It is a race. Seemingly, money against the health of our nation’s youth. Youth is losing and the teenagers and adolescents of today will be paying the price for decades to come.

JUUL Labs, whose product is an electronic smoking/vaping system, recently achieved the fastest "decacorn" valuation ever — over $10 billion in the first seven months of its first venture capital round.

This is reported to have been four times faster than Facebook, five times faster than Snapchat and eleven times faster than Dropbox. This comes at a time when the use of electronic cigarettes for inhaling nicotine and marijuana by teenagers is increasing at an alarming rate.

The JUUL product has an appeal to adolescents and teenagers as it can be used without detection.

Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., are working to slow this trend with legislation and communication with the appropriate agencies. They urged the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to ban flavored electric cigarettes.

The letter stated, "While it remains unclear whether e-cigarettes can actually help adults quit smoking cigarettes, it is abundantly clear that tobacco companies are developing and marketing e-cigarette flavors that appeal to, and addict, children," Murkowski and Durbin wrote.

The senators further stated, "The e-cigarette industry's efforts to hook kids have been overwhelmingly successful, as demonstrated by the reportedly 75 percent spike in e-cigarette use among high school students over the past year."

The sudden rise in economic fortune and sales caught the attention of the Center for Disease Control and The Food and Drug Administration. The FDA recently seized over a thousand pages of marketing documents in a surprise inspection of JUUL Labs.

Sens. Durbin and Murkowski had requested more information as well as a commitment from JUUL Labs to stop marketing some of the popular flavors that children like such as Fruit Medley, Creme Brulee and Mango.

An aide within Sen. Durbin’s office described representatives from JUUL Labs, "Their pitch was predictable and right out of Big Tobacco’s playbook: they never meant for their products to appeal to kids (despite the fruity and sweet flavors), they had no idea kids were using their products, they’ve done everything they can to address youth use, they really just want to help adult smokers quit. All of which rings hollow in the face of their marketing efforts."

To prevent restrictions, JUUL Labs has hired additional lobbyists. This action is predictable to Samir Soneji, an associate professor at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice. He said JUUL is trying to aggressively position itself as an alternative to "combustible" tobacco and it’s not a surprise they are trying to get out ahead of any potential regulation.

JUUL Labs claims to be doing all they can. They claim to be cooperating and have turned over 50,000 documents related to marketing since April. JUUL Labs CEO Kevin Burns stated, "We are committed to preventing underage use, and we want to engage with FDA, lawmakers, public health advocates and others to keep JUUL out of the hands of young people."

For some children, adolescents and teenagers it is too late. The appeal of Creme Brulee- and Mango-flavored vapes has probably already led to a lifetime battle of nicotine addiction. Money wins and youth lose.