The Juul of denial
Curbs flavored e-cigs as FDA hovers
As the Food and Drug Administration prepares to crack down on e-cigarettes, Juul is working to get in the agency’s good graces.
The San Francisco-based company, which captures an estimated 75 percent of the e-cig market, said Tuesday that it stopped accepting retail orders for its mango, fruit, creme and cucumber pods until those shops have age-verification technology and procedures in place.
Menthol, mint and traditional tobacco flavors can still be bought in stores.
Juul also on Tuesday said it will be curbing its social media activity.
The e-cigarette maker plans to shut down its US-based Facebook and Instagram accounts. Its Twitter account will stay active but will not be used for promotional purposes.
And Juul’s YouTube account will focus on testimonials from smokers who successfully switched from regular cigarettes to Juul products.
“For us to successfully fulfill our mission of helping adult smokers, we must be trusted — and we must earn that trust,” Juul Chief Executive Kevin Burns said.
Juul’s moves come ahead of an expected announcement from the FDA this week to pull flavored e-cigs off convenience store and gas station shelves in an effort to tamp down on what it has called the “epidemic” of teen e-cig use.
“Our intent was never to have youth use Juul. But they are,” Burns said in a video message Tuesday.
The FDA has been cracking down on all e-cig makers, but Juul, with its sleek design, fruity flavored pods and youthful marketing campaigns, garnered extra scrutiny.
Juul’s headquarters were raided by the FDA in September with the watchdogs walking away with more than a thousand pages of documents pertaining to Juul’s sales and marketing practices.
But while store purchases of the flavored pods are on hold, the products can still be bought on Juul’s Web site, which will be adding more age-verification technology
Web sales will be capped to prevent legal users from buying in bulk to distribute to minors.