He is only 20 years old. Yet he has had a career as a filmmaker, photographer and successful e-juice maker. Now he has opened an e-cigarette shop in Karlskrona, Sweden, with his savings, and in the midst of the debate on youth smoking and flavor bans.
Mateo Lozano is one of those people everyone talks about. One of those young people like vejpar, who are "attracted" by e-cigs. By the flavors. Mateo Lozano started using e-cigarettes when he was 16, before there were even legal age limits. He bought his first vejp a few months after arriving in Sweden. But even then, he had been smoking cigarettes for a few years.
"Everyone smokes in Colombia. It's standard. And we were just kids who started smoking early. E-cigs didn't exist. But when I tried a vejp, the cigarette was gone. From the first puff," he says when Vejpkollen calls.
From movies to vejpshop online
He's a bit nervous, he says. For the interview that is. I think it might have to do with the attention. But that would be a bit strange, considering that he is a photographer and filmmaker by day. Or rather was.
"I had several jobs booked that would support me throughout the year when the coronavirus hit. Then it all fell apart," he says.
Almost. What remained was the second source of income - an online shop for vejp products - and Mateo Lozano's self-made e-juices.
Stopped right after visiting vejpshop
Mateo Lozano started mixing his own e-juice at an early age. Initially, it was to help his mother. She was a smoker for 40 years. And she didn't believe in new inventions like e-cigarettes," says Mateo Lozano.
"She had received so much strange information and really didn't trust what I said about the differences between cigarettes and e-cigs. It was only when we were visiting London that things changed. We went into a vejp shop and got good service. She stopped smoking straight away"
Mixed e-juice for mom
When they returned to Sweden, it turned out that the particular e-juice she liked was not available. That's when Mateo Lozano started mixing it himself. Flavors had been an interest for a long time.
"I have always loved fruit combinations. And coffee. I can spend a lot of money in a café to try different coffee blends. Same with smoothies," he says.
And on that path it was. Friends who vejpade, or smoked, became interested. He gave away a bottle here and a bottle there.
"But when I started to notice that my friends' friends' friends also wanted my juices, I thought I might as well start doing it for real. So I started a business.
E-cigarette shop in Karlskrona
Just a few weeks before our conversation, he opened the doors of his physical store. Opposite the police station in Karlskrona. It is the first store in Karlskrona since Vaporstore closed down two years ago. But vejpshoppar builds community and creates a small market that often lasts.
"I spent a lot of time at Vaporstore and learned a lot. Others did the same. About 60 percent of my customers are existing vejp users. 40 percent are smokers who want help to quit smoking" says Mateo Lozano.
Praise in the media
He was also highlighted in the media (locked article), steam clouds and all, in the local newspaper Sydöstran. And criticized. Making money from nicotine products is eye-catching. And around the same time Mateo Lozano hung up the shop sign, the government announced that a ban on flavorings in e-cigarettes and e-juices is planned. "E-cigarettes with candy and fruit flavors are the tobacco industry's latest method to attract new customers, young people" thundered Minister of Social Affairs Lena Hallengren on DN debatt. A subsequent investigation proposed banning all flavorings that do not taste and smell like tobacco.
Mateo Lozano sighs.
"I belong to the generation that politicians worry about. And I can say this: every single one of the people I know who vejpar, and there are quite a few, smoked cigarettes before they switched to vejpning. It ALWAYS starts with cigarettes. Vaping is a way out of smoking, no matter how old you are."
Doctors contacted about "candy flavors"
He reads a message from a doctor who contacted him via Facebook. It starts with encouragement to help smokers quit, but ends with a call to stop selling fruit-flavored e-juice. "No smoker wants that. It's just a ploy to attract non-smokers," the doctor writes.
"I've tried to explain, to anyone who asks, that almost all my customers want fruity flavors. Regardless of age. Out of 2000 bottles sold, 5 are tobacco flavors. Politicians and doctors who want to ban flavors really don't get this. It's scary" says Mateo Lozano.
More passion than profitability
And he laughs at the idea that a webshop would be lucrative. After all the fees and registrations, there won't be much margin for a vejpshop owner.
"I get a bit angry about it. So far, I haven't earned a single penny. I've spent my savings on building the shop. It's certainly going better and better, and I expect to make ends meet in a year or so. But really, it's only passion and the desire to help a person quit smoking that gets me up in the morning"
Says Mateo Lozano. Vejpkollen suggests inviting the doctor with the candy flavors to the store.
"Actually. I've already done it!"
