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Juul Labs has tentatively agreed to pay $438.5 million to settle an investigation by nearly three dozen states that focused on the company’s sales and marketing practices that they claim fueled the teenage vaping crisis. The investigation found that the company appealed to young people by hiring young models, using social media to court teenagers and giving out free samples. William Tong, Connecticut’s attorney general, said in a news conference that the investigation found that the company had a “porous” age verification system for its products and that 45% of its Twitter followers were ages 13 to 17. Juul said on Tuesday that the settlement “is a significant part of our ongoing commitment to resolve issues from the past.” It continued, “The terms of the agreement are aligned with our current business practices which we started to implement after our companywide reset in the fall of 2019.” But the company said it was not acknowledging any wrongdoing in the settlement. The tentative settlement prohibits the company from marketing to youth, from funding education in schools and from misrepresenting the level of nicotine in its products. Before the settlement, Juul had already discontinued several marketing practices and withdrawn many of its flavored pods that appealed to teenagers, under public pressure from lawmakers, parents and health experts a few years ago when the vaping crisis was at a peak. Read the full report at the link in our bio.