Three school districts in Missouri, Kansas and New York have sued Juul Labs Inc. over increased costs associated with a rise in electronic cigarette use at its schools.

A suit filed Oct. 4 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri is the first brought by a school district but joins dozens of other lawsuits alleging Juul's marketing caused children to become addicted to its products. Two others, brought on behalf of school districts in New York and Kansas, were filed on Monday.

"JUUL's reckless actions have forced schools to spend their already limited funding to battle the nicotine addiction epidemic it reignited," said Joseph VanZandt, of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles in Montgomery, Alabama. "This lawsuit puts JUUL and other vaping manufacturers on notice that they cannot unleash such an immense threat to the public's health and safety with impunity."

In the first suit, Francis Howell School District, which is just outside St. Louis, said tobacco-related infractions have risen each year at its schools since 2015, including at some elementary schools, because of Juul's products, leading to more time spent on disciplinary actions and money spent on smoking cessation programs and additional staff.

"Plaintiff has been forced to expend significant resources combating this public nuisance of defendant's creation and will need to continue expending such resources as the epidemic shows no signs of abating on its own," the suit says.

The suit seeks an unspecified amount of damages, including punitive damages, against Juul under the U.S. Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act and common law claims of public nuisance and gross negligence, among other things.

The two additional lawsuits filed on Monday, one by the Three Village Central School District on New York's Long Island and the other by Olathe Public Schools, a Kansas school district near Kansas City, Kansas, made the same claims.

Wagstaff & Cartmell and Beasley Allen brought the lawsuits, along with local counsel.

"Our product has always only been intended to be a viable alternative for the one billion current adult smokers in the world," Juul spokesman Ted Kwong said in an emailed statement. "We have never marketed to youth and do not want any non-nicotine users to try our products. We have launched an aggressive action plan to combat underage use as it is antithetical to our mission."

That action plan, he wrote, includes advocating for legislation to raise the age to buy tobacco products to 21, halting sales of "non-tobacco and non-menthol based flavored Juul pods to our traditional retail store partners," enhancing an online and in-store age verification process, and shutting down Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Juul faces more than 55 lawsuits, coordinated last week into multidistrict litigation before U.S. District Judge William Orrick of the Northern District of California. Those cases are lawsuits by individuals who claim to have suffered pulmonary disease, seizures and other serious health problems after using Juul's products, and class actions alleging the San Francisco-based company's advertising and marketing misled customers to believe its products did not contain nicotine. Several state attorneys general are investigating Juul, and the state of North Carolina has filed a lawsuit, as did an Illinois county last month, represented by three Chicago firms: Edelson, Hart McLaughlin & Eldridge and RB Law.

The addition of school districts as plaintiffs borrows from the opioid crisis, where more than 2,000 local governments, including cities, counties and school districts, have brought their own lawsuits against drugmakers. According to the lawsuit, schools have installed sensors in bathrooms or removed bathroom doors, banned USB flash drives, and hired more staff to deal with increased use of Juul's products among their students. At least one other school district in Kansas, Goddard Public Schools, voted last month to sue Juul.

Juul also faces increased regulatory pressure from the Food and Drug Administration, which is investigating Juul's marketing to children, and the Federal Trade Commission, which last month launched a probe of six e-cigarette companies including Juul.

In July, Juul executives testified before a U.S. House subcommittee. Last month, Juul announced it would suspend advertising of its products, and its CEO stepped down, replaced by an executive at Altria Group Inc., the parent company of Philip Morris. Last year, Altria purchased a 35% stake in Juul.

Those actions come "too late," according to the Missouri school district's suit, since "Juul's deceptive and illegal conduct had already succeeded in addicting a generation of America's youth to its nicotine products."

Juul's devices look like USB drives and require disposable nicotine cartridges called "JUULpods." The e-cigarettes, heavily advertised on social media platforms, come in various flavors, like cucumber and mango—among the many indications Juul has targeted minors and contributed significantly to a nicotine addiction epidemic sweeping America's youth, according to the Missouri school district's lawsuit.

"Taking a page from big tobacco's playbook, Juul, in concert with its advertising agencies and others, developed a product and marketing strategy that sought to portray its e-cigarette products as trend-setting, stylish and used by the type of people teenagers look up to," the suit says.

Juul used social media, primarily through hashtags and "influencers," to spread the word about its products, the suit says. It also handed out free samples at movie and music events or held "education" programs at schools purportedly to discourage vaping among teens.

Juul even paid $134,000 to sponsor a summer camp in Baltimore, Maryland, according to the suit.

"As part of that sponsorship, Juul would receive data on the camp's participants: kids ranging from grade 3 to 12," the suit says. "What Juul needed data regarding 3rd graders for is known only to Juul, but the possibilities are frightening."