A Fairfield man is suing the popular e-cigarette company JUUL, blaming their advertising for an addiction that started when he was 14 years old.

In a lawsuit filed in federal court Friday, Robert McCulloch alleges he became addicted to JUUL after seeing ads on Instagram.

McCulloch says he began smoking the flavored pods and was unaware that he was using nicotine.

It was not until later that McCulloch came to know that there was nicotine in the JUUL pods, but even then he did not understand or appreciate the amount of nicotine he was taking in, the lawsuit claims.

A JUUL spokesperson commented on the lawsuit by saying, "this case is without merit and we will defend our mission. JUUL Labs is committed to eliminating combustible cigarettes, the number one cause of preventable death in the world. Our product has always only been intended to be a viable alternative for the one billion current adult smokers in the world. 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."

According to the lawsuit, two-thirds of JUUL users ages 15 through 24 do not know that JUUL always contains nicotine.