(Bloomberg) — New York’s top prosecutor is suing Puff Bar and about a dozen other makers and distributors of popular e-cigarette brands for alleged illegal sales practices and marketing products to children.
The lawsuit follows a two-year investigation by Attorney General Letitia James’ office that found the companies’ marketing campaigns targeted underage customers and misled consumers. The state said it is seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages.
“The vaping industry is taking a page out of Big Tobacco’s playbook: they’re making nicotine seem cool, getting kids hooked, and creating a massive public crisis in the process,” James said in a statement. The suit charges the companies with alleged civil fraud and public nuisance claims, echoing landmark litigation against tobacco firms in the 1990s.
The suit is the latest salvo in a prolonged fight over e-cigarette makers’ alleged targeting of young people with products featuring child-friendly fruity flavors and cartoonish names. While vapes are regulated by the US Food and Drug Administration, many unauthorized products continue to be sold because of weak enforcement and a flourishing black market.
The New York suit alleges that companies such as Puff Bar and MYLE Vape violated laws including the state’s 2020 ban of flavored vape products and the federal Prevent All Cigarette Trafficking Act that restricts shipping and distribution. In addition to damages, the state is seeking to set up a fund that will help alleviate vaping-related public health problems.
The companies allegedly targeted young people with bright, colorful packaging and candy and fruit flavors such as “OMG Blow Pop” and “Strawberry Donut.” They also pushed unproven claims that their products are safe alternatives to cigarettes, according to the state’s claim.
Puff Bar and MYLE Vape did not immediately return requests for comment.
Puff Bar ran social media ads during the early days of the Covid lockdown that described their vapes as “the perfect escape from the back-to-back Zoom calls [and] parental texts,” the lawsuit said. Puff Bar also marketed their products using viral social media trends, including the “Puff Bar challenge,” the lawsuit said, citing one social media post in which a participant appeared to be inhaling from 15 of the disposable vapes at the same time.
The legal efforts are part of a broader crackdown on illegal sales and distribution of vape products in recent years, with other players including health regulators and partners in law enforcement. A previous lawsuit filed by New York and other states against Juul Labs Inc. over the company’s alleged targeting of teenagers was settled in 2023 for $462 million.
The actions may be helping, with US teenagers’ vape use dropping by roughly two-thirds over the past five years, according to results from a National Youth Tobacco Survey of middle and high school students released in September. About 1.6 million school children reported using the devices in 2024, compared with more than 5 million in 2019.
(Updates with requests for company comment in seventh paragraph.)
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