Sixteen-year-old Claire Hering thought vaping was safe until it was too late and she was hooked. “It’s better than other drugs. That’s what I always heard,” the Hopkins High School junior said. Attorney General Keith Ellison says Juul Labs is largely responsible for Hering and other teens’ misconception that e-cigarettes are safe and not addictive....
Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker on Wednesday signed sweeping legislation to restrict the sale of flavored tobacco and vaping products, making his state the first to enact such stringent controls. The new law, which is set to take effect on June 1, 2020, is not a blanket ban. Instead, it limits the sale of flavored...
The District of Columbia is joining several states in suing e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, saying the company’s online ads and promotions illegally targeted minors. Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine announced the lawsuit Tuesday, alleging that Juul’s viral marketing contributed to the surge in underage vaping by teens in the district and across the...
The Palm Beach County School District is suing the JUUL electronic cigarette company, joining more than a dozen districts across the nation seeking to recover costs of combating the growing use of vaping products among teens. A federal lawsuit filed Friday in the Southern District of Florida demands compensation for “direct and consequential economic...
The company planted the seeds of a public health crisis by marketing to millennials, who had low smoking rates, and it ignored evidence that teenagers were using its products. In the face of mounting investigations, subpoenas and lawsuits, Juul Labs has insisted that it never marketed or knowingly sold its trendy e-cigarettes and flavored...
President Donald Trump said on Friday his administration would propose a minimum age of 21 for the purchase of e-cigarette products. The president made the comment during a robust "listening" session at the White House with vaping industry executives, public health advocates, as well as some members of Congress and the Administration. Trump, who earlier expressed support for a ban on non-tobacco flavored...
Juul has been meeting with international politicians, regulators, and officials to lobby on vaping rules, putting forward health claims it cannot legally make in the U.S. The embattled American vape company Juul is pushing foreign governments to ditch strict e-cigarette regulations as it aggressively expands across the globe in an attempt to offset lost...
A House panel on Tuesday advanced a sweeping ban on flavored tobacco — including vaping products — as Democrats condemned President Donald Trump’s decision to stall his plans for muscular restrictions amid lobbying from political allies and the vape industry. The bill approved by the House Energy and Commerce Committee is far more aggressive...
By the time Juul’s co-creator stood before a tech audience in April 2016, ads for the e-cigarette aimed to distance the product from a toxic past: “Our company has its roots in Silicon Valley, not in fields of tobacco.” But when James Monsees, a soon-to-be billionaire, projected a 30-year-old tobacco document on the screen...
Lawsuits against e-cigarette maker Juul were filed this week by the states of California and New York, two Washington state counties and a school district for allegedly targeting minors. The lawsuits claim Juul's advertising campaigns target young people to use nicotine without knowing the associated risks by enticing them with flavor pods. Juul spokesman Austin...
New York state officials have joined their counterparts in California and North Carolina in suing e-cigarette maker Juul, alleging the company created marketing campaigns that targeted youth and helped fuel teenage lung illness and — in some cases — vaping-related deaths. New York Attorney General Letitia James announced the state's lawsuit Tuesday. State health officials said...
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra on Monday announced his office has sued Juul, accusing the San Francisco e-cigarette company of illegally advertising to young people and failing to warn consumers about the potential health risks of using Juul products. The suit also accuses Juul of failing to verify the age of California consumers and...
Everything seemed ready to go: President Trump’s ban on most flavored e-cigarettes had been cleared by federal regulators. Officials were poised to announce they would order candy, fruit and mint flavors off the market within 30 days — a step the president had promised almost two months earlier to quell a youth vaping epidemic that...
The Massachusetts state house of representatives passed a bill banning flavored tobacco products, including flavored e-cigarettes, in a major defeat for America’s embattled vaping industry. Behind the bill’s momentum is an unlikely pressure group: suburban Boston teenagers, outraged at what they saw as the immense health damage done to their friends and peers in...
Amid growing health concerns over e-cigarettes, Apple will remove all 181 vaping-related apps from its mobile App Store this morning, Axios has learned. Why it matters: The move comes after at least 42 people have died from vaping-related lung illness, per the CDC. Most of those people had been using cartridges containing THC, though...
Seattle Public Schools on Thursday announced a lawsuit against e-cigarette maker Juul Labs. The lawsuit alleges that Juul’s advertising and product design deliberately targets minors and has contributed to a rise in youth vaping and addiction to nicotine. The district says it is asking a court to order the company to stop marketing to...
