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Tag: San Francisco

  • Altria’s ‘Juul Trial’ Begins

    Altria’s ‘Juul Trial’ Begins

    Image: Tobacco Reporter archive

    The trial of San Francisco’s public school system against Altria Group began on Monday, with Thomas Cartmell, a lawyer for the San Francisco Unified School District, stating to jurors, “This case is about Altria, the largest cigarette company in our country, who helped hook a whole new generation of our young people on nicotine, causing a vaping crisis, a youth epidemic,” reports Reuters.

    Beth Wilkinson, a lawyer for Altria, told the jury in her opening statement that the company had aimed to boost sales among cigarette smokers seeking a less harmful option, not among teens. “You can’t forget about those smokers,” she said. “If you can get smokers away from cigarettes, it’s a worthy cause.”

    The school district also sued Juul, which settled that lawsuit last year. Cartmell told jurors that Altria, which was Juul’s largest investor from 2018 until earlier this year, when it exchanged its stake for a license to certain Juul intellectual properties, was “at the heart” of Juul’s strategy to grow its business by appealing to teenagers with sweet flavors and flashy advertising.

    According to Cartmell, Altria made its large investment in Juul after being unsuccessful with its own e-cigarette, and the company knew Juul’s success was driven by youth usage, according to Bloomberg. Juul’s device was “marketed to appeal to the young, cool, popular crowd” and was “packed with nicotine,” Cartmell said.

    Wilkinson argued that evidence would not support this. Juul sales fell after Altria’s investment, and Altria’s investment occurred after Juul pulled most of its flavored products off the market, according to Wilkinson, reports Law.com.

    The San Francisco schools’ lawsuit was chosen to go to trial as a test case.

  • Altria to Face First Juul Marketing Trial

    Altria to Face First Juul Marketing Trial

    Photo: steheap

    Altria Group is set to face trial April 24 in a lawsuit by San Francisco’s public school district accusing the company of fueling a teen vaping epidemic through its investment in Juul Labs, reports Reuters. The tobacco giant owned a 35 percent share in Juul Labs from late 2018 until March 2023, when it exchanged its stake for license to certain Juul Lab’s heated tobacco intellectual properties.

    Through its lawsuit, the San Francisco Unified School District wants to make Altria pay for the cost of tackling student vaping on school grounds.

    Thousands of individuals, local government entities and states have filed similar cases against Altria. U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco, who presides over much of the litigation, chose the San Francisco school district’s as a test case.

    Suggesting the San Francisco case lacks merit, Altria vowed to defend itself vigorously. “Most of the allegations raised in this suit occurred years before we made a minority economic investment in Juul,” the company said in a statement on April 20.

    The April 24 trial will mark the second time one of those cases goes before a jury. An earlier trial brought by the state of Minnesota, ended in a settlement, though the terms have yet to be disclosed.

  • Critics: San Francisco Flavor Ban Study Flawed

    Critics: San Francisco Flavor Ban Study Flawed

    Photo: yossarian6

    New research refutes a May 2021 study suggesting San Francisco’s ban on all flavored tobacco products was tied to higher smoking rates in high school students compared to school districts without flavor policies in place, according to the Truth Initiative, an antitobacco organization.  

    Led by Harvard University’s School of Public Health’s Jessica Liu, the most recent research found that the data for the May 2021 study was collected too early to draw meaningful conclusions.

    The San Francisco ban on flavored tobacco went into effect in July 2018. Enforcement, however, did not start until January 2019, according to the authors of the Harvard study.

    The May 2021 study used data from the 2011-2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) to determine smoking rates in youth after San Francisco’s flavor ban went into effect. However, the 2019 YRBSS data in San Francisco were collected between September and December 2018, before the flavor law was enforced.

    Given that compliance with flavored tobacco laws was relatively low in fall 2018 (17 percent in December 2018) and that few retailers were enforcing the restriction, data collected at this time are “an inappropriate data source for evaluating the effects of the city’s flavored tobacco sales restriction,” the authors write. “…the impact on actual access to flavored products did not really start to materialize until well after the YRBSS completed data collection in San Francisco.”

    Liu’s team also looked at Oakland, whose survey data on tobacco use in youth were collected after that city started enforcing a flavored tobacco ban in January 2019. Researchers observed that high school youth vaping and cigarette use declined between 2017 and 2019 in Oakland.