Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul, directed by R.J. Cutler. The name alone pissed me off because of the implied conflation of Juul, which is not a tobacco company, with "Big Tobacco." The trailer is a feverish montage of talking heads and voiceovers accusing the company of being "wildly irresponsible," photos of hospitalized patients with bloody chest tubes, and a clip of James Monsees, one of Juul's founders, being called " a marketer of poison to young people” at a congressional hearing.
So I was happily surprised when I was proven wrong. It was surprising when the first episode, which premieres on Netflix on October 11, showed the journey of how Juul was created and how the brilliance of the vaporizer's design was celebrated, not demonized.
Star: Allen Gladstone
In each of the four episodes, people unapologetically confront those who told lies about vaping, including infamous junk scientist Stanton Glantz. For tobacco harm reducers who lived through the Juul panic, the docu-series is cause for joy. The director and editors seem to understand the life-saving potential of switching from smoking to vaping, the pressures of bringing a product to market, and the problems of the backlash against Juul. They mostly strike the right balance.
The docuseries is based on TIME journalist Jaime Ducharme's book, Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul, which is well worth a read. It features a huge cast of characters from all sides of the Juul controversy: Stanford tobacco historian Robert Proctor; Ralph Eschenbach, an early investor; Meredith Berkman of Parents Against Vaping Electronic Cigarettes (PAVE); Cheryl Healton, a tobacco expert at New York University, and advocate Greg Conley, president of the American Vaping Association. Adults and adolescents who vape are also interviewed.
David Pierce, former Wired technology reporter, is one of the main narrators along with Allen Gladstone, former talent recruiter for Juul and Ducharme. Juul founders James Monsees and Adam Bowen declined to be interviewed.
The famous Silicon Valley motto “Move fast and break things” is referenced several times, usually in a negative way. Glantz calls him "stupid." But when it comes to the intractable, decades-long public health crisis, in which more than 28 million Americans smoke and nearly half a million die each year, you need to act fast and break things. Innovation with an emphasis on speed, disrupting old technologies rather than playing it safe, was long overdue to make smoking obsolete. A graph in the docuseries shows how people who switched to Juul decreased smoking. Tobacco companies took note of the decline in cigarette sales and entered the vaporizer market.
Some of the most satisfying and fun scenes are when the former Juul employees confront the lies and myths that come out of the mouths of the haters. Former marketing manager Erica Halverson defeats the rich Manhattan moms who founded PAVE. Berkman, who is hyperbolic and authoritarian, wants to punish Juul because her son used to use Juul. Halverson responds: "Parents got angry because they forgot they had to raise their kids and Juul is not responsible for that."
PAVE constantly promoted the myth that flavors were used to get teenagers “addicted.” Halverson's response is refreshing in how frank she is: “I've literally had people tell me there's no way adults like mango as much as kids... That's a bunch of nonsense to me. Shit. Adults and children like mango!
Ash Casselman, former director of product delivery, is equally blunt when she calls the ban on vape sales enacted in San Francisco in 2019 “a fucking travesty.”
More importantly, a documentary that will be seen by millions calls nonsense the media-driven “EVALI” panic that wrongly linked more than 60 deaths to nicotine vaping, including, implicitly, Juul. Several commentators explain clearly and convincingly that Juul had nothing to do with the fatal lung injuries, which were caused by unregulated THC cartridges containing vitamin E acetate.
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