This Mom Is Suing Juul Because Her Teen Is ‘Unable to Stop’ Vaping
Juul has become insanely popular among teens since the thumb drive e-cigs entered the market in 2015, and the company’s caught some serious flak over how much underage kids love ripping the things. Now, the mother of one 15-year-old is claiming her son got completely hooked on nicotine and is suing the company, alleging its products left her son “anxious, highly irritable, and prone to angry outbursts.”
According to Wired, the lawsuit—which identifies the teen only as “D.P.”—claims he picked up the habit at high school, where kids were apparently vaping everywhere, from the bathroom to the school bus to the classroom. His folks then decided to move him to another school, the suit claims, but he continued his habit, allegedly becoming “heavily addicted to nicotine.” According to the complaint, his parents even “removed the door from his bedroom and locked parts of their house to deprive D.P. of private places to Juul.”
“Despite all these measures, D.P. is unable to stop Juuling,” the suit states. “He is unable to avoid Juuling even though it subjects him to disciplinary measures at home and at school.”
According to Wired, the lawsuit accuses Juul of marketing its e-cigs in a way that makes them attractive to teens, and allegedly packs them with more nicotine than advertised—a claim backed up, in part, by at least one study. In what could be a move to combat that criticism, Juul is rolling out a new formula for two of its pod flavors, cutting their concentration of nicotine from 5 percent—roughly equivalent to inhaling a pack of smokes—down to 3 percent.
Meanwhile, Juul is facing two additional lawsuits from smokers who claim its products are more addictive than regular cigarettes, reeling from a study that shows teens might not even know all Juuls contain nicotine, and dealing with an FDA probe into why minors are so obsessed with its vapes.
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This article originally appeared on VICE US.