Edit: I agree examples cited below arguably constitute selling.
That said, if this is what parent was referring to, would likely have been better to say so since this isn't what selling implies when stated without any qualifier.
> In April 2017, a Juul representative visited the Dwight School in New York City to meet with students — with no teachers present — and told them the company’s e-cigarettes were “totally safe.”
> Other schools across the country were offered $10,000 from the e-cigarette company for the right to talk to students in classrooms or after school.
> In Richmond, Calif. last year, Juul gave the Police Activities League $90,000 to offer the company’s vaping education program “Moving Beyond” to middle school and high school students who faced suspension for using cigarettes.
Not defending either of those, but making a distinction in meaning.
Even if it's still a very bad thing.
This claim is pretty strongly refuted by all available evidence, given that (before vaping), tobacco use among teenagers had been in a consistent decline for decades, without a corresponding consistent increase in marijuana or heroin use among teenagers.
As someone who used to work in drug policy during this exact time period and has a very strong grasp of the facts on the matter, I can assure you that your speculation is entirely without merit. Teen tobacco use decreased. It didn't pawn off those would-be tobacco users onto other drugs, as if drugs were some fully fungible entity in teenagers' minds. Teen tobacco use decreased, full-stop.
$10k per room of kids is probably a low cost of customer acquisition for a potential lifetime addiction.
On the one hand, you have what sounds like straight up abusive targeted marketing of a drug at a vulnerable population: direct meeting with children, no teachers present (!?), "totally safe", etc. This seems reprehensible.
On the other hand, if it's an "education program" specifically targeted (and limited) to students who have already demonstrated that they have a cigarette problem, it seems like it could be a genuinely well intended part of a program to provide harm mitigation and a (apparently fairly successful) tool to help quit. I'm a bit more sympathetic to that version, even if it's still financially motivated.
On the gripping hand, vaping has unclear risks of its own that we don't fully understand yet, and even setting aside the improvement going from smoke to vapor, any nicotine product is still going to be an addiction risk.