Juul stops selling fruit, dessert flavor refills for e-cigarettes
WASHINGTON — Juul Labs stopped selling fruit and dessert flavors Thursday, acknowledging the public’s “lack of trust” in the vaping industry.
The voluntary step is the company’s latest attempt to weather a growing political backlash blaming its flavored-nicotine products for hooking a generation of teenagers on electronic cigarettes.
Juul, the best-selling ecigarette brand in the U.S., has been besieged by scrutiny, including multiple investigations by Congress, the Food and Drug Administration and several state attorneys general. The company is also being sued by adults and underage Juul users who claim they were addicted to nicotine by the company’s products. And the Trump administration has proposed banning nearly all vaping flavors.
Still, the company’s latest step is unlikely to satisfy its critics.
The flavors affected by Thursday’s announcement — mango, crème, fruit and cucumber — account for 10 percent of Juul’s sales. It will continue selling its most popular flavors, mint and menthol, for now. A spokesman said the company is reviewing its products and practices and has not made “any final decisions.”
Mint and menthol account for most of Juul’s retail sales, according to analysts, and are the most popular flavors among teens.
The San Francisco-based company will also continue to sell its tobacco-flavored vaping pods.
The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids’ Matthew Myers said that Juul’s decision to keep selling mint and menthol shows “it isn’t serious about preventing youth use.”
“Juul knows that 64% of high school e- cigarette users now use mint or menthol flavors and this number is growing all the time,” Myers said.