Europe proposes ban on flavored vapes

European Union lawmakers are proposing to ban flavored heated tobacco products — a category that covers vaping — in a move they say is intended to protect the health of young people after a “significant” rise in sales of novel heated tobacco products.

The EU has set itself a goal of creating a ‘tobacco free generation’, and having less than 5% of the population using tobacco by 2040, as part of a major anti-cancer drive.

But the rise of vaping — with its array of youth-friendly flavored cartridges/pods, touting tastes like bubblegum, crème brûlée, mint or strawberry watermelon — presents an obvious challenge to steering young people away from smoking.

Announcing the proposal to amend existing EU rules, to remove an exemption on the sale of flavored tobacco products that currently applies to e-cigarettes and other heated tobacco products, the Commission said sales volumes of these products had risen at least 10% in at least five Member States, adding that the sales volume of heated tobacco products at retail level now exceeds 2.5% of the total sales of tobacco products at Union level.

Commenting on the proposed ban on flavored heated tobacco products in a statement, Stella Kyriakides, commissioner for health and food safety, said:

By removing flavoured heated tobacco from the market we are taking yet another step towards realising our vision under Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan to create a ‘Tobacco Free Generation’ with less than 5% of the population using tobacco by 2040. With nine out of ten lung cancers caused by tobacco, we want to make smoking as unattractive as possible to protect the health of our citizens and save lives. Stronger actions to reduce tobacco consumption, stricter enforcement and keeping pace with new developments to address the endless flow of new products entering the market — particularly important to protect younger people — is key for this. Prevention will always be better than cure.”

The European Parliament and Council will need to weigh in on the Commission proposal before it can become pan-EU law — although the health-focused ban on flavors seems unlikely to generate much opposition.

After the proposal obtains the backing of the EU’s co-legislators, the ban will enter into force 20 days after the delegated act is published in the Official Journal. The Commission says EU Member States will then have eight months to transpose the Directive into their national law — with an additional three months of transition allowed before the provisions would start to apply.

So the ban itself looks unlikely to be in place before the second half of 2023. 

The looming end to sales of fruit flavored tobacco pods across the EU’s single market of ~450M consumers is yet another regulatory blow for the e-cigarette market.

Earlier this month, the FDA brought down the axe on vape darling, Juul — ordering a company whose valued once hit the heady highs of $38BN to stop selling and distributing its e-cigarette devices and tobacco pods in the U.S. entirely, after it failed to provide consistent evidence about the safety of its products.

A few years earlier, Juul agreed to stop selling its sweetly flavored e-liquid pods — including its fruit, creme, mango and cucumber flavors — as regulatory scrutiny stepped up over concerns about underage use.

At the time, the e-cigarette maker said it would continue selling its full range of flavors outside the U.S. — but international markets are becoming less welcoming to flavored tobacco products.

Juul can keep selling vaping products in the US for now

A federal appeals court froze the FDA’s ban on Juul products Friday after the company sought an emergency administrative stay. On Thursday, the U.S. regulator took sweeping action against the e-cigarette maker, effectively killing its access to the U.S. market.

The temporary stay will be in place essentially to buy time until the case can properly be heard by the court, though it “should not be construed in any way as a ruling on the merits” according to the court documents.

The FDA took action against Juul after the company failed to provide adequate evidence that its products were safe enough alternatives to smoking. The regulatory agency said that Juul’s documentation left it with “significant questions.”

According to a report from the Wall Street Journal, Juul is considering filing for bankruptcy if it can’t get the FDA’s order reversed.

Following the FDA order, Juul Chief Regulatory Officer Joe Murillo said that the company would pursue a stay and planned to appeal the regulator’s decision.

“In our applications, which we submitted over two years ago, we believe that we appropriately characterized the toxicological profile of JUUL products, including comparisons to combustible cigarettes and other vapor products, and believe this data, along with the totality of the evidence, meets the statutory standard of being ‘appropriate for the protection of the public health,'” Murillo said.

