Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer announced Monday that the city obtained a court order that prohibits a vaping company from targeting youth in its marketing campaigns and requires the company to pay a $1.2 million penalty. According to Feuer, Kandypens Inc., which sells vape products online, engaged in youth-targeting marketing through YouTube and...
DJ Khaled, Halsey and other musicians are selling electronic cigarettes to young people through product placement in music videos that receive hundreds of millions of views, a pair of new studies report. Overall, music videos identified as featuring e-cigarette product placements during a four-month period in 2018 received more than 1.6 billion total views...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products is partnering with Marvel Comics for a vaping prevention campaign targeting teenagers. The effort, from FCB New York, falls under their ongoing tobacco prevention platform, “The Real Cost,” and comes to life through a 16-page comic book called “The Mind Control Menace.” The comic looks...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requesting information from four e-cigarette companies about their use of social media and influencer marketing. Responses will help the FDA learn who is exposed to the companies’ marketing and aid the FDA as it evaluates marketing plans in premarket tobacco product application (PMTA) reviews, conducts social...
The Federal Trade Commission said Monday that it requested five e-cigarette makers provide the agency with sales and advertising data for 2019 and 2020. The companies cited by the FTC were Juul, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Co., Fontem, Logic Technology Development and NJOY. In October 2019, the FTC asked the e-cigarette makers to provide similar marketing...
Four months ago, the Chicago City Council banned the sale of flavored vaping products favored by teens, but exempting flavored tobacco products, including menthol cigarettes. On Monday, that watered-down law triggered its first lawsuit — one that accuses Equte LLC, a marketing firm, as well as Vapes.com, of “marketing and selling flavored vaping products”...
TikTok has a vaping problem. Although a 2019 U.S. law made it illegal to sell or market e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 21, TikTok videos featuring top brands of disposable e-cigarettes and vapes for sale have been relatively easy to find on the app. These videos, set to popular and upbeat...
A bicameral group of federal lawmakers – led by U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) and Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.) and U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) – sent letters to some of the nation’s largest tobacco companies demanding more information on the companies’ exploitation of the ongoing COVID-19...
Seven online vaping supply companies, including one licensed in Washington, were caught violating state laws that ban the sale of those products to people under 21, Attorney General Bob Ferguson said Tuesday. Five of them – including VanVal Vapor of Spokane and Bozeman, Montana – signed agreements to comply with state laws to verify...
Rolling Stone magazine and a fast-growing vaping brand are taking heat over a rooftop concert series that critics say is meant to make e-cigarettes look cool to kids. Vuse — a vaping company owned by tobacco giant Reynolds American — joined forces with Rolling Stone to promote Rooftop Sessions, a run of three virtual...
The National Association of Attorneys General is asking several major Hollywood talent unions to help “protect young audiences from tobacco use” by limiting its exposure in streaming shows. The letter, sent earlier this month, requests support from the Directors Guild of America, Producers Guild of America, Screenwriters Guild of America, Screen Actors Guild-American Federation...
Emissions from e-cigarettes are not harmless and calling them vapour is purposefully misleading, scientists argue. While the puffs from e-cigs aren't exactly smoke, the term 'vapour' often brings to mind an innocuous cloud of water. As such, public health experts argue 'aerosol' is a more accurate description, as e-cigarette clouds have been shown to contain...
Juul Labs Inc. has the Mafia to thank for the most potent legal claims accusing the e-cigarette maker of igniting an epidemic of youth nicotine addiction. The company will try to persuade a federal judge Monday that consumers and school districts can’t sue it under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which has...
Regulators plan to open up a process that’s normally secretive by listing which e-cigarette makers want permission to sell their products in the U.S., a move that could help consumers and retailers spot illegal products more easily. The Food and Drug Administration now plans to publish a list of all the products subject to...
Washington State is now suing California-based e-juice company called “E-Juice Vapor” accusing it of selling vaping products to minors. The state’s controversial 120-day flavors ban expired in February of 2020, but other regulations are still in place. One law is that sellers must verify a customer’s age before selling to them. “Bottom line, they’re violating...
On July 20, The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it had sent warning lettersto several vaping product retailers for selling new vaping devices without prior authorization and/or e-liquids that mimicked the packaging of popular food or snack products. At the beginning of the year, the government banned most flavors for...
