Not only for us here tonight,
the vape company Jewel Labs will have to
dish out $112 million to New York State
on top of more money to other states.
After being accused of contributing to
the rise of vaping among young people,
New York State Attorney General
Letitia James and six other stas
went after the company in court.
The total payout is almost halfa
billion dollars when you combine
all the States and DC.
And now stores that sell jewel
products have to keep them behid
the counter and check ID.
The company is also banned from
having anyone under the age of
35 in their commercials and ads.
The attorney general said it's l
about preventing minors from va.
Taking a page out of Big Tobacco's playbook,
Jewel misled consumers about the
health risk of their products.
The E-cigarrete company falsely
led consumers to believe that is
vapes were safer than cigarettes
and contained less nicotine.
However, just one pod of Joule
contains as much nicotine as
a whole pack of cigarettes.
All right. Joining
us live now to talk about this
is Doctor Andrew Highland.
He is the chair of the Departmet
of Health Behaviors at Roswell
Park and the director of the New
York State Smokers quit line.
We appreciate you coming in.
It's nice to see you in person
instead of via zoom. Thank you.
So this is a big settlement.
It's a big dollar amount.
And I want to ask you about, you know,
where that money is going to go,
how significant this is.
But first, there was something the A G
said today that I think will startle people,
one in four high schoolers.
Said they vaped nicotine last y.
I mean, this is a problem that
continues at this very moment.
Yeah,
so youth vaping went from
basically zero maybe 10 years ao
to about 28% in high schoolers.
It's since turned the corner and it's
going down, but it's still high.
And that rise coincides with
the popularity of jewel.
Jewel figured out the chemistry
of the product in a way that
makes it more addictive.
To sort of tweak the chemistry,
tweak the product comes
in an appealing package.
And at the time they were,
you know, using young bottles.
They had suggested school curriculum,
all you're trying to, you know,
grow their customer base.
But it happened to be on the backs of kids.
As the ag mentioned,
I mean it really is reminiscentf
what big Tobacco was doing years
ago before that was shut down.
The settlement money is going to be used to,
to try to address this problem, right?
I mean talk to me about the
size of this settlement,
the amount of money and how it's
going to be used and the differ,
I guess you think it can make.
Yeah. So I this is a big deal, ,
but and and it is a large sum of money,
but it's not a massive amount of money.
And you know, in relation to the number
of kids that got hooked, $112 million.
Dollars over 8 years that's balk
about if you look at the jewel s
in New York today it's about the fine
that they'll pay each year is at
what their sales are in New Yor.
So you can take that for you know for
what it's worth and those salese
come down the right now the thew
York State Tobacco Control program is a
fantastic program and you know they've
really been key to helping redu.
Cigarette smoking rates,
they do a lot on vaping,
but there's very little like tax revenue,
other resources on vaping.
So if it's the presuming that tt
money goes to the state program,
it would really fill that gap ad
balance it out so that it they n
really address all the different
types of tobacco products.
So bottom line, I think it is a big deal,
it redresses a wrong over the ys
and then also puts a statement t
to companies that think that thy
might try to target kids going
forward that there could there's
going to be a price to pay.
You're not the only company, ri?
It's just one of the big ones.
So you wonder how the other companies
are going to be viewing this.
We should mention joy has alreay
settled hundreds of individual lawsuits.
Just this week the company had to pay the
state of West Virginia a bunch of money.
You now have what was just announced here.
But moving forward,
how do you anticipate this impag
what Jewel does specifically and
for parents watching right now?
Your message to them if if their kids are,
if they're using, yeah.
So you know, for jewel,
you know time will tell I think
for for George Jewels, a compan,
what this does is a reset.
They had lots of litigation.
They, you know,
congressional hearings on jewele
3-2 three years ago you mentiond
they settled with a number of states.
So this sort of like sets them d
sets them clean and then you kn,
going forward,
I don't know what we see with js
market share is it's in a freef,
other brands, other companies a.
Gaining market share,
so that that remains to be seen.
But for Joule,
that's why they would undertake some of this.
And then, you know,
for parents out there,
what we see with the vaping
products today is that they are
supercharged doses of nicotine.
The kids that are* today
are much more likely to be vapig
every day and that's the kind o,
it's an addiction that's
an addictive pattern.
And the brands that kids
are using now are changing.
Brands like Elf,
Bar and Hide come in fancy packages and.
You know so there's a little bit
of a whack a mole here so I'm nt
sure what will be in store for
jewel going forward is a company
but the vaping problem and kids
still persists and hopefully soe
of these resources can be used r
public education and help people
looking to get off tobacco to d.
No doubt I've got all about 30
seconds left here but I think se
people are still unaware that te
state smokers quit line is right here
in Western New York with Roswell
Park and and you run it how how
much of your focus is on produc.
Like we're talking about here
yeah so the New York State smokers quit
line the free service anybody iw
York State so going to quit cigarettes,
cigars vaping products they can come to
us 1866 NY quits you can text quit now
to 333888 go to the website free service
free medication for for most who qualify.
Most of the people that come
to us are cigarette smokers.
So the vast majority of disease
that we see at Roswell Park is
caused by cigarette smoking.
But increasingly, though,
we're seeing more people that
are vaping that are saying I,
you know, they feel hooked,
they lose that control and theyt
to try to do something about it.
The quit line is a resource that
can help among other resources.
Absolutely. Doctor. Andrew, hi,
Linda, thanks so much for coming
in and helping us understand ths
settlement today. We appreciate.