California Is Suing Juul for Allegedly Targeting Kids With Its Bad Marketing

California officials announced Monday that the state has a lawsuit filed alleging that Juul marketed its products to teens and youth through, among other things, its social media campaigns, ads and marketing, influencers who promoted its products, language that caught on with younger demographics like Juuling, and launching fruity flavors that appealed to kids, according to the complaint filed in Alameda County Superior Court.

Further, it alleges that the company marketed to kids who the company knew were underage because they had failed age verification systems. JUUL Labs, Inc., is identified in the complaint as JLI:

In addition to direct marketing to young people that the company allegedly knew were not of legal age, Juul also omitted important heath and product information about its e-cigarettes in marketing emails. According to the complaint, early marketing emails did not include any information about nicotine content or the fact that its addictive.

In a statement by email, Juul spokesman Austin Finan told Gizmodo that the company has not yet reviewed the complaint but said that that Juul remains focused on resetting the vapor category in the U.S.

Juulwhich has been roundly slammed by federal officials for its use among teenshas slowly taken measures to undo part of the epidemic of teen smoking that its products helped facilitate. Its pulled its fruity flavors for sale in stores and later from its site, for example, and the company more recently even pulled its cool mint flavor from store shelves.

But no one gets points for discontinuing their efforts to commit crimes and investigations into the companys early marketing schemes have dogged the company, as have lawsuits.

One filed just weeks ago alleged that Juul shipped 1 million contaminated pods earlier this year and failed to notify its customers.

Original article
Author: Gizmodo

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