Vape seller JUUL must pay $22.5 million to resolve Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s lawsuit, which asserts that JUUL violated the law when it designed and marketed its products to appeal to underage consumers and deceived consumers about the addictiveness of its product.
In addition to the payment, JUUL must stop its unlawful conduct and implement severa; reforms, including:
- Stopping all its advertising that appeals to youth
- Stopping most social media promotion
- Accurately marketing the content and effects of the nicotine in its products
- Strict practices to confirm the age of consumers who purchase JUUL products — including a secret shopper program and online purchase age verification.
“JUUL put profits before people,” Ferguson said in a statement. “The company fueled a staggering rise in vaping among teens. JUUL’s conduct reversed decades of progress fighting nicotine addiction, and today’s order compels JUUL to surrender tens of millions of dollars in profit and clean up its act by implementing a slate of corporate reforms that will keep JUUL products out of the hands of underage Washingtonians.”
Under the consent decree, filed in King County Superior Court, JUUL is ordered to pay the $22.5 million total over the next four years.
The Attorney General’s Office plans to establish a new Health Equity unit using these resources. The unit will work at the intersection of multiple legal divisions in the Attorney General’s Office, including civil rights, consumer protection, and complex litigation, and respond to deceptive and discriminatory health care practices that disproportionately impact vulnerable communities and communities of color.
According to Ferguson’s 2020 lawsuit, JUUL’s conduct fueled a staggering rise in e-cigarette use and nicotine addiction among youth. Upon the launch of the device, the company reportedly flooded social media with colorful ads of young-looking models in fun poses that mimicked many of tobacco’s ad campaigns. At the same time, JUUL pushed fruit and dessert flavored products such as mango and crème brulee.
JUUL denied it marketed to underage users.
From the product’s launch in 2015 to the end of 2018, JUUL gained control of more than 70% of the market share for e-cigarettes, and much of this was due to its popularity with teens, evidenced by the skyrocketing use of e-cigarettes among teenagers, according to the Attorney General’s office.
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