Juul rivals Reynolds American and NJOY Holdings will continue to sell their own vape products in the U.S. after previously receiving the FDA authorization that Juul itself failed to secure.

FDA orders Juul to stop selling its vaping products in the US

The axe has fallen for e-cigarette maker Juul.

The FDA ordered the company to stop selling and distributing its ubiquitous vaping devices in the U.S. Thursday, a dramatic end for a company that dominated the e-cigarette market and was valued at $38 billion at the top of its game.

Juul will no longer be able to sell its vapes nor its 5% or 3% tobacco and menthol-flavored pods in the U.S. without “risk[ing] enforcement action” from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Retailers will also be prohibited from stocking Juul products in the U.S.

The FDA’s ban against Juul come after the company failed to provide consistent evidence about the safety of its vapes and tobacco pods.

“As with all manufacturers, JUUL had the opportunity to provide evidence demonstrating that the marketing of their products meets these standards,” Acting Director of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products Michele Mital said. “However, the company did not provide that evidence and instead left us with significant questions.”

In a statement to TechCrunch, Juul’s Chief Regulatory Officer Joe Murillo said that the company would pursue a stay and is exploring its other options to counter the FDA’s ban on its products. The company pushed back against the FDA’s characterization of the information it provided to the regulatory agency.

“In our applications, which we submitted over two years ago, we believe that we appropriately characterized the toxicological profile of JUUL products, including comparisons to combustible cigarettes and other vapor products, and believe this data, along with the totality of the evidence, meets the statutory standard of being ‘appropriate for the protection of the public health,'” Murillo said.

The FDA clarifies that its actions don’t directly restrict individual possession or use of Juul products, though obtaining the company’s vapes and pods is about to be much more difficult for U.S.-based users.

Regulatory woes had already cut deeply into the company’s valuation, but the FDA’s actions spell outright doom for its U.S. operations. Juul competitors Reynolds American and NJOY Holdings previously received authorization and will be allowed to continue selling their own products, though the FDA maintains that tobacco is harmful and addictive even when vaped.

Storz & Bickel new Mighty+ vape features faster heating, USB-C and UL certification

Storz & Bickel finally updated the Mighty vaporizer. The original hit the market in October 2014 and quickly became a fan favorite despite its unwieldy form factor and market-topping price. Users point to the quality of the vapor, airflow, and its certification as a medical device as primary reasons for buying the vape.

The new version is called the Mighty+ and features a ceramic-coated chamber, USB-C charging, a 60-second startup time, and a new mode that will quickly boost the current temperature. And yes, this version has little feet so that it can stand vertically on a table. The Mighty+ carries a $399 MSRP and is available for purchase on September 23.

The company also updated two of its other products. The Volcano is now available in matte black, and the Crafty+ comes with a ceramic filling chamber and USB-C charging that reduces charging time by 25 minutes.

Storz & Bickel managed to get the Mighty+ certified by UL, a US-based global safety certification company. The Mighty+ conforms to UL8139, becoming the first dry herb vaporizer to carry UL logo officially. To S&B, the UL certification is significant. The company has long differentiated itself from its competitors with a certification from TUV certifying two of its vapes, the Mighty and Volcano, as medical devices. The UL nod certifies the Mighty+’s components comply with the testing agency’s safety standards covering the electrical, heating, battery, and charging systems.

“The Underwriters Lab (UL) came out with a certification,” said Andy Lytwynec, VP of Global Vape Business at Canopy Growth, “and it created a bullseye target for us. It took a lot of collaboration with them, and we just recently achieved certification.”

Lytwynec explained that S&B sees consumers increasingly scrutinizing vaporizer options and feels the UL certification gives owners additional peace of mind that the device will not implode in their pocket. “For S&B, we think it’s the beginning of a trend within the vaporizer market for consumers to be a bit more diligent and thoughtful, saying ‘Well, hold on a second, like, has a third party actually gone through the rigors of testing this.'”

