Business

Juul’s next e-cigarette may come with age-proof lock

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Social Links for Noah Manskar
Published Feb. 25, 2020
Updated Feb. 25, 2020, 3:08 p.m. ET

Juul Labs is reportedly developing a new e-cigarette with an age-proof lock to help convince the feds to let the company keep selling its products in the US.

The San Francisco-based vaping giant plans to present regulators with a new device that will initially be locked and cannot be unlocked until the user proves he or she is at least 21 years old, the legal age to buy tobacco and e-cigarettes, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Juul will submit its next-generation device to the US Food and Drug Administration as part of an application to keep its products in the American market amid a regulatory crackdown on vaping, the paper reported Monday.

Juul and other e-cigarette makers reportedly must show their products do more good than harm by helping adults quit smoking cigarettes even as a growing number of young people get hooked on vaping.

Juul has already rolled out lockable e-cigarettes in the UK and Canada, where users can lock or unlock the devices on a mobile app that can also track their nicotine consumption, according to the Journal. Users must submit a government ID and a photo when they first log onto the app, the paper reported.

Juul’s application to the FDA, due May 12, will be more than 250,000 pages long and include the e-cigarette it currently sells in the US, scientific studies, a new marketing campaign and documents detailing efforts to limit sales to minors, the Journal reported. The proposal for a new e-cigarette will reportedly be submitted in May or later this year in a supplemental application.

The company is getting help with the application from Altria, the Virginia tobacco giant that owns a 35 percent stake in Juul, according to the Journal. The Marlboro maker “is working day by day with us, side by side, helping us extensively,” a Juul official told the paper.

The application is “designed to provide FDA with the science and evidence needed to assess the role our products can play moving smokers away from cigarettes, while combatting underage use,” Juul spokesman Austin Finan said in a statement.