The Devil's Playbook: Big Tobacco, Juul, and the Addiction of a New Generation

What happens when the best of intentions collide with Silicon Valley, Big Tobacco, scientific research, the FDA, consumers, and billions of dollars? Journalist Etter writes this story, focusing on the startup company Juul and the large conglomerate Altria (formerly known as Phillip Morris). The two Stanford graduates behind Juul had decided in the 2000s that there was a niche to be filled in reducing the dependence of millions around the world on tobacco. They would do this by producing a system to deliver nicotine minus the killer chemicals produced from burning tobacco, thus potentially saving countless lives. This book details the Juul founders' struggle to find financing and develop an effective product. Etter interlaces the Juul narrative with the history of Altria's efforts to escape negative fallout and declining revenue after Phillip Morris and other tobacco companies reached a settlement with the U.S. government in 1998, for having knowingly sold harmful tobacco products for decades. Etter argues that Altria's 2018 acquisition of Juul problematized Juul's claim to be anti-tobacco; it came at a point of emerging public outrage over widespread use of Juul by young kids, plus new research showing possible adverse effects of vaping. Lawsuits, FDA investigations, and restrictions followed--circumstances that Etter says closely resemble what had happened earlier to Big Tobacco. The legal and regulatory battles around vaping are ongoing in the United States.