Vuse is now only 4.2 percent of the market behind Juul. According to a Nielsen analysis of convenience store data, covering the four-week period ending Dec. 4, Juul was at 38.2 percent, down from 38.8 percent in the previous report. Vuse, however, held steady with 34 percent of the market.
Credit: Overland Park Vape Shop
NJoy was at 3 percent, unchanged from the previous report, while Fontem Ventures’ blu eCigs was at 2.4 percent, also unchanged, according to a Winston-Salem Journalreport. Overall, sales of electronic cigarettes were up 6.7 percent year over year for the latest four-week period, boosted by recent price hikes.
Juul’s four-week dollar sales have dropped from a 50.2 percent increase in the Aug. 10, 2019, report to a 9.7 percent decline in the latest report. By comparison, Reynolds’ Vuse was up 50.1 percent in the latest report, while No. 3 NJoy was down 23.2 percent and No. 4 blu eCigs down 13.8 percent.
Goldman Sachs analyst Bonnie Herzog has said that NJoy “refutes Nielsen’s data and methodology.”
On Oct. 12, the FDA issued a landmark ruling in approving a Vuse Solo product as appropriate to market to smokers from a public-health standpoint. The FDA’s order covers the tobacco flavor of the Vuse Solo closed electronic nicotine delivery system, its power unit and two replacement cartridges.
However, the FDA rejected submissions for 10 flavored Vuse Solo products. It said it “is still evaluating” the company’s application for menthol-flavored products for Vuse Solo.
Reynolds has said the FDA’s orders “confirm that Vuse Solo products are appropriate for the protection of the public health, underscoring years of scientific study and research dedicated to ensuring that adult nicotine consumers age 21+ have access to innovative and potentially less harmful alternatives to traditional tobacco products.”
Now-defunct e-cigarette retailer Eonsmoke and its co-owners have settled a lawsuit with the state of Massachusetts for selling nicotine vaping products to minors. Attorney General Maura Healey today announced that Eonsmoke has agreed to a settlement amount of $50 million, and owners Gregory Grishayev and Michael Tolmach will pay a total of $750,000. The terms of the consent judgment, pending court approval, orders Eonsmoke to end all sales, distribution, marketing, and advertising of any tobacco products to consumers in Massachusetts, according to a press release.
The settlement, filed today in Suffolk Superior Court against Eonsmoke, LLC and Grishayev and Tolmach, resolves allegations that the defendants directly targeted young people for sales of its vaping products through marketing and advertising intended to appeal to youth. Healey’s office also alleged that Eonsmoke failed to verify the age of online purchasers of its products—including electronic nicotine devices, e-liquids, and nicotine pods—and failed to ensure shipments of the products were received by a person 21 years or older, the state’s minimum legal sales age for smoking products.
“Eonsmoke coordinated a campaign that intentionally targeted young people and sold dangerous and addictive vaping products directly to minors through their website,” said Healey. “We were the first to take action against this company and its owners, and today we are holding them accountable and permanently stopping them from conducting these illegal practices in our state.”
Eonsmoke has agreed to a settlement amount of $50 million, and Grishayev and Tolmach will pay a total of $750,000. Eonsmoke ceased all operations and dissolved in 2020. According to the Healey’s complaint, filed in May 2019 and amended in November 2020 to include Defendants Grishayev and Tolmach, the defendants “willfully and repeatedly violated the state’s consumer protection law by using a marketing campaign that directly targeted underage consumers.”
Healey alleges that the defendants directly marketed “Eonsmoke vaping products to young people through social media sites such as Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, and included youth popular culture references, social media influencers, celebrity endorsers, cartoons, and internet memes that intentionally minimized or omitted the fact that the vaping products contained nicotine.”
In August of 2020, the Arizona Attorney General’s Office (AGO) obtained a $22.5 million judgment and a permanent injunction against the New Jersey-based vapor company Eonsmoke. The ruling could set a precedent for other states suing vapor companies over marketing practices.