Juul Labs Inc. has tapped Teresa Sebastian, an executive with financial and compliance expertise, to join its board as the company seeks to reset its business and diversify its ranks. Sebastian is chief executive officer of The Dominion Asset Group, an early-stage investment group focused on revitalizing urban areas. She will serve as an...
Around Thanksgiving 2019, two months after Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that banned sales of flavored vaping products in New York, Taobi Silva thought he’d give the vape business another shot. Rob Ermolovich, the owner of a shop called Fluid Vapor and a local e-liquid manufacturing business, had given Silva a call,...
Cartoon imaging remains common in social media promotions of vaping liquids, even as use of the products has exploded among teens and young adults, new research finds. An investigation of 1,936 Instagram posts promoting e-liquid vaping products found that 1,608 (83.1%) were promotional, 142 (7.3%) included one or more cartoon images, and 44 (2.3%)...
Attorney General Letitia James has accused three online companies of violating the state’s new laws banning the sale of vaping products through mail order and selling products with flavors, including cotton candy, pineapple mist and green apple, to youths. A law effective July 1 makes it illegal to sell vaping products through the mail....
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has sent warning lettersTrusted Source to 10 companies about selling flavored, disposable e-cigarettes that especially appeal to young people without having proper approval. “Despite suspending in-person activities — such as retail compliance checks and vape shop inspections — due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our enforcement against unauthorized e-cigarettes...
Attorney General Maura Healey is suing an online e-cigarette company called “Puff Bar” for selling disposable flavored tobacco products in Massachusetts in violation of state law, her office on Thursday. The complaint, filed in Suffolk Superior Court on Wednesday, alleges that Puff Bar and Cool Clouds Distribution, Inc. continued advertising and selling disposable flavored...
Juul Labs Inc. launched an aggressive legal campaign to halt what it calls a “seemingly endless stream” of black market cartridges for its e-cigarettes. The vaping company filed a patent-infringement complaint at the U.S. International Trade Commission in Washington, naming more than four dozen companies it says are importing copycat cartridges for the e-cigarettes....
A shadowy e-cigarette company that has reaped millions of dollars by exploiting a loophole to sell kid-friendly, flavored nicotine products says it is suspending sales in the U.S following revelations about its owners. Puff Bar, a California-based marketer of disposable e-cigarettes, announced the sales suspension Monday on its website. In a phone call with...
E-cigarettes are highly addictive nicotine products with unclear health impacts, particularly on young people. Instagram is a visual social media platform which is wildly popular, particularly with young people. Researchers interested in public health at Aalto university in Finland studied how vaping is represented on the platform. By using artificial intelligence, they were...
In recent months, mystery has surrounded the ownership of a controversial e-cigarette company that has reaped millions of dollars in sales of flavored, kid-friendly nicotine products by exploiting a loophole in federal regulations. The company, Puff Bar, has even reveled in the mystery, saying on its website, “But who makes Puff Bar? Everyone wants...
Trust might not be a word commonly associated with one of the most controversial companies in America. Still, it’s a word used often by K.C. Crosthwaite, CEO of embattled e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. Crosthwaite took the helm of Juul last September when the company was at the center of a public-health crisis that...
Hawaii is suing the nation’s largest e-cigarette maker JUUL Labs and Altria Group, its largest shareholder and parent company of Philip Morris, saying the companies used misleading marketing to entice young customers. “In marketing their e-cigarettes to Hawaii’s children, these companies ripped pages directly out of the tobacco-company playbook and resurrected Joe Camel for...
Juul Labs Inc., the U.S.-based e-cigarette maker that’s fighting a global backlash against vaping, is considering entry into the tightly regulated Japanese market. Haruhiko Hirate, formerly a corporate officer at Tokyo-based Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., was hired to lead the effort, Juul said Tuesday in a statement. He was named representative director and chairman of...
Canadian provinces that allow retail displays promoting e-cigarettes had nearly three times the teen vaping rate, a new study found. Until May 2018, e-cigarettes weren't widely available in Canada and it was illegal to advertise those containing nicotine. When the law changed, Quebec and Manitoba adopted their own restrictions, including bans on retail displays...
The goal of the legal action is to prevent the companies from using cartoons in ads for products that contain nicotine. Attorney General Ashley Moody has taken legal action against vaping companies that market to minors and fail to verify the age of their customers. “I am appalled at the marketing of these addictive products...
The e-cigarette company, which has quickly eclipsed Juul, has advertised its products as a break from “parental texts and WFH stress.” House lawmakers asked the Food and Drug Administration this week to ban Puff Bar, the fast-growing e-cigarette that has quickly replaced Juul as the vape of choice among young people. The disposable devices come...
