After historic settlement, North Carolina AG pushes FDA to take action on e-cigarettes
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced a $40 million settlement against e-cigarette giant Juul Labs, Inc. on Monday. But he isn’t stopping there.
Stein also sent a letter Monday to Acting Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration Janet Woodcock asking the agency to act to curb the sale of e-cigarette products to youth across the nation.
The letter asked the FDA to prohibit all non-tobacco e-cigarette flavors — including menthol — to limit nicotine in the products and to impose marketing restrictions nationwide.
“I write to urge the FDA to act swiftly to take strong action to protect young people from harmful e-cigarette products,” the letter states.
On Monday, Stein announced a settlement with Juul more than two years after he filed a civil lawsuit contending the company illegally marketed to and sold its products to youth. Stein said he filed the lawsuit in Durham, due to its history as the former home to major tobacco companies.
The settlement limits Juul’s marketing and sales practices in North Carolina and requires products to be sold behind counters.
Juul’s 2015 launch
Concerns about youth e-cigarette use followed Juul’s launch of its namesake e-cigarette in 2015 with a splashy social media campaign that utilized high-profile influencers to help spread word about the new product. Juul wasn’t the first e-cigarette company, but it’s campaign, sleek devices and flavored e-juices vaulted e-cigarette use, experts said.
In the weeks following Juul’s launch, some health officials started to worry about the campaign for the unregulated products.
Serious concerns began mounting in 2017 after the National Youth Tobacco Survey showed an increase in youth e-cigarette use, said Matthew Myers, president of the national group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.
Investigations and lawsuits
In 2018, federal officials notified Juul about a related investigation and asked it to preserve related evidence, according to North Carolina court documents. Other state investigations followed, and in May 2019 North Carolina was the first of about 10 states to file a state lawsuit.
Later in 2018, the FDA banned many of the e-cigarette flavors.
Then President Donald Trump’s administration implemented a February 2020 revision of the federal policy saying most flavor products, except tobacco and menthol flavors, would no longer be permitted.
Meanwhile, the FDA’s efforts to evaluate and regulate e-cigarette and other new tobacco products was slow, resulting in a process of companies submitting their Premarket Tobacco Product Applications in September 2020, even though they had been on the shelves for years.
Companies will need the FDA’s approval on its products to remain on the market after September 2021.
‘Now is the time’
Stein’s letter states that the country is in the middle of an e-cigarette crisis.
“The explosion of e-cigarette products on the market over the last decade has given rise to an epidemic of youth nicotine,” he wrote.
In 2020, the National Youth Tobacco Survey showed that nearly 20% of high schoolers and 5% of middle schoolers used e-cigarettes, which was a decline from the previous year.
“An entire generation of youth is — right now — being introduced to nicotine through e-cigarettes, and we must protect them,” Stein’s letter states. “Now is the time for FDA to take decisive action to rein in these harmful practices before more irreversible damage to the public health is done.”