Juul sued Grishayev and Tolmach for trademark infringement in 2018 claiming Eonsmoke illegally marketed its vaping pods as “Juul compatible,” complete with packaging that looked eerily similar to Juul’s. Rather than settle the case, Grishayev and Tolmach were accused of quietly stashing millions in corporate funds out of Juul’s reach — despite a federal judge having warned them last year not to touch the money “outside the ordinary course of business,” according to the New York Post.
“While purposefully using JUUL branding to confuse customers that its illicit products were somehow related to Juul Labs, Eonsmoke flooded the market with pods featuring inappropriate flavors and packaging made with unknown ingredients under unknown quality standards,” said Juul spokesperson Austin Finan at the time. “We will continue to enforce against illegal actors like Eonsmoke to help ensure the vapor category is comprised of companies focused on transitioning adult smokers from combustible cigarettes while following regulations and combatting underage use.”
Lawyers representing U.S. consumers who say they overpaid for Juul Labs’ e-cigarettes on Dec. 6 urged a federal judge to certify their claims as a class action, reports Reuters. Juul argues that the plaintiffs should proceed individually because they bought Juul products under differing circumstances.
Credit: Steheap
More than 2,800 cases have been consolidated in the multidistrict litigation against Juul, its largest shareholder Altria Group and several individual officers and directors. They include both personal injury claims and claims of economic loss by people who say they would have paid less, or not bought the e-cigarettes at all, if Juul had not downplayed their addictiveness and appealed to teenagers through social media campaigns and other means.
The plaintiffs are seeking partial refunds for adult purchasers and full refunds for underage purchasers.
Gregory Stone of Munger, Tolles & Olson, representing Juul, said the plaintiffs’ case rested on whether Juul’s marketing was misleading, whether it targeted teenagers, whether buyers were actually misled and whether the marketing affected their buying decisions.
In a tentative opinion, U.S. District Judge William Orrick said that he was inclined to grant class certification.
An expansive class action lawsuit against Juul Labs inched closer to trail when a federal judge advanced conspiracy and fraud claims against the company’s founders, board members and biggest investor, Altria Group, reports Court House News Service.
On July 22, U.S. District Judge William Orrick III refused to dismiss the bulk of claims filed by 19 plaintiffs in 14 states. The suit accuses Juul and its leaders of intentionally using deceptive ads and marketing campaigns to get young people hooked on vaping to create a new generation of nicotine addicts.
The plaintiffs say Juul failed to warn consumers that its e-cigarette products were highly addictive and that the company falsely claimed in ads and labels that its prefilled pods contained 5 percent nicotine, the same amount in a pack of cigarettes, when the pods contained much higher levels. They also say Juul fraudulently marketed its vaping products as a “safer alternative” to combustible cigarette smoking.
The plaintiffs seek to hold Juul and Altria Group, liable for fraud, negligence, negligent misrepresentation, strict product liability and medical monitoring.
Judge Orrick rejected requests by Juul founders and top executives James Monsees and Adam Bowen to dismiss the claims against them, finding the plaintiffs “adequately alleged that both Monsees and Bowen engaged in acts that had the intent and impact of misleading the public and plaintiffs about the dangers of Juul.”
Orrick also rejected Altria’s motion to dismiss, citing meetings that occurred between Altria and Juul in California regarding the development of “business agreements and arrangements through which Altria supported [Juul]’s manufacturing, regulatory, marketing, and distribution efforts and how Altria’s efforts through [Juul] in California achieved their common goals.”
Orrick found many of the arguments made by Altria and Juul’s founders and directors cannot be adequately evaluated until a later stage of litigation when more evidence is available for a jury or judge to scrutinize.
Juul Labs paid $51,000 to buy out an entire issue of the American Journal of Health Behavior (AJHB) and make it publicly available, the New York Times reported.
The AJHB’s May/June issue published 11 company-funded studies that promote the health benefits of Juul devices in helping smokers quit traditional tobacco products.
“Electronic nicotine delivery systems (ENDS) represent a significant opportunity to realize tobacco harm reduction at the population level around the world,” the authors write in an introduction to the journal.
