Juul To Halt Sales Of Flavored E-Cigarettes In Retail Stores
(CBS NEWS) - Just days after reports that the Food and Drug Administration is planning to propose further restrictions on the sale of e-cigarettes, the maker of Juul announced Tuesday it is taking steps to curtail the use of its flavored products by teens.
Juul Labs announced it will stop selling its flavored pods at more than 90,000 retail stores nationwide, including convenience stores and specialty vape shops.
The company is also shutting down some of its social media accounts, which are popular with young people.
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In a news release, JUUL said, "We share a common goal with FDA to keep JUUL products out of the hands of youth. We cannot be more emphatic on this point: We don't want anyone who doesn't smoke, or already use nicotine, to use JUUL products – especially youth. At the same time, we are committed to improving the lives of the world's one billion adult smokers, with the ultimate goal of eliminating cigarettes. But we know that to successfully fulfill our mission of helping adult smokers, we must be trusted – and we must earn that trust. That starts with action, not words."
The company said its action plan to combat underage use centers around:
- Removing non-tobacco, non-menthol flavors from all of our 90,000+ retail store partners,
- Restricting those flavors to adults 21+ on our secure website,
- Significantly increasing our retail enforcement efforts,
- Shutting down our social media accounts,
- Ramping up our efforts to fight third party social media,
- And investing in future technologies to further limit access both in retail and on our devices.
"We are implementing this plan starting today," JUUL said in its news release.