“Don’t vape. Don’t use Juul,” said Burns in an interview with Tony Dokoupil on CBS This Morning. “Don’t start using nicotine if you don’t have a preexisting relationship with nicotine. Don’t use the product. You’re not our target consumer.”
“We think we have a product that is legal today, is tested for toxicity, and does not present, you know, a risk based on the guidelines of the category today to the American public.”
When asked by Dokoupil whether Juul is safer than cigarettes, for obvious reasons Burns refused to comment. “I’m not gonna comment about where I am in terms of that,” he said. In Fact besides the numerous lawsuits faced by Juul, Connecticut’s Attorney General William Tong has also recently announced that he is “investigating” JUUL Labs to determine whether the company has actually claimed that their device can be used for smoking cessation, saying that such a claim would be unlawful.
The interviewer kept pressing for the CEO’s stance on the matter. “Cigarettes are here. The patch is here. Juul is in the middle?” asked Dokoupil. “Let’s just say cigarettes are known to be the number-one source of preventable death in the world and are at the far end extreme of that– the continuum of risk,” responded Burns.
“We think we have a product that is legal today, is tested for toxicity, and does not present, you know, a risk based on the guidelines of the category today to the American public,” added Burns.
Dokoupil went on to ask whether Juul is toxic. “We toxicology test all of our products,” Burns said, adding that if their product was toxic they would not be selling it. “I can’t imagine we had the data to support that we’re selling a product that is damaging to the American public and we had that data that we’d continue to sell that product,” he said.
About the merger with Altria
“I have access to their 17 million smoker database that I wouldn’t have otherwise that I can target smokers very specifically and know that I’m talking to people that are adult smokers. I have access to all their scientific information related to [Premarket Tobacco Product Applications] that they can be helpful on. So there’s a lot of pluses in terms of fulfilling our mission that go well beyond any financial contribution.”
Burns acknowledged that the company’s credibility has taken a serious hit following the infamous merger with Altria, the sellers of Marlboro. “Most of my rationale for this is that they’re gonna help accelerate our mission,” he explained. “I’ve got access to retail space that I wouldn’t have otherwise. I have access to research that I wouldn’t have otherwise.”
“I have access to their 17 million smoker database that I wouldn’t have otherwise that I can target smokers very specifically and know that I’m talking to people that are adult smokers. I have access to all their scientific information related to [Premarket Tobacco Product Applications] that they can be helpful on. So there’s a lot of pluses in terms of fulfilling our mission that go well beyond any financial contribution,” he added.
Another Measure to Prevent Teen Vaping
Earlier this month, Juul announced that it is setting in place a new age-verification system at points of sale, aimed at keeping its products out of minors’ hands. More than 40,000 outlets from over 50 retail chains have implemented this system, including convenience store chains ExtraMile and Cumberland Farms.
Meanwhile in order to encourage retailers to embrace this measure, Juul which controls about 75% of the American e-cigarette market, will be offering over $100 million in incentives to stores that adopt the age-verification system by May 2021. Additionally, the manufacturer plans to stop distributing products to any retailers who do not implement it.
Once a store sets in place this system, scanning a Juul product will lock its sale process until a valid government ID is scanned. The measure will also automatically limit the number of Juul products that one customer can purchase, a feature aimed at preventing adults from buying in bulk and reselling to minors.
