E-cigarette company Juul Labs will pay Illinois more than $67.6 million as part of a $462 million multistate settlement over allegations that the company marketed its products to minors.
“This settlement is a culmination of several years of focused efforts in our respective states to hold Juul accountable for its leading role in the youth vaping epidemic,” Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul said during a news conference Wednesday. “For me, it’s quite personal because the product had entered my own home because of my teenagers.”
Illinois filed suit against Juul in 2019 in Cook County Circuit Court, alleging the company marketed its products to minors and misrepresented its products as smoking cessation devices. Juul did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement agreement.
In Illinois, the settlement money will generally go toward treatment and awareness, he said. The attorney general’s office is still determining specifics of how best to use the funds, a spokeswoman said.
Juul said in a statement Wednesday that the settlement funds will help “combat underage use and develop cessation programs and reflect our current business practices, which were implemented as part of our companywide reset in the fall of 2019.”
As part of the agreement with Illinois, Juul may not directly or indirectly target youth when promoting its products. The agreement also prohibits Juul from using social media influencers to promote its products and from advertising on billboards. Also, Juul may not claim in promotional materials that its products are safer than traditional cigarettes or can be used to stop smoking, unless the FDA gives it permission to do so.
California, Colorado, Massachusetts, New Mexico, New York and the District of Columbia will also receive money from the settlement.
The settlement follows similar agreements between Juul and other states. Last month, the city of Chicago reached a $23.8 million settlement with Juul.
In all, Juul has now settled with 47 states and territories. Late last year, Juul also reached a global resolution settling more than 5,000 other cases.
Juul said in its statement Wednesday that, “With this settlement, we are nearing total resolution of the company’s historical legal challenges.”
States, municipalities and others began filing lawsuits against Juul several years ago, alleging that Juul was promoting its products to minors. The lawsuits came as the number of teens using e-cigarettes skyrocketed.
The number of high school students who reported using e-cigarettes within the last 30 days jumped 78% between 2017 and 2018, to just over 3 million, according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report.
In Illinois, about 49% of high school students surveyed in 2019 said they had used an electronic vapor product, such as an e-cigarette, vape pen or vape, up from about 41% in 2017, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Youth Risk Behavior Survey.
Illinois alleged in its lawsuit that: “Like Big Tobacco, JUUL’s advertisements featured bright colors, young models in flirtatious and playful poses, and a sense that using the product would put consumers in a desirable social stratum.”
In recent years, Juul took a number of actions to try to curb use of its products by young people. It stopped selling mint, fruit and candy-flavored pods in stores and online in 2019. Juul noted in its statement that the use of its products has declined by 95% since fall 2019, based on the National Youth Tobacco Survey.
Supporters of e-cigarettes say they are a less toxic alternative to traditional cigarettes for people who are already smokers.
The new settlement comes as Juul continues to wait on a decision as to whether it will be allowed to continue selling its products in the U.S. long-term. In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered the company to stop selling products in the U.S., but a federal appeals court quickly issued a temporary stay on that order. The FDA then issued its own stay on the order saying, “there are scientific issues unique to the JUUL application that warrant additional review.”
