Juul's lobbying could send its public image in the smoke

During the last year Juul, the vaping sensation that dominates 70% of the US e-cigarette market, has been trying to cultivate the image of a decent corporate citizen who wants to abide by the rules. The company is known for its legions of obsessive young users who have embraced Juul's discrete, flash-drive ebb and nicotine pods in flavors like fruit and mango. When parents and school administrators, public health advocates and regulators raised concerns, Juul insisted that he only wanted to help adult smokers quit smoking

. Tobacco 21, a national campaign to raise the minimum age for the sale of tobacco and nicotine in the United States. In June, the company vowed to stop using templates in its social media ads and work with social media companies to remove the offending posts and accounts.

Moreover, Juul let his allies question his opinions. The company declined to take a stand on a controversial bill to facilitate the FDA's review of some new e-cigarette products. In May, Juul stayed away from a costly battle over flavored tobacco in his hometown, San Francisco. Then, in June, Juul sent an email to consumers asking them to oppose the proposed federal and local regulations to ban steam flavors because they would make it difficult for cigarettes to be abandoned for adult smokers. "If flavors have played an important role in your transition, please inform the FDA," the message says, directing consumers to a site where they could post a comment for the FDA.

More recently, Juul tweeted last week What baffled Alex Clark, executive director of Consumer Advocates for Smoke-free Alternatives Association, a advocacy group that supports electronic cigarettes and tobacco alternatives. "It has a different design, a slightly different formulation, but it's still a product of steam," says Clark about Juul.

Greg Conley, president of the American Vaping Association, thinks that Juul's hesitations are dictated by politics. "They were a bit too willing to sell smokers for 18, 19 and 20 years by agreeing to support Tobacco 21, but they were in a unique situation with hundreds of stories about teenagers using Juul," Conley said. But he thinks Juul will eventually join the rest of the industry in opposing government regulations. "There is a difference between supporting a policy and spending mbadive sums" to push it, he says. In January, Kimberlee Homer Vagadori, director of the California Youth Advocacy Network, was concerned to learn that Juul had proposed to partner with K-12. The tobacco industry began sponsoring prevention efforts with youth in the 1980s to prevent legislation, but it found that they did more harm than good. "It's just a marketing ploy," says Vagadori.

Juul says that it no longer affects schools. "We are aware of critics and critics of some of our efforts," said spokeswoman Victoria Davis. "But we can not be clearer: we want to work with policymakers, legislators, FDA regulators, educators and parents on youth education and prevention." We want to be part of the solution to move juveniles away from Juul. "

Juul's efforts come at a critical time for the company, founded by two Stanford Alumni who applied their product design skills to build a cleaner and more vaporizer. fresh. In December, Juul stepped out of its parent company, Pax Labs, and is preparing to raise more than $ 1.2 billion for a $ 15 billion valuation, up from $ 350 million in 2015.

The vaping industry itself is at a point of inflection: after years without federal oversight, companies now have until 2022 to submit a costly and complicated review process to the FDA. "

A s Juul's financial ambitions multiply, the company finds itself on the same side of regulatory battles as the tobacco industry that she hoped to disturb. This leaves Juul trailing awkwardly between his public image and his private sales pitch. Now, the company must convince regulators that it wants to repel the teenagers who made it famous, just as it tries to convince investors that a highly regulated material can evolve as quickly as lines of code.

Juul refused to do "We are investing in our Washington, DC office because we want to support bipartisan policies to help adult smokers in their transition path."

For now, cigarettes Electronic and vaping industry lurks in regulatory limbo. The FDA did not start regulating tobacco products until 2009, after Congress pbaded the Family Smoking Prevention Act and the Tobacco Control Act. But it's only in 2016 that the FDA has officially extended its authority over new products, like electronic cigarettes. A confusion of exceptions, extensions and lawsuits followed. For the time being, newly regulated products like electronic cigarettes are expected to retroactively go through a complicated review process with the FDA before 2022 without knowing exactly what the standards will be around vaping.

That's why the controversial bill that Juul refused to take a position is key. The measure, known as the Cole-Bishop amendment, would exempt electronic cigarette companies from the FDA's review if they can demonstrate that a new product is "substantially equivalent" to a product existing. It was included in a farm credit bill in May and is waiting to be considered by the Senate.

Records show that Juul has spent $ 240,000 to lobby the Congress on e-cigarette vape and regulation since last year. . But when WIRED asked Juul what his position was on the Cole-Bishop amendment, the company did not give a clear answer. "Juul Labs is looking to work with the FDA and Congress to establish scientifically valid and appropriate regulations for products [electronic nicotine delivery systems or ENDS]," the company said in a statement.

This worries some anti-smoking advocates. "Juul's comments are troubling – if they really want to be part of the solution, they would support an effective FDA regulation and they would oppose efforts to weaken the authority of the FDA and it is troubling that they do not oppose it, "says Vince Willmore, Vice President of Campaign Communications for Tobacco-Free Children." It's no longer an indication that Juul behaves as the tobacco companies always have. "

In this context, Juul quickly accelerates his presence in Washington.In the last six months, Juul has hired two former officials of the Ministry of Health and Social Services, the Ministry of Health. George W. Bush's administration and Barack Obama's other, for his new DC office Tevi Troy, the Washington bureau chief, co-authored a letter from the US government. opinion about Obamacare in 2015 with FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb.

N / A ciété also takes action at the state level. Juul spent $ 62,000 lobbying in California, registered a lobbyist in New York and was badociated with the Attorney General of Iowa, Tom Miller, who made a name for himself. as a big tobacco advocate.

In a recent interview with Politico, Troy, the head of Juul's office in Washington, said the company had a window this year to establish a regulatory regime and a legislative atmosphere and a leadership atmosphere.

"I agree with you that using a Juul is worse than doing nothing," he said in the same interview. "No one who does not smoke should take this product.Nobody who is a child should take this product.I have even a small text replacement on my iPhone.I just type a few letters and it pops up:" For smokers adults only. "»

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