Common Council approves settlement in youth e-cigarette lawsuit

The Common Council today approved a settlement with Juul Labs, Inc. as part of a 2020 multi-district lawsuit alleging the e-cigarette maker targeted the youth market for its products.

Alderman Michael J. Murphy, chair of the Zoning, Neighborhoods and Development Committee, said the settlement will provide the city with approximately $2 million to help mitigate the damage caused by the marketing practices used by Juul.

In 2020, Alderman Murphy was the sponsor of the resolution that approved the retention of outside counsel to pursue vaping litigation against Juul and others. At that time, research showed that between 2017 and 2018, e-cigarette use increased 78% among high school students nationwide, from 11.7% of high school students in 2017 to 20.8% of high school students in 2018, and e-cigarette use among middle school students increased 48% between 2017 and 2018. Additionally, the increase in youth nicotine vaping from 2017 to 2018 was the largest for any substance tracked by the national Monitoring the Future surveys over the past 44 years.

“The damage done to public health, in my view, has been significant because of the aggressive marketing to children by the e-cigarette makers,” Alderman Murphy said.

“The detrimental public health impacts in our inner city youth population have been especially serious, and it is my intention to have these settlement dollars made available to the Milwaukee Health Department to help combat nicotine addiction in inner city neighborhoods,” he said.

Alderman Murphy credited the City of Milwaukee Tobacco-Free Alliance for its efforts in helping bring the case forward, joining successfully with other government (multi-state) partners.

NOTE: This press release was submitted to Urban Milwaukee and was not written by an Urban Milwaukee writer. It has not been verified for its accuracy or completeness.