JUUL Labs Asia Pacific Scientific Affairs Director Dr. Amar Kureishi slammed the Tobacco Industry for their false advertising, calling out the act as criminal in nature during the 3rd House of Representatives hearing on e-cigarette regulation.

​

“The science of ENDS is evolving but we should not confuse this from the messaging of the tobacco industry from the 1960s and 1970s. That was clearly false information, that was a criminal activity...,” says Kureishi.

​

JUUL tries to further dissociate themselves from TI by claiming that JUUL continues to be honest and sincere regarding their claims of health benefits and risk ratio. Note that disassociating from the tobacco industry is a common strategy employed by the e-cigarette industry. They manipulate perception of the public by going so far as using different terminologies such as vape, vape pens, mods, and tanks in order to avoid being called “smoking”.

​

Recently, JUUL has become so popular amongst the youth that “JUULing” has become the common term for e-cigarette use. JUUL is employing similar misleading tactics and is no different from the tobacco industry who utilizes misinformation.

​

More importantly, in 2018 Altria which is the parent company of Phillip Morris and the makers of Marlboro cigarettes, acquired a 35% stake in in the company. In September 2019, an Altria executive replaced the former head of JUUL as CEO.

​

So if the tobacco industry is as criminal as JUUL is saying, and JUUL is basically being run by the tobacco industry, what does that make JUUL?