MDH plans how to use funds from $60 million e-cigarette settlement

Nearly one year ago, Minnesota settled its e-cigarette lawsuit against JUUL and its parent company, Altria, for $60.5 million. The settlement was significantly higher per capita than any other state that sued JUUL over youth vaping and marketing practices.  

The settlement prohibits JUUL from marketing and selling to children and young adults, requires JUUL to accurately disclose the nicotine content of its products, and Altria must abide by restrictions on the sale of its own e-cigarette products.  

Minnesota, which also won a landmark $7.1 billion settlement against the tobacco industry in 1998, was the first state to take JUUL to trial. Youth vaping reached its peak in Minnesota, but prior to JUUL’s arrival, the state had been seeing the lowest levels of youth tobacco use in decades.    

“We saw how JUUL appealed to kids, and how inappropriate their targeted marketing was. The tobacco industry has a lot of money to spend to promote their products and get kids hooked. Sometimes it feels impossible to hold the industry accountable, but this most recent settlement shows differently,” Local 601’s Parker R. Smith, a Commercial Tobacco Prevention and Control communications specialist at the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), said.   

The bulk of the JUUL settlement is expected to go toward education and prevention programs aimed at curbing teen tobacco use. Over the past year, MDH staff have spoken with hundreds of community members across the state about ideas on how to best use the funds. “Once we have compiled the information, we’ll consider new funding opportunities, partnerships or programs might come out of MDH,” Smith said.    

”MDH has a solid network of grantee organizations across the state, how could we get funding out through those mechanisms and into communities more quickly? Can some of our efforts be amplified through programs we’re currently funding? Over the next few months, I’m sure we’ll be able to answer many of these questions,” he added.   

Smith has been at MDH for 11 years and primarily works on commercial tobacco issues. “Many of my family members use commercial tobacco, so this topic quickly became a passion of mine. And this work is fairly dynamic – e-cigarettes have certainly added a new element. We’re learning so much about how these products are used and what the dangers are. It’s an exciting field,” Smith said. “People assume the issue of commercial tobacco use has been ‘solved,’ but there’s still a lot of work to be done.”

Much of that work includes raising awareness of industry’s use of flavors to target youth, as well as the dangers of e-cigarette use and the implications for their mental health. 

In 2020, 78% of Minnesota teens reported that the first commercial tobacco product they ever tried was flavored. Among students who had recently used a commercial tobacco product, 85% reported having used a flavored product. “Menthol or mint” was second only to “fruit” as the flavor most used by Minnesota students who had recently vaped.   

Local 601 Vice President Sharrilyn Helgertz, a research scientist with MDH, recently produced a report on the hidden harms of menthol and how ending the sale of menthol commercial tobacco products would advance health equity in Minnesota.

Tobacco companies disproportionately market menthol products to Black, Native American, LGBTQ2+ communities and young people. The report highlights how ending sales of menthol and other flavored tobacco products would improve the health of Minnesota communities targeted by Big Tobacco and protect future generations from nicotine dependence. After Minneapolis and St. Paul restricted sales of flavored commercial tobacco and later menthol commercial tobacco products, youth use of any commercial tobacco product remained stable or increased less than communities without flavor policies.