It’s been a rough fall for Juul. After weeks of intensifying scrutiny from federal regulators, resulting in plans to pull many of its products off the market entirely, the company was hit on Oct. 29 with an explosive lawsuit filed by a former financial executive at the company, who alleged that Juul knowingly...
The San Francisco startup that invented the groundbreaking Juul e-cigarette had a central goal during its development: captivating users with the first hit. The company had concluded that consumers had largely rejected earlier e-cigarettes, former employees told Reuters, because the devices either failed to deliver enough nicotine or delivered it with a harsh taste....
The move could effectively shut off one of the biggest markets for an industry that is facing pressure around the world. China issued its starkest warning yet over electronic cigarettes, calling on the industry on Friday to stop selling and advertising the products online. Citing health concerns for minors, a Chinese regulator and the state...
A public health official worries the high number of places selling vaping supplies “normalized” the use of tobacco products for young people. Hawaii gas stations and convenience stores are among the largest retailers of electronic smoking device products in Hawaii and there are more vape shops per capita on neighbor islands, according to a...
Researchers say it’s a mixture of marketing and economics, plus Hawaii getting a head start on a trend that started in Asia. When Tom Lindsey’s foster son’s e-cigarette cartridge accidentally fell to the floor, they both dove for it. Lindsey got to it first, but that didn’t end the scuffle. “He bites my hand just...
Most experts agree that sweet flavors like cotton candy and mango help entice teens to try their first-ever puff on an electronic cigarette. But what keeps them coming back? Flavors appear to play a role in that too, according to a new study of Los Angeles high school students. Those who vaped with flavors...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned an electronic cigarette company to stop selling nearly 100 flavored vaping products that can’t be legally sold because they lack required marketing authorization. The Clifton, New Jersey-based Eonsmoke LLC sells flavored e-liquids that are compatible with popular devices made by companies like Juul. The FDA said Eonsmoke...
As health concerns over vaping continue to grow amid skyrocketing use by young people, mall food court giant Cinnabon is suing a Las Vegas-based company for using its sticky-sweet brand name on some vape products. Cinnabon, famous for its cinnamon rolls often sold in mall food courts across America, filed a federal lawsuit in...
Tasty flavors entice young people to try e-cigarettes, getting them hooked on what can become a lifetime habit, a new study shows. "Children and youth prefer sweet flavors. We know that flavors increase appeal to young or inexperienced users," said lead researcher Andrea Villanti, an associate professor with the University of Vermont's Center on...
When 21-year-old Connor Evans was admitted to a Pennsylvania hospital for two and a half weeks in May for lung-related issues, he was shocked. "My lungs were filled up to -- 80% of the capacity was filled with fluid," he told "Good Morning America." "So I would cough and -- you could tell stuff...
At 17 years old, Samantha Domingo was the youngest speaker at an informational legislative briefing on vaping and e-cigarettes on Thursday. The Farrington High School student and Tobacco Free Hawaii Youth Council member told Hawaii legislators that many of her classmates have become addicted to nicotine by vaping e-cigarettes. “I’ve seen the effects their nicotine...
The dramatic increase in teen vaping in the state has led Florida’s Attorney General Ashley Moody to launch a major investigation into 20 vaping companies that do business here. The investigation will “focus on the marketing practices and online sales strategies of these companies to determine if they have intentionally targeted minors, tempting them...
A decade after Congress gave the F.D.A. the power to regulate tobacco products like e-cigarettes, the federal government has repeatedly delayed or weakened efforts that could have protected teenagers. In 2009, not long after Dr. Margaret Hamburg became commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration, a package arrived at her home. Inside was a...
The rise of vaping-related illnesses and deaths has put Juul squarely in the government's sights. Juul has dominated the e-cigarette market in the United States through its sales of flavored nicotine products. Michigan, Massachusetts and Rhode Island have banned sales of flavored e-cigarettes, while a similar move by New York was temporarily blocked by...
New York City has filed a federal lawsuit against 22 online e-cigarette sellers, accusing them of selling their products to residents under the age of 21, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced Wednesday. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, says New Yorkers under the age of 21 were able to readily get onto the websites...
Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge launched an offensive against youth vaping on Monday -- the same day researchers in New York published the first study linking e-cigarette vapor to cancer in mice. The Republican attorney general issued an "enforcement advisory," warning online retailers that they stand to be fined up to $10,000 under the...
