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Technology

Juul, Philip Morris Sued Under Racketeer Act For Targeting Kids (bloomberg.com) 112

Posted by BeauHD from the preying-on-youth dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: E-cigarette maker Juul Labs Inc. and Philip Morris USA Inc. were sued for illegally marketing nicotine-delivery devices to minors and deceiving consumers about the risks of vaping. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a 19-year-old, Christian Foss, who says he became addicted to nicotine and suffered worsening asthma symptoms after he began using Juul's device at 16, and seeks to represent all Illinois minors who used it. It alleges that Juul and Philip Morris violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, adopting the tobacco industry's past use of catchy ad campaigns aimed at children. The Justice Department invoked RICO to sue the industry two decades ago. "Mimicking Big Tobacco's past marketing practices, defendants prey on youth for financial gain," according to the lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Chicago. Philip Morris is a unit of Altria Group, which is also named as a defendant and which recently bought a 35% stake in Juul for $12.8 billion.
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Juul, Philip Morris Sued Under Racketeer Act For Targeting Kids More

Juul, Philip Morris Sued Under Racketeer Act For Targeting Kids

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  • Good (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:05AM (#59105206)
    Next to neck tats and track suits, vaping is the biggest dirt-baggy thing ever, and everyone should agree.

    • Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jfdavis668 ( 1414919 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:33AM (#59105308)
      No, chew is far worse.

    • So you don't care that it is bad for ones health. But because it is popular for people between the ages of 16-26.

      The ages of 16-26 are times in our lives where we want the following.
      1. Find our place in society.
      2. Find a Mate.
      3. Being able to exercise our newly found freedoms.

      As we get older we look at people during this age, and realize how stupid they look, however with nostalgia glasses failing to realize how stupid you dress and acted at that age.

      Neck Tattoos are not any worse then Ear Plugs, and exces

      • I got my first tattoo this spring, at the age of 39, and regret I didn't start sooner.

        • Did you get a neck tattoo?

          Or just a normal on say on your arm, or leg, where you can conceal it if you feel like it.

          • Right forearm, not large, about 4" long and 2" wide. And it has special significance to me and my significant other (she got an identical one on her left forearm).
            About neck tattoos, I have nothing against them as long as they have meaning and are visible in their entirety. The spider ones, for example, I like. The ones which look like a black-blueish lace are horrible in my opinion.
            Just like every form of art, tattoos (no matter where they are) can range from "of good taste" to "beyond ridiculous". Sadly,

      • Re:Good (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Actually, I do RTFA ( 1058596 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @10:07AM (#59105628)

        The problem with vaping is that cigarette use among young people was falling year over year. With vaping nicotine use is rising dramatically. To the point where I doubt the accuracy of your "most people who are currently the age of 16-26 are not ... vaping" statement.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by sconeu ( 64226 )

        Vaping is better then smoking where at least you are not stinking up the room.

        Where the hell is this magical world where vaping doesn't stink?

        • Still though, we've got a guy who never smoked inside at work. Tries to stop and takes up vaping. He's vaping inside all the time, he carries it around constantly and is taking small puffs furtively all the time. It stinks like hell but he doesn't take then hint when others tell him to stop or take it outside. I tell him to stop and he says "shh, not so loud, I'll get in trouble!" Never seen anyone addicted to cigarettes the way this guy is addicted to vaping.

      • Wrong, our species sells addictive products that kill to its own species. You falsely assume humans are an intelligent species.

  • Juul is scheming (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Riceballsan ( 816702 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:19AM (#59105248)
    If you ask me, Juul is Phillip Morris's plan to destroy vaping from the inside. Their goal isn't to do well in the vaping market, Their goal is to use their money to become a top vendor in the industry, then tank the PR, and hopefully get things banned so that more people switch back to regular cigarettes.
    • How does that make any sense?
      • The vaping industry is driving down smoking rates. However it isn't particularly great at fully killing nicotine addictions. When vapers can't vape, they go back to cigs. Cigarette companies may hedge their bets by investing in vaping to keep themselves alive, in the same way that coal energy companies invest in solar, wind etc... They won't let themselves get totally screwed if it does start eating into their business, but they'd also rather it fail and keep 90% of their resources into the cash cow that th

        • Re:Juul is scheming (Score:5, Interesting)

          by KixWooder ( 5232441 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:55AM (#59105370)
          PM doesn't care how you consume a product, as long as they get a cut. They want to own the vaping industry, so they can quit having to pay farmers for tobacco. Many vaping products already use synthetic nicotine.

