No one wants to defend JUUL at this point, it is a real struggle to defend the value of smoking cessation harm and harm reduction that e-cigarettes simply do better than gums or patches because it might implicitly help JUUL.

But there is legal jumping the shark, which JUUL would protest if they hadn't spent the last 18 months ignoring reality and insisting that their way was the right way because they made $2 billion. Instead, they are in an underground lair somewhere hiring everyone from Big Tobacco they can hire hoping this all goes away.

It isn't going away, in fact things are so ridiculous that school districts in Missouri, Kansas, and New York have filed a lawsuit claiming the company's marketing forced them to spend "resources" preventing and combating vaping.



The lawyers picked the right time. There's been a recent rash of nearly two dozen deaths and over a thousand illnesses attributed to vaping and though almost all of them are linked to marijuana, JUUL is still taking the blame. But it's legally ridiculous. If JUUL settles, the class action lawsuit that follows will cripple them, but otherwise they have to fight.

What does not work in legal settings is sarcasm, but there is no way not to be sarcastic about this lawsuit claim

If a school can allege they spent "resources" undoing JUUL popularity, what's next? Kansas once had a whole with a school district wanting to teach creationism alongside evolution? Could other school districts sue schools that teach it, saying they have to undo it? Can Catholicism and Judaism sue because they would be spending their Sundays having to undo things a school taught Monday through Friday? Could the school then sue the church that came up with the idea to promote creationism?

Coca-Cola advertises during the Super Bowl, can a school sue them if kids get fat? 

This is clearly opportunistic but it has widespread implications, the same way lawsuits against Johnson  &  Johnson claiming baby powder causes cancer look ridiculous - until a jury agrees.