On July 25, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy held a hearing called “Examining JUUL’s Role in the Youth Nicotine Epidemic: Part II.” The subcommittee used some 55,000 documents in its investigation.

Members said that a division of the JUUL company, which manufactures e-cigarettes, paid schools to be allowed to present information. The company maintains that the programs were to teach students about the perils of nicotine addiction, and that they no longer sponsored such programs.

Matthew Myers, who is the president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, testified that JUUL was behaving in a fashion similar to cigarette companies.

        “Despite JUUL repeatedly claiming that it is not ‘big tobacco,’ the company’s actions paint a very different picture. JUUL has followed a sophisticated playbook perfected by the tobacco industry — targeting kids to build an addicted customer base for years to come even while claiming that they don’t want kids to JUUL, lobbying against effective tobacco control policies, and engaging in public relations campaigns to draw attention away from the youth epidemic they helped create.”       

He said:

James Monsees, the co-founder and Chief Product Officer of JUUL Labs, said that his company never had any intention of luring underage smokers. Instead, he said, JUUL was developed to help adults quit smoking cigarettes.

The company also is dedicated to fighting youth vaping, he said, by banning online sales to underage purchasers and not selling JUUL pods to retail stores.

He said:

        These far-reaching measures come at the problem from a variety of angles, and taken together, will help reduce access to our products so that even minors who desire to experiment with a product intended for adults cannot easily get their hands on it. We know this problem won’t be solved overnight. And JUUL Labs will not be able to solve it alone. It will require the shared effort of Federal, State and local regulators, governments, and law enforcement, along with parents, educators, community leaders, and industry all working together.        

In April, Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), John Cornyn (R-TX), and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) wrote the Preventing Online Sales of E-Cigarettes to Children Act (S. 1253).

For more, see the November 2018 Congressional Digest article on “Teen Vaping,” and the April 2015 issue on “E-Cigarettes.”