Tag: youth use

Alabama Bill Would Make Youth Possession Illegal
A state senator in Alabama introduced a bill last week that would make it illegal for minors to be in possession of vapes, according to a release from the Drug Education Council.
The bill, introduced by Senator Vivian Figures, received bipartisan support and was “co-sponsored by 100 percent of the state senators present,” according to the release.
The bill is an amendment to Section 28-11-14 of the Code of Alabama 1975, reports WRBL. It makes in unlawful for any individual under the age of 21 to purchase, use or transport any “electronic battery-powered device capable of being used to deliver the following:

e-liquid
e-liquid substitute
tobacco
CBD oil
THC oil
herbal extract
nicotine salt
The bill also says that “a violation is committed upon mere possession” of any vaping device, regardless of what is in it, according to the release.
No potential penalties were announced as of this writing.
May 16, 2023
Oklahoma Reinstates Fines for Youth Buying Vapes

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The governor of Oklahoma signed a bill last year that removed fines for those under the age of 21 years old caught illegally purchasing or possessing vaping and other products. Earlier this week, Stitt signed a new law reinstating those fines.
On Monday, Stitt signed H.B. 2165 into law, which reintroduces fines for those under 21 years old caught possessing, purchasing, trying to purchase or using fraudulent identification to try to buy vaping and other tobacco products, reports Charlie Minato of Halfwheel.
Anyone caught violating the law must attend a tobacco cessation program and could be required to complete community service. If they do not, they could be fined up to $50 for the first offense and $100 for any subsequent offense.
In addition to restoring fines as a form of punishment, H.B. 2165 would also restore the ability of local cities and municipalities to issue their own penalties, something that was removed last year.
In 2020, Stitt signed a bill to raise the minimum age to purchase vapor, e-cigarettes and other tobacco products to 21 years old.
The new law goes into effect on Nov. 1, 2023.
May 4, 2023
Media: Philippine Police to Arrest Youth Using Vapes

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The Philippine National Police (PNP) yesterday announced that it would arrest students caught vaping and smoking in public places.
In an interview aired over dzBB, PNP Public Information Office chief Col. Redrico Maranan said the police would be enforcing the laws and ordinances by local government units against vaping and smoking, according to PhilStar Global.
“Yes, we will (also apprehend students vaping and smoking.) Our local ordinances will be enforced by the police, as ordered by our chief PNP (Gen. Benjamin Acorda Jr.),” Maranan said, according to media reports.
He explained that the ordinances would be a big help in ensuring discipline among the people.
“These local ordinances will ensure that discipline and the obedience of the people will return. So, that is part of the things that will be enforced by the police in communities,” he said.
He also underscored the Oplan Bisita Eskwela of the PNP, which requires police officers to go to communities and patrol schools.
“The police should go to schools and connect with principals, teachers and students,” Maranan said.
“There are crimes in schools, whether connected to fraternities and rumbles. Our police should be there in schools and coordinate with our school officials,” he added.
May 1, 2023
Altria’s Juul Usage Trial Continues Into Second Week

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The trial of the San Francisco Unified School District’s lawsuit against Marlboro maker Altria continues this week. At the end of the first week, jurors heard testimony that use of vape pens by students had declined before more than doubling from 2017 to 2019.
Only a little more than 7 percent of students throughout the district had reported using vape pens in 2017, former district health administrator Erica Lingell testified Friday. By 2019, she said, that figure had more than doubled to 16 percent.
Lingell said students were using Juul and the district was scrambling to build support systems and give guidance to teachers and staff about them, according to Courthouse News.
“We didn’t have anything for this new substance that the kids were using,” Lingell said in answer to questioning by the school district’s attorney Dena Sharp. “We didn’t have lessons. We didn’t have enough research except for what experts were telling us.”
The school district was building systems to combat Juul from scratch, the attorney claimed. Even after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the sale of e-cigarettes in the city — the corporate home of Juul Labs — in 2019, youth use continued.
For school district officials, it was a scramble to pull together the resources needed to combat Juul’s growth among students. “It was like flying the plane while we were building it,” said Lingrell.
For other substance use issues in the district, there were materials lesson plans, and support groups in place to help teachers tackle the problem. Students leaving class to smoke would interfere with teaching time for the rest of the kids, she said. “Teachers have an incredibly hard and busy schedule already. One kid being gone affects everybody.”
Much of the school district’s argument in its case against Altria involves the distraction which occurred when vaping became “endemic,” interfering not only with teachers’ abilities to control their classrooms but nearly all levels of student life.
The bellwether trial forces Altria to publicly defend itself solo for the first time as it faces thousands more cases that were brought against the company and Juul. In December, Juul Labs agreed to pay more than $1.2 billion to settle more than 5,000 suits blaming the company for a youth vaping epidemic across the U.S.
Juul and Altria defended the first trial that started in March over a case brought by Minnesota over deceptive marketing of e-cigarettes. The companies last month settled the state’s case, though details are yet to be disclosed.
In April, Juul agreed to pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia to resolve lawsuits and investigations into the marketing of addictive vaping products to children.
May 1, 2023
Altria Tells Jury of ‘No Benefit’ from Juul Investment