Walgreens and Kroger said Monday that they would stop selling e-cigarettes. The move makes them the latest national retailers to get out of the vaping business amid health concerns and growing regulatory scrutiny. Walgreens, the nation's largest drugstore chain by total locations, will stop selling e-cigarettes permanently, spokesman Phil Caruso said in an email. "This decision...
The lawsuits accuse Juul of endangering students and forcing educators to divert time and money to fight an epidemic of nicotine addiction among teenagers. With school districts across the United States scrambling to reverse the rise of vaping among teenagers, three of them on Monday filed suit against Juul, the e-cigarette manufacturer, accusing it...
The Federal Trade Commission on Thursday ordered six vaping companies to turn over documents detailing their business practices, marketing materials and financial performance. The move comes amid growing scrutiny of the health consequences of e-cigarettes, including a criminal investigation by the Food and Drug Administration into a recent spike of vaping-related illnesses. The FTC targeted the...
When e-cigarettes hit the U.S. market in 2007, they were promoted as a safer, healthier alternative to traditional, combustible cigarettes. The unintended consequence of vaping devices and e-cigarettes, however, is a new generation of vapers—teenagers—becoming addicted to nicotine. "In just one year, from 2017 to 2018, the number of high school students using e-cigarettes...
CBS, CNN and other major media companies are starting to pull e-cigarette advertising off their airways, as the death toll from a mysterious vaping-related illness continues to climb and health regulators across the world pull flavored vaping products off their shelves. CBS decided to stop taking future e-cigarette advertising, a spokesman confirmed to CNBC...
There are new clues in the lab about why people are getting hooked to e-cigarettes and what makes it so dangerous. A study at Yale University looked at the impact of flavored e-cigarettes and vape oil on young people, and how it leads them to nicotine addiction. "As far as why they like the flavorings, they...
Sen. Dick Durbin is calling on the Food and Drug Administration to swiftly and strictly regulate the vaping industry, comparing it to Big Tobacco preying on youth. “It looks so innocent, doesn’t it?” Durbin said, holding up a USB-flash-drive-sized e-cigarette. “It is a deadly device.” Durbin, D-Ill., addressed reporters Monday following his letter late last...
The agency sent a warning letter to the company, saying it violated regulations by touting its vaping products as safer than traditional tobacco cigarettes. Juul Labs, the dominant e-cigarette company, illegally marketed its vaping products as a less harmful alternative to traditional cigarettes, the Food and Drug Administration said on Monday, casting a deepening...
A Texas high school is warning parents about their kids' incognito vaping habits. Petrolia CISD posted a video to their Facebook page showing they've already confiscated three vaping devices in a matter of eight school days. One of them was a watch with a vaping device hidden inside. A man off camera notes the school seized...
North Carolina is aggressively going after the vaping industry for what the state sees as its role in getting kids hooked on nicotine. On Tuesday, State Attorney General Josh Stein announced that his office would be filing lawsuits against eight e-cigarette companies, arguing that each purposefully targeted underage customers. The lawsuits follow a...
A Juul representative repeatedly told a ninth-grade classroom that the company's e-cigarette was "totally safe" before showing underage students the device, according to two teenagers who testified under oath to Congress on Wednesday. The comments came at the first of two hearings organized by the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy to...
The Food and Drug Administration is launching its first TV ads to fight teen vaping. The FDA's nearly $60 million initiative, called "The Real Cost," includes new commercials featuring street magician Julius Dein using tricks to educate teens on the risks of e-cigarettes. The Centers for Disease Control says more than 1 in 5 high...
A new study on Juul-related Instagram posts makes the case for stricter regulation on e-cigarette marketing -- especially when it comes to social media sites popular with younger crowds. Looking at nearly 15,000 posts from March through May of 2018, the study found that more than a third of posts were promotional in nature...
An undercover operation in California found that half of tobacco and vape shops failed to check IDs for teens purchasing e-cigarettes and other nicotine products, despite a state law raising the legal age for purchasing tobacco products to 21. Researchers sent 18- and 19-year-old "decoys" into stores without ID, instructing them to tell the...
The e-cigarette giant is relying on some awfully familiar tactics to distinguish its products. Out of a firestorm of controversy over teen nicotine use, Juul Labs emerged in January with a newly sober and adult marketing identity. Forget the fruit-flavored vaping pods, the colorful ads populated with young models, the viral Instagram and Facebook...
US Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi is the latest lawmaker to announce an investigation into leading e-cigarette company Juul Labs, probing the impact of its marketing and business dealings on the "youth e-cigarette epidemic." The Illinois Democrat, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, asked the company to "provide memoranda and communications regarding...
