Zilber School of Public Health, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA.
Tob Control. 2019 Nov;28(6):617-622. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054499. Epub 2018 Sep 5.
The novel e-cigarette product JUUL has experienced rapid market growth. The online auction site eBay has been mentioned as a source of JUUL access for youth, and the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notified eBay to remove JUUL listings in April 2018. We sought to characterise the sale of JUUL products on eBay prior to the FDA's request, document the impact of this request and explore ways in which eBay vendors bypassed this effort.
eBay was searched for JUUL-branded products sold by US vendors in March 2018, yielding a sample of 197 listings for devices and/or pods. Each listing was coded for product, listing and youth access content. Following FDA action, each listing was revisited to determine its status, and each vendor's page was searched for JUUL and other vaping content. Data were analysed using descriptive statistics.
Of 197 eBay listings, 189 were for JUUL kits and 13 were for pods. Prices were on average higher than those on the official JUUL store, and language about age restrictions was rare. Following FDA contact, most listings were no longer active. However, 3.4% of these vendors still sold JUUL devices or pods and 15.5% were selling other vaporisers or nicotine products.
Online platforms may lack the will or expertise to effectively monitor content for tobacco products, while vendors quickly adapt to minor changes with simple strategies such as spelling variations. Accurate identification of online e-cigarette vendors is essential to the enforcement of policy and may benefit from cross-sector partnerships.
新型电子烟产品 JUUL 迅速占领市场。在线拍卖网站 eBay 被指为青少年获得 JUUL 的途径之一，美国食品药品监督管理局（FDA）于 2018 年 4 月要求 eBay 下架 JUUL 的相关产品。我们旨在描述 FDA 要求前 eBay 上 JUUL 产品的销售情况，记录这一要求的影响，并探索 eBay 卖家规避这一要求的方法。
2018 年 3 月，我们在 eBay 上搜索美国卖家销售的 JUUL 品牌产品，共获得 197 个设备和/或烟弹的产品列表。每个列表都根据产品、清单和青少年获取内容进行编码。在 FDA 采取行动后，我们重新访问了每个列表以确定其状态，并搜索了每个卖家页面上的 JUUL 和其他蒸气内容。使用描述性统计数据对数据进行分析。
在 197 个 eBay 列表中，有 189 个是 JUUL 套装，13 个是烟弹。价格平均高于 JUUL 官方商店的价格，而且很少有关于年龄限制的语言。在 FDA 联系后，大多数列表不再活跃。然而，仍有 3.4%的卖家仍在销售 JUUL 设备或烟弹，15.5%的卖家在销售其他蒸气器或尼古丁产品。
在线平台可能缺乏监控烟草产品内容的意愿或专业知识，而卖家只需通过简单的策略（如拼写变化）就能迅速适应较小的变化。准确识别在线电子烟卖家对于执行政策至关重要，并且可能受益于跨部门合作。
