Another school district — North Hills — on Monday joined six school districts in Butler County and others in a fight to stop an “epidemic” of e-cigarette use among underaged students.

North Hills School District joined a federal lawsuit Monday that alleges vaping and tobacco companies specifically market to school children.

With the move, North Hills joins six districts in Butler County in a fight to stop an “epidemic” of e-cigarette use among underaged students.

Districts in the county that have already joined the suit are Butler Area, South Butler, Karns City, Mars Area, Slippery Rock Area and Moniteau.

In a post on his North Hills School Board Facebook account, board member Phil Little applauded the district's decision to join the suit.

“I work with school districts across PA,” writes Little, who works for the Pennsylvania attorney general. “One of the biggest issues they face is e-cigarette usage.”

As previously reported by the Eagle, the Frantz Law Group of San Diego is consolidating suits from more than 100 other districts against Juul Labs and Altria Group, and its subsidiaries Philip Morris USA and Nu Mark LLC.

According to the North Hills filing, youth smoking rates were decreasing from 2000 to 2017.

However, e-cigarette use from 2011 to 2015 increased by 900% among middle and high school students, according to the suit.

“This incredible progress towards eliminating youth tobacco and nicotine use has now largely been reversed due to e-cigarettes and vaping,” the filing, submitted by Dillon McCandless King Coulter & Graham of Butler and Witherel & Associates of Pittsburgh, alleges.

The suit also speculates there's a correlation between a rise in youth e-cigarettes and “Big Tobacco.”

“The marketing and product design of the JUUL e-cigarette, and its incredible commercial success, are based upon tactics and strategies developed by Big Tobacco,” the suit alleges. “It is clear that JUUL, like Philip Morris and RJR before it, targeted youth as a key business demographic.”

The suit cites several ways youth vaping has affected the North Hills district.

Among them are an incurred cost associated with addressing vaping, using school resources to address issues and discipline students, and handling disruptions to curriculum and development.

“When I speak to parents, they're typically shocked to hear that any given school I walk into, I'm bound to meet an administrator who shows me a drawer full of confiscated e-cigarette devices,” Little wrote on Facebook. “It's time we hold those organizations that targeted our youth accountable.”

The suit demands a jury trial on triable issues. It asks the defendant to compensate for punitive and statutory damages and cover attorney costs, among other things.

The North Hills School Board unanimously voted to join the lawsuit, according to district director of communication and development Heather Pelat.