The Mighty+’s new features are incremental updates developed from customer feedback. The device charges over USB-C, which can deliver an 80% charge in 40 minutes. It also heats up in 60 seconds, and hitting the temperature button three times activates an even quicker so-called Superbooster mode that quickly bumps the temp by 59 degrees. The filling chamber is now coated in ceramic which, if nothing else, should make maintaining a clean oven a bit easier.

Mighty loyalists will be disappointed to hear the bright LED remains from the original. Some users find the screen too bright in a dark room and susceptible to UV light that dims the screens when outside. The battery system appears to be a carry-over from the original too.

The form factor is the same, except for the addition of tiny feet. The original cannot stand on its own, making filling the top-mounted bowl challenging without a 3rd party stand. Now there are little fins to help the Mighty+ stand on its own.

How do the changes impact performance? Unfortunately, I can’t tell you until I get the device next week.

I asked Lytwynec about the Mighty’s use of plastic in the top-mounted cooling chamber. Competitors are moving to glass or ceramic for improved taste, I pointed out. Lytwynec notes the Mighty+ is made of a new plastic polymer, and S&B is focused on using materials that allow its devices to be certified as medical devices. The company is aware of third-party accessories but feels the current cooling chamber offers the right benefits to the consumer.

The company also unveiled a new version of the Crafty+, its smaller dry herb vape. The new model features many of the improvements found in the new Mighty+. There’s also a new version of the company’s original vape, the desktop Volcano. This new version is finished in a scratch-free matte black finish and will retail for $699 starting September 9.

Jürgen Bickel and Markus Storz founded Storz & Bickel in 2002 and in 2018, sold the company to Canadian cannabis giant Canopy Growth Corporation. Jürgen Bickel remains with S&B and continues to run the day-to-day and drive product development.

Storz & Bickel sits atop Canopy Growth Corporation’s device segment. According to Canopy’s latest financial release, S&B recorded $24.1 million in the first fiscal quarter of 2022. This marks a 41% ($7 million) year-over-year increase. This growth is attributed to an expansion of its distribution network.

Editor’s note: A previous version of this article had the Mighty+ launching on September 16. That is incorrect and the article is now updated with the proper date of September 23.

Juul inventor’s Myst lands funding as institutional investors turn to China’s e-cigs

Over the past several years, institutional investors had largely shied away from China’s e-cigarette makers, an industry that was teeming with shoddy workshops and lacked regulatory oversight. But investors’ attitude is changing as China sets in motion its strictest ever regulation on electronic cigarettes.

Myst Labs, a Chinese e-cigarette maker co-founded in 2019 by Chenyue Xing, a chemist who was part of the team at Juul that invented nicotine salts, a key ingredient in vaping, recently raised “tens of thousands of dollars” from a Series B funding round. The financing was led by its existing investor, IMO Ventures. Thomas Yao, CEO and another co-founder of Myst, is a founding partner of IMO Ventures.

In March, one of China’s top tech policy makers published a set of draft rules that would bring e-cigarettes under the same regulatory scope as traditional tobacco, which means vaping companies will need licenses for production, wholesale and retail operations in the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter of e-cigarettes.

These changes will deal a blow to small producers with poor quality control, leaving the industry with a handful of established and compliant players, Fang Wang, head of marketing at Myst, told TechCrunch.

For one, standardizing production is costly, Li said. From ceramic coils, batteries, to fragrance, every component and ingredient of a vape will need to meet stringent requirements. E-cigarette companies will also need to pay tobacco taxes, an important source of tax revenue for the Chinese government.

The other challenge is how to lower nicotine content. Many current products on the market have a relatively high nicotine concentration at 3-5%, so if China is in line with the European Union standard of 1.7%, many small brands will be forced out of business because they lack the know-how to produce low-nicotine vapes that still satisfy users’ crave, suggested Li.

“We’ve received a lot of investor interest in the past few months. Before that, professional, institutional investors often avoided e-cigarette companies, but they are showing more willingness now as regulations take shape,” Li added.