Electronic cigarette use, or vaping, is unsafe for children, adolescents and young adults. Electronic cigarettes often contain nicotine and other harmful substances. Nicotine is addictive and can curb adolescent brain development, which continues into young adulthood. The leading electronic cigarette company insists it is not targeting youth as customers. I study ways to inform...
U.S. regulators slapped four e-cigarette companies with warning letters Friday for failing to follow federal advertising rules for tobacco on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. The Food and Drug Administration and Federal Trade Commission reprimanded Solace Technologies, Hype City Vapors, Humble Juice Co. and Artist Liquids Laboratories for failing to disclose the health and safety...
Almost half of the people who followed Juul Labs Inc on Twitter last year were not old enough to legally purchase e-cigarettes in the United States, according to a study published on Monday. Researchers analyzed data collected in April 2018 on public followers of Juul’s Twitter account (@JUULvapor) with at least one public tweet....
A federal judge is siding with public health groups suing the Food and Drug Administration to begin reviewing thousands of e-cigarettes on the U.S. market. The ruling handed down Wednesday in district court states that the agency shirked its legal duty when it postponed reviewing all U.S. vaping products by several years. The American Academy...
North Carolina Attorney General Joshua Stein filed a lawsuit Wednesday against popular e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, making it the first state to take legal action against the company. The suit, filed in state court, alleges that Juul caused addiction in consumers by “deceptively downplaying the potency and danger of the nicotine” and employed advertising...
Rite Aid said it would remove e-cigarette and vaping products from stores over the next 90 days; stores will continue to sell regular cigarettes Rite Aid Corp. is halting the sale of e-cigarettes in its drugstores, even as it continues to sell traditional cigarettes, taking a different stance on tobacco products than its two...
The Food and Drug Administration issued warning letters Thursday to Undisputed Worldwide and EZ Fumes for manufacturing, selling and/or distributing nicotine-containing e-liquids with misleading labeling and/or advertising that imitate prescription cough syrup. Federal regulators said these products put both children and adults at risk of e-liquid poisoning because they appear to be ingestible when...
Tobacco companies are also holding extravagant events with names like “K_Player” and “RedMoveNow” designed to connect with young people. Big Tobacco is increasingly using social media to find new ways to hook young people on smoking, circumventing decades of laws restricting the marketing of traditional cigarettes to minors. In major cities around the world such...
The social media and data collection efforts by Blu come as e-cigarette companies face a growing scrutiny over their products’ health impacts and popularity with young Americans. The Instagram page for a site calling itself “Pledge World” is filled with the kind of aspirational photos that have become common on social media: A woman...
Outgoing Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb released the agency’s much-anticipated policy restricting e-cigarette sales on Wednesday — designed to tighten sales and eventually remove from the market many of the fruity flavors he’s blamed on fueling “epidemic” levels of teen use. “We think flavored products represent greater risk to youth appeal, so...
Cigarettes hooked generations of teenagers. Now e-cigarettes might do the same. I was 15 when I started smoking, and so were most of my friends. We smoked to rebel against our parents but also to identify with them — of course they smoked, even as they told us not to. We smoked because it...
Study finds advertising strategy stuck with boys When it comes to marketing electronic cigarettes to young people, fake news appears to stick. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration currently requires a prominent warning about the dangers of nicotine for e-cigarettes. But just before that mandate, a 2017 campaign by e-cigarette maker blu included fake warnings...
California-based Kilo E-Liquids has stopped selling online vaping products in Massachusetts, according to its website, which states: "Unfortunately, we cannot temporarily accept and process orders from residents of Massachusetts and Illinois." Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey's office sent the manufacturer of vaping liquids a cease and desist letter on Feb. 5 stating that "the...
U.S. health officials plan to ask for a meeting with top management from Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. to discuss what they said was a pattern of illegal tobacco sales to minors at the pharmacy giant’s stores. The Food and Drug Administration said on Thursday that it would block a Walgreens store in Miami from...
Roughly half of popular hip-hop music videos feature smoking, vaping and marijuana use, with displays of tobacco products and drugs becoming increasingly common, a new study suggests. Hip-hop is the leading music genre in the U.S. Its fan base includes a large proportion of adolescents and young adults of all racial and ethnic groups....
The sleek Juul electronic cigarettes have become a phenomenon at U.S. high schools, vexing educators and drawing regulatory scrutiny over their sweet flavours and high nicotine content. Now, a new wave of lower-priced Juul knock-offs is showing up at convenience stores, vape shops and online - despite a U.S. Food and Drug Administration rule...