Tag: north carolina

North Carolina Cherokee’s Open Pot Sales to All

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The Great Smoky Cannabis Dispensary opened Saturday for its first recreational marijuana sales for anyone over the age of 21.
It’s another first for the state of North Carolina, where marijuana remains illegal outside of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians’ (ECBI) territory.
The dispensary first opened on April 20, 2024, for medical cannabis purchases. A referendum was then passed in July to begin recreational sales, following a 2021 ordinance approved by the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, which legalized medical cannabis within the Qualla Boundary.
“We’re a sovereign nation, so we set it up to let people come visit, explore our community, visit our people, just come in and help themselves to any cannabis need they need,” Boyd Allen, a Cherokee tribal representative, said Saturday, according to local media.
Despite laws passed by the ECBI, marijuana remains illegal in the rest of the state. The sheriff of Swain County, which borders Cherokee land, said in a June interview that his department would enforce state law.
“They need to educate their people up there that when they come off the boundary, they’re in a different world,” Sheriff Curtis Cochran said. “We’ll educate them if we catch them with it. We’ll charge them for it.”
September 9, 2024
North Carolina Governor Signs Vape Registry Bill

Credit: Katherine Welles
Under a bipartisan bill Gov. Roy Cooper signed into law this week, North Carolina will have a new registry that could lead to the removal of many vaping products from store shelves.
The law would allow only the sale of products authorized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The directory of products would be under the North Carolina Dept. of Revenue.
Stores will have a 60-day grace period after the directory is available to come into compliance. After that, repeat violators could face fines and have their licenses suspended or revoked.
“The vaping epidemic is quite the Wild West, particularly in high school,” said state Rep. Erin Pare (R-Wake). “That’s why this bill passed with broad bipartisan support. It brings order, enforcement, accountability, and transparency to a growing problem.”
The bill faced opposition from some operators of convenience stores, who worry it will have a negative impact on their revenue. Ches McDowell, who represents a group of Asian-American convenience store owners, warned it could also lead to lost jobs.
The Vapor Technology Association also urged Cooper to veto the bill, calling the FDA’s process illegal and saying the measure is “propping up cigarettes and hurting public health.”
Representatives of the tobacco industry advocated for the bill as it moved through committees in the state legislature, including Susan Vick, who lobbies for Reynolds American. She told lawmakers about visiting a store in Raleigh and finding many products from China, according to media reports.
Pare said the new law will help remove unregulated products from overseas and reduce the prevalence of products that appear to be marketed to young people.
“We don’t really know what’s in them,” she said.
The law takes effect on Dec. 1. The directory is expected to be available in early 2025.
July 8, 2024
North Carolina to Vote on Vape Registry Law
Credit: Katherine Welles
A new bill in North Carolina, if passed, would require the state to certify vaping and other next-generation tobacco products for sale.
The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the proposal Wednesday. It was slipped into HB 900, which deals with Wake County leadership academies and their ability to maintain state designations. The House passed it without objection.
To become law, the bill would need to pass the Senate and then the House before the end of the session. Senate leaders have said they plan to complete their work by the end of the month, local media reports.
The chambers, both controlled by Republicans, have been unable to come to an agreement on budget modifications for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
A North Carolina lawmaker wrongly told others that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration regulates the products, but the regulatory agency does not have the ability to check which products are being sold.
The bill would fine retailers who sell products that aren’t on the registry for initial violations. The legislation could also suspend or revoke the establishment’s license.
Vaping industry representatives warned lawmakers that the bill will cost people jobs and money.
PMTA registry laws are already being enforced in Alabama, Louisiana and Oklahoma. Wisconsin passed a registry law in December and will become effective July 1, 2025.
Utah also passed a registry bill that included a flavor ban that will become active on Jan. 1, 2025, and Florida has a unique registry that also begins Jan. 1, 2025.
June 20, 2024
North Carolina Launches Juul Document Depository