Myst declined to list its other investors but said they include high-profile individuals invovled in the e-bike sharing company Lime, Facebook and the bitcoin industry.

Most of Myst’s current sales are from China, where it has opened 600 stores and plans to reach a footprint of 1,000 stores in the next few quarters. Overseas, the startup has a retail footprint in Malaysia, Russia, Canada and the United Kingdom, where it’s selling in over 30 shopping malls and a few hospitals through its distribution partner, Ecigwizard.

The new funding will allow Myst to further expand its sales network and strengthen its research and development. The company prides itself on its product containing 1.7% nicotine, which it claims can deliver the effect of a 3% counterpart. At her lab, Xing is currently working on e-liquids with “natural tobacco contents” and without organic acids, additives that allow nicotine salts to vaporize and be absorbed.

Myst is still a relatively small player compared to China’s market dominator Relx, which went public in New York earlier this year and is applying for a license to sell in the U.S. But Yao is optimistic about Myst’s future. Vaping, he said, is one of the fastest-growing consumer categories in China. Myst’s recent sales are tripling every three months.

“In other consumer areas, you rarely see a top player commanding 60-70% of the market, so there is still a lot of room for the top 10 players to grow,” the CEO said.

TikTok is being used by vape sellers marketing to teens

TikTok has a vaping problem. Although a 2019 U.S. law made it illegal to sell or market e-cigarettes to anyone under the age of 21, TikTok videos featuring top brands of disposable e-cigarettes and vapes for sale have been relatively easy to find on the app. These videos, set to popular and upbeat music, clearly target a teenage customer base with offers of now-unauthorized cartridge flavors like fruit and mint in the form of a disposable vape. Some sellers even promote their “discreet” packaging services, where the vapes they ship to customers can be hidden from parents’ prying eyes by being placed under the package’s stuffing or tucked inside other products, like makeup bags or fuzzy slippers.

Interest in flavored, disposable vapes that appeal to teens and young adults, in particular, has been growing in the wake of the FDA’s Juul crackdown.

In February 2020, the FDA first began to take enforcement action against illegally marketed e-cigarette devices, including those offering flavors besides tobacco or menthol, as well as those targeted towards minors — an action that was designed to target Juul.

As a result, disposable vapes like Puff Bar were adopted by some young people who were still in search of flavors like bubblegum, peach, strawberry and others. These cheaper disposables were easy to find, and continued to be available at convenience stores and gas stations.

But they’re also all over TikTok, ready to be shipped with anyone with a way to pay.

What’s more, when this content is reported to TikTok, it’s not always taken down.

TechCrunch found vape sellers marketing on TikTok who have been using the app to communicate with customers through both videos and comments. They also direct viewers to what appear to be illegally operating websites. Their TikTok videos often show off the seller’s current inventory of vapes, including disposables like Puff Bar in teen-friendly flavors.

Essentially, the sellers are using TikTok as a way to create vape advertisements they don’t have to pay for that are capable of reaching young consumers — an audience whose interest in vaping hasn’t necessarily declined because of the FDA’s action.

According to nonprofit tobacco control organization Truth Initiative’s latest study, use of Juul decreased between 2019 and 2020, but it remains the most popular e-cigarette brand among 10th and 12th graders who were current vapers at 41%. The report also found that disposable products such as Puff Bar (8%) and Smok (13.1%) have gained during this time.

“Taken together, the 2020 National Youth Tobacco Survey (NYTS) and the new e-cigarette sales data report illustrate how the current federal policy enabled youth to quickly migrate to menthol e-cigarettes (especially Juul menthol pods) when mint-flavored products were removed from the marketplace, and for inexpensive, flavored disposable e-cigarettes such as Puff Bar to soar in popularity,” Truth stated in September 2020.

“With kid magnet names like cotton candy and banana ice, the market share of disposable products nearly doubled in just 10 months from August 2019 to May 2020,” it said.

The scale of the problem on TikTok is also significant.

Today, U.S. teens account for an estimated 32.5% of TikTok’s U.S. active users, according to third-party estimates published by Statista. The company has around 100 million monthly active users in the U.S., it said last year.

