By JACOB BASKES Sept. 26th, 2018

Students arrived on campus last week to find a change to the layout of the C-Store, Bowdoin’s primary purveyor of chocolate-covered pretzels and kombucha. Rather than a rack of snacks in the center of the room, there are now six shelves dedicated to satisfying the campus’s JUUL needs.

The change comes alongside the ever-increasing popularity of the electronic cigarette. High school students, college students, and my grandmother alike can all be seen toting the sleek nicotine pens. Parents throughout the country have expressed worry about the safety of their children, but many recent studies have worked to dispel any negative rumors. A University of Pennsylvania study, for example, put sixty JUUL-using seventeen-year-olds through six months of blood testing and determined that “JUULing is not, like, that bad…”

Maria Candellis is the director of Bowdoin’s convenience store. “We give the students what they ask for, not what they need,” she said. “That’s why we sell two-gallon size bags of popcorn, six different flavors of kombucha and raw cookie dough. Nobody needs any of that shit. But when we get hundreds of requests for a shrine dedicated to easy-access nicotine, we have to go for it. Nothing crazy, of course, but we’ve got to give the people what they want.”

The C-Store responded to the requests by offering students thirty-six different flavors of pod, ranging from English Cucumber to Persian Cucumber and even Dill Pickle. “We were really looking for a range when we bought all of these products during the summer,” said Candellis. “But the trends in the comment cards were notably geared towards vegetables that are primarily water.” JUUL does not sell any celery-flavored pods, so Candellis was forced to compromise.

The shift is part of a campus-wide initiative to make compromising the health of students more accessible on campus. Other changes include stocking dorm room minifridges with those tiny bottles of Jack Daniels, serving thumbtacks at Thorne, and moving the Bowdoin Counseling offices to Lewiston.