          They know there is nothing, market-wise or legally, they can do to stop the decline of tobacco use.

          • Real tobacco or synthetic nicotine. Whoever wins... People lose.

          • They can never own the vaping industry, though. Tobacco is relatively easy to control because it involves a bunch of leaves that smell, take up space, have to be cared for to some degree (if you subject them to extremes of temperature or humidity you will damage them) and which have to be sourced from one of just a few locations. And that last is the big one. Vape juice is just a little bit of... juice. You can mix up all the expensive ingredients anywhere, hide them easily, transport them cheaply, and mix

            • Re: (Score:3)

              by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

              Tobacco is relatively easy to control because it involves a bunch of leaves that smell,

              That smell is amazing though. My grandfather used to grow tobacco when I was younger and would hang it in the 100 year old barn to dry out. That barn still has the smell of that tobacco(mixed in with some hay and sweet feed for the horse, making for a great combination). And I remember when I worked on the ramp at the airport and had to occasionally load shipments of cigars into bag carts. I would just stick my head in there and breathe nice and deep.

              Tobacco being smoked stinks though.

            • My family farms and used to farm tobacco. It's a highly regulated industry and no one can simply start growing tobacco just because they have land and want to make money. Well, you can how it, but you can't legally sell it.

              • I used to have a co-worker at Tivoli whose family was in the business, too. What you say backs up my point nicely, though. Tobacco is highly regulated, because it's highly regulable. Vape juice ain't.

          • PM doesn't care how you consume a product, as long as they get a cut. They want to own the vaping industry, so they can quit having to pay farmers for tobacco.

            If they wanted that, they surely do a piss-poor job doing it. They could simply buy out established vaping brands, which are (ALL of them) better than the crap the tobacco industry produced.
            Buy Joyetech, Smok, Vaporesso, Innokin, Sigelei, etc and voila, you own it all.

            • Phillip Morris owns a 35% state in Juul, at the moment.

              https://www.npr.org/2018/12/20... [npr.org]
            • Bottom line is, those products either have to succeed or fail, they can't buy and destroy everyone. Soon as a product comes out, there's 15 chinese knockoffs. The bottom line is, in vaping if someone isn't doing the job right... tons of other people would love to jump in, and even if they somehow could win the whack a mole game, the purest form of it, is unstoppable. Old school mech mods can be built basically by a monkey with some metal soldering iron and a battery.
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • Why do you assume they can "make just as much money selling ecigs". Bottom line is, they are late to the game, competing in an industry with dozens of small competitors. new ones popping up. They are a middle of the pack company, admitted growing to one of the largest vape companies. But on the whole to grow their vaping empire to be anywhere near the profits of the already built infrastructure of their existing cigarette industry is going to cost a lot... At least that's my opinion the only explanation the

            • Why do you assume they can "make just as much money selling ecigs".

              Yes, that's a bad assumption. If you're not assuming that they can make significantly more selling ecigs, you're making a bad assumption.

              Traditional tobacco products are an agricultural product. That comes with all the risk of farming, and all the overhead of farmers, transportation, and processing.

              Ecigs are purely a manufactured product. No need for hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland, no need for harvesting or drying, or transport of bales and bales of a perishable good. No worry that the weather w

            • Comment removed based on user account deletion
              • Why aren't they going to be able to make money on regular cigs? Like one european nation is doing a slow ban (IE raising the smoking age consistantly with the population) that I know of... most of the rest of the world is still fully valid to sell cigs in, and governments are used to and accepting of the risks of regular cigs, while ecigs be shoved down and banned with the right fear tactics early enough. I mean what's the logical explanation for thinking pushing ecigs to 13 year olds was if not trying to r

          • Why the fuck would Philip Morris want people to switch back to cigarettes...

            I don't like the evil corporation meme, but in this case it's right. It's money. Globally Tobacco is a half-trillion dollar industry annually. That amount of cashflow offsets a lot of future liability risk. Case in point, the 1998 Tobacco MSA only cost them $200 Billion and bought them off the hook for decades of liability.

        • I was a smoker since high school.

          This is anecdotal, but I can't recall the last time I took my vape out of my drawer at home, let alone smoked a cigarette. It helped me.

      • Nothing makes sense here, man. The only thing that does make sense is that nothing makes sense.