Meanwhile, videos tagged with popular vape and e-cigarette brands and keywords have racked up hundreds of millions of views.

For example, the hashtag for leading vape brand Juul (#juul) has 623.9 million views on TikTok, as of the time of writing.

Puff Bar, the maker of a single-use vaping product with Chinese origins, has 449.8 million views for the hashtag #puffbar. Other brands have some traction, as well. #NJOY has 55.3 million views, #smok has 40.1 million views, and British Tobacco’s #Vuse has 5 million views.

These are just the views associated with the hashtag itself. For every search, there are multiple variations. For instance, #puffbars, #puffbarplus and #puffbardealer have 66.8 million views, 9.6 million views and 8.9 million views, respectively. Tags like #juulgang (590.4 million views) have become popular enough that anti-vaping content creators have adopted them as a means of counter-programming against vaping content.

These trends are particularly concerning given the large, young demographic that uses TikTok. A third of its U.S. users may be 14 or under, in fact.

In the U.S. App Store, TikTok is rated for ages 12 and up and on Google Play, its content rating is “Teen.” But while TikTok has modified the default privacy settings for young people’s accounts and has been quick to block other controversial hashtags in the past (like those around U.S. election conspiracies), it has allowed vaping-related content to remain easy to find.

In addition to the popular vaping hashtags prevalent on TikTok, we uncovered numerous vape sellers operating under obvious account names such as “@puffsonthelow,” “@PuffUniverse” and “@Puffbarcafe,” for example. Their pages were filled with vape videos boldly marketing their current selections, hashtagged with vape-related terms like #puffbarchallenge, #puffplus, #vapetricks and others.

In some cases, we found vape sellers had even tagged their videos with #kids and other trending tags.

Knowing that their target market is often teenage vapers, many videos depicted how the seller could package the vape inside another product or hide it in the stuffing so parents wouldn’t find out. We saw videos of vapes packaged underneath candy, inside makeup bags, inside socks, underneath other lager products, and more.

Through links published to the account’s profile or referenced in the videos, TikTok users are redirected to the sellers’ websites or even Discord channels where they would only sometimes be presented with an age verification pop-up.

Often, they could just add items to a basket and check out. Many sellers also directed their customers to pay using PayPal, Venmo and/or Cash App, instead of accepting standard credit card payments.

None of this is legal, according to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, a leading American nonprofit focused on reducing tobacco consumption, particularly among youth.

“It’s illegal to market these products or to engage in marketing that appeals directly to anybody under the age of 21,” Matt Myers, the president of the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, told TechCrunch. “And it’s illegal to actually conduct a sales transaction without age verification.”

Image Credits: TikTok screenshot

Plus, he adds, clicking a box on a website that says “I’m over 21,” does not qualify as a legal age verification for making these sales.

The FDA hasn’t issued specific guidance around online retail, but the law is clear that checking IDs is required to ensure retailers aren’t selling to underage users. That’s not happening with a pop-up box, and often there’s no box at all.

In addition, the FDA reminded TechCrunch that Congress recently established new limits on the mailing and delivery of e-cigarettes and other tobacco products through the United States Postal Service and through other carriers, which should limit access to these sorts of products through online retail purchases.

Myers, however, points out that the current FDA guidelines have made enforcement of this sort of “social” vape marketing more difficult than necessary.

“The images you’re seeing, the use of influencers, and the kinds of offers you’re seeing are governed by a federal standard by the FDA, which is very broad and very general,” Myers says. “The FDA’s failure to articulate clear, specific guidelines means that everyone is in a constant what I call ‘whack-a-mole.'”

Enforcement, then, often depends on the FDA stepping in, which Myers says happens “on a very sporadic basis.”

“In many respects, the behaviors, the actions and the things you’re seeing do violate the law. But the mechanisms for implementing it that were put in place under this past administration are woefully weak and inadequate,” he says.

