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Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL), led by 11 Democratic Senators, wrote a letter to Juul Labs, in which he asked a series of questions about product marketing, its effectiveness as a tool to help people to quit, more important perhaps, more information about the agreement that allowed Altria to hold a minority stake in Juul Labs.
"The corporate marriage between the two companies that have been the most prolific in marketing highly addictive nicotine-based products to children is alarming from a public health perspective and demonstrates, once again, that JUUL is more interested in by strengthening its profit margins only by protecting the children of our country, "writes Senator Durbin in the letter.
The letter's questions include information on advertising and marketing expenses for Juul products, as well as any changes made to Juul's youth prevention plan as a result of the transaction with Altria.
At the end of 2018, Juul announced that it sold a 35% minority stake in the Marlboro cigarette group Altria for $ 12.8 billion. The company said that a partnership with Altria would help the Juul market and distribute it to currently dependent adult cigarette smokers.
In the letter, the senators quote the American Heart Association, which described the Altria / Juul agreement as a "tobacco paradise match". Juul was already boiling over the popularity of his product among young people. It is expected, therefore, that a partnership with mainstream traditional tobaccos will further stoke critics.
More than the letter:
JUUL's decision to team up with Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA, is also bad news for children, knowing that Altria has spent billions of dollars to encourage children to smoke through campaigns. intentionally focused on science and health. effects of cigarettes. And their efforts have clearly paid off. According to the CDC, Altria's Marlboro cigarette remains the most popular cigarette brand among children in the United States, with 48.8% of high school smokers preferring Marlboro cigarettes. In addition, the proportion of high school smokers who smoked Marlboro cigarettes had increased dramatically between 2012 and 2016, with a phenomenal 27% increase. While JUUL has pledged to fight the youth efforts deployed by its modest voluntary efforts, accepting $ 12.8 billion from Altria – a tobacco giant with the equally disturbing track record of misleading marketing to hook children to smoking – JUUL lost the little credibility that remained to the company claims to care about public health.
A spokesman for Juul Labs said this in response to the letter:
We welcome this opportunity to share information regarding JUUL Labs' commitment to reduce the use of our products by minors, while fulfilling our mission to eliminate combustible cigarettes, the leading cause of preventable death in our country. . We agree that businesses like ours need to take concrete steps to limit the access and attractiveness of steam products to young people. This is exactly what we have done and we will do more to combat teenage use to preserve the harm reduction opportunities of the 34 million adult US smokers. Do not believe our word, look at our actions. As part of our November 2018 action plan to keep JUUL products out of the reach of young people, we stopped the sale of some flavored JUULpods to traditional retail stores, strengthened our compliance program retail and secret shopping, improved our online age verification system, We have left our Facebook and Instagram accounts and are constantly working to remove inappropriate third-party social media content. We support the FDA draft directive limiting the sale of certain flavored products, including JUULpods, in retail and online outlets, and will continue to work with the FDA, Congress, state prosecutors, local municipalities and community-based organizations as a transparent and accountable partner in combating the use of minors.
US Senators Patty Murray (D-WA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Jack Reed (D-RI), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) , Tom Udall (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) joined Senator Durbin in sending the letter. This comes just a month after the FDA has proposed new regulations for the sale of e-cig flavored products.
Juul has until April 25 to provide answers and information in response to the letter.
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