Lawsuit Claims Juul Purchased Ad Space on Children’s Websites

Massachusetts filed a lawsuit against Juul Labs this week, alleging the company purchased ads on websites aimed at children and teens, such as Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., The Cartoon Network and Seventeen Magazine.

The lawsuit alleges that Juul intentionally hired young-seeming models for their Vaporized campaign, according to CNN. Illinois, California and New York have also filed lawsuits against Juul for allegedly advertising to children. Massachusetts is the first state to cite internal documents that lay out the company’s advertising strategy, the article notes.

Juul also purchased ads on a variety of other websites designed for kids, including websites to help middle school and high school students develop their math and social studies skills, including coolmath-games.com and socialstudiesforkids.com, the lawsuit alleges.

“Juul is responsible for the millions of young people nationwide who are addicted to e-cigarettes, reversing decades of progress in combatting underage tobacco and nicotine use,” Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey said in a news release. “Our lawsuit sheds new light on the company’s intent to target young people, and we are going to make them pay for the public health crisis they caused in Massachusetts.”