Big Vape : The Combustible Rise of Juul

Instead of catering to adult smokers, the e-cigarette industry appears to overwhelmingly target non-smoking youth. Big Vape uses the dramatic rise and fall of Juul to tell a larger story of big business, public health and youth culture. It shows how scientists can present opposing facts, and even the soundest studies can be means to questionable ends; how lack of regulation can be deadly, and the wrong regulations can be just as bad; how marketing communications can reverse steady national trends, and how an epidemic can break out in just a puff of smoke.

This is a story of ambition and greed: two starry-eyed grad students set out to change the world and end up at the helm of a $38 billion empire. This is a story of boom and bust: Silicon Valley darlings pitched as world changers who end up on a nationwide apology tour as their business falls apart at the seams. This is a story media manipulation: young people adopting an unlikely product and making it a cultural phenomenon.

This is a story of our time.