03.09.2021 |News
Reading Recommendation
The Devil’s Playbook: Big Tobacco, Juul, and the Addiction of A New Generation
Picture: www.penguinrandomhouse.com
The Devils Playbook, written by Bloomberg News investigative reporter Lauren Etter discusses how the electronic cigarette industry emerged, evolved, and imploded beneath the weight of controversy and grievous misguidance. Etter tells the story of tech wunderkinds and ex-smokers James Monsees and Adam Bowen, who strived to develop a nicotine delivery prototype in 2006, positioned as a beneficial “public health contribution” and an alternative to more harmfully combustive tobacco products. The author chronicles the numerous redesigns of their nicotine liquid vaporizing invention, the Juul, as well as the attention from tobacco executives, as they grew greedy for opportunities to collaborate or create their own version of the vape pen. Etter illuminates the crucial missteps that can occur when greed and poor leadership obscure the vision of an enterprising product. Armed with an immense body of research and insider interview material, the author digs deep into the controversial industry to reveal the avarice, scandal, corporate egotism, and rampant “political knife fights.”
“Riveting journalism that probes the triple threat of vaping, nicotine addiction, and corporate greed.”
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