      • It doesn't. He's stuck in the 1980's, it's almost as comical as when people unironically use the term "big tobacco", which isn't a thing that exists in reality. Tobacco is on the way out and nothing will bring it back, PM knows that as well as anyone.

    • Just in case you were wondering. I don't think that's their plan. [newsweek.com] Now I don't think the plan is to stop making tobacco products overnight, I mean we are talking about a company that's been in existence for almost two centuries. But for first world countries, I think the idea is to phase out tobacco over the next 50-70 years. For other places, more than likely to stick to plant based operations for the next century. But yeah I wouldn't be surprised if in 2100 finding a cigarette in the US becomes a bit

    • Nonsense. Education had pushed it to where less than 10% of US teens smoked. But 40% of teens vape. It's not about keeping their current smokers over their last few years from switching to vaping, it's about getting the next generation hooked and owning that market.

  • Smells like a class action. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Fly Swatter ( 30498 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:22AM (#59105260) Homepage
    Which smells just as bad as those e-cigs. Only lawyers win money from these. This is the information age, if you aren't informed then you/he is an idiot. I have no sympathy for smokers, we have known how bad they are for decades now.

    • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

      by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @09:00AM (#59105390)
      Comment removed based on user account deletion

      • The thing is that it is targeted at kids.

        That's debatable. I did a search and found an article on Vox that shows their social media ads [vox.com] and while the people in the ads are on the younger side, they guys also have beards & tattoos and such. Sure, teens can have beards & tattoos, but it is less common.

        • And who thinks those people are cool? Yeah, it isn't adults.

          • fucking bingo.
            They're directly targeted at highschool aged kids by showing people they think are cool (people slightly older than themselves)

        • Seventeen is a magazine filled with pictures of 20 year olds chosen to impress 15 year olds with how cool they could be by buying the right stuff. The title does not matter. The age of the models does not matter.

          Vaping ads, same deal.

          The intended market matters. Pointing at the title or age of models does not indicate intent, as in this day and age detailed market demographic studies are the norm for these big companies. They perfectly understand who is buying this stuff. In fact, they have some data o

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Has anyone listed to their radio ads? Juul goes to great lengths explicitly stating Juul is not for underage and should be used responsibly.

          You can't make media designed to appeal to children and then change its nature with a disclaimer.

          I don't see many ads in general, so I don't know how much merit the claim has that the content was aimed at children actually has, but I know that your argument has none.

          • There isn't any merit. #1. Look at the beautiful people drinking beer. Young, vibrant, hot.. Same for any other item sold to adults. #2. e-cig ads are like beer ads.

            There isn't a "e-cig man and Scooby Doo Hour" making a cape-clad superhero out of e-cigs. Even if there was, the responsibility lies with the parents to teach their idiot children not to do stupid stuff, and the retailers to only sell to verifiable ages... but as we've seen with beer, it's not always successful, but it certainly isn't the beer

        • Has anyone listed to their radio ads? Juul goes to great lengths explicitly stating Juul is not for underage and should be used responsibly.

          So, kids, if you want to look like a hip adult, vape with Juul!

        • First, those disclaimers (which Juul fought) only started recently. After this kid was addicted to vaping. Second, you cannot just add a disclaimer and do whatever. Joe Camel had to go away because he targeted kids, no matter what disclaimers they added.

          • This kid is a future Darwin Award recipient. Anyone with asthma that begins smoking or vaping anyway is clearly wading in the shallow end of the gene pool.
      • My comment had an ignorant tone, however you have to draw the line of 'responsible individual' somewhere, yes legally it is 18, however in my opinion it should be the age at which you can drive. In my region that is 16 years.

        Is the class action trying to gain compensation, or child advertisement penalties/reform? Since I can't read the pay-walled article I am guessing it is the former, and a $lawyer$ found his client.
      • but is frustrated that the only tool we have to reign in bad things done by mega corporations is lawsuits that mostly profit a few lawyers.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Puls4r ( 724907 )
      Just let me know when the class action lawsuit against the soda companies for adding caffeine (a known addictive substance) to pop that is marketed to kids and adults alike. I figure with the amount of mountain dew I drink that I should be due some pretty hefty payment.
      • Well, you're not entirely wrong, but there's a fucking gulf between how addictive nicotine is vs. how addictive caffeine is.
        Your argument is kind of like me arguing that heroin should be legal because caffeine is.

    • I have no sympathy for smokers, we have known how bad they are for decades now.

