The Montana Attorney General’s Office announced Tuesday that Montana has joined a bipartisan, multi-state investigation of the e-cigarette maker JUUL.
The 39-state coalition is investigating Juul’s marketing and sales practices, including its targeting of youth, claims regarding nicotine content, and statements regarding risks, safety, and effectiveness as a smoking cessation device.
E-cigarettes, the use of which is often referred to as “vaping,” are battery-operated products designed to deliver nicotine to the user by heating liquid nicotine, derived from tobacco plants, along with flavors and other chemicals, into a vapor that the user inhales. Often e-cigarettes feature fruit and candy flavors, and the marketing has included cartoon characters and other imagery clearly targeted at a younger audience.
“E-cigarettes are often marketed to kids as harmless, with an emphasis on appealing flavors that mask their addictive nicotine content. As a result, e-cigarette use has reached epidemic levels among Montana’s young people,“ Attorney General Tim Fox said in a news release.
While traditional cigarette use has declined among Montana’s youth, vaping use has seen a significant increase.
According to the 2019 Montana Youth Risk Survey, more than half of high school students say they’ve tried a vaping product, and 1 in 3 Montana high school students report regularly using e-cigarettes.
“Our rate of youth vaping is six times that of adults, and last year, nearly 42 percent of Montana’s high school seniors reported they used a vapor product. Juul has a 60-70% share of the country’s e-cigarette market, and this bipartisan, multi-state investigation is an important step toward protecting the health of an entire generation of Americans,” Fox added.
