Massachusetts Sues Juul, Says It Has Evidence of E-cigarette Sales to Minors

On February 13, news broke that Massachusetts made headlines as the Attorney General announced a press conference at 11:30 AM local time to discuss important matters regarding Juul, which was reported by major media outlets across the United States today.

In the lawsuit filed against Juul on Wednesday, the Massachusetts Attorney General stated that Juul has long claimed that its nicotine vaping devices are designed for adult smokers, not teenagers. However, internal documents from the company reveal that the electronic cigarette giant's early advertising campaigns explicitly targeted young people, leading to a nationwide youth vaping epidemic crisis.

Attorney General Maura Healey stated at the press conference: "Juul knew it was selling to kids; they plastered the internet with their ads."

The lawsuit claims that Juul intentionally created advertisements to attract young, cool individuals, refusing to target older smokers who wish to quit. It attempted to hand over its devices to celebrities like Cara Delevingne, Miley Cyrus, and hundreds of other influencers on social media. It purchased ads on children's websites, including Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, and teen magazines, and even some ads allegedly targeted at preschool children.

Healey remarked: "You could be doing your math homework, and then a Juul ad pops up."

Healey asserted that even as youth smoking rates continued to decline, the marketing campaign sparked a new generation of children addicted to nicotine. Last year, illnesses and deaths related to vaping were ultimately linked to devices containing cannabis extracts, with many teenagers stating they could not stop using e-cigarettes.

Healey stated that approximately one-third of high school students in Massachusetts use e-cigarettes. According to federal surveys, about 27% of high school students nationwide reported vaping last month.

Emma Tigerman, a 19-year-old sophomore at Northeastern University, said: "I remember Juul being different from cigarettes; I have been addicted to nicotine for four years now."

Juul is not the only e-cigarette brand, but it is the largest. By the end of 2018, it had captured three-quarters of the U.S. market, making it a major catalyst for the youth vaping crisis, as one of its high-nicotine pods contains as much addictive stimulant as a pack of cigarettes. The primary health concern is that nicotine addiction can interfere with brain development and make young people more susceptible to smoking, as well as addiction to alcohol and other drugs.

Juul denies ever attempting to attract teenagers.

In 2018, co-founder James Monsees told The New York Times that selling Juuls to kids was "against the company's mission."

At that time, a spokesperson told the newspaper that the initial advertising campaign targeted smokers aged 20 to 30, but was discontinued five months later in the fall of 2015.

Researchers have questioned this narrative, finding the company's old ads online and criticizing their use of sweet, fruity flavors ranging from caramel pudding to mango to attract teenagers.

The new lawsuit significantly increases the scrutiny on Juul.

Its internal documents further detail the extent to which the company's marketing campaigns were designed with young people in mind and promoted in places intended to reach them.

It also clearly shows that Juul continued to engage with underage users even after announcing the discontinuation of its advertising campaigns in 2015.

Juul spokesperson Austin Finan stated that the e-cigarette company's customer base consists of one billion adult smokers worldwide: "We do not intend to attract underage users."

He stated in a statement that while they have not yet reviewed the complaint, they remain committed to working with U.S. attorneys general, regulators, public health officials, and other stakeholders to combat underage use and transition adult smokers, thereby aiming to reset the vaping category in the U.S. and regain societal trust.

Juul is applying to the FDA for permission to continue selling its e-cigarettes, a process that involves submitting extensive data and research regarding the manufacturing of its devices, their contents, and their health and environmental impacts.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of its new CEO KC Crosthwaite (who took over in September), Juul has made several significant strategic changes. This fall, it stopped selling its non-tobacco and menthol flavors in the U.S., halted its nationwide advertising campaigns, and ceased lobbying against a temporary ban on most flavored e-cigarettes.

The company laid off 650 employees, accounting for 16% of its global workforce, and plans to cut costs by $1 billion this year. All these layoffs have made Juul a challenging workplace, reducing its appeal to tobacco giant Altria, which purchased a one-third stake in the company at a valuation of $38 billion at the end of 2018, which has since dropped to $12 billion.
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However, for Juul's critics, all these efforts are too little, too late. Matthew Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, stated at the press conference: "We have a generation of young people who have never been addicted to nicotine because of these ads."

Jonathan Winickoff, a pediatrician at Harvard Medical School, said: "I have patients every day who are addicted to nicotine because of e-cigarettes."

According to the lawsuit, Juul hired an advertising agency in 2014 to market its newly invented slim e-cigarette. The agency suggested that Juul position its e-cigarettes alongside outdated devices like the flip phone and 1980s mobile phones to portray itself as a tech company, while these products were still very lively in use.

Instead, Juul chose to take a different route.

According to photos cited in the lawsuit, it hired art director Steven Baillie, who mimicked the mood boards of cool and sexy teenagers and millennials. Juul greenlit this vision, and Baillie proposed a slogan: "Vaporize."

Baillie and Juul sought models (whom Juul referred to as trendsetters in New York who embodied the Juul brand and communicated with millennial consumers) and photographed them in playful poses against colorful backgrounds.

The lawsuit claims that Juul employees and its board were concerned that some of these models appeared too young. Nevertheless, the campaign progressed.

In June 2015, Juul held a launch event in New York City. Young fashion and music influencers posted about Juul on their social media accounts and posed for photos, which the company then used for advertisements in Times Square and across the internet. After that summer, more sponsored events were held in New York and Los Angeles, offering free Juul giveaways.

According to the lawsuit, starting in June 2015, Juul ads began popping up on websites targeting teenagers, including children's networks like Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, comedy sites like CollegeHumor, Seventeen magazine, and College Confidential, which high school students frequently visited. Other websites included URLs like AllFreeKidsCrafts.com, HelloKids.com, KidsGameHeroes.com, Games2Girls.com, GirlGames.com, and GirlsGoGames.com.

Facebook and Instagram established policies against accepting paid tobacco product advertisements, but the lawsuit claims that starting in 2015, Juul circumvented these rules by paying third-party online publishers like Gawker, HypeBeast, and UrbanDaddy to promote its products through their accounts.

Juul maintained its own Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook accounts until the end of 2018, where it also posted ads from its vaping campaigns.

The company also sought to cultivate a stable of influencers, sending free e-cigarettes or device offers to over 500 individuals in 2015 and 2016. The target list included celebrities, such as Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Jennifer Lawrence, Miley Cyrus, Cara Delevingne, and teenagers with large social media followings, like Luka Sabbat and Claudia Oshry.

Research shows that by 2018, the #juul hashtag had over a million followers on Instagram.

The lawsuit also alleges that Juul marketed to minors via email. It collected email addresses from visitors to its website and commissioned an external company to check 420,000 addresses on its list in the summer of 2017. The investigation found that nearly 270,000 did not match records of individuals who passed Juul's age verification process. Another 40,000 addresses were associated with failed processing, and 83% of the total list could not match at least 18 years of age.

However, Juul continued to send marketing emails to this list for another year, until August 2018, when it only requested age verification processing for members on its email list after The Washington Post published an article about the practice that month.

With Juul recently withdrawing from the U.S. market, alternatives like Puff Bars are beginning to fill the gap due to loopholes in the new federal ban.

However, Massachusetts Attorney General Healey stated that this lawsuit should serve as a warning to other e-cigarette manufacturers.