Juul to Pay $40 Million to Settle N.C. Vaping Case
Juul to Pay $40 Million to Settle N.C. Vaping Case – June 28, 2021, The NY Times “The settlement is the first in a stream of lawsuits against the company, which has been accused of deceptive marketing practices that contributed to a wave of nicotine addiction in teenagers.
Thirteen states, including California, Massachusetts, and New York, as well as the District of Columbia, have filed similar lawsuits. The central claim in each case is that Juul knew, or should have known, that it was hooking teenagers on pods that contained high levels of nicotine. Some of the youths in the cases claimed serious harm, including possible lung damage and mood disorders.
A group of 39 attorneys general have spent the past 16 months investigating Juul for its marketing and sales practices, as has the Food and Drug Administration.
Juul also faces other legal threats. The Federal Trade Commission is suing Juul, Altria, and related parties, seeking to unwind the 2018 deal which gave Altria 35 percent of Juul. Altria, the nation’s largest tobacco company, paid $12.8 billion for that stake, but has since written down the value of the investment to $1.5 billion.
Beyond the many legal challenges, the company is awaiting a decision from the F.D.A. on whether its products can remain on the market. The agency must decide by early September whether Juul and other new tobacco and vaping products are “appropriate for the protection of public health” and can continue to be sold.”
NOTE: One might feel that Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) products have now been discredited. However, their use in the US is still steady or increasing and tobacco companies persist in rolling out other nicotine alternatives like heated tobacco products (HTP) to pretend they wish to reduce harms by continuing to cause them.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/health/juul-vaping-settlement-north-carolina.html
Stephen Hamann
