago by three concerned moms. We already have groups of aggravated parents across the country, from california to new york, and places in between. We have people with us today from texas, from georgia, virginia, new york, new jersey, etc. My cofounders are behind me with members of our families. Between us, we have nine kids between ages seven and 19. Along with our friend mimi, also here, we created paved in response to the pave to the juuling epidemic that has seemed to come out of nowhere. Its one of the most Serious Public Health crises of country has faced in decades. Our goal is to give voice to this 3. 6 million teens who are ing, most of them andrew most of them juuling. This most recent figure is outdated. There was a 78 percent rise in the use of these products by High School Students, and 48 rise in use by middle school students. And experts believe the new figures will likely be much higher because nothing has happened to have them go down. We hear from desperate parents every day, who contact us seeking resources, information, and help further juul dependent, nicotine addicted kids, but there is not yet treatment for this addiction. I will share very briefly just one or two stories, because theyre heartbreaking and they come from every state represented here on the panel, and probably every state of people in this room. From massachusetts, our pave advocate speaking about her son, cade, a hockey player, described he developed a cough and was not able to breathe while skating. He had extreme bouts of anger, a very common thing people report. The home environment was toxic. It turns out that kate has restrictive lung disease. He needs inhalers and oral steroids. Day,been smoking a pod a the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes a day for three years. Kelly from North Carolina is here with her son, luca, whose addiction was so severe, he spent 39 days as an inpatient in a Rehab Facility in california. We began living with a stranger. Are straight a students grades dropped to have to f. I were 14yearold had a Substance Abuse problem and that substance was juul. And now i want to share a personal story, a story about how juul went after our kids and their friends by coming into their School Without the knowledge of the school or of us concerned parents, juul sent a representative to talk to our kids about its product under the guise of education. My then 3, 2017, 15yearold friend caleb, whos here, told me there had been an antiaddiction top. The teachers left the room and the man gave a confusing talk about juul, telling them it was not for kids but for adults. It was much safer for cigarettes. The fda would approve it any day. When he was done, caleb and his friend philip went up to talk to him. He repeated juul was for adults, not kids. Then he took out this slick looking juul, showed the boys how it worked, and called it the iphone of vapes. And thats when we moms decided to fight back. We discovered a few months before that ever kids were juul ing at home, right under our noses, which is also very common. It doesnt mean youre a bad parent. Its self by design. We knew that nicotine was harmful to kids brains. And as we researched and put pieces together, we learned that seemeddeceptive behavior to be part of this marketing strategy. In california, a retired superintendent was offering schools in massachusetts money that they would implement the that theycurriculum were offering on juuls behalf. We came upon the tobacco prevention toolkit with an disclaimer that we immediately realized was a reference to juul , taking information it shouldnt have. None of this is surprising. As i said, juul is self by design. Juul says it no longer restocks resale orders of flavors that research has proven are harming the kids. Yet just the other day, in a one block radius in two different stores, i was able to buy these mental im sorry, these mango pods that juul says are no longer on the market, but they are still online. And thats the problem. If juul really wants to slow the youth epidemic and keep young kids from starting, they will remove all flavors from the market, including mental and mint menthol and mint, the most popular kids flavors, and stop spending millions on lobbyists to oppose sensible legislation that pave parents and our Coalition Partners are fighting for all over this country, to restrict youth access to juul and other products. We hope todays hearing motivates members of congress on both sides. We all care about kids to hold juul accountable, not only for the epidemic for its predatory actresses and causing harm predatory practices and causing harm. Its not a human issue, but a moral one. We face an entire generation addicted to nicotine, who are human guinea pigs. Thank you, miss berkman. First of all, after you discovered that a presenter representing juul gave a closed assembly at your childrens school, we researched the issue and formed an Advocacy Group to inform parents around the country about the dangers of ecigarette use. Thank you for your continued advocacy. As a parent of three Young Children myself, including a teenager, i was shocked to hear juul had access to children without the presence of teachers or administrators, and without parental permission. Juul continues to partner with youth organizations across the country, so its important to understand what outreach looks like on their part. Misses berkman and misses furman, id like to ask a couple of questions from your sons, if thats ok. Yes. Philip and caleb, can you come to the table for a couple minutes . Id like to first address caleb. Caleb, what grades were you and philip in in the year of the juul presentation . Ninth grade. Can you speak directly into the microphone . Ninth grade. Thank you. What we are told before the presentation began . We were told we were having a Mental Health addiction seminar that we have 3 00 severe three times a year. Its a safe space for kids to talk. Did most of your classmates believe juul was safe prior to the presentation . I think many kids were already juuling and had their doubts. But i think a lot of kids still thought it was possibly dangerous. Did the presenter ever mention his connection to juul, and we are teachers in the room when he spoke . He did mention the connection to juul and my teacher was not in the room. Did the presenter say juul was safe . Yes. Did the presenter call juul totally safe more than once . Yes. What impacted those totally safe comments have on your classmates, some of whom may have already started vaping . For my classmates who are already vaping, it was a sigh of relief because now they could vaped without any concern. Where there kids who had never been juuling that were more likely to try after hearing it was totally safe . I cant say for sure but i believe that after this meeting, kids were more inclined to vape because now they thought it was just a flavor device that didnt have any harmful substances in it. You and philip approached the presenter when the assembly concluded. What motivated you to even approach them in the first place . I believe the presenter was sending mixed messages by saying juul is totally safe, and following up every totally safe statement with, but we dont want u. S. Customers. I saw a mixed message being sent and i believe the presenter was playing on the rebellious side of teens, who when they are told not to do something, they