Vaping is most heavily concentrated in U.S. schools with a higher proportion of white students, schools in the South and West, and schools where more students smoke cigarettes, a new University of Michigan study shows. Overall, more than one in 10 American middle and high school students report having used e-cigarettes within the last...
JUUL is America’s most popular e-cigarette by a wide margin, and it’s well known throughout the world – even in regions where it isn’t officially available yet. For the first several years of its existence, however, it wasn’t possible to buy JUUL here in the United Kingdom. At the time, JUUL was available...
Tobacco and e-cigarette companies are exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to advertise their harmful and addictive products on social media, undermine minimum age purchase restrictions meant to protect youth and make unproven and illegal health claims, according to new analysis published by the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids. The analysis includes tactics from big tobacco companies,...
They know it's addictive. They know it's linked to dangerous and even fatal lung diseases. And they know it delivers far more nicotine than the cigarettes it's supposed to replace. But the social aspects of vaping drives young people to use Juul and other e-cigarettes, according to nearly two-thirds of teens and young adults...
Three Maryland counties have filed lawsuits against the e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc., arguing the company intentionally marketed its products to underage customers and contributed to a youth vaping epidemic, court documents detail. Howard, Anne Arundel and Garrett counties filed separate federal lawsuits in April, The Baltimore Sun reported. They joined Montgomery County and...
The FDA warned 10 companies to pull products off the market because they are designed to help teenagers hide vaping from adults. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is cracking down on products that help teenagers vape without getting caught because they look exactly like candy, smartwatches, video games, or hoodies. “The public should...
A Maryland federal judge on Friday said that he would grant a 120-day extension to the deadline for e-cigarette regulatory applications in light of the novel coronavirus outbreak that has strained U.S. Food and Drug Administration resources and disrupted supply chains. Last week, the FDA asked the Fourth Circuit to extend the current May...
Doctors have criticised the organisation responsible for protecting the nation’s health over its work with a vaping pressure group that is itself linked to the world’s largest multinational tobacco company. Public Health England paid £40,000 for a series of YouTube videos co-produced by the New Nicotine Alliance (NNA) and held numerous meetings with the...
The YouTube video shows two young men sitting in front of a computer screen, enthralled by what they’re watching and pausing, periodically, to marvel at it. They stare as a demonlike character — it resembles something from the costumed metal band Gwar — screams and tries to shred on its guitar. The backdrop...
Nicotine pods used for vaping need clearer labels to help young people understand what they are inhaling, a Stanford study concludes. Young adults don’t know what’s in the products they vape and often don’t know what brand of vaping products they use, according to a new study by researchers at the Stanford University School...
Juul Labs’ internal documents and statements by its founders reveal the e-cigarette manufacturer lifted trade secrets from Big Tobacco to market its highly addictive vaping products to youths as young as 8. The company’s deliberate marketing plan proved successful, doubling the size of the U.S. vaping market and dominating competitors in just three...
The Food and Drug Administration is cracking down on companies that continue to sell flavored, cartridge-based vaping products in violation of the agency’s new policy. The policy took effect in February. It prioritizes enforcement actions against cartridge-based vaping products in flavors other than tobacco and menthol. The FDA sent out 22 warning letters to companies that...
Experts are worried about the videos reaching a younger audience As Youtube continues to fight against the spread of misinformation, a new study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania explored how tobacco-related videos continue to make their rounds around the popular video streaming service. The researchers explained that viewers continue to see videos...
The latest trend of using a vape has gradually replaced cigarettes. Despite it is marketed and considered as a “safe” alternate of cigarettes, it is not. Last year reported a number of vape related injuries especially in middle and high school students who eventually got addicted to it. It led to the health...
A coalition of 39 states will look into the marketing and sales of vaping products by Juul Labs, including whether the company targeted youths and made misleading claims about nicotine content in its devices, officials announced Tuesday. Attorneys general from Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, Oregon and Texas said they will lead the multi-state investigation into...
Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey on Wednesday announced a lawsuit against the company she blames for starting the youth vaping epidemic. Healey's office filed a lawsuit against electronic cigarette manufacturer JUUL in Massachusetts Superior Court after an investigation into the company's sales and procedures that began in 2018. "JUUL bears responsibility for the millions of...
