West Virginia’s Attorney General’s Office settled a lawsuit with e-cigarette company Juul for $7.9 million. Attorney General Patrick Morrisey on Monday said Juul must also follow stipulations on how it advertises and markets its products in West Virginia.
Juul, San Francisco, has settled similar lawsuits across the country.
The company was accused of “engaging in unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the manufacturing, designing, selling, marketing, promoting and distributing of e-cigarettes” in West Virginia, especially promotions targeting underage users, Morrisey said. Juul heavily advertised through social media, finding influencers, fashion bloggers and celebrities with teenage fans, he said.
“This settlement puts companies like Juul in check to not copy big tobacco’s playbook and gear marketing strategies toward underage people,” Morrisey said. “In Juul’s case, we have alleged it has deceived consumers about its nicotine strength, misrepresented the nicotine equivalency of its products to traditional cigarettes and understated the risks of addiction that occur with such powerful levels of nicotine.”
The settlement represents another step in Juul Labs’ ongoing commitment to resolve issues from the company’s past, Juul said in a statement on its website. The company has now settled with 40 states and territories, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to participating states, the company said. This is in addition to Juul’s global resolution of the U.S. private litigation, covering more than 5,000 cases.
“As we near the end of resolutions to address the company’s past, Juul Labs remains focused on a path forward to secure its future and fulfill its mission to transition adult smokers away from cigarettes—the No. 1 cause of preventable death—while combating underage use,” the company said.
The West Virginia attorney general’s lawsuit claims that the overall amount of nicotine in a Juul pod is equivalent to nearly two packs of cigarettes.
More than 3 million students—or 11.3% of middle and high school students—currently use a tobacco product, the 2022 National Youth Tobacco Survey found. This includes about 16.5% of high school students and 4.5% of middle school students. Current use of a product is defined as use of a tobacco product during the past 30 days.
In 2017, 14.3% of high school students in West Virginia used e-cigarettes on at least one day in the past 30 days, compared to 13.2% nationally, Morrisey said.
“With West Virginia having the highest cigarette-smoking rate in the U.S., we hope that some funds will go directly to interventions to reduce the use of combustible cigarettes and improve public health in the state,” Juul said.
Financial resources will help combat underage use and develop cessation programs, Juul said.
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