      Which is why teens weren't smoking. Which is why Phillip Morris invested in vaping and advertising saying it was a safe alternative.

  • Vapists can piss off (Score:3, Insightful)

    by KixWooder ( 5232441 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:22AM (#59105262)
    No one wants to smell your second-hand blueberry fumes..

  • unlawful use (Score:3)

    by DredJohn ( 5279737 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:23AM (#59105274)

    Began using the device at 16, yet the age to legally purchase/use the device was 18......

    • Re:unlawful use (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Doctor_Jest ( 688315 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:32AM (#59105304)

      And in the decades of data about the addictiveness of nicotine (not to mention there are vaping choices without nicotine), they made the choice to vape anyway... and now they blame "marketing" for their inability to make decisions? I grew up in the 1970's where smoking was marketed on TV and in print... yet I didn't pick up a cigarette, nor have I ever smoked. Fast forward to now, which is an era where NO advertising exists for smoking traditional cigarettes, we still have people buying cigarettes and new smokers starting. E-Cigs were supposed to remove the stench of 2nd hand smoke and allow smokers their nicotine without impacting others. *shrug* Beats me how it became this shitshow. It's not just smoking. Everything is now "someone else's fault." I blame participation-trophy culture for the milquetoasts we have now.

      People who lack the desire to take personal responsibility for their own actions are the reason ambulance-chasing lawyers can afford Bentleys and advertise how much they get for their clients "in their pockets." No one from the tobacco company put that e-cig in his mouth. He did. Yet, here we are... blaming others for our own personal piss-poor decisions.

      • I mean, when you have Juul representatives literally going into high schools and telling teens that vaping is 100% safe, it's just cigarettes that are bad...
        https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/0... [cnn.com]

        • Where were his parents? You can't hide that smell.

          When my idiot son decided at 17 he wanted to be cool in front of his friends and tried vaping, I confiscated, destroyed and disposed of his paraphernalia. I regularly ransacked his room and took anything I found. I intercepted Amazon packages and destroyed them. I inspected his vehicle for contraband. I do not allow smoking or vaping in my home under any circumstances.

          Money talks. I hit him in the pocketbook and he finally decided it wasn't fina

      • Marketing is just the excuse.

        Extracting money from a large corporation is the goal.

        Follow the money.

      • And in the decades of data about the addictiveness of nicotine (not to mention there are vaping choices without nicotine), they made the choice to vape anyway... and now they blame "marketing" for their inability to make decisions?

        We know that marketing makes people make decisions they later regret, by manipulating their thought processes with well-known deceptions. How is that fundamentally different from any other fraud, and why should it be permissible?

        • Because it's called PERSONAL responsibility. I said in a reply to you earlier... it's ultimately up to you. The fact that they lie to tell you X makes you Y doesn't make them responsible when YOU buy into the bullshit. Why should it be permissible to claim anything in marketing? By your logic advertising is all bad and nothing but 100% honest, peer-reviewed, studied, unsubsidised, and non-profit claims should be allowed on the air.

          Are you stupid enough to believe that if you drink Corona you'll be hanging

          • You're acting like personal responsibility is some kind of natural law, but in order to prove that, you're going to have to first prove the existence of free will.

            However, it is in practice an irrelevant question. If we want society to work, sometimes we have to protect people from their worst impulses, as a means of protecting society from them as well.

      • One of the larger ironies at work here is that accordingly, teens are apparently too young or ignorant to know that nicotine is addictive despite decades of that being common knowledge; or perhaps they just lack judgment, or succumb to peer pressure too easily, etc.. but "obviously" they're just not old enough to make responsible decisions regarding their well being, so it's a corporations fault, 100%.
        But hey, let's vote to move the voting age down to 16, where these same poor, easily misguided lambs can he

        • I, for one, am not interested in lowering the voting age.

          Lots of states used to have a voting age of 21. The reason we have a consistent 18 year voting age is the argument was made that it is immoral to draft a person as adult enough to fight and die in a war in SE Asia, while denying them the right to vote. As a general principle, this argument was very powerful, and the courts were persuaded to intervene.

          • As a general principle, this argument was very powerful, and the courts were persuaded to intervene.

            The argument was very powerful, so the US passed the 26th constitutional amendment. The courts don't tend to deal with "fairness" no matter what right-wing nonsense about judicial activism you've heard.

