California Lawsuit Accuses Vaping Giant JUUL Of Targeting Kids

LOS ANGELES, CA — In an explosive lawsuit targeting the nation's leading electronic cigarette maker JUUL Labs Inc, local officials Monday accused the company of deliberately targeting minors with their products, getting a whole new generation of American youth addicted to nicotine and vaping.

Attorney General Xavier Becerra, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey, and Supervisor Janice Hahn announced the lawsuit against San Francisco-based electronic cigarette maker JUUL Labs Inc. Monday. The lawsuit alleges the company not only targeted youth but also failed to verify the age of California customers and created databases of minors interested in vaping so that they could email them marketing materials. The allegations are the latest to hit JUUL, a company that grew from an unknown lab peddling an unknown product to a vaping industry leader that posted more than a billion dollars in revenue in just two years.

The Alameda County Superior Court lawsuit also alleges that JUUL unlawfully failed to verify the age of California consumers.

It also claims the company violated the privacy rights of minors by keeping the personal email addresses of underage individuals who failed age verification on JUUL's website and using those email addresses to send them marketing materials.

"We will not retreat, and we will fight back," Becerra said during a news conference with Hahn and Lacey at the Hall of Justice in downtown Los Angeles.

The use of vape products by minors has been sharply on the rise, Becerra said.

A JUUL representative could not be immediately reached for comment on the suit.

It's been a tumultuous year for the JUUL and the vaping industry, which was initially given wide latitude by the FDA as a promising new smoking cessation technology. After millions of teenagers took up vaping and mysterious vaping-related lung illnesses began killing and sickening people this year, regulators turned a critical eye upon the industry. The pressure prompted two extraordinary moves: A significant stake in the product billed as an aid for quitting smoking was sold to cigarette giant Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris Companies). Then, JUUL's leadership made an announcement telling the public not to start using his company's product unless they were trying to quit smoking.

The use of flavored e-cigarettes, or vaping, by young people in the United States, including middle and high schoolers, continues to increase rapidly, according to reports from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.

JUUL sales have grown dramatically and now make up more than 64 percent of the U.S. e-cigarette market, authorities said. According to Becerra's office, medical researchers have shown that many JUUL users continue to smoke cigarettes and that children who were not likely at risk to start smoking cigarettes have done so as a result of their use of nicotine-containing e-cigarettes.

"We've worked too hard, committed our hard-earned money for too long, combating harmful tobacco use to stand idly by as we now lose Californians to vaping and nicotine addiction," Becerra said. "JUUL adopted the tobacco industry's infamous playbook, employing advertisements that had no regard for public health and searching out vulnerable targets. Today, we take legal action against the deceptive practices that JUUL and the e-cigarette industry employ to lure our kids into their vaping web. We will hold JUUL and any other company that fuels a public health crisis accountable."

Lacey said JUUL's alleged actions amount to consumer fraud and that the company "looked the other way" as underage people purchased vape products.

Hahn said the entire country would be watching to see the outcome of the lawsuit.

"The eyes of the nation will be on us as we fight this battle in court," Hahn said. "This has become a public health crisis of JUUL's making."

Tobacco use among young people had been declining until vape products became popular, said Hahn.

City News Service and Patch Staffer Paige Austin contributed to this report.