Minnesota Sues Juul as Trial Opens: Attorney General Says Its Target Is Children

According to foreign media reports today, on Tuesday, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison personally opened the state’s lawsuit against JUUL Labs, accusing the vaping device maker of using sleek products, clever advertising, and enticing flavors to attract children to nicotine use. It is the first of thousands of nicotine-related cases.

Minnesota is seeking more than $100 million in damages, alleging that Washington, D.C.-based Juul illegally targeted young people and hooked a new generation on nicotine.

Ellison said: "After Minnesotans reduced youth smoking rates to the lowest level in a generation, they lured, deceived, and addicted a new generation of children. Now Big Tobacco is back under a new name, but with the same playbook. Juul wiped out our state’s progress with its attractive products, clever advertising, and tempting flavors."

Juul faces thousands of lawsuits nationwide, but most have already been settled, including 39 cases with other states and U.S. territories. Not Minnesota, which won a landmark $7.1 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998. In 2020, Minnesota added tobacco giant Altria as a co-defendant; Altria previously held a minority stake in Juul.

Altria completed its divestment this month and said it effectively lost its $12.8 billion investment.

Juul attorney David Bernick promised jurors a vigorous and interesting trial. He said Juul’s purpose had always been to transition adult smokers of combustible cigarettes to products that are less dangerous but still provide a satisfying nicotine experience—not to lure children.

He said vaping devices are not safe, but neither are they deadly; they fall somewhere in between. He argued that Juul took no action intended to deliberately drive youth demand, suggesting that rising youth use of vaping devices was more likely due to increased adult demand spilling over to kids.

Altria attorney William Geraghty denied Ellison’s claim that Altria invested heavily in Juul because it ultimately wanted to attract children to its cigarettes, including Marlboro.

He said Altria bought its passive stake because Juul had found the key to successfully converting adult smokers of traditional cigarettes to lower-risk products, while Altria’s competing vaping device had failed in the market.

The lawsuit against Juul, filed in 2019, alleges consumer fraud, public nuisance, unjust enrichment, and conspiracy with Altria. The jury trial before Hennepin County District Judge Laurie Miller is expected to last about three weeks.

Juul Labs launched popular flavors in 2015 such as mango, mint, fruit medley, and crème brûlée. Teenagers fueled its rise, and some became hooked on Juul’s high-nicotine pods. After facing intense backlash, Juul dropped all U.S. advertising and discontinued most flavors in 2019, losing visibility among teens. Juul’s share of the now multi-billion-dollar market has fallen from a high of 75% in 2018 to about 33%.

In his opening statement, Ellison argued that Juul and Altria broke the law by using deceptive practices to sell tobacco products to minors.

Ellison said Juul intentionally made its products small and stylish so adults would have difficulty noticing them, formulated them to deliver high doses of nicotine to addicted children, added flavors that would appeal to young people, and used marketing campaigns they knew would attract teenagers.

"Young people are innocent; they want to explore," Ellison said. "Kids are drawn to shiny, sleek, cool things—and that is exactly who Juul and Altria targeted and preyed upon."

Bernick offered the jury another explanation. He said adult smokers do not like being seen smoking because of social stigma. Therefore, Juul designed its products to look different from traditional cigarettes and other vaping devices on the market at the time so adults could use them discreetly, he said—not so children could use them at school.

Bernick said Minnesota youth had already experienced exponential growth in vaping device use even before Juul entered the local market in late 2017. He argued that the company had already ended some of the practices most heavily criticized, showing that Juul itself was not to blame for the rise. #p#Page Break#e#

Altria Group, based in Richmond, Virginia—formerly Philip Morris Companies—said it had nothing to do with Juul’s design, the creation of fruit and other flavors, or the company’s operations.

In fact, Geraghty said that before Altria invested, Juul had already stopped selling several of those flavors at retail. He denied that the roughly year-long marketing services Altria provided to Juul—including using its shelf space in convenience stores and inserting Juul coupons into Marlboro packs—played any role in increasing youth vaping device use in Minnesota.

He said state health department statistics show that youth vaping device use in Minnesota actually leveled off between 2017 and 2020. Geraghty said Altria never profited from Juul’s sales—it would only have made money if the value of their company stake had increased, and that did not happen.

Juul is now appealing after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration denied its application to continue selling its vaping products as alternatives for adult smokers. Juul is still being sued by New York, California, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Alaska, Illinois, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia.