ABC World News Tonight reported, “The e-cigarette company Juul is now bowing to pressure from the FDA, announcing it will temporarily stop selling flavored nicotine in stores and will shut down most of its social media accounts, the company banning sales to anyone under 21. The FDA says teen vaping has reached epidemic levels.”
The CBS Evening News 3, story 9, 1:50, Glor, 6.08M) reported, “Juul announced it is temporarily suspending all retail store sales of four e-cigarette flavors that expert says attract kids: Mango, cucumber, creme, and fruit– and will sell them online only. In a statement, Juul Labs CEO Kevin Burns said, ‘The numbers tell us underage use of e-cigarette products is a problem. We must solve it.’”
The New York Times reports the decision by Juul Labs, which has more than 70 percent of the US e-cigarette market, “was made as the Food and Drug Administration moved forward with a plan to ban sales of flavored e-cigarettes in convenience stores and gas stations.” The FDA was expected to formally announce its plan, “which also included stepping up the requirements for age verification of online sales of flavored e-cigarette products, later this week.” Burns said, “our intent was never to have youth use Juul,” but critics and anti-smoking advocates “said the company had no choice, especially after the F.D.A. raided its headquarters last month seeking documents related to marketing it came under scrutiny by some states investigating whether its tactics were directly aimed at minors.”
Bloomberg News reports the move is “expected to cut Juul’s in-store retail sales by 45 percent, according to a person familiar with the company’s sales projections.” While Juul says it will no longer take orders from retailers, “stores may continue to sell their remaining stock.”
USA Today reports Juul said it will “also delete its Facebook and Instagram accounts and halt promotional posts on Twitter.” The company plans “to continue working with social media platforms to combat third-party accounts appealing to youth vaping.” Juul’s plans come after the FDA in September “gave Juul and other e-cigarette companies 60 days to submit ‘robust’ plans to prevent youth vaping.” FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottlieb said then, “Teenagers are becoming regular users, and the proportion of regular users is increasing. We’re going to have to take action.”
The Wall Street Journal reports Burns acknowledged in his blog post that user-generated social media posts do play a role in promoting underage vaping, so the company will ask Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat to block these.
The AP reports Juul said it plans to keep selling mint and menthol flavored e-cigarettes in stores “because those flavors mirror what is in traditional cigarettes.” The San Francisco Chronicle reports Juul said it will “‘restart’ selling mango, creme and cucumber flavors at retail stores if the stores meet certain criteria for ensuring that people buying the products are 21 and over. To do so, the stores must use point-of-sale technology that designates flavored Juul products as restricted, and store clerks must electronically scan IDs and visually verify customers’ ID.” Business Insider reports this is Juul’s “strongest and most sweeping change” since summer 2017, but “it’s only temporary” pending the establishment of age-verification measures at stores.
Cities step up pressure on e-cigarette industry over teen vaping epidemic. USA Today reports cities and “private litigators are stepping up their fight in a growing crackdown against e-cigarette companies that critics say are marketing and selling their products to minors.” In the “latest salvo, the City of Chicago is planning to file a lawsuit Tuesday against eight online e-cigarette retailers that it says it caught selling products to minors.” Last month, Los Angeles City Attorney Mike Feuer asked a Los Angeles County Superior Court “for injunctions against three electronic cigarette companies he said sell vaping products without verifying a buyer’s age and market to young people on the social media.” And private attorneys, “meanwhile, filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court in Philadelphia alleging that the popular e-cigarette company Juul markets on social media sites frequented by children.”
From the news release of the American Association for Justice.
