American e-cigarette company Juul Labs has agreed to pay damages worth 14 thousand crore rupees after making false claims in their e-cigarette advertisements. School districts, local governments, and people had filed more than 5 thousand cases against the company. It was stated in the petitions filed against Juul Labs that the company’s e-cigarettes are more addictive than the information provided in their advertisements, and with the advertisements, the youth can get addicted to e-cigarettes.
The company has agreed to pay the penalty in relation to the cases filed in North California, and Juul has entered into similar agreements in some other states as well, but this penalty is said to be three times more in comparison to other places. In order to settle the ongoing investigations in the matter of targeting the youth in many states, the company had agreed to pay 3600 crore rupees in September. The states carrying out the investigations were against casting young models in the company’s commercials. Objections were also raised against introducing fruity and sweet flavours which attract youth, in e-cigarettes.
After this agreement, restrictions on Juul marketing its products targeting the youth have been imposed. Nevertheless, Juul has always denied impacting non-adults. The company believes that it is not involved in wrongdoings, and the Food and Drug Administration is looking at Juul’s matter from scratch.
As per the lawyers representing the parties who had filed the cases against the company, with the new agreement of Juul’s, the cases against Altria, which has a 35% share in the company, will not come to an end. The agreement has not mentioned anything about immediate payments, but still, the procedure of the cases filed by 10 thousand people in this case will get initiated.
