closing bell here on cheddar news. Now the FDA
moved to ban Juul products and now Jewel Well,
they're fighting back after appealing the decision. A federal
court ruled yesterday that jewel can still sell its e
cigarettes for now. And in court filings today,
jules said the documents it submitted to the FDA to
save its product from getting ripped off shelves were mishandled
by the agency. Jules says the FDA overlooked more
than 6000 pages of data that shows people's exposure to
cigarette smoke was greatly reduced by the use of its
products. Meanwhile, the biden administration proposed the rule
today to restrict nicotine levels in tobacco products everywhere in
the US. So joining me now is James France
trial attorney for James France law Group, which offers
legal aid to residents of California who claim their health
has been impacted by Juul products. So, James
, what is your reaction to jules attempt to challenge
this order by the FDA and its claims that the
agency overlooked all this data it offered. Okay,
I'll have a couple of comments about that. Our
law firm represents 768 school districts nationwide, which comprises
approximately 50,000 schools and two million students. So a
huge population of kids that are using Juul, approximately
400,000 of those students are using Juul. So my
clients have a significant stake in this duel product and
I think that uh, as far as whether the
FDA misguidedly banned the product. I think that's absolutely
incorrect. The harm the irreparable harm is taking place
is against the schools and all their damages that they're
incurring on a daily basis because of the chaos,
the havoc that the jewel product is caused in the
school system itself and to the health of all these
students. So for Juul altria to say, oh
poor us, we're being irreparably harm. While you
need to look at the harm that you're causing And
you're causing a great amount of harm to the communities
in the United States of America throughout all the schools
in the 34 states that we represent. So I
don't think that the FDA got it wrong at all
. They're very conscientious. I've dealt with them on
many other cases. I've been in Congress and testified
their by products Safe man. They have the best
experts in the world looking at these products. So
jules making a last ditch in my view a last
ditch effort to try to get it back on the
market And I'm not sure what will happen, but
I'm hopeful that this appeal will go down in flames
. Really, I really am hopeful that it will
. Now let me ask, let me ask you
something. I want to show you a graphic to
talk about something else, not only about the students
and we'll get to the younger users later, but
I just want to show you this. A 2021
survey of tobacco Found 28% of people who use vapes
every day were able to quit smoking altogether And 45.5%
stop smoking on a daily basis. While only 5.8%
of those who did not use vapes were able to
quit smoking altogether. So what do you think about
vaping and jewel when it comes to getting people off
smoking in general? Well, first of all,
I'd like to know who sponsored the survey to determine
the reliability of it because when we deal with some
other products that were banned by the FDA, these
companies would use surveys and studies that were all fraudulent
and not based on science. So that's number one
. Number two, there are many other ways that
you can quit smoking without harming Children that now are
using the product. My beef is if Jewel hadn't
of targeted minors in middle school and high school,
we wouldn't have all these young smokers now smoking jewel
. And once Jewel's not here, they're gonna be
smoking cigarettes. And frankly, there's good evidence that
jewel is more harmful than cigarettes. The nicotine level
and some of the pods is as much as two
packs of cigarettes and one pot. So I I
don't think that those statistics don't do anything for me
. Go buy some Nicaragua or find another device to
quit smoking or just quit smoking. But we don't
need to have the kids being harmed because you need
the Juul Vape right now. Jewel blew it by
marketing to minors. Now we've got these out of
the bottle. They got almost five million new smokers
, They got what they wanted Philip Morris. Altria
got what they want and now they've got all these
new smokers, they're gonna make a lot of money
off of them. But they're, you know,
it's terrible what they did now. It was the
german network and the Health Journal when it came to
that study just for clarification as well. But jules
said that their vapes, this is their argument on
mine jules said that their vapes had less harmful ingredients
that an FDA approved Vape made by Philip Morris.
So the question is why Ban one and not the
other? It depends on what data that was provided
. And I would um I would believe that the
data that jewel provided to them was not enough to
show that it was safe. The FDA doesn't really
nearly make decisions. We're going to ban it because
we think this is uh it's outweighed by the arms
of the kids. They've evaluated this for over two
years, two years, Juul Altria had the time
to give them the information to show their product was
not unreasonably unsafe to Children and other users. Now
remember people that are using Juul are adults, They
may be exposed to the same hazards. It causes
lung disease and kids, why wouldn't do that to
adults? It causes cognitive impairment and it certainly causes
addiction. So I mean, I don't know that
it's such a great product to use to quit smoking
. And frankly now in jewel's court filings, they
said the FDA decision on jewel was influenced by political
pressure from lawmakers. While the FDA says the decision
was based solely on scientific data. Do you agree
with one or the other? I absolutely disagree about
political pressure. If anyone was putting political pressure on
the FDA would have been Juul and altria, they
have the money to do it understood the FDA is
looking at the harm to the Children. They're listening
to the school districts, They're listening to the facts
, the evidence from physicians, from neurologists, from
pulmonologist nationwide that are telling them there's lung disease going
on with these kids right now there's cognitive impairment,
there's addiction. So that's what they're looking at.
So for Jewel to say, oh there's some political
, that is a hokey pocus argument. I don't
I don't agree with that at all. Alright,
James. Now let me ask you, do you
think the jewel band will stop kids from vaping or
not have much of effects? Because there are other
vaping options out there. Jewel, from what I
understand is the predominant vaping device. The predominant pod
is the jewel pod and the vaping device. So
the fact that it won't be around in my view
and our view will will will dissuade Children and youth
from using those products altogether. I believe if they're
not available are readily available and it may be that
all the other vaping devices outside of jewel and pods
will be banned as well right now. It's an
epidemic in the schools. The schools are, districts
are telling us it's terrible how much money it's costing
them to curtail this in schools, all the added
staff and all the rest of it and the kids
are getting harmed. I mean it's so clear.
So not only are the kids in your, what
you're saying getting harmed, but I also want to
talk about the the addiction level. Because what do
you think about biden's maximum nicotine level proposal for tobacco
products sold in the U. S. Do you
think that'll have any effect on smokers? Either regular
smokers or just hobby smokers? I think it's a
great idea because it's obvious that what the ramification will
be, they will be less addicted when they smoke
, it would be easier to quit, right?
It's pretty clear. So that's a great idea.
And without banning cigarettes altogether and they're not going to
do that. We know that the cigarette lobby has
that one wired, but they're not. If they
reduce the nicotine level, it will curtail smoking.
But you know the cigarette companies in Juul Altria are
not gonna like that because they're going to sell less
product notwithstanding the harm they cause James France. Trial
attorney for France law group James, I love your
passion. I appreciate you coming on the show and
thank you for sharing your expertise