FDA surprises Silicon Valley e-cig startup Juul and seizes documents

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• In a surprise visit, representatives from the Food and Drug
  Administration showed up to the headquarters of Silicon Valley
  
  e-cig startup Juul and seized “thousands of pages of
  documents.”
• The FDA has not yet released details on the visit, but the
  agency is currently running an investigation into whether or not
  the startup
  marketed its products to teens.
• Valued recently at
  $15 billion, Juul has also faced a
  growing backlash of lawsuits and investigations related to
  its public health impacts on young people.
  

Federal representatives recently surprised the staff of Silicon
Valley e-cig startup Juul by showing up unannounced to their
headquarters in San Francisco.

During the unannounced visit to the five-story warehouse in the
city’s industrial Dogpatch neighborhood, Food and Drug
Administration employees seized “thousands of pages of
documents,”
CNBC reported on Tuesday.

The agency is currently in the middle of an investigation into
whether or not the startup — recently valued at
$15 billion —
marketed its sleek vaping devices to teens.

In a statement provided to CNBC, the agency said it was seeking
“further documentation related to Juul’s sales and marketing
practices, among other things.”

The visit comes on the heels of the FDA’s recent announcement
that it would crack down on e-cigarette manufacturers to submit
plans to address the illegal use of their products among minors
and just weeks after Juul co-founder and chief product officer
James Monsees spoke on the main stage at TechCrunch’s Disrupt SF
conference, one of the world’s largest gatherings for tech
startups.

“Juul products are as safe as the FDA allows them to be,” Monsees
said during the event.

A growing backlash from public health experts and the FDA

California Department of Public
Health

In April, the FDA launched an investigation into Juul’s marketing
practices to see if the company targeted teens.

In a letter to the company, the agency wrote: “Widespread reports
of youth use of Juul products are of great public health concern
and no child or teenager should ever use any tobacco product.
Juul products may have features that make them more appealing to
kids and easier to use, thus causing increased initiation and/or
use among youth.”

Since April, Juul consumers have also filed several lawsuits
against the company —
most of them on behalf of teens— for what they allege are
deceptive marketing practices that didn’t clearly outline how
addictive nicotine is.

Then in June, voters in San Francisco approved a ban on
flavored tobacco products that includes Juul cartridges,
called Juul Pods.

“Most scientists believe flavorings are used to target teenagers
into becoming users,” Rule told Business Insider. “There are of
course many other factors such as marketing and peer-pressure,
but when you look at the flavoring names, one has to wonder.”

San Francisco has led the nation with similar types of
initiatives in the past, such as its 2007 ban on plastic bags,
which went statewide in 2014 and has since been copied in

13 other US cities.

Also this summer, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey

launched a probe to find out whether Juul had marketed its
products directly to young people in a way that could violate
consumer protections in the state.

And in September, Israel — a country that Juul had plans to
expand in — became the
first country to ban Juul devices entirely.

“Just when teen cigarette use has hit a record low, Juuling and
vaping have become an epidemic in our schools with products that
seem targeted to get young people hooked on nicotine,” Healey
said in a statement. “I am investigating Juul … to keep these
highly addictive products out of the hands of children.”

If you’re a current or former Juul or Pax employee with a
story to share, email this reporter at
[email protected].