Image Credits: screenshots of TikTok

Another complicating factor is that public health groups — like the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, for instance — don’t have a relationship with TikTok, as they do with other social networks.

Over the last couple of years, over 100 public health groups came together to ask leading social networks like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat to clamp down on tobacco-related content and the use of influencers in marketing. As a result of these efforts, Facebook and Instagram implemented new rules to prohibit social media influencers from promoting tobacco-related products and developed algorithms to pick up on that sort of content.

Overall, the health organizations have reported seeing a reduction in tobacco and vape content on top social platforms, but these efforts have not yet included TikTok.

The Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids has not given TikTok a comprehensive review, Myers admits, due to the app still being relatively new.  But from what the organization has seen so far, TikTok is of growing concern.

“We’ve seen some of the most egregious marketing, use of influencers, direct offers of sale to young people [which] appear to be gravitating over to TikTok,” Myers says. “And we don’t see any evidence that TikTok has actually done anything.”

TikTok can’t claim ignorance of the problem, either.

Image Credits: TikTok screenshot

When a vape seller who unabashedly advertised “no ID check” was reported to TikTok through its built-in reporting mechanism, TikTok’s content moderation team said the content didn’t violate its guidelines. This same response was given when other vape sellers were reported, as well. (See below.)

TikTok claims this shouldn’t be happening. The company told us that it will remove accounts dedicated to posting vaping or e-cigarette content as soon as it becomes aware of them, and will reset account bios that link to off-platform tobacco or vaping sites.

It also says its Community Guidelines prohibit content that suggests, depicts, imitates, or promotes the possession or consumption of tobacco by a minor, and content that offers instruction targeting minors on how to buy, sell, or trade tobacco. And it doesn’t permit tobacco ads.

Image Credits: screenshots of TikTok reports

Reached for comment over whether it was aware of the problems on TikTok, an FDA spokesperson said it does not discuss specific compliance and enforcement activities.

However, the spokesperson said the agency will closely monitor retailer, manufacturer, importer, and distributor compliance with federal tobacco laws and regulations and take corrective action when violations occur. In addition, the FDA said it conducts routine monitoring and surveillance of tobacco labeling, advertising and other promotional activities, including activities on the internet.

What’s been making matters more confusing is that the FDA has been accepting premarket applications for flavored vape devices, but has so far refused to list which companies — Puff Bar or otherwise — may have filed for these. That means health organizations don’t know which products the FDA has under review.

But the Agency told TechCrunch that regardless of whether a premarket application has been submitted, it’s enforcing lack of marketing authorization for any product where the manufacturer “is not taking adequate measures to prevent youth access to these products.”

That statement would then include these online Puff Bar retailers and their TikTok marketing efforts.

The FDA added that it has taken action against Puff Bar, specifically, in recent days.

It sent a warning letter to Cool Clouds Distribution, Inc. d/b/a Puff Bar, last July, notifying the company that it was marketing new tobacco products that lacked marketing authorization and that such products, as a result, were adulterated and misbranded.

Earlier this month, as part of an ongoing joint operation with the FDA, U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized 33,681 units of e-cigarettes, which included disposable flavored e-cigarette cartridges resembling the Puff Bar brand, including Puff XXL and Puff Flow, we’re told.

TikTok confirmed the activity we’re documenting is in violation of its guidelines and policies, but could not explain why there’s been such a disconnect between that policy and its enforcement actions.

“We are committed to the safety and well-being of our TikTok community, and we strictly prohibit content that depicts or promotes the possession or consumption of tobacco and drugs by minors,” a TikTok spokesperson told TechCrunch. “We will remove accounts that are identified as being dedicated to promoting vaping, and we do not allow ads for vaping products.”

With cinnamon, fruit and mint-flavored nicotine gum, is LA’s Lucy Goods the next Juul?

David Renteln, the Los Angeles-based co-founder of Soylent and the co-founder and chief executive of new nicotine gum manufacturer Lucy Goods, thinks there should be a better-tasting, less-medicinal offering for people looking to quit smoking.