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Lawyers for Altria Group Inc. told a jury that the company didn’t benefit from its 2021 $12.8 billion investment in Juul Labs Inc. in a trial over whether Altria helped Juul Labs promote sales that led to a rise in youth vaping. The trial is a test case brought by the San Francisco school system.
Altria played a passive role in Juul’s efforts to market e-cigarettes to young users and “hasn’t received a penny for this investment, they haven’t benefited,” Beth Wilkinson, an attorney for the company, argued as the trial kicked off Monday in San Francisco federal court, according to Bloomberg News.
The 2018 investment vaporized to $250 million, she said, referring to the value of the Juul investment at the end of 2022 that Altria announced earlier this year when the company exchanged that investment for rights to heated-tobacco product technology.
Attorneys representing the San Francisco Unified School District told U.S. District Judge William Orrick that Wilkinson’s statements on the Juul investment to the jury were “prejudicial” to plaintiffs and violated ground rules on excluding certain information at trial.
The judge said he’ll take up the objection Tuesday morning before the trial resumes.
The bellwether trial forces Altria to publicly defend itself solo for the first time as it faces thousands more cases that were brought against the company and Juul. In December, Juul Labs agreed to pay more than $1.2 billion to settle more than 5,000 suits blaming the company for a youth vaping epidemic across the US.
Altria’s “going to say, ‘We didn’t market the product,’” Thomas Cartmell, a lawyer representing the school district, told jurors. “That’s true, but it’s very important for you all to know what Altria knew as they pursued and partnered with Juul,” he said, adding that Altria knew Juul’s marketing tactics would appeal to and hook young people, including kids.
Juul sales “skyrocketed” after Altria’s 2018 investment and the tobacco company helped the startup market its products and set up 10,000 new stores, Cartmell said. Altria knew Juul’s plans to boost sales would frustrate the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s efforts to curb youth e-cigarette use, he said.
The sprawling litigation in San Francisco federal court includes about 4,270 personal injury suits and more than 1,434 complaints brought by government entities and native Indian tribes, in addition to a proposed class-action fight, according to a recent court filing.
Juul and Altria defended the first trial that started in March over a case brought by Minnesota over deceptive marketing of e-cigarettes. The companies last month settled the state’s case, though details are yet to be disclosed.
In April, Juul agreed to pay $462 million to six states and the District of Columbia to resolve lawsuits and investigations into the marketing of addictive vaping products to children.
April 25, 2023
Altria Group’s Youth Marketing Trial to Begin Monday

