Josh Stein, Our Crusading Attorney General

 

“Juul sparked and spread a disease, the disease of nicotine addiction. They did it to teenagers across North Carolina and this country, simply to make money. Their greed is not only reprehensible, it is unlawful and that is why I took action.”

--NC Attorney General Josh Stein

Josh Stein announced a legal settlement yesterday whereby the vaping giant Juul will pay $40 million to the state of North Carolina for the addiction it delivered to hundreds -- thousands -- of the state's teenagers. Juul settled to avoid an even bigger judgment of $80 million against it. 

Stein was the first attorney general in the country to bring a civil action against Juul. Now many other attorneys general are following his lead.

Stein also sent a letter Monday to the Acting Commissioner for the Food and Drug Administration Janet Woodcock asking the agency to act to curb the sale of e-cigarette products and to prohibit all non-tobacco e-cigarette flavors — including menthol — to limit nicotine in the products and to impose marketing restrictions nationwide.

Virginia Bridges provides some context:

Concerns about youth e-cigarette use followed Juul’s launch of its namesake e-cigarette in 2015 with a splashy social media campaign that utilized high-profile influencers to help spread word about the new product. Juul wasn’t the first e-cigarette company, but it’s campaign, sleek devices and flavored e-juices vaulted e-cigarette use, experts said.

In the weeks following Juul’s launch, some health officials started to worry about the campaign for the unregulated products.

Serious concerns began mounting in 2017 after the National Youth Tobacco Survey showed an increase in youth e-cigarette use, said Matthew Myers, president of the national group Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

Kevin Siers, Charlotte Observer

Creepy Hypocrite of the Week

Propaganda from Madam Virginia Foxx's own office:

"Krysti, a young constituent frοm thе Fifth District won thе North Carolina Tar Wars Poster Contest, аn anti-smoking contest sponsored bу thе American Academy οf Family Physicians. Shе met wіth Congresswoman Virginia Foxx іn hеr Capitol Hill office. Pictured here wіth a copy οf hеr winning poster іn Foxx's office."

Dear Krysti,

The Congresswoman did not confess something significant to you in that cold embrace and politically expedient posed photograph: she supports Big Tobacco.

Learn to spell h.y.p.o.c.r.i.t.e, Krysti. You're going to need that word, going forward in your life in the 5th Dist.

On April 8, 2009, Congresswoman Foxx told an audience of teenagers at North Surry High School that "Governmental attempts to regulate and tax tobacco are no different than if the government were to regulate and tax Mountain Dew," which we believe, Krysti, was pretty much an all-clear signal to those teenagers that smoking was just A-okay by her.

Impeccable Logic

Via Mark Binker's N&R reporter's blog, we learn that the reason our new Senator Kay Hagan is opposing the bill that will allow the Federal Drug Administration to regulate tobacco products is because people already know how dangerous tobacco products are.

Huh?

Saith the senator, "We need to have FDA focus on monitoring our food, our drug safety, rather than taking on a product that I think people know is inherently unsafe."

Okay. If it's inherently unsafe, no need to regulate it, right?

Would that logic also apply, Senator, to heroin, say, or to a certain hallucinogenic salvia that the N.C. Senate intends to ban? Or to 12-year-olds getting their hands on vodka?

The actual logic behind her political decision might have a good deal more to do with not bucking a huge (and ruthless) N.C. industry, which peddles (incidentally) an inherently unsafe product.

Richard Burr Is a Dick

Sen. Dick Burr has received $355,000 from tobacco groups and employees. He's second only to Sen. Mitch McConnell for having his hand out to Big Tobacco.

At this precise moment, Burr has teamed up with Sen. Kay Hagan to try to forestall tougher legislation aimed at tobacco.

Burr spokesman Chris Walker says the campaign donations don't influence Burr's policy agenda. Riiight.

"It's not something that comes into any equations here," Walker said. "It doesn't really affect what we're doing legislatively."

We're not supposed to believe our lying eyes.

Picayune

NC Senate Grandee Marc Basnight is calling for new state taxes on booze and tobacco to help make up the expected short-fall in state revenue.

Currently, the state taxes cigarettes at 35 cents a pack. According to the N&O, the taxes on tobacco products raised a mere $241 million in 2007, or 1.3 percent of general fund tax collections. In other words, current tobacco taxes are a mere drop in a very large bucket.

According to the N&O, each 1-cent increase in the cigarette tax is projected to raise only an additional $5.35 million. With the projected budget gap now growing to near $3 billion, according to some estimates, Basnight would have to raise the cigarette tax, say, $14.00-a-pack to make a dent in that deficit.

The tax collection figures for alcohol are even worse. Each 1-cent increase per gallon on beer, for example, would generate a measly $1.9 million annually.

Mark Twain might suggest that this state has been neglecting its vices outrageously.