E-cigarette maker Juul has faced considerable scrutiny on public health issues since its founding in 2015. Scandals involving the marketing of Juul products to children have damaged the company’s public image, and San Francisco city officials even tried to evict the company from its office last year.
A recent San Francisco Chronicle article discussing Juul’s decision to move its company headquarters to Washington, DC, quoted ChangeLab Solutions senior attorney Derek Carr:
“ ’This is the culmination of several years of tension between the city and its public health objections and Juul being there,’ he said. ‘A lot of their energy is around lobbying on the federal level.’
" ’I certainly think it’s an uphill battle for them to maintain their market share,’ he added. ‘It’s a very damaged brand.’ ”
Juul also announced that it will be laying off a third of the company’s employees — about 900 people. With COVID-19 threatening the respiratory health of people everywhere, Juul no longer seems like the 21st-century version of Big Tobacco that it once did.
Read the full article on the San Francisco Chronicle website.
5/6/2020; updated 5/11/2020