Puff puff, pay up

Juul, the former crown jewel of the e-cig industry, agreed yesterday to a $438.5 million settlement with 33 states and Puerto Rico, following a joint investigation into whether the company had marketed to underage users.

🙅‍♀️ More deets… The settlement, which is set to be paid out over the next 6–10 years, also includes some stipulations about what Juul can’t do in its future ads. For example:

• No using cartoons or depicting people under 35
• No paying social media influencers, or advertising on billboards or public transport
• No placing ads with outlets unless 85%+ of its audience are adults

Though tbh, these limitations won't affect the e-cig maker much. It axed many of its previous marketing practices after coming under scrutiny several years ago.

⚖️ One lawsuit, two lawsuit… red lawsuit, blue lawsuit. But Dr. Suess jokes aside, Juul is still facing more than 2,500 personal injury lawsuits, as well as hundreds more cases related to underage vaping brought by local governments and school districts. These claims could potentially result in hundreds of millions of dollars in additional damages, Bloomberg reports.

• Plus, the FDA could still remove Juul products from the US market altogether.

📸 Big picture: E-cig sales increased more than 6x from 2015 to 2018, per a recent government study, from $304.2 million to $2.06 billion. And over that period, Juul was by far one of the most popular nicotine products used by kids and teens – though its recent use among that demo has been declining.