Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul

It's a classic capitalism tale where original founders with good intentions start a company with the hope of changing the world for good but then money hungry CEOs with deep pockets take over and prioritise quick marketing at the expense of consumers.

I'll admit that maybe the reason I didn't like this documentary could be because I'm not the target audience but I'm sure it didn't need to be 4 episodes long and a 90 minute doc would've been much more engaging. I think it's an important narrative to tell but the documentary didn't inform me of anything new or give me any new perspectives so I felt a bit let down on that front.

They repeated so much information especially in the final 2 episodes that, for me, it started to feel too repetitive and simple. By the 4th episode it felt dragged out with minutes of interview clips just repeating what the audience already knows.

I also couldn't help but feel that by the end of the final episode, I had just spent about 2 hours watching a really longer advert for Juul.

As someone who smoked since the age of 13, quit with the patch, got hooked on the gum and still occasionally smokes cigarettes, has a law degree and once dabbled in marketing I may have a more bird's-eye perspective than Juul apparently did. Just because it was marketed incorrectly and kids raising themselves with little or no authentic supervision got hooked doesn't mean the product itself was bad. I really question the quality of the legal team that allowed Juul to be blamed when cigarettes and conventional NRT are still sold and still easily get into the hands of minors. Hopefully, they had a good marketing team that knows when one product fails you just repackage it.

Juul should have had a legal team overseeing every aspect of their creating and marketing, which Apple - their big inspiration - has at every turn. They could have foreseen that vaping would eventually fall under age limits (and should have been presumed as such). They would have been warned that social media influencers' main audience are teen agers. Ultimately, they might have discovered that nicotine actually causes brain degradation and that the combustion associated with conventional cigarettes is not the only concern (still big tabacco's best kept secret).

During a time I had quit all nicotine and I was struggling with snacking and gaining weight, I was watching this film (can't recall the name) where a rich guy who owns a ballet team asks their tutor "So do they bring a salad for lunch or how do they stay so thin?" And the tutor replies smuggly, "They smoke!" Fed up with my extra 40 lbs, I went out and bought cigs. It did help but they no longer sold the worlds best cigarette - Nat Sherman - so I went back to the gum. The nicotine manufactures know that it's the hardest addiction to quit.

Gum was routinely used by college kids long before vapping was a thing but nic gum manufactures have not suffered, from what I can tell even tho they are the ones who started claiming it helps with studying and keeping weight off.

The big take-away here is that, yes, the creative team made a lot of mistakes but our culture is now trying to blame products instead of people. Its the Big Brother people in the 70s worried could happen if we keep trying to make the government responsibly for our welfare.

New cars now have technology that tells the driver when something is close - beeping frantically as if common sense is being replaced. But I promise, those same manufactures are going to eventually be blamed when the technology drivers come to rely on fails and someone dies.

The point is, there's always a law suit waiting to happen and if you pick the right legal team and the right jury, you are guaranteed an award. In the legal realm it's called The Money Grab

As a member of the legal world and someone who has studied nutrition extensively, I know that what's harming American citizens the most urgently is processed packages foods and fast foods and that they are the ones who should be wrapped up in law suits to relieve our health care system from spending billions of tax payer dollars annually from propping up "life style disease" like obesity and diabetes. But no one wants to challenge that industry because of the deep pockets. When a film like Fat Sick & Nearly Dead comes out the processed food industry responds with 3 films "proving" how safe processed food is.

The real take-away here is that we are all at the mercy of the squeaky wheels including parents who failed at the front end and now want someone responsible at the back end. It's the difference between common sense and the unreasonable passing of the buck we see today.

Please don't keep voting these l i b e r a l s back into office. Let's rebuild a nation of smart people who don't pretend to think everything for sale is safe and that those who make things are responsible for your misuse of them.

Watched "Big Vape: The Rise and Fall of Juul" on Netflix. Interesting documentary on the product that was created with good intentions but fell victim to greed by marketing it to kids. It is a shame that they failed because vaping does help adult smokers kick the habit since most of the carcinogens come from the burning process - not the nicotine. And Juul was unfairly blamed for the abuse of the product when kids used the product to vape THC which wrecked their lungs. So, in summary this documentary mini-series is worth watching both from a business and human-interest perspective. Check it out. 7/10, as it could be edited better as many scenes are repetitive.

So the US government basically got rid of the only reputable vape system in the US and now the most popular disposable vape comes from China. How does this make any sense? As long as vape exists, kids are going to use it, so doesn't it make more sense that it should be made in the US? Some of these reviews that I have read are about the legitimacy of vaping. It should be about this documentary, which is very well-made. Vaping is a viable alternative to smoking cigarettes and the US government has ignorantly eliminated the best possible alternative. This just goes to show how politicians are so out of touch with the common man.

So we have to label nicotine products with a warning: "Nicotine is addictive" but not sugar products? Or caffeinated coffee or green tea (which also contains nicotine)? Nicotine is used to treat Parkinsons. Nicotine is basically the same as vitamin B3 found in every multivitamin. It is basically harmless when inhaled. Check out Discover magazine's article about this "wonder drug" and draw your own conclusions.

The business aspect of the story on the other hand is pretty cool but they chose a questionable demographic in young people who don't typically have the wherewithal or wisdom to practice constraint.

The hypocrisy runs deep when it comes to protecting kids from unhealthy practices and the likelihood is that the tobacco lobby is behind the anti vape movement.