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The attorney general for the U.S. state of North Carolina announced the launch of an online, searchable public depository that will contain nearly four million documents from the state’s lawsuit against e-cigarette manufacturer Juul Labs.
The depository was created and is being housed by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s University Libraries (UNC) and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). The first 50,000 documents are now available online in the UCSF Industry Documents Library, and additional documents will be added monthly, according to Attorney General Josh Stein.
“We insisted on a publicly accessible database of JUUL’s documents to ensure transparency,” said Stein. “We want people to understand what JUUL did so this never happens again. I’m grateful for the partnership with UNC and UCSF and appreciate their teams’ hard work to bring this document library to life.”
Attorney General Stein sued Juul Labs in 2019 for unlawfully designing, marketing, and selling its e-cigarettes to teenagers. In 2021, he reached a first-in-the-nation settlement with the pod vaping system manufacturer, winning $47.8 million and requiring the company to make significant business changes and publicize many of the documents it had produced during the lawsuit.
The documents include information about Juul Labs’ business practices, research, advertisement, marketing, and sales data, and “they shine a light” on how the company marketed its products to youth. Stein negotiated the release of the documents to help the public and regulators better understand JUUL’s “unlawful business practices” and prevent other companies from being able to follow the same path, the press release states.
“Libraries have deep expertise in managing complex information, along with a strong professional ethos of collaboration,” said María Estorino, vice provost for University Libraries and University Librarian at UNC-Chapel Hill. “This partnership between UNC-Chapel Hill and UCSF is a perfect example of libraries working together to bring vitally important information directly to the public.”
The Juul Labs documents will be cross-searchable with more than 18 million other documents in the UCSF library’s tobacco, opioid, chemical, drug, food, and fossil fuel industry archives.
Stein is also investigating Puff Bar and other e-cigarette manufacturers, distributors, and retailers due to ongoing concerns about flavors, age verification, and marketing.
February 5, 2024
North Carolina Gets $7.8 Million More From Juul Labs

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North Carolina will receive an additional $7.8 million from Juul as part of his first-in-the-nation agreement to hold the e-cigarette maker accountable for its role in marketing and selling e-cigarettes to young people.
In all, the state will receive $47.8 million, said Attorney General Josh Stein in a release. North Carolina has settled its original lawsuit with Juul Labs for $40 million.
“The vaping epidemic is far from over, and these additional funds will help us keep more kids healthy,” said Stein. “Vaping is dangerous to kids’ health, and we must continue to do everything in our power to keep them nicotine-free.”
Stein was the first attorney general in the nation to file a suit against Juul Labs for allegedly sparking a vaping epidemic among teenagers.
His agreement required the company to make far-reaching changes to how Juul Labs conducts business, including not marketing to people under 21, not using social media advertising, and verifying the ages of people who buy its products.
The money from the settlement is being used by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services to prevent e-cigarette addiction, help those who are addicted quit, and fund important e-cigarette research.
As part of Attorney General Stein’s agreement, Juul Labs must also make public a large number of documents it produced in the lawsuit.
The first batch of documents from that document depository will be available through a partnership between the University of North Carolina and the University of California, San Francisco in early 2024.
The documents reportedly will shed light on Juul’s marketing and research and will help prevent other companies from using the same playbook.
December 8, 2023
North Carolina Juul Settlement to Fund Tobacco Control

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For the first time since 2012, North Carolina’s state budget plan includes funds to help prevent young people from getting addicted to nicotine, reports NC Health News.
Much of that money comes from a $40 million settlement that State Attorney Josh Stein reached this summer with Juul Labs following a lawsuit over the e-cigarette maker’s alleged targeting of young people.
In 1998, North Carolina and 45 other states settled litigation with to recover healthcare cost incurred for treating sick smokers. The four largest U.S. tobacco companies agreed to pay $206 billion over 25 years, and part of that money was to be spent by the states on smoking-cessation programs.
In reality, however, many states have directed their Master Settlement Agreement funds to other priorities. In 2013, when Republicans held control of both the North Carolina General Assembly chambers and the governor’s office, money stopped flowing to programs targeted at young smokers and nicotine users.
The budget that Governor Roy Cooper signed into law on Nov. 18 transfers $2 million from the first $13 million allotment from the Juul settlement to the attorney general’s office to cover litigation costs.
Another $4.4 million will go to tobacco cessation media campaigns, resources and programs to help children in middle school, high school and young adults quit vaping and using tobacco products after becoming addicted.
The budget allocates $3.3 million for “evidence-based media and education campaigns” geared toward prevention of e-cigarette and tobacco use and $1.1 million for data monitoring to better understand how young people are exposed to such products and evaluate programs designed to help users quit.
Nationally, more than two million children in middle school and high school used e-cigarettes in 2021, according to North Carolina health director Elizabeth Cuervo Tilson. Almost half of those high school students used e-cigarettes frequently, for as many as 20 out of 30 days. In North Carolina, Tilson added, a third of people in that age group used tobacco products, most of which are e-cigarettes.
November 24, 2021
North Carolina Launches Investigation Into Puff Bar