Altria Group Inc is set to face trial Monday in a lawsuit by San Francisco’s public school district accusing the company of fueling a teen vaping epidemic, along with e-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc.
The San Francisco Unified School District says teachers and staff “have had to go to extreme lengths to respond to the ever-growing number of students using e-cigarettes on school grounds,” and is seeking to force Altria to pay for the cost of tackling the problem, Reuters reports.
Altria, which held a 35 percent stake in Juul from 2018 until earlier this year, faces thousands of similar cases from individuals, local government entities and states.
The San Francisco school district’s case was chosen by U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco, who is presiding over much of the litigation, as a bellwether or test case.
Next week’s trial before Orrick will mark the second time one of those cases goes before a jury. An earlier trial, in a case brought by the state of Minnesota, ended in a settlement on Monday as it was nearing its end, although the terms have yet to be disclosed.
“Most of the allegations raised in this suit occurred years before we made a minority economic investment in Juul,” Altria said in a statement on Thursday. “We believe this case lacks merit and will defend ourselves vigorously.”
April 21, 2023
Juul Labs Settles Minnesota Suit for Youth Marketing

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Juul Labs on Monday announced a settlement in the state of Minnesota’s lawsuit against the e-cigarette manufacturer and tobacco giant Altria — the first of thousands of cases against the e-cigarette maker to reach trial — just ahead of closing arguments.
It comes only days after Juul announced its biggest settlement ever over the way it marketed its highly addictive products.
The Minnesota settlement is expected to be valued at a minimum of $100 million.
Officially, the terms will be kept confidential until formal papers are publicly filed with the court in 30 days, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement, according to the AP.
If it’s like Juul’s other settlements, the Minnesota settlement could include a multimillion-dollar payment and various restrictions on the marketing, sale and distribution of the company’s vaping products.
Ellison said ahead of the trial that he was seeking more than $100 million in damages.
“After three weeks of trial highlighting and bringing into the public record the actions that Juul and Altria took that contributed to the youth vaping epidemic, we reached a settlement in the best interest of Minnesotans,” Ellison said.
Juul said it would work with the state to finalize the details over the coming weeks.
“We have now settled with 48 states and territories, providing over $1 billion to participating states to further combat underage use and develop cessation programs,” the company said in a statement. “This is in addition to our global resolution of the U.S. private litigation that covers more than 5,000 cases brought by approximately 10,000 plaintiffs.”
April 17, 2023
UK to Launch Youth Vaping ‘Enforcement Squads’

Credit: DIY13
The UK is set to launch “illicit vapes enforcement squads” as part of a crackdown on the illegal sale of e-cigarettes to youth under the age of 18.
Led by Trading Standards, the squads will work across the country and share knowledge across regional networks and local authorities.
The government says its priority is to prevent people from smoking, and supporting them to quit. It has admitted vaping is a preferable alternative for adults, reports Sky News.
However, it recognizes it has an issue with illegal sales to children and illicit vapes being introduced into the market.
Neil O’Brien, the health minister who will unveil the new plans said the new illicit vapes enforcement squad will work across the country and clamp down on those businesses that sell vapes to children.
“Our call for evidence will also allow us to get a firm understanding of the steps we can take to reduce the number of children accessing and using vapes,” he said.
April 10, 2023
Minnesota’s Juul Labs Youth Marketing Suit Begins

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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
Juul Labs Reaches $24 Million Settlement With Chicago

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A $23.8 million settlement has been reached between Juul Labs Inc and the City of Chicago over claims that the e-cigarette maker deceptively marketed its products and for selling vaping products to underage users, the Chicago mayor’s office said on Friday.
The vaping company is currently facing thousands of lawsuits filed across the United States over claims on its marketing practices and for contributing to rising tobacco use among youth, according to Reuters.
In the settlement, Chicago said Juul has denied and continues to deny any wrongdoing and liability in connection with the design, manufacture, production, advertisement, marketing, distribution, sale, use, and performance of its products.
According to the settlement, the company has agreed to pay the city $2.8 million within 30 days of the execution of the agreement.
Chicago would receive an additional $21 million payment later this year under the current schedule and may potentially receive up to $750,000 in additional, court-awarded payments, the Chicago mayor’s office said.
Altria Group Inc, which had a stake in Juul Labs valued at $12.8 billion in 2018, exchanged its investment in Juul, last valued at $250 million, for some of the vaping company’s heated tobacco intellectual property.
Altria Group then immediately announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire NJOY Holdings for approximately $2.75 billion in cash. The transaction terms include an additional $500 million in cash payments that are contingent upon regulatory outcomes with respect to certain NJOY products.
March 11, 2023