          • I would generally be in favor of raising the voting age, but that argument IS powerful.
            I don't think it's OK to send people into war without a right to vote. It feels a little too much like an army of conscripts.
            Is the draft conscription? Sure. But at least they have a vote on the government that chose to draft.
          • 18 year olds should vote because they have the most to lose. They're the ones that have to deal with the mess caused by the old folk. I'm going to be cleaning up the messes left by boomers the rest of my (probably short) life. My kid too. Hell, her grandchildren might be.
      • kids are not expected to have perfect judgement, and that's before we discuss whether they have access to the information. Remember, Vaping isn't smoking, and there's very little research on it, so all the anti-smoking stuff is targeted at cigarettes and occasionally crap like chewing tobacco. Now, you and I, being old dudes, and extrapolate.

        I don't expect a teenager to. If I did then we'd let them drink, do away with drivers licenses (after all, everybody's expected to have prefect judgement) and vote

    • It isn't illegal for the kid to use it. Just to purchase it.
      At least that is the normal justification I hear.

      The vaping companies officially tout there product as an aid to stop smoking. However they sell it as a life style enhancement, where you will look cool to your friends and peers. While subbing those crotchety old Boomers and Gen Xers who call you hipster millennials.

      By the time someone gets to 18, or 21 years of age. Their presser to conform to their peer groups begins to decline. So they keep t

      • It's even better than that. One of the marketing pushes is that old people hate it, smokers and non-smokers alike. What better way to market to kids?

  • E-Cigarettes, Fast Food, Loot boxes all marketing to people too young. These companies make a fuss about “adult choice” but brainwash them before they can make it. Too bad banks would rather freeze the funds of cryptocurrency users than corporate abusers of children.

    I’m almost 500lbs due to being abused with so called “tasty” food and it was only seeing what my dad went through that made me not smoke.
    • It's not brainwashing, it's people with little to no impulse control. You choose to over eat, should restaurants refuse you service because of your weight?
      • they don't have self control because nobody is born with self control. It's something you learn. And kids are impressionable. We've known that for centuries. The Bible even talks about it. Kids believe things they see without question because they haven't really learned to question.

        Yes, that goes right up through your teenage years. We mistake cynicism and teen angst for critical thinking.
    • back in the 50s and 60s there were hearings about whether people should be able to target any adverts to children. Plenty of experts were brought forward to say just how bad it was, but there was way, way too much money to be made for anyone to listen.

      What I found fascinating wasn't that this played out like that, but that we were even allowed to have a discussion on it by our corporate masters.

  • RICO (Score:5, Informative)

    by Kohath ( 38547 ) on Tuesday August 20, 2019 @08:44AM (#59105338)

    It's not RICO, dammit. [popehat.com]

  • Why do journalists advertise these frivolous cases without even a shred of evidence. At least include some offending advertisements or something so the reader can get a feel for whether this is really story worth paying attention too rather than just "X party sued Y." Like give a single example of the potentially disputed marketing tactics.

    • Journalists wait until the lawyers present the evidence in court, as they don't know what will be used (or allowed) in the case. Among other things they don't want to taint the jury pool, but especially they want to remain neutral for legal reasons. But if you need a source [cnn.com] here you go.

  • Juul is owned by a tobacco company. Its purpose is to fall on its sword, dragging vaping down under regulation.

    The owners would cheer this lawsuit as the other vaping companies are next if it succeeds.

    Juul is touting how responsible it is by removing its sales from "97,000" non-tobacco stores. Yes, because it cares about kids, and not because they are pushing for legislation to force the other vaping companies to do the same.

    • Juul's purpose is to addict the next generation. And they are succeeding. There are 4.5x as many teen vapers now as there were teen smokers a decade ago.

  • Or are they too big?

  • does it. This is just a lawyer after a fat sack of cash in the form of class action. Lawyer gets a few million bucks, Juul and Morris get indemnified from future harm.

    My Mom got hooked on Cigarettes as a kid, died of lung cancer from them in her 50s. Tried repeatedly to get off the things. A Nurse, she knew they were killing her but she had some mental issues that made it damn near impossible to quit. Plenty of people like that, and if all else fails you jack up the nicotine content with cross breeding.
    • Similar story for an aunt of mine; sadly, I don't know that she ever made a worthy attempt at quitting.

    • My Mom got hooked on Cigarettes as a kid, died of lung cancer from them in her 50s. Tried repeatedly to get off the things.

      My mom smoked when she was young. When her father died of lung cancer, she went cold turkey, and has never smoked since.

      And yes, the plural of "anecdote" is not "data"...

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