are more likely to do it. Philip, let me ask you a couple questions. What was your experience speaking to the presenter . So, we went up and talk to him and caleb asked a question about what can you do if your friend is addicted to nicotine . Philip, were you addicted to juul at the time of this presentation . I was. Was caleb referring to you . He was. How did the presenter answer . Since caleb was not specific on what kind of nicotine he was addicted to, whether it was in ecigarette or cigarettes, the speaker thought he was talking about cigarettes. He said he should mention juul to his friend because thats a safer alternative than smoking cigarettes and it would be better for the kid to use. So let me get this straight, he wanted you to switch from a combustible cigarette to juul . Yes. Did he demonstrate the product . He didnt use it but he did show it to us. Ok, this is very disturbing behavior, to say the least. A person connected to juul pulled out a juul device to demonstrate its safety to teenagers, and then lied about the product being totally safe. Did he say anything else about whether the government had approved juul . He mentioned that the fda was about to come out and say that juul was 99 safer than cigarettes, and that would happen very soon, and that it was in fda approval while the talk was going on. Thank you, caleb and philip. Let me ask dorian, phillips mother, to say a couple words here. Dorian, thank you for coming today. Your son philip just stated he was addicted to juul. How did his addiction impact your family . It was difficult. At first, we didnt understand what was going on. He was interested in so many things, from surfing to cooking to his little sister. And i started to find these flash drives and these green plastic caps in his pockets. And i didnt really know what it was at first. So he kept saying they belonged to a friend. We have fights about it. I figured out what it was because i googled the name on the side. It was difficult. He changed overnight. He started spending a lot of time in his room in the dark. He became moody. We had a very contentious relationship. I became very suspicious, obviously. And i think he didnt really understand what was going on himself, and neither did we. Thank you, dorian. Let me now recognize wrecking member cloud for five minutes of questioning Ranking Member cloud for five minutes of questioning. Thank you, chairman. Miss berkman, im curious to the reaction. I assume you approached the school board, the principal. What was the reaction . Thate school had no idea the outside group had brought a juul representative into the school. They yes. And we believe the outside group was naive, definitely, but in good faith. Because when i called to ask about this presentation, the staffer who answered the phone said oh, you found the right person. I was researching antijuul education online, and i came across the name of a woman named julie anderson, who was listed then and no longer on the juul website as a youth prevention coordinator. Then she called and this woman says i have the perfect person, and sent allie. Ok, thank you. Doctor . Could you explain the difference, from a health perspective, between a traditional cigarette and in ecigarette . Is there one . Yeah, there are many differences. Traditional cigarettes consist of a preparation of tobacco leaves, which when burned, create smoke and contains roughly 7000 different chemicals, most of which are not good for the human body. Ecigarettes contain far fewer ingredients in addiction addition to nicotine, which are commonly found ingredients in foodstuffs and some flavorings. And this, in general, the difference in number of compounds in ecigarettes versus cigarettes makes ecigarettes, safer, although they can probably vary from product to product. A lot of the safety of these cigarettes depend on temperature controls. So, for example, if products have adequate temperature control, they tend to be less toxic. Weve known cigarettes for a while cause cancer. Talking about prevention, i remember in third grade seeing lungs sitting in a jar that had somebody who had passed away from cigarette use. But i guess what im trying to get down to is, what are the Health Effects on the combustible side of it and what are the effects of the nicotine site . Nicotine side . Importantnd thats an point to raise. If we look at nicotine in and of itself, its not riskfree but its probably a lot less toxic compared to the other chemicals that come out of cigarette smoke. For example, nicotine probably does not cause cancer. It may have some small effects on existing cardiovascular disease and so forth. Adapt to might have to having a drug on board, or neural effort neural adaptations, which are true for any drug. But the nicotine itself is not the culprit when it comes to things like cancers, at least as far as we know. To have aseem competing set of facts here. We have data that shows teen ecigarette use has gone up a mentioneden dr. , you a lot of that is transitional. Is it not . Is it new years . I guess new use . I guess if you can clarify that so we have a better idea of new use, transitional use. Thats an important question i dont think we have a good handle on yet because a lot of the service we look at our crosssectional, meaning a slice in time. We see kids that report to us that they are using one or two days or every day and so forth. Studies thatare track kids over time to actually see the ones are starting out one or two days go on to use more. Dont knowain, we what the real implications are of these different patterns of use and i want to emphasize, share the concern that kids shouldnt be trying these products and they shouldnt be using them, certainly shouldnt be using them on a frequent basis. Shows huge use, over 2 million american High School Students, a fraction of them experiment. Others become regular users. Touch as a to physician on the health of of vaping. If you start smoking today, its 2040 years before you get lung cancer. No one knows what its like breathing over and over. Its an experiment, frankly. We will find out, years from now, the results. The flavor industry knows the compound we put into our food, when you breathe them in so, for example, the classic example is buttered popcorn, microwaved buttered popcorn. It caused severe restrictive lung disease on the part of industrial workers. Were taking a wide variety the ecigarette industry has taken flavored chemicals, cotton candy and cookie flavors, mixed them, and they are exposed over and over into the lungs. We just dont know yet the longterm results. There is no doubt in my mind that vaping is safer than conventional smoking. But that doesnt mean that its safe. Thank you, mr. Clout. I now recognize congresswoman to lead for five minutes talib for five minutes of questioning. Nk you i want to think the thank you. I want to thank the witnesses for being here. People call rhetoric to discredit a lot of the things were pushing forward. I just want you to know you have the truth on your side. Be stronger for that. Because we dont need more studies. We already know the truth here. In the few years after juul was founded in 2015, it dominated the market through a targeting advertising campaign. It seemed to be a Winning Strategy as it accounts for 76 of the ecigarette market, which is simply staggering. What i find troubling is that, in the same timef