Juul is paying $ 40 million to settle North Carolina teen claims
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It has become the first state to reach an agreement with North Carolina Juul over the company’s role in promoting e-cigarettes among young people.
Juul will pay $ 40 million and make “drastic changes to the way he does business” as part of the permit order, Josh Stein, the North Carolina attorney general’s office, said in a statement Monday.
“Juul has been directing young people, including teenagers, with a highly addictive e-cigarette. It sparked a spark and spread the flames of a vaping epidemic among our children, which you can see at any high school in North Carolina, ”Stein said.
Juul helped raise awareness of the use of e-cigarettes as an alternative to conventional cigarettes, but said the use of e-cigarettes among young people has increased, targeting marketing to them and not warning about the potential harms.
In addition to North Carolina, 13 state and Columbia district attorneys have sued Juul over marketing claims, including in California and New York. A team of 39 states announced a coordinated survey of Juul’s marketing practices last year.
Juul said in a statement that the North Carolina agreement “is consistent with our efforts to re-establish our business and our relationship with stakeholders as we continue to address the use of minors and the potential to reduce harm to adult smokers.”
Under its agreement, Juul will pay $ 40 million over six years to fund programs to help people quit e-cigarettes and prevent addiction, along with other research.
Juul is committed to changing its business practices in the state to avoid attractiveness to young people, stricter marketing and online sales reduction and verification requirements for people under the age of 21, as well as physical stores.
Juul has had a political backlash in recent years regulatory review over the marketing of products and their effects on health. According to one person who knew the situation, litigation concerns were the reason for the 2019 PMI tobacco group he walked away from the talks He paid $ 200 billion for a merger with rival Altria, which at the end of 2018 paid $ 12.8 million for Juul’s 35 percent stake.
After the breakdown of the merger talks, Juul he renewed his management, and Altria, the maker of Marlboro cigarettes, were later forced to take a $ 1 million cut in investment.
A 2020 national survey of youth tobacco conducted by U.S. drug regulators and the country’s top health agency showed that about 4.47 million young people use any tobacco product, while 3.6 million young people are using “very high” e-cigarettes. However, 1.8 million young people using cigarettes in the U.S. had 2019.
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