It could be months before the Vape Monitor is available.  What you can do now is take a manual approach to monitoring.  Sure, there is more opportunity for a teenager to succumb to cravings and vape excessively.  Managing intake on a daily basis will be difficult but you can manage the number of pods you give your child.

Importantly, your child should be part of the process.  If they are not, you are unlikely to be successful.  Your child should be committed to quitting.  If your child is not committed, he or she will not succeed.  If your child hangs out with others that are not trying to quit, your child is unlikely to be successful.  If your child has access to supplemental sources of nicotine, perhaps stashes of their own, then they are likely to supplement and unlikely to be successful quitting.  The odds are stacked against you and your child because this is a wicked addiction and vaping supplies are highly available to the kids that seek them out.  Furthermore, vaping is as much a social activity as an individual activity; when friends of your child are unwilling to quit or fail to quit, the entire group is likely to fail to quit.

Basic Strategy

Your first step is to level-set two things (1) the number of inhalations your child needs to get through the day now, as a starting point, and (2) the number of inhalations your child gets out of a single pod.  According to JUUL, the single pod has the equivalent nicotine as a single pack of cigarettes and is equivalent to about 200 inhalations but your child's results will likely vary.  

• Give you child the JUUL with a single pod.

  • Let the child take custody of it and tell him/her to use it as few times as they can to get through the day.

  • Have your child text you the number of inhalations they take each time he or she needs a fix.  (You may have to send them reminder texts.)

  • Also, at the end of the day, after the last inhalation of the day, have your child remove the pod and text you a picture of the pod.

    • It is a good idea to have the pod in the same relative position for each picture.

    • It is a good idea for the child to tap the pod on a table to get the bubbles out so you can see a level amount in the picture.

  • Have your child continue this process until the pod is empty.

• When the pod runs out, count the number of inhalations that your child consumed over the life of the pod - this will become the basis for planning your child's reduction.  Also, take an average of the number of inhalations your child needs per day.

• Create a chart or spreadsheet that plots the next several weeks giving each day a row

  • In a first column, list the date.

  • In the next column, list the number of inhalations your child will take that day.

  • In a third column, your will enter the actual number that your child takes.

  • Assuming you start on a Sunday, put the average number of inhalations your child needs to get through the day.  For example:

    • Sunday, 40, ___

  • For the first 5-10 days, reduce the number of inhalations by 1.  For example:

    • Monday, 39, ___

    • Tuesday, 38, ___

    • Wednesday, 37, ___

    • Thursday, 36, ___

    • Friday, 35, ___

    • Reduce until your child starts to feel the squeeze and starts showing signs of withdrawal or obviously running the pod down faster than expected.  At this point, establish a plateau and hold the number of puffs per day for a week or two.

  • Feel free to list as many days as you like but expect to change this list from week to week.

    • Some weeks your child will be successful; other weeks your child will not.

  • Importantly, when the pod runs out, you will want to tally the number of inhalations taken from the time it was new to the time it ran out.

    • This practice will keep your child honest to their intentions.

    • You can expect some variation from pod to pod because inhalations will vary in length but the total number of inhalations should be within 5% of the original pod.

      • If the variation is more than 5% you may want to have a conversation with your child about their commitment to quitting and/or whether you are reducing their intake too quickly.

      • Remind you child that quitting is not easy and the process of weaning can be thought of as taking the pain and discomfort of quitting "cold turkey" and distributing it across a bunch of days.  Each day will still be difficult - just not as horrible as "cold turkey".

    • Some pods are defective and leak, but this is very unusual and should be evident when you take the pod out of the packaging.  You might also expect to see staining from the oil on clothing or backpacks where the JUUL is kept by your child.  (Be careful not to rub your eyes or touch sensitive skin if you get the oil on your hands.  Washing your hands right away is a good idea.)

  • Continue this practice until you get to about 10 puffs per day.

    • At this point, you and your child should set a quit date.  Look at the progress your child has made and extrapolate an end date.  Mark it on your calendar.

    • Plan to have a celebration to mark the end - perhaps a dinner at their favorite restaurant.

    • Do something symbolic with the JUUL to mark the end like throwing it into the trash together.  (Don't smash it!  It has a LIPO battery in it that may catch fire or explode.)

    • Your child will still get cravings - check in with him or her frequently to help him or her stay strong.

It's Rarely Over

It is important for you, the parent, to understand that addiction is rarely "over".  The likelihood of recidivism is very high.  If you child starts vaping again, its not because he or she is bad or rebellious.  It is because nicotine is a wicked addiction and it will keep calling to your child.  Help your child to understand their triggers so that he or she can avoid them or brace for them.  But if your child falls off the wagon, show him or her your love, not your disappointment, and never give up.

Good luck!

1. I wish I had serialized the pods so that I could keep better track of them.  Specifically, I wish I had scratched sequential numbers into the pods so that I could confirm that no additional pods were coming into the mix.  And, I lost track of a couple of pods - hid them then could not find them.