United States: Universities make internal documents of manufacturer JUUL accessible

A partnership between the University Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) will make more than 4 million internal documents from North Carolina State's settlement with e-cigarette maker Juul Labs publicly available.[1].

The first 280,000 documents are now available online[2] and UNC-Chapel Hill and UCSF will release the remaining documents monthly, with the collection project expected to be completed in 2025. These documents come primarily from the North Carolina settlement, but also from the 2023 settlement with Minnesota in State of Minnesota, v. Juul Labs, Inc. et al, a request from UCSF’s Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education (CTCRE), the U.S. FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products regarding JUUL Labs, and documents received through a law firm associated with the JUUL Labs litigation.

JUUL Files Multiple Lawsuits for Aggressive Marketing Strategies

The company is the subject of numerous complaints filed by American states and individuals, notably for deception and fraudulent practices. JUUL is singled out for having fueled the vaping epidemic among young Americans.

Juul Labs was sued in 2019 by the state of North Carolina for illegally designing, marketing, and selling its vaping products to teenagers. In 2021, the state reached a first-of-its-kind settlement with the manufacturer JUUL, securing $47.8 million and requiring the company to make significant business changes and release many of the documents it produced during the trial.

The agreement also strengthened the ban on the sale of these products to minors, as the sale of Juul products is now prohibited in North Carolina for those under 21, including online. In retail locations, the products cannot be displayed on shelves and must be sold behind the counter. Retailers will be required to have ID card scanners to verify the age of customers.

Internal documents that confirm the manufacturer's marketing orientation

The documents contain information about Juul Labs’ business practices, research, advertising, marketing, and sales data. According to North Carolina Attorney General Stein, the documents reveal the targeting of youth in the marketing of the products. Several studies have previously shown that the manufacturer’s marketing was aimed directly at youth and that few adults used the JUUL e-cigarette as a cessation tool, despite the manufacturer’s claims.[3].

The Juul Labs documents will be cross-searchable with more than 18 million other documents in the Industry Document Library. The University holds millions of documents related to the tobacco, opioid, chemical, pharmaceutical, food and fossil fuel industries. For the tobacco industry, these have led to more than 1,100 publications and have had a significant impact on tobacco control in the United States and around the world.

Keywords: internal documents, JUUL, lawsuit, united states, marketing, vaping, e-cigarette, north carolina

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[1] University collaboration to create public depository of nearly 4 million documents associated with NC vaping settlement, UNC, February 1, 2024, accessed February 12, 2024

[2] https://www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/collections/juul-labs-collection/

[3] New study: Only 3% of adult smokers used JUUL to quit in past year, Truth Initiative, September 25, 2020