(WFXR) — A major decision by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) means one popular vaping product will be pulled off shelves.

Juul now has to remove its e-cigarettes from all markets in the United States, with the FDA rejecting the company’s application to sell tobacco, as well as menthol-flavored e-cigarettes.

The FDA says its decision was based on insufficient data from the company about potentially harmful chemicals that could leak out of Juul’s e-liquid pods and into the human body or the environment.

Will Hockaday, the outreach coordinator with the Virginia Department of Health’s (VDH) Tobacco Control Program, says that from a public health standpoint, those liquids are hazardous.

“It’s been known to cause skin irritations, if not damage to organs… you cannot drink or ingest that directly,” said Hockaday.

Juul has had a long history in the e-cigarette industry. In fact, Hockaday says Juul was the ring leader, and once it hit the streets, it was a big part of the rise in popularity of e-cigarettes.

“Some of these e-cigarette companies have done very well, in part because they have flavors that can be enticing to young adults and adolescents, which is the downside,” the director of the Addiction Recovery Research Center at Roanoke’s Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, Warren Bickel, explained.

In addition, health experts believe that Juul played a large role in the nationwide surge in youth vaping.

“It was the high level of the addictivity, the kid-friendly flavors, and the marketing across all social media,” Hockaday told WFXR News.

While there are plenty of people who deem Juul as a problem, there are also many who believe that the e-cigarette industry can help stop the deaths from conventional smoking.

“These products, although they’re not risk-free, are certainly healthier than smoking conventional cigarettes,” said Bickel.

Bickel tells WFXR News that a lot of people who have been smoking conventional products are switching to e-cigarettes, adding that about half a million Americans die from smoking regular cigarettes a year.

According to the assistant manager at the Wild Side Smoke Shop in Blacksburg, Reagan Cole, many 21-year-old are becoming the legal age to smoke and trying to get their hands on an e-cigarette besides a conventional one. So, based on the trends of Juul it is now considered and “old man’s vape.”

He believes that Juul flew too close to the sun, saying that not many people ask about the product at the smoke shop. If customers do ask about Juul, Cole says they do it because it was once the popular vaping tool.

Ever since the ban on selling flavored e-cigarettes, Cole says the Juul products can no longer compete with other e-cigarettes.

In other words, while places like gas stations and corner stores are likely to feel the heat from the FDA’s ruling, Cole says the Wild Side Smoke Shop won’t.

Meanwhile, the Wild Side Smoke Shop’s manager, Aref Ghaderi, says he wasn’t at all surprised by the FDA’s ban on Juul e-cigarette sales.

“Everyone is going to be looking for a similar product, and there are more cost-effective products in the market and more flavorful,” explained Ghaderi.

In fact, Ghaderi believes this ban will increase the foot traffic in his shop because consumers are now forced buy specialty items, like the pod-system devices, reusable devices, etc. sold at the Wild Side Smoke Shop.