That’s why he founded Lucy Goods, and that’s why investors, including RRE Ventures, Vice Ventures and FundRX joined previous investors YCombinator and Greycroft in backing the company with $10 million in new funding.

“We reformulated nicotine gum and the improvements that we made were to the taste, the texture and the nicotine release speed,” said Renteln.

These days, any startup that’s working on smoking cessation or working with tobacco products can’t avoid comparisons to Juul — the multi-billion-dollar startup that’s at the center of the surge in teen nicotine consumption.

“The Juul comparison is something that’s obviously top of people’s minds,” Renteln said. “It’s important to note that there’s a huge difference in nicotine products.”

Renteln points to statements from former Food and Drug Administration chief, Scott Gottlieb (who’s now a partner at the venture firm New Enterprise Associates), which drew a distinction between combustible tobacco products on one end and nicotine gums and patches on the other.

“Nicotine isn’t the principle agent of harm associated with these tobacco products,” said Rentlen. “It’s addictive but not inherently bad for you.”

Lucy Goods also doesn’t release its nicotine dosage in a concentrated burst like vapes, which are designed to replicate the head rush associated with smoking a cigarette, said Renteln.

“It is a stimulant and they will get a sensation, but it’s not as intense as taking a very deep drag of a cigarette,” Renteln said. 

The company’s website also doesn’t skew to young, lifestyle marketing images. Instead, there are testimonials from older, ex-smokers hawking the Lucy gum.

“I don’t want anyone underage using any nicotine product or any drug in general… [and] the flavors have been around for a long time.”

Joining Renteln in the quest to create a better nicotine gum is Samy Hamdouche, a former business development executive at several Southern California biotech startups and the previous vice president of research at Soylent. 

For both men, the idea is to get a new product to market that can help people quit smoking — without a social stigma — Renteln said.

“Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death in the United States claiming over 480,000 lives every year and costing the U.S. an estimated $300 billion in direct health costs and lost productivity. Lucy is committed to bringing innovative nicotine products to the market to eliminate tobacco related harm and we’re proud to be part of their journey,” said RRE investor, Jason Black in a statement.

How companies are working around Apple’s ban on vaping apps

Apple banned vaping apps in November 2019. Since then, the company has said very little about its decision, leaving many companies upset and confused about its blanket prohibition.

Three months later, companies are working around Apple’s ban. Here’s how they’re doing it.

Apple’s wide-sweeping ban on vaping affected apps from Juul, Pax and many others, including apps that calculate electrical resistance because they can be used to build vape components. It appears to have hit the cannabis industry at a higher rate than tobacco, as few tobacco vapes have a companion application.

The removal was sudden but not unexpected, given the climate at the time. In 2019, the vaping industry suffered a crisis as the Centers for Disease Control stumbled through a health scare caused by illicit products. Industry experts quickly identified a filler additive as the source of the illnesses, but these reports were ignored for months, creating widespread panic. Consumer sentiment promptly settled on the conclusion that all vapes are harmful, even when clear data shows the opposite. Vapes sourced through legal means are proven to be safer alternatives than other consumption methods.

It’s important to note Apple didn’t disable the apps or force the removal from phones. Apps that had already been downloaded continued to work, though they could not be updated.

San Francisco smokes Juul’s hopes by voting to keep e-cigarette ban

Voters in San Francisco have resoundingly rejected an attempt to overturn a citywide ban on e-cigarettes by a margin of around 80:20.

Reporting on the count in the Bay Area, CBS SF says at least 78 per cent of voters rejected the ballot measure, known as Proposition C.

The measure had been heavily back by e-cigarette maker Juuluntil just over a month ago. It is reported to have spent at least $10M promoting the attempt to flip the ban, before withdrawing its support at the end of September as part of a company-wider review under new CEO, K.C. Crosthwaite, that’s also seen between 10-15% of its workforce lay off.

The 2017-founded company, which has raised some $14.4BN in funding to date per Crunchbase, has faced trenchant criticism over the level of youth usage of its products.