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North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein on Nov. 16 announced “major actions” against the e-cigarette industry due to ongoing concerns about kid-friendly flavors, youth marketing and poor age verification.
In addition to suing Juul Labs founders James Monsees and Adam Bowen, Stein commenced a statewide investigation into Puff Bar and other e-cigarette manufacturers, distributors, and retailers.
“We made major progress in protecting young people from e-cigarette addiction when we secured a court order dramatically changing the way Juul does business and recovering $40 million to help kids conquer their nicotine addiction. But many of the billions Juul made from addicting kids to nicotine are now in the personal accounts of its founders and early investors. The people behind this company must be held accountable and pay to clean up the mess they made,” Stein said in a statement.
“At the same time, the market Juul created still exists, and other companies are filling the vacuum. We are actively investigating Puff Bar and other companies at all stages of the distribution chain, from manufacturers to retailers and everything in between to ensure they are not profiting off kids. Where I find illegal behavior, I will not hesitate to take legal action.”
As Juul discontinued some its flavored products in the U.S., Puff Bar has emerged as the vape of choice among young people. In 2020, the Food and Drug Administration told Puff Bar to stop selling its flavored vaporizers as part of a broader crackdown on underage vaping. However, the company resumed sales in early 2021 with products using synthetic nicotine, which the company believes are outside the FDA remit. In response, the agency launched an investigation of the redesigned Puff Bar.
Puff Bar sales in retail stores tracked by Nielsen totaled $156 million for the year ended Sept. 25, according to Goldman Sachs, although it is unclear how many of those sales are counterfeit products. In a federal survey released in Sept., 26 percent of high-school vaporizers said they used Puff Bars. Among middle-school e-cigarette users, 30 percent reported that their generic brand was Puff Bars.
November 17, 2021
Juul Settlement to Fund Research Against Vaping

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North Carolina will use the $40 million settlement with Juul Labs, announced in June by Attorney General Josh Stein, to help fund research to stop the use of electronic cigarettes among young people, reports The Fayetteville Observer.
“For years, Juul targeted young people, including teens, with its highly addictive e-cigarette,” said Stein. “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. 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.”
Juul Labs will pay North Carolina $13 million in the first year, $8 million the second year, $7.5 million the third year, $7 million the fourth year and $2.25 million the fifth and sixth years. The payout is set to fund programs conducting research and prevention of electronic cigarettes, according to Travis Greer, regional tobacco control manager for the Cumberland County Health Department.
September 29, 2021
Juul Labs to Open Research Facility in North Carolina

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Juul Labs plans to open a research facility in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA, reports WRAL.
The new facility is expected to create 35 full-time jobs, according to a company spokesman.
“We will continue to seek to earn the trust of key stakeholders, including local officials, as we advance the potential for harm reduction for adult smokers while combating underage usage,” Juul said in a statement.
In June, Juul Labs settled a lawsuit brough by North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, who accused the company of marketing its product to young people. Juul agreed to pay $40 million but denied wrongdoing or liability. North Carolina was the first state to take legal action against Juul.
At least 13 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 hooking teenagers on pods that contained high levels of nicotine.
A lawsuit brought against Juul by North Carolina’s Wake County Public School System is currently ongoing.
In 2020, e-cigarette usage decreased by 19.6 percent in high schoolers and among middle-schoolers by 4.7 percent according to the U.S. Federal Drug Administration. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contends nicotine can harm adolescent brain development.
September 8, 2021
North Carolina Marijuana Bill Survives Committee
Medical marijuana won near-unanimous approval in a committee hearing in the Republican-controlled North Carolina General Assembly last week, the first of potentially many votes standing in the way of the plan becoming law. It’s a sign the bill could have broad support, according to the News & Observer. While the votes were not officially recorded, it appeared that all but two or three lawmakers voted for the bill.
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The bill’s sponsor is Sen. Bill Rabon, an influential committee chairman. And one of the votes in favor of it came from Senate Majority Leader Kathy Harrington. She said her husband was recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, and she has since come to realize that medical marijuana could help other patients in similar, painful situations.
“If you had asked me six months ago if I would support this bill, I would have said no,” Harrington said. “But life comes at you fast.”
If the bill is passed into law, North Carolina doctors would be able to prescribe marijuana for PTSD, cancer, sickle cell anemia, ALS and several other specific health problems. Lawmakers had initially included glaucoma on the list too, but deleted it during committee.
July 7, 2021