Undercover teens working with the Arizona Attorney General’s Office routinely find stores selling tobacco and vape products to minors, including repeat violators. Grocery stores, convenience stores and tobacco shops that are supposed to be gatekeepers of nicotine products are instead helping to usher in a teen vaping crisis. The 12 News I-Team analyzed state and...
Internal documents obtained by the Massachusetts attorney general as part of a new lawsuit are the clearest indication yet that the e-cigarette giant aimed its early advertising at young people who've never smoked. Juul has long said that its nicotine vaping devices are meant for adult smokers, not adolescents. But internal company documents show...
Pennsylvania has joined a growing list of states suing leading e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, whose sleek vape pens and cartridges in fruit, dessert, and candy flavors have been blamed for contributing to a sharp rise in e-cigarette use among teenagers and adolescents. The lawsuit, filed Monday by Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro, alleges that...
New Congressional documents reveal that e-cigarette maker Juul Labs pitched its products to at least eight Native American tribes, in a move tribal health advocates say is as disturbing as it is expected. “I always suspected that the targeting of tribes was more pervasive than we knew,” says Rae O’Leary, a public health analyst...
Dr. Lynn D’Andrea was standing in a small consultation room on one of the upper floors of the Children’s Wisconsin hospital this past Fourth of July weekend when a younger colleague on the pulmonary team, Dr. Brian J. Carroll, told her she needed to see a teenager who was having severe difficulty breathing....
Stephen Hahn, the new head of the Food and Drug Administration, defended the Trump administration’s impending partial e-cigarette ban, which has been sharply criticized by Democratic lawmakers and public health groups as too weak. But he also vowed to take tougher steps if needed to reduce teen vaping. The administration’s vaping plan, which will...
Despite efforts from health officials to raise awareness of the potential harms of vaping among young people, social media users are being exposed to a growing amount of pro e-cigarette content. That's according to researchers. Following a rise in school children saying they have used e-cigarettes—despite the harms nicotine can pose to the developing...
Customers of Dallas vape shops looking for Mango Juul cartridges are finding empty shelves and heavy markups. Instead, they’re turning to Puff Bars, a nearly identical product that skirts the new rules by fusing the liquid-filled cartridge to the pen-sized stem. Users consume the liquid — which can last from a few days to...
The San Diego Unified School District is suing e-cigarette company JUUL, claiming its product “disrupts the education and learning environment across the district.” The lawsuit follows similar suits filed by school districts in Los Angeles, Glendale, Compton and Anaheim. The district is seeking an injunction and abatement to “stop the e-cigarette epidemic” which the district...
Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced Tuesday his office is suing two companies that manufacture vaping products, Juul and Eonsmoke. “We allege that they have contributed to the vaping epidemic that’s infiltrated our schools and are creating addiction problems for youth throughout the state,” he said at a press conference. Brnovich said the companies enticed...
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it will ban all flavors of cartridge-based e-cigarettes, other than tobacco and menthol. An analyst at Bernstein Research thinks a big winner will be Juul Labs, which is 35% owned by Altria Group. “As we work to combat the troubling epidemic of youth e-cigarette use, the enforcement...
A University of Oregon student has sued two vape companies in class action lawsuit, saying he suffered a seizure after using the products and that the companies were negligent in their marketing. The Oregon Daily Emerald first reported that Kewmarse Imani has sued Juul and Altria, another vape company. The complaint alleges that both...
“If Instagram doesn’t allow people to promote vape, there will be a lot of people losing their jobs, including me,” an influencer who goes by Valerie Wee tells me over email. Her account is filled with vape tricks, vaporizer giveaways, and glowing product reviews. Last week, Instagram said it would be cracking down on...
A Mississippi teen says in a lawsuit he became addicted to nicotine through vaping and it's a struggle to function without it. The 18-year-old, listed in court documents as Braa Issa, said he began using JUUL electronic cigarettes in 2018. The court documents didn't indicate where the teen is from in Missisisppi. Issa is suing...
While many recent studies are exploring why vaping has caused more than 2,409 individuals to experience a severe lung injury called EVALI, researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are looking into what motivated them to vape in the first place. The study, published in the British Medical Journal Thursday, specifically zeroed in on why three sexual...
Get on your computer, open up YouTube in a browser, type in the word JUUL and you can find an endless stream of videos like this one featuring a pair of young women welcoming their online audience with a “Hi guys!” before they show how they “make parties a little more fun.” In the...