Juul Lab’s five-figure buyout of the journal issue is part of a public influence campaign that the Center for Responsive Politics tallied at more than $3.9 million in 2020 alone.
Juul Labs recently reached a legal settlement with the state of North Carolina in which it will pay $40 million to avoid a jury trial over the question of whether it illegally marketed nicotine products to teens.
North Carolina has settled its lawsuit with Juul Labs for $40 million. The lawsuit is the first decision of numerous lawsuits that have been brought by states claiming the e-cigarette maker’s marketing practices was the catalyst to what the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has called an “epidemic” of youth use. The money will fund programs to help people quit e-cigarettes, prevent e-cigarette addiction, and research e-cigarettes.
Credit: Zimmytws
“This settlement is consistent with our ongoing effort to reset our company and its relationship with our stakeholders as we continue to combat underage usage and advance the opportunity for harm reduction for adult smokers,” said Joshua Raffel, a Juul spokesperson, in a statement. “We seek to continue to earn trust through action. Over the past two years, for example, we ceased the distribution of our non-tobacco, non-menthol flavored products in advance of FDA guidance and halted all mass market product advertising. This settlement is another step in that direction.”
The settlement was announced on Monday by Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general, who said that Juul agreed to avoid marketing that appeals to those under the age of 21. The company will curtail its use of “most social media advertising, influencer advertising, outdoor advertising near schools, and sponsoring sporting events and concerts,” Stein said.
North Carolina sued the company in May of 2019, the first state in the country to file suit against the e-cigarette manufacturer. In the agreement, the company denies any wrongdoing or liability. Juul Labs will ensure its products are sold behind counters, the attorney general said. Juul Labs will also use third-party age verification systems for online sales. The order also commits Juul to sending teenage “mystery shoppers” to 1,000 stores each year, to check whether they are selling to minors.
It also bars the company from using models under age 35 in advertisements and states that no advertisements should be posted near schools. “For years Juul targeted young people, including teens, with highly addictive e-cigarettes,” said Stein in a statement. “It lit the spark and fanned the flames of a vaping epidemic among our children — one that you can see in any high school in North Carolina.”
Thirteen states, including California, Massachusetts and New York, as well as the District of Columbia, have filed similar lawsuits. The central claim in each case is that Juul knew, or should have known, that it was it was hooking teenagers on pods that contained high levels of nicotine.
“This win will go a long way in keeping Juul products out of kids’ hands, keeping its chemical vapor out of their lungs, and keeping its nicotine from poisoning and addicting their brains. I’m incredibly proud of my team for their hard work on behalf of North Carolina families,” Stein said. “We’re not done – we still have to turn the tide on a teen vaping epidemic that was borne of Juul’s greed. As your attorney general, I’ll keep fighting to prevent another generation of young people from becoming addicted to nicotine.”
Altria Group Executives have been describing in detail their failure to come up with a marketable vapor product during an antitrust trial, reports The Wall Street Journal. Products leaked, generated high formaldehyde levels and lacked the nicotine smokers were looking for, according to their testimonies.
In April 2020, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) sued to unwind Altria’s 35 percent interest in Juul Labs, which the cigarette maker acquired in December 2018 for $12.8 billion.
A key question at trial is why Altria ended production of its own e-cigarettes in late 2018, shortly before announcing its investment in Juul.
Altria in October 2018 announced it was halting the sale of its pod-based and fruity-flavored e-cigarettes in response to a call by the Food and Drug Administration for e-cigarette makers to help stem a surge in vaping among children and teens. Then in December of that year, two weeks before the Juul agreement was signed, Altria pulled its remaining e-cigarettes off the market.
The FTC alleges Altria did so because of an illegal side deal in which it agreed to close its own e-cigarette business so it could take a stake in Juul. Altria and Juul both deny they had any such agreement.
Altria says it halted its e-cigarette sales amid pressure from regulators to curb youth use and an internal reckoning about the company’s inability to develop a successful vaping product. Juul says it didn’t see Altria’s e-cigarettes as a threat, didn’t ask Altria to shelve them and was surprised when Altria did so.
Juul and Altria argue that since the deal was struck, competition in the e-cigarette market has increased not decreased. Juul’s market share has fallen as have e-cigarette prices.
The FTC is seeking to force Altria to divest its stake and terminate the companies’ noncompete agreement. The case is being heard by an administrative law judge, who will make an initial decision; the agency’s commissioners will then vote on the matter.
The Altria Group antitrust trial continues this week over allegations made by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that company participated in anticompetitive practices ahead of its 2018 investment in e-cigarette startup Juul Labs.
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In opening remarks on Wednesday, the FTC argued that Altria pulled its vaping products off the U.S. market illegally at the insistence of Juul as the two companies were discussing a deal. Altria argued that its e-cigarettes were failures, and it jettisoned them amid regulatory pressure and an internal reckoning about the company’s inability to develop a vaping product that consumers liked, according to the Wall Street Journal.
If the FTC prevails, it could unwind Altria’s 35 percent interest in Juul Labs, which Altria bought in December 2018 for $12.8 billion. The agency is seeking to force Altria to divest its stake and terminate the companies’ noncompete agreement. The case is being heard by an administrative law judge, who will make an initial decision; the agency’s commissioners will then vote on the matter.
The FTC in April of last year sued to unwind the deal. The trial is taking place via teleconference at the agency’s office of administrative law judges. A key question at trial is why Altria, when it was in talks with Juul, stopped selling its own e-cigarettes. Altria’s explanations for exiting the e-cigarette market were pretexts, FTC attorney Stephen Rodger said in his opening remarks Wednesday. “But for the transaction, Altria would still be competing with [Juul] today.”
Recent complaints about The American Journal of Health Behavior “Special Issue on Juul” are absurd, anti-scientific and somewhat disturbing, according to Clive Bates, director of The Counterfactual.
In a letter to the editor, Bates said the Juul Labs monograph provides highly salient information on changes in smoking status, drivers of transition, population health impact and retailer behaviors. “The summary for the introduction to the series should be enough to whet the appetite of the genuinely curious and scientifically engaged,” he wrote.
According to Bates, the fact that research is done by company in the nicotine-delivery business does not invalidate the findings. In his view, Juul’s scientists have done excellent work that stands on its merits and has now been published after thorough peer review in a reputable journal with transparent disclosure of its provenance.
“The real question here is why these tobacco control activists show so little curiosity about the changes that are reshaping the U.S. tobacco and nicotine market,” he wrote. “As Juul rose in popularity, we saw unusually rapid declines in cigarette sales and smoking prevalence in both adults and adolescents.
“The right response to that is to want to know more. The wrong response is to try to suppress or discredit informative data and analysis just because it tells a story that is at variance with a narrative about the evils of both e-cigarettes and the companies that make them.”
The latest version of Juul pods are superior to there predecessors, according to new research. Juul Labs began marketing in the European Union “new technology” Juul pods that incorporated a new wick that the company claimed provided “more satisfaction.” The wick system, Juul stated, would deliver more consistent voltage and provide a better experience to users.
Credit: Juul Labs
In new study, published in BMJ, the researchers compared design and materials of construction, electrical characteristics, liquid composition and nicotine and carbonyl emissions of new technology Juul pods to their predecessors. The study concluded that the pods were “consistent with manufacturer’s claims, we found that the new pods incorporated a different wicking material. However, we also found that the new pod design resulted in 50 percent greater nicotine emissions per puff than its predecessor, despite exhibiting unchanged liquid composition, device geometry and heating coil resistance.”
The study also found that when connected to the new technology pods, the Juul power unit delivered a more consistent voltage to the heating coil. This suggests that the new coil-wick system resulted in better surface contact between the liquid and the temperature-regulated heating coil. “Total carbonyl emissions did not differ across pod generations,” the report states. “That nicotine yields can be greatly altered with a simple substitution of wick material underscores the fragility of regulatory approaches that center on product design rather than product performance specifications.”
