PSUSD joins lawsuit against JUUL after ‘alarming increase’ in e-cigarette discipline

The Palm Springs Unified School District has filed a lawsuit against JUUL, as well as tobacco company Phillip Morris and its parent company Altria Group. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday.

Court documents show that PSUSD accuses the company of contributing to youth nicotine consumption through its marketing and designs.

"JUUL products are rampant in the nation’s schools," reads the lawsuit. "Consistent with this national trend, youth
e-cigarette consumption rates in Palm Springs Unified School District (“Palm Springs” or “Plaintiff”) continue to climb."

In the lawsuit, PSUSD officials say discipline and suspension related to e-cigarette use at its schools have increased at an alarming rate. This has caused PSUSD to divert staff resources for a diversion program.

PSUSD also reveals that it has had to close school restrooms to deter the use of e-cigarettes, although officials also said students have openly charged e-cigarette devices inside classrooms.

"Because many students who do not engage in e-cigarette activities do not wish to use the school restrooms even to wash their hands, Plaintiff has rented multiple portable hand-washing stations that have been placed outside of restrooms in an effort to maintain student hygiene and prevent the spread of disease;"

- PSUSD vs JUUL lawsuit

PSUSD also sites data revealing that in 2019, more than five million middle and high school students reported using e-cigarettes, including one in every four high schoolers.

In the complaint, PSUSD accuses JUUL of:

• Designing a product that was uniquely youth-oriented in design, resembling a common USB flash drive;
• Designing a product that was meant to facilitate underage use, both generally and by enabling easy concealment of Defendant’s e-cigarette in school;
• Designing a product with a nicotine delivery system that results in a quicker and more potent dose of nicotine to its users;
• Designing a product with as little irritation to a user’s throat, like that experienced from smoking a combustible cigarette, as possible to facilitate initiation of nicotine use by youth and non-smokers;
• Designing a flavored nicotine juice for its e-cigarette that was intended to mask the harmful effects of nicotine and facilitate initiation of nicotine use by youth and non-smokers;
• Marketing highly-addictive nicotine products to youth, who are, because of their age and lack of experience, particularly susceptible to
• Defendant’s targeted marketing preying on their need for social acceptance;
• Marketing a nicotine product to a population—youth—that, because of their developmental stage, is more susceptible to nicotine addiction;
• Marketing nicotine products to a population—youth—that faces an increased risk of adverse mental and physical health impacts from nicotine use;
• Misrepresenting, in marketing and elsewhere, the actual amount of nicotine that its product contains and delivers, as well as misrepresenting the amount of benzoic acid and other chemicals Defendant’s nicotine juice contains.

The company is currently engaged in a lawsuit with more than 700 school districts across 32 states over similar accusations, according to ClarksvilleNow, a digital newspaper in Tennessee.

In 2019, a JUUL executive appeared before Congress to testify against accusations from House lawmakers that the company was fueling the vaping craze among high schoolers.

During testimony, Co-founder James Monsees acknowledged statistics showing “a significant number of underage Americans are using e-cigarettes, including Juul products.”