e cigarette maker Juul is in the legal hot seat
. The company has been ordered to pay nearly$440
million to settle a two year investigation by 33 states
, which looked into the company's marketing tactics used for
the under age teen demographic investors found that jewel marketed
its cigarettes to teens and tweens through launch parties,
product giveaways and social media posts using youthful looking models
. Cheddar news. Senior reporter Chloe Aiello spoke to
the man leading the coalition of states against jules harmful
marketing Connecticut. Attorney General William tong take a look
. I think this goes a long way to protecting
kids and families in Connecticut. It's an epidemic in
our state and across the country. More than a
quarter of high school kids in Connecticut report using bait
products. And for a long time, Jewel was
the dominant player marketing the kids. But um,
this takes a big bite out of jewel. It
gets them out of marketing to kids. They are
no longer the dominant player. And so I think
this will be very effective in helping to stop the
growth and increase in surge in youth vaping. Now
to your point, you had mentioned those restrictions on
marketing. Additional terms of this deal, of course
, do you think that's going to actually help combat
teen vaping in Connecticut and beyond? Yeah, this
is a huge piece of why jewel was so effective
. You know, they don't use traditional print media
, television radio. They went straight to instagram facebook
. Tiktok went straight to kids with, um,
appealing marketing with young trendy looking models, influencers,
um, free product samples and, and promotions.
They have to stop all of that. Um,
and they can no longer target young people. They
can no longer put up billboards. Um, they
can no longer use these social media outlets to target
kids 13 to 17 in Connecticut. Um, And
, and I think that this is where the problem
really is. Uh, and these are some of
the strongest, what we call injunctive terms. Some
of the strongest mandates in any settlement agreement in any
case in which I've been involved as attorney general.
You mentioned a couple of statistics earlier about teen use
of vaping. And you know, from the recent
monitoring the future study, we know that these rates
are continuing to tick up to about 16% in 2021
from about 6% in 2017. What do you think
the health ramifications specifically of jewels, marketing practices that
this case sought to address will be moving forward?
So going forward, I think we're still gonna be
stuck with this problem. You know, I don't
, I don't have any illusions, um, that
this will stop youth vaping because it's an epidemic.
It can't stop tomorrow. We don't have the ability
to make, not just high school there stop and
young people, people in college in high school,
but there are middle schoolers who are using Vape products
and and drooling or using other similar products. Uh
, and so what we're facing is thousands upon thousands
of young people who are exposed to popcorn lung and
addiction and the adverse health effects of vaping, many
of which the science has not yet begun to scratch
the surface and understand. Um, and so long
term were to be dealing with the health ramifications of
this epidemic in the same way that we're still dealing
with the long term health effects of smoking. And
to your point, you know, this is cracking
down on Jewel, but jewel is far from the
only Vape company out there. As you mentioned,
it's market share has tumbled from about 75% of the
market to about a third. And there are still
companies out there who are producing these vapes with flavors
that could appeal to kids. Do you think this
case will serve as a cautionary lesson to them or
will we have to see more crackdowns in the future
? Well, it's, it's more than a lesson
in deterrent. You know, it's a demonstration to
the market that no matter how big you are and
Jewel was once the dominant player, um, and
control this entire market, um, no matter how
dominant you are, if you engage in illegal practices
targeting young people and marketing to them and using product
placements and influencers, um, we will stop you
and we will come after you and state attorneys general
are united on this republicans democrats. I'm a democrat
. Um, my colleagues in texas and florida and
elsewhere who are republicans are also part of this coalition
and I am sure that every manufacturer of a product
, every reseller understands that we are very serious about
this and we're going to go after anybody who targets
young people and breaks the law in trying to sell
, uh, these products to kids and to get
them hooked. Now as attorney general, what are
your broader ambitions for Connecticut when it comes to youth
tobacco or vaping? Would you like to see even
more restrictions? And are you hoping that this case
sets a precedent for these policies moving forward? Yeah
. This is part of a decades long work by
attorneys general. Um, it started with the big
tobacco settlements more than 20 years ago when I was
a kid. And so I have a 16 year
old and a 14 year old and 11 year old
. Now they're the ones that are targeted by jewel
and by other similar companies and by influencers and product
placements. But when I was a kid, which
is good a little while ago, you know,
I was targeted by the big tobacco companies. And
so when I was a kid, it was joe
camel, that was the cool character. And before
joe camel was the Marlboro man. And if you
collected box tops, even though we couldn't buy cigarettes
, if you collected box tops, you get cool
swag. What's really disappointing and disheartening is that these
same tactics reappeared again with jewel now they add flavors
and, and all these other new angles and strategies
. And so this is just a continuing battle against
addiction, part of a larger fight that, that
I'm helping to lead among the states against addiction broadly
. Um, and some even more severe forms of
addiction in the opioid addiction crisis. And so this
is a public health emergency that requires all of our
attention and thanks again to Connecticut, Attorney General William
tong and cheddar, Senior reporter Chloe Aiello.