Five young people in Illinois are the latest to file a federal lawsuit, calling out the makers of e-cigarettes for marketing tactics they say targeted minors and got them hooked on nicotine, causing health problems.

The plaintiffs — all between 18 and 20, and from Chicago, Crystal Lake, Lincolnwood and downstate Pekin and Carlinville — are suing top e-cigarette producer Juul Labs, its parent company Altria Group, which also owns tobacco giant Philip Morris, as well as another e-cigarette maker, Pax Labs. Juul was once owned by Pax and spun off as its own company after the teens in the suit started their vaping habit, according to the complaint, filed Friday in the Northern District of Illinois federal court in Chicago.

The companies’ “improper marketing targeted adolescents like (the plaintiffs) and have wiped out the decades of progress that was achieved in preventing youth smoking after tobacco companies ... targeted and addicted children to nicotine during the latter half of the last century,” the complaint stated.

“In 2015, however, defendants launched a product and a false and deceptive marketing campaign that would flip over a decade of positive progress on its head in just a few short years,” the complaint continued. “That product was the Juul vaping product.”

The lawsuit details how the teens — Kyle Ardelean, of Lincolnwood, Kadin Bowling, of Chicago, Carter Matthew Bumbalough, of Pekin, Sirenidy Perez, of Carlinville, and Tiffany Marie Teubert of Crystal Lake — were drawn in by Juul advertisements on social media, and loved the minty and fruity flavors, using the products as early as age 15.

After vaping, they developed a nicotine addiction, as well as health problems from vaping, the suit states, including shortness of breath, cough, chest pains, depressive thoughts and irritability. Some have tried to quit but can’t, the lawsuit states.

Attorneys said the plaintiffs are not among the more than 500 people hospitalized across the country this summer for a respiratory illness linked to vaping. State and federal public health officials still do not know which product or products are causing the illness, described as causing difficulty breathing, chest pain, fever and gastrointestinal distress, among other symptoms. Some have required ventilators, and eight have died, officials said.

The rash of hospitalizations has prompted lawsuits against Juul. Company spokesman Ted Kwong released a statement Friday saying the most recent lawsuit in Chicago “is without merit.”

“Our product has always only been intended to be a viable alternative for the one billion current adult smokers in the world,” the statement read. “We have never marketed to youth and do not want any non-nicotine users to try our products.”

Kwong also pointed to the company’s dismantling of its social media platforms, support of Tobacco 21 legislation that limits the sale of its products to those younger than 21, and its efforts to curb underage users. That includes technology that makes it harder for retailers to sell to minors.

Pax Labs could not be reached for comment.

Friday’s suit in Chicago is similar to lawsuits popping up across the country, including several also filed Friday in Wisconsin, Florida, New Jersey and Washington. Last month, the Lake County state’s attorney’s office filed a lawsuit against Juul, also accusing the company of marketing tactics designed to lure in young people.

The Food and Drug Administration came down on Juul earlier this month, saying the company made claims that its products are safer than traditional cigarettes without the approval to do so.

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