Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul (on Netflix)

[Toby iVapour]

Just up on Netflix today -
https://www.netflix.com/watch/81476938

I haven't seen it yet, but looks interesting...

 

[Toby iVapour]

In this article about the docuseries -
Netflix Docuseries Flips the Narrative
https://filtermag.org/juul-netflix-big-vape/

I noticed it say "people unapologetically confront those who told lies about vaping, including the infamous junk scientist Stanton Glantz"...
Now although I don't really mind Stanton Glantz being featured per se (especially if it reveals some of the lies he has purported), I certainly hope he wasn't paid for it! (which he probably was)

Also, be prepared for some omissions and factual inaccuracies -

It also gets some things wrong: There was never an “epidemic” of teen vaping. And there is no evidence that nicotine damages the human brain.

And some skewed elements -

Unfortunately, Mitch Zeller, the former head of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products, comes over as a noble defender of “the children” in the series. But the role he played during the vaping panic he helped to ignite was disgraceful, and seemingly based on personal animus toward Juul. Initially he promoted tobacco harm reduction and supported vaping, but the minute the National Youth Tobacco Survey showed an increase in teen vaping was released, he completely abandoned THR, joined the anti-vaping zealots, and worked to destroy Juul.
The documentary could have revealed that Zeller plays both sides. Now he’s an advisor for Qnovia, a start-up founded by a former Altria executive who is developing RespiRx, a prescription-only “nicotine-replacement device” (it’s a vape).

 

[vapesmarter]

I'm halfway through

It's well done to be fair the slant is on the fact it started and tried to be a healthier alternative to smoking but it got out of control.

if I could smoke and it wouldn't kill me I would continue smoking That is the one point I must admit to it, I liked smoking but its bad for you, is vaping bad for you as an ex-smoker i don't see that, the trouble is as the program shows other people who never smoked tried juuls mainly kids but its all immaterial now because instead of juuls we have a 1000 different disposables perhaps they should have worked with them some more and nipped it in the bud instead it all went pear-shaped

hindsight is a wonderful thing

 

[MarylinC37]

Very interesting series. Personally, I've never really known anything about Juul as I've always preferred tanks rather than these small pods and cigalikes etc. It's useful to have more of an insight into some of the history of vaping I didn't previously know a lot about.

It's difficult to pick out the truth from the fiction in terms of what was in the series so I wouldn't want to draw any firm conclusions based on this alone. However, as someone who loves vaping I do feel disappointed at the harm that's been done by the reckless way these were marketed towards young people.

 

[Toby iVapour]

Watched the 1st 2 episodes so far, here are my thoughts...

From a personal point of view it's interesting to see the development (and failure) of Ploom...
I remember receiving promotional emails from Ploom back in the day (circa 2010), and I thought "why are you trying to sell a butane powered device that requires proprietary tobacco pods (in a few flavours) when you can use an e-cig instead?"
I did find it vaguely interesting (though never tried it), thought it looked smart, but was a device like that was ultimately behind the curve (due to e-cigs)...
Anyway, (according to the documentary) it turned out to be flawed, but I presume paved the way for other Heat-Not-Burn devices, which are now very popular in other countries, but never caught on in the UK (or not yet).

Now, as for Juul itself, more than once in the documentary, people are saying there was nothing available between a puny cigalike and a large RBA type (with technical knowledge required)...
This is of course a load of BS...
The Janty eGo (with Dura-C old style refillable cartridges) was brought out at the beginning of 2010, with the eGo-C (refillable with liquid in a chamber) following a year later in 2011. Although considered at the time a "large" 650mAh capacity (compared to ciggielikes), the eGo battery was still small (followed by an even smaller 350mAh version). The Evod (coil changeable) followed in 2013.
So, there had of course been smaller (but not puny) devices around for many years before the Juul came out in 2015 (and they had the advantage that they were not proprietary pre-filled pod devices either).
Now, they may not have had the same design aesthetic as the Juul (memory stick image), but Juul essentially became popular for 2 other reasons, the invention of nicotine salt (so the 50mg required for Juul was not too harsh), and luck. (Both of which confirmed by the documentary.)

The trendy marketing to youth was of course ill-advised.

Anyway, still interesting to watch, and I look forward to the last 2 episodes...

 

[MarylinC37]

Watched the 1st 2 episodes so far, here are my thoughts...

From a personal point of view it's interesting to see the development (and failure) of Ploom...
I remember receiving promotional emails from Ploom back in the day (circa 2010), and I thought "why are you trying to sell a butane powered device that requires proprietary tobacco pods (in a few flavours) when you can use an e-cig instead?"
I did find it vaguely interesting (though never tried it), thought it looked smart, but was a device like that was ultimately behind the curve (due to e-cigs)...
Anyway, (according to the documentary) it turned out to be flawed, but I presume paved the way for other Heat-Not-Burn devices, which are now very popular in other countries, but never caught on in the UK (or not yet).

Now, as for Juul itself, more than once in the documentary, people are saying there was nothing available between a puny cigalike and a large RBA type (with technical knowledge required)...
This is of course a load of BS...
The Janty eGo (with Dura-C old style refillable cartridges) was brought out at the beginning of 2010, with the eGo-C (refillable with liquid in a chamber) following a year later in 2011. Although considered at the time a "large" 650mAh capacity (compared to ciggielikes), the eGo battery was still small (followed by an even smaller 350mAh version). The Evod (coil changeable) followed in 2013.
So, there had of course been smaller (but not puny) devices around for many years before the Juul came out in 2015 (and they had the advantage that they were not proprietary pre-filled pod devices either).
Now, they may not have had the same design aesthetic as the Juul (memory stick image), but Juul essentially became popular for 2 other reasons, the invention of nicotine salt (so the 50mg required for Juul was not too harsh), and luck. (Both of which confirmed by the documentary.)

The trendy marketing to youth was of course ill-advised.

Anyway, still interesting to watch, and I look forward to the last 2 episodes...

I've never worked in the industry so for me it's interesting learning more of the history from vape professionals like yourself who were around before I started vaping in 2013.

Having watched the whole series the thing that came across to me was that Juul seemed to get overtaken by the drive for sales and lost sight of the reason why they started in the first place, i.e. to make a healthier device to get people off smoking. Instead their social media advertising campaign got out of hand and they ended up recruiting masses of young people onto using nicotine for the first time. The rest of the vape industry is now having to pick up the pieces for the backlash that followed.

 

[Lisa Bolton]

Thanks, I'll take a look at that later

 

[Giurra]

Finished watching the other day. Very interesting how something they did in the very beginning made turn for the worst. Highly recommend.

 

[Lisa Bolton]

I watched it last night, lots of unnecessary waffle but I kept watching. I guess that massive campaign wasn't great but I still blame the parents and retailers for not checking age

 

[Deleted member 54254]

Watched the four episodes and to be fair they pretty much nailed how JUUL abused subversive marketing to youth, only a foam eating chimp would try to defend their practices. No wonder we ended up with the likes of PAVE throwing a hissy fit, what would you do in the same situation?

We are heading down the same road with youth getting their hands on disposables here, fortunately we don't have 50mg pods available like JUUL created. Didn't hear anywhere in the episodes how they arrived at that number.