Juul Labs agreed to pay $438.5 million to 33 states and Puerto Rico to settle a lawsuit over the company’s marketing of high-nicotine vaping products, according to multiple media reports.
The lawsuit alleged Juul marketed its e-cigarettes to underage teens with launch parties, product giveaways and ads and social media posts using youthful models, according to a statement from the Connecticut attorney general’s office.
Connecticut and the other states investigated Juul’s early promotions and claims about the safety and benefits of its technology as a smoking alternative, NPR reported.
“Juul’s cynically calculated advertising campaigns created a new generation of nicotine addicts. They relentlessly marketed vaping products to underage youth, manipulated their chemical composition to be palatable to inexperienced users, employed an inadequate age verification process, and misled consumers about the nicotine content and addictiveness of its products. The full public health ramifications of this misconduct are yet unknown,” Connecticut attorney general William Tong said in a press release.
