Juul Labs Documents Collection for North Carolina: Home

On April 15, 2025, from 3-4pm, University Libraries will host a virtual training event to explore research tools and resources related to the NC JUUL documents database. This publicly available library, containing 4 million searchable documents from the Juul Labs Documents Collection, was created following the $40 million settlement in 2021 between North Carolina and Juul Labs, the e-cigarette manufacturer. The lawsuit alleged that Juul's marketing practices led to widespread nicotine addiction among youth in the state, causing a public health crisis. As part of the settlement, Juul's internal documents were made available in a public depository, created in partnership with the UCSF Industry Documents Library and UNC Libraries. 

The event will cover the JUUL library searching guide and text analysis tools developed for the collection, review example search strategies in the database, and discuss the use of filters. Additionally, the text analysis resources for the JUUL Library will provide scholars with workflows through Jupyter Notebooks and explore AI applications on the texts within the documents. This workshop is offered by University Libraries and the Health Sciences Library and will be led by Graduate Assistants Julia Ruth and Amulyavani Katragadda. 

This guide was created to support searching the document database that contains documents utilized and made public by the North Carolina vs. Juul Labs Legal Settlement. The document database is made in partnership with the University of California, San Francisco's Truth Tobacco Industry Documents. 

The guide contains information on how to search and utilize the collection database, provides context on the origins of the Juul Labs Documents Collection, history of Juul Labs that prompted the legal complaint, and highlights key topics seen in the documents. 

This guide for the Juul Labs Document Collection for North Carolina contains the following sections: 

• Searching and Using the Collection Database:
  • Shows how to access, search through, and utilize search strategies to find information in the documents database. 
• Origins of the Juul Labs Document Collection:
  • Gives context on where the documents in the Juul Labs Document Collection are from, and the different document types included. This also puts the Juul research into context of the documents and focus of the Industry Documents library. 
• History of Juul Labs and Lawsuit: 
  • Outlines the timeline of the development and rise of Juul Labs and the JUUL product, and the timeline and order of events in the lawsuit from the state of North Carolina vs. Juul Labs. 
• Research Topic Guides and Database Documents:
  • Highlights key research topics found in the database documents 
• Related Resources: 
  • Provides additional resources and research related to Juul Labs. 

Below are some key terminology that refers to the different product and company names used throughout the history and development of Juul Labs. Documents before 2017 will refer to Juul Labs as Pax Labs, their previous company name. 

Juul Labs: Refers to the organization that created and developed the JUUL product. 

JUUL: References the Juul Labs e-cigarette vape product. 

Ploom: Refers to the name that Juul Labs Founders Adam Bowen and James Monsees started their e-cigarette concept and business as. The Ploom brand was sold to Japan Tobacco International in 2015. This term is seen within earlier business plan documents. 

Pax Labs: Refers to the rebranded company after the sale of Ploom that produced cannabis products. Pax Labs was founded by Adam Bowen and James Monsees after the Ploom sale. Juul Labs developed as an independent company out of Pax Labs in July 2017, although there are discrepancies in the documents that indicate Pax Labs was renamed to Juul Labs.