In a statement responding to the Prop C vote, San Francisco city attorney Dennis Herrera attacks Juul — dubbing the company “Big Tobacco” — and writing: “San Francisco voters are too smart to be fooled by Juul. Juul is Big Tobacco, and it’s using a classic ploy from the Big Tobacco playbook to try and hook another generation of kids on nicotine. Voters saw right through Juul’s deception. San Francisco already has the toughest e-cigarette regulations in the nation. By law, e-cigarettes must undergo FDA review to ensure they are safe for public health. Complete FDA review and you can sell your product here. If you don’t, you can’t. It’s that simple.”

We’ve reached out to Juul for comment.

In October Juul announced it would stop selling mango, creme, fruit and cucumber flavored nicotine products in the US, while continuing to sell the flavors elsewhere. But it did not commit to permanently giving up on selling flavored nicotine products — in the US or anywhere.

Vaping generally has also been under a growing cloud of suspicion after a number of e-cigarette users died from an acute lung condition which appears related to the process of chemicals being vaporized and inhaled — and potentially to devices being used to vape THC.

Third party sellers hawk unofficial cartridges for e-cigarette devices such as Juul’s which can contain the psychoactive compound found in marijuana, along with other unknown substances. But studies have also shown that even popular e-cigarette brands don’t know exactly what chemicals are produced when the substances contained in their cartridges are vaporized.

“If the FDA can’t verify that these products are safe, then they don’t belong on store shelves,” added Herrera in the statement. “The U.S. Surgeon General has warned that we are in the midst of a youth vaping epidemic. Juul spent millions trying to mislead San Franciscans and rewrite the rules to benefit itself before realizing that was a fool’s errand. It could have put that time and effort into completing the required FDA review. If Juul had done that the day Supervisor Shamann Walton and I introduced our e-cigarette legislation back in March, Juul would have had its answer from the FDA by now. Perhaps FDA review is a test that Juul is afraid it can’t pass.”

Last month a lawsuit filed by a former Juul executive alleged the company knew that a batch of contaminated e-liquid had been used in about one million pods shipped to retailers earlier this year but did not inform customers.

Altria writes down $4.5 billion from its investment in Juul

Facing increasing scrutiny from international and domestic regulators, the Altria Group has decided to write down its investment into the e-cigarette company JUUL by $4.5 billion.

That’s roughly one-third of the $12.8 billion that the tobacco giant had invested into JUUL a little less than one year ago.

What a difference a year has made.

JUUL, which has become synonymous with the vaping phenomenon that has swept the U.S., was once hailed as being at the forefront of a wave of companies that were making smoking obsolete and nicotine consumption safer for consumers.

The company began running into problems as its popularity increased exponentially (in part by allegedly turning to some of the same tactics big tobacco used to target underage consumers).

As the complaints began to roll in, and as JUUL was held responsible for an explosion in the use of tobacco products among underage Americans, the regulatory scrutiny also began to increase.

First the company was compelled to limit its sale of flavored tobacco products. Now it may be forced to pull all of its flavored products outright.

None of the company’s troubles have been helped by the wave of vaping related illnesses that have swept through the U.S. causing several deaths in users across multiple states.

Indeed, a new lawsuit against the company (filed two days ago) alleges that JUUL knowingly sold contaminated pods despite warnings from at least one employee.

First reported by BuzzFeed, the lawsuit was brought by Siddharth Breja, a former senior vice president of global finance at Juul from May 2018 to March 2019.

Breja alleges he was fired for complaining about the charge — a claim that a spokesperson for JUUL called “baseless”.

“[Breja] was terminated in March 2019 because he failed to demonstrate the leadership qualities needed in his role,”a spokesperson for JUUL wrote in an email. “The allegations concerning safety issues with Juul products are equally meritless, and we already investigated the underlying manufacturing issue and determined the product met all applicable specifications.”

The write down by Altria follows an announcement from JUUL that it intends to lay off around 500 people — or roughly 10% of its workforce.