Jessica Wynn

Lawsuits piled up and Juul's value tanked.

By 2023, Altria traded at stake for Juul's intellectual property rights, meaning it walked away with Juul's patents, making Juul independent again.

But Altria still profited from the technology.

I know.

Yeah.

And now Altria owns multiple vape brands like Enjoy, Views, Logic, plus stakes in others like Plume and Swick.

So they pretty much said, fine, if we can't own Juul, we'll just own everything else.

You know, they're making sure they control the nicotine market, whether you're smoking, vaping or both, or even trying to quit.

Altria owns Zinpouch, which is supposed to help you quit.

which means they're raking in the profits.

And the vaping industry is now worth about $30 billion globally.

In the U.S.

alone, the profits are projected to be about $10 billion this year, which means they're able to put hundreds of millions into advertising on social media through influencers.

You know, they're paying people with millions of followers to just casually vape in their posts.

They're not even commercials.

No, sir.

Or responsible for even one person getting hooked.

Right.

And your kid's favorite TikToker who's doing some, you know, innocent room tour.

Oh, look, there's a vape on the table.