Tucson School District Sues Vape Pen Maker Juul

TUCSON, AZ — The Tucson school district has joined others across the country in a lawsuit against electronic cigarette company Juul Labs Inc. School districts that says an increase in teen vaping has been a drain on their resources. They’re asking for compensation for smoking-control measures they’ve had to take in response to the increase.

Vape pens are easily concealed, making it more difficult for school officials to control their use. The Tucson Unified School District voted to join the lawsuits earlier this month in response to an increase in the number of vape-related suspensions.

Nationally, 34 people have died from vaping and the number of vaping-related hospitalizations has soared to 1,600, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Monday. Among patients with available data, about half of the cases occurred in people under the age of 25. In that age group, two people have died.

“It is evident from today’s report that these lung injuries are disproportionately affecting young people,” Dr. Robert R. Redfield, the CDC director, said in a statement Monday.

Related: City Of Tucson Raises Tobacco-Buying Age To 21, Including E-Cigs

In a complaint filed last week in U.S. District Court in Tucson, the school district accused Juul of targeting teens in its marketing, disproportionately affecting schools. Though Juul isn’t the only e-cigarette company, it is working with its marketing companies to “portray its e-cigarette products as trend-setting, stylish and used by the type of people teenagers aspire to be,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit also accuses the company of developing advertisements that are “eerily similar in scheme and content to those used decades ago by traditional cigarette manufacturers before they were banned for targeting youth” and also made paid social media “influencers” with a large number of followers to refer potential clients to Juul, “cultivating a convincing but misleading appearance of organic growth of ‘cool.’ ”

Several other Arizona school districts have also joined the lawsuits, which are supported by the Arizona School Boards Association. A resolution approved by the organization cites the harmful health effects of vaping.

“Vaping is problem No. 1 in all of our high schools, not unlike any high school around the nation,” Tucson Unified School District Superintendent Gabriel Trujillo said during an Oct. 16 board meeting, the Arizona Daily Star reported. “It’s a pretty serious disruption that we deal with.”

Nearly half of Pima County teens have tried a vape or e-cigarette device, according to the 2018 Arizona Youth Survey.

Among high school seniors nationwide, fewer than 4 percent smoked traditional cigarettes in 2018, a big decline from 1976, when 30 percent were smokers, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. High school students’ use of tobacco products grew by more than 38 percent in 2018, according to a February CDC report, which said the majority of those smoking were vaping.

Jonathan Kieffer, one of the lawyers representing the Tucson Unified School District, told the Daily Star that Juul controls 80 percent of the market for e-cigarettes.

“Juul has undone what it took 40 years to accomplish,” he said.

Juul Labs spokesperson Ted Kwong said the company isn’t appealing to non-nicotine or youth users. Instead, the company’s goal is to “help adult smokers find an alternative to combustible cigarettes,” Kwong said in a statement to the newspaper. “We need to urgently address underage use of vapor products and earn the trust of regulators, policymakers and other stakeholders. That is why we are focusing on taking aggressive actions to reduce youth usage of our products.”

The various school districts’ lawsuits will be consolidated into a single case in federal court in San Francisco.