There’s a new addition to every corner shop’s vaping selection, disposable vapes in the form of Geek Bars. They come in every single flavour you can think of; watermelon ice, white peach, and sour apple to name a few. Their bright and aesthetically pleasing design makes them even more enticing, as well as their competitive price point. One Geek Bar costs £5 for roughly 575 puffs per bar, and for generation Z this is a highly tempting offer. Geek Bar’s popularity has soared as a result, surpassing the current grip that popular vape company JUUL has on young people.
Social media has a massive part to play in the popularisation of disposable vapes, with many content creators openly using the bars in their videos, sending a message to others that the vapes are relatively safe to use.
Even though the bars are missing the distinctly unhealthy smell of a cigarette and tar residue, their danger cannot be underestimated. Every Geek Bar is pre-loaded with 20mg of nicotine. Spread over a few days this would be considered a moderate amount of nicotine for a typical smoker. The problem is that many disposable vape users were previous non-smokers and picked up the vaping habit without already having a nicotine addiction.
Nicotine within the body can cause severe dizziness and lightheadedness, nausea, and heartburn in the short term. However, the long-term effects can heavily impact users without them even realising, causing insulin resistance which could eventually lead to diabetes and decreased sensitivity to the neurotransmitter dopamine, causing issues with motivation and mood.
So what exactly draws young people to disposable vapes instead of tobacco? Firstly, Geek Bar’s entire design from the bars themselves to the packaging and flavour selection are all extremely targeted towards young people. It is unlikely that a regular smoker would choose a Geek Bar over the familiar taste of tobacco, therefore it is likely that Geek Bar’s target consumer is non-smokers or social smokers. They are also very easy to purchase, with many being sold in most corner shops up and down the country, where often the staff fails to ask for ID to prove that the buyer is over 18. It is often as simple as going in and asking, and then choosing amongst the vast quantity of flavours. They do not need extra pods like classic vape devices do, therefore they are extremely convenient.
As well as this, the users do not need to be aware of problems that often occur with classic vape devices such as controlling nicotine levels or burnt coils, all you need to do to make a Geek Bar work is inhale.
From a distance, they look like bright, colourful USB sticks, a very different design compared to the usual black that most vape companies still use. It is a stark contrast to the millennial favourite JUUL, that’s simple sleek design proved popular amongst users who wanted to vape unassumingly. However, there is nothing unassuming about the Geek Bar, it is in your face, and it is clear that users are keen to be seen with them.
On the social media app TikTok, the hashtag #geekbar has had a total of 46 million views and growing. With many videos under the hashtag containing videos of under-18 claiming to be addicted to disposable vapes like ‘crack’. There is also news of a more advanced Geek Bar called Geek Bar Pro, which contains 5% nicotine. It may not seem like much, but 5% nicotine is twice the UK’s legal limit for vape products which is 2%. One Geek Bar Pro is the same nicotine content as 125 cigarettes. The products are illegal in the UK, however, they are somehow still being sold into the UK market, due to the high demand.
It is clear that many users are unaware of the dangers that Geek Bars could possibly present, as many social media influencers appear to use the vapes themselves, the apparent safety risks are disregarded.
Proffesor of Paediactrics, Andrew Bush at Imperial College London has been cited many times growing increasingly concerned with the current Geek Bar craze and wants young people to approach the vapes with caution. In the worst case scenario, users could end up like Ewan Fisher, a 20 year old from Nottingham who ended up in intensive care in hospital after just six months of vaping Geek Bars. He was described by doctors as having ‘the lungs of an 80 year old’.
If you are effected by the issues raised in this article and you need help quitting nicotine, find your local stop smoking service here: