Tag: Minnesota

Minnesota Attorney General Warns Illegal Vape Sellers

Credit: Chris Titze Imaging
The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office is sending thousands of letters to smoke shop retailers warning them to cease selling deceptive vaping products.
Attorney General Keith Ellison states that some of the products are indistinguishable from everyday highlighters and other school supplies.
Ellison states that once the rules are known, retailers will be fined up to $25,000 per device sold for violating them.
State law prohibits tobacco products from being advertised to children; however, new products like “highlight” disguise themselves as everyday school supplies. And that makes it easier for students to smuggle devices into school, according to media reports.
Ellison stated that the objective is to encourage voluntary compliance, but he also emphasized that his office will take legal action against businesses that choose to violate the law.
August 30, 2024
Juul Labs’ Minnesota Settlement Tops $60 Million

Credit: Ontronix
Leaders in the U.S. state of Minnesota reported a $60.5 million settlement with Juul Labs over youth vaping on Wednesday, one month after the state abruptly ended a Hennepin County jury trial before closing arguments were set to begin.
The money, which is front-loaded, according to Attorney General Keith Ellison and Gov. Tim Walz, is expected to go toward fighting tobacco use, vaping and smoking. Under the settlement, the terms weren’t public for 30 days, according to the Star Tribune.
In opening statements on March 28, Ellison made the state’s case, saying youth smoking was nearly eliminated before the e-cigarette maker lured teens with fruity flavors, fun ads and sleek, colorful designs. He portrayed the suit as a continuation of the earlier fight against Big Tobacco.
Many states sued Juul Labs in recent years over their marketing to teens, but Minnesota was the only one to take the manufacturer to trial. Before trial, Ellison said he wasn’t satisfied with the settlement offers made by the manufacturer.
May 18, 2023
Minnesota AG Personally Opens Juul Labs Lawsuit

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison personally opened his state’s case against Juul Labs on Tuesday, accusing the e-cigarette maker of using “slick products, clever ads and attractive flavors” to hook children on nicotine as the first of thousands of cases against the company reached trial.
Minnesota is seeking more than $100 million in damages, accusing Washington, D.C.-based Juul of unlawfully targeting young people to get a new generation addicted to nicotine, according to the Federal News Network.
“They baited, deceived, and addicted a whole new generation of kids after Minnesotans slashed youth smoking rates down to the lowest level in a generation,” Ellison said. “Now, big tobacco is back with a new name but the same game. Juul wiped out the work of our state with their slick products, clever ads, and attractive flavors.”
Juul has faced thousands of lawsuits nationwide but most have settled, including 39 with other states and U.S. territories. Not Minnesota, which won a landmark $7.1 billion settlement with the tobacco industry in 1998. Minnesota added tobacco industry giant Altria, which formerly owned a minority stake in Juul, as a co-defendant in 2020.
David Bernick, an attorney for Juul, promised jurors an “intense and interesting” trial. He said the purpose of Juul was always to convert adult smokers of combustible cigarettes to a less-dangerous product that would still provide a satisfying nicotine experience — not to lure kids. E-cigarettes aren’t safe but aren’t deadly either, he said; they’re somewhere in between. And Juul did nothing to intentionally drive youth demand, he argued, suggesting that the growth in youth vaping was more likely due to increasing adult demand resulting in ”leakage” to kids.
William Geraghty, an attorney for Altria, denied Ellison’s assertions that Altria invested heavily in Juul because it ultimately wanted to hook kids on its cigarettes, which include Marlboro. He said Altria bought its passive stake because Juul had found the key to successfully switching adult smokers of conventional cigarettes to a less harmful product, while Altria’s competing e-cigarettes had failed in the marketplace.
The lawsuit against Juul, filed in 2019, alleges consumer fraud, creating a 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
March 29, 2023
Minnesota’s Juul Labs Youth Marketing Suit Begins

Credit: Ontronix
A trial against Juul Labs and Altria for youth marketing begins today in the U.S. state of Minnesota. It is the first state to go to trial against the e-cigarette manufacturer and tobacco company.
Jury selection in the trial comes more than three years after Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison first filed a lawsuit against Juul Labs, reports CARE11.
“We will prove how Juul and Altria deceived and hooked a generation of Minnesota youth on their products, causing both great harm to the public and great expense to the State to remediate that harm,” said Ellison, in a press release.
Minnesota is the first case to go to trial against Juul since more than a dozen states sued the company beginning in 2019.
“It’s a pretty significant case,” said David Schultz, a law professor at the University of Minnesota. “The case comes down to two or three basic issues. First, it’s about the claim that Juul marketed to minors. Second, it did nothing in terms of trying to prevent minors from accessing their product. And third, it was about the fact that they did not make appropriate disclosures regarding the health and safety risks surrounding the use of vaping and some of these smokeless tobaccos.”
The state believes Juul Labs, enabled by Altria, “engaged in consumer fraud, negligence, and created a public nuisance.”
This isn’t new territory for the state. Minnesota was the first state in the country to successfully sue the tobacco industry and win in the 1990s.
Earlier this year, A U.S. district judge handed Juul Labs preliminary court approval of a $255 million settlement resolving claims by consumers that it deceptively marketed e-cigarettes, as the company seeks to resolve thousands of lawsuits.
The company reached a nearly $24 million settlement with the City of Chicago in mid-March.
Juul and Altria have denied the allegations.
In court documents from November 2022, the defendants stated, “Minnesota has reaped billions of dollars from tobacco settlements and taxes over the last decade for the purpose of preventing tobacco use and remedying its harms. Yet even after determining that there was an alleged youth vaping problem among Minnesota youth, time and again the State chose to ignore recommended tobacco prevention funding guidelines and instead used these funds to bankroll unrelated projects—like the Minnesota Vikings football stadium.”
March 27, 2023
Eighth Circuit Upholds Minnesota City Flavor Ban

Credit: Victor Moussa
Federal law doesn’t block a ban on sales of flavored vaping products, menthol cigarettes and other flavored tobacco products in Edina, Minn., the Eighth Circuit ruled Monday in a case brought by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. and related companies, according to Bloomberg Law News.
The appeals court affirmed a lower-court ruling that kept the ban in place, on the same day that the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear a tobacco company challenge to a similar law in Los Angeles.
The unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit joined other federal appeals courts in holding that a local ban on tobacco products is constitutional.
March 1, 2023
Flavored Vapor Ban Upheld in Edina, MInnesota

A flavored tobacco ban enacted by the Edina City Council in mid-June will remain in place after a federal judge dismissed a complaint brought against the city and city manager Scott Neal by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, R.J. Reynolds Vapor Company, American Snuff Company, and Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Company, along with Vernon BP and Lang’s One Stop Market, both of which are retailers.
On Monday, U.S. District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz denied the plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction and granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the case. The ruling came the day before the ban was to go in effect on Sept. 1, according to a story on Halfwheel.com.
The suit claimed that the city was prevented from enacting such a ban by the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act, the 2009 federal law which empowers the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products, and prohibits state and local governments from enacting any standards or laws that either differ from or add on to federal law, such as the case of a city or county enacting a ban on the sale of flavored tobacco products.
The plaintiffs claimed that the county’s ban stands as an obstacle to the purposes of federal law, which are to promulgate tobacco product standards that can be used at the national level. They said that Congress and FDA have already established that “certain tobacco products, particularly menthol cigarettes, should remain available to adult users of tobacco products.”
Both complaints seek relief in the form of the ordinances being declared invalid and unenforceable, as well as requesting that the court both preliminarily and permanently issue an injunction that prevents the bans from being implemented and enforced.
In his ruling, Judge Schiltz maintained that the city was within its right to enact such a ban, being neither expressly or impliedly preempted by federal law. The judge cited several provisions in the federal that allow local municipalities to enact certain laws regarding the sale of tobacco, known as the preservation clause, the preemption clause and the saving clause.
September 2, 2020
Acetate Culprit in Recent Minnesota Vaping Illnesses

photo: Jeremynathan | Dreamstime
Minnesota state health officials say the 12 people who were hospitalized with vaping-related lung illness in June and July all had used products containing vitamin E acetate.
Five of the 12 cases required ICU care and ventilators, and all are now recovered or recovering. The average age was 18, but patients were as young as 14 and old as 46, according to a news release from the state, according to news reports on twincities.com.
Vitamin E acetate is an additive sometimes used as a solvent for bootleg versions of the vaping cartridges containing THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention previously identified the additive as dangerous when inhaled.
The Minnesota Department of Health said that most of the patients identified had reported vaping products containing THC, though some reported vaping only nicotine.
August 24, 2020
Minnesota Law Banning Under 21 Vape Sales Starts Saturday

Credit: Bao Chau
Anyone who is younger than 21 will be prohibited from buying tobacco products in Minnesota beginning Saturday, Aug. 1.
A new statute is set to take effect that day, squaring state law with a federal measure that outlaws purchases of tobacco and e-cigarette products to those younger than 21, according to an article in the Duluth News Tribune. Under the law, those under 21 would also be prohibited from entering tobacco or vape shops.
Businesses that sell tobacco products to those younger than 21 would face a $300 penalty after the first offense with higher fees on subsequent offenses. And anyone under 21 found buying tobacco products would face license suspensions and adults who furnish the products to them would face a $50 fine, the story states.
The federal government has hiked the minimum age of sale of tobacco products from 18 to 21, and local governments around the state have enacted similar ordinances in their communities. But state lawmakers and advocates aiming to prevent tobacco addiction in young people said the measures weren’t being enforced evenly across the state.
July 27, 2020
Minnesota House votes to raise age of sale on e-cigarettes to 21

Credit: Bao Chau
Minnesotans under the age of 21 won’t be able to buy e-cigarettes under a proposal that has been approved by the U.S. state’s House of Representatives.
According to a story on grandforksherald.com, the proposal sets a statewide ban on selling tobacco and e-cigarette products to those younger than 21 and bars those under 21 from entering tobacco or vape shops. Businesses that sell vapor and tobacco products to those younger than 21 would face a $300 penalty after the first offense with higher fees on subsequent offenses. Those younger than 21 found buying vapor and tobacco products would face license suspensions and adults who furnish the products to them would face a $50 fine.
The federal government has hiked the minimum age of sale of vapor and tobacco products from 18 to 21, and local governments around the state have enacted similar ordinances in their communities. But the measures are not being enforced across the state, the bill’s supporters said.
“This statewide approach is necessary so we don’t have some Minnesota communities enforcing a state age of 18 while some are enforcing the age of 21,” Rep. Heather Edelson, D-Edina, said. “Our bill makes it clear there’s only one tobacco age in Minnesota and that is 21.”
The measure could come up for Senate consideration later this week. Smoking cessation advocates applauded the bill’s passage and said the bill could help prevent children and young people in Minnesota from becoming addicted to tobacco and e-cigarettes.
May 11, 2020