Backfired: The Vaping Wars

De: Leon Neyfakh, Prologue Projects

Narrado por: Leon Neyfakh, Arielle Pardes

When two Stanford graduate students set out to create a new kind of cigarette that wouldn’t kill them, they didn’t foresee all the obstacles that lay ahead — or the powerful forces their invention would unleash. Nearly 10 years after the launch of the JUUL, Backfired: The Vaping Wars asks: Could e-cigarettes have been the solution to one of the world’s most pressing public health problems—or was this technology doomed to introduce a whole new generation to nicotine, and end up perpetuating an intractable addiction?

Backfired is the latest podcast from Prologue Projects, the award-winning team behind Slow Burn, Fiasco, and Think Twice: Michael Jackson. Backfired is a show about the business of unintended consequences—what happens when solving one problem inadvertently leads to a host of new ones?

In this tale of opportunity, addiction, and good intentions gone awry, hosts Leon Neyfakh and Arielle Pardes offer a definitive account of Juul Labs’ rise and fall, as well as the ubiquitous illegal vape market that sprouted up in its wake. Through dozens of original interviews, they gain access to the key players who got swept up—sometimes unwittingly—in the firestorm that reshaped the culture of nicotine.

For a list of books, articles, and documentaries used in the research for this podcast, please visit bit.ly/backfiredbib.

The senior producer of Backfired: The Vaping Wars was Sam Lee. The editor was Kim Gittleson. Producers were Dustin Desoto, Leon Neyfakh, Arielle Pardes, and Katherine Sullivan. The assistant producer was Arlene Arevalo. Sound design by Andrew Parsons. Archival research and fact-checking by Francis Carr. Theme song and score composed by Emma Munger. Audio mix by Erica Huang. Backfired was co-created for Prologue Projects by Kim Gittleson.

©2024 Prologue Projects (P)2024 Audible Originals, LLC

Truly EXCELLENT podcast

Lost both of my parents to smoking related lung disease and have always had a negative perception of vaping. This well-researched podcast shows the complexity of this issue. This first episodes had me furious about the targeting of youth (and greed of companies). The research behind health benefits and harms of vaping and discussion of harm reduction efforts in the UK all provided a well rounded picture. WELL worth the listen. Truly excellent job.

Great Info

Great research done on such a complicated subject. I loved the different perspectives from everyone impacted by this industry. I really enjoyed the interviews done on founders of different vape companies.

the ending!!!!

Mom should be a politician. She has my vote! I loved seeing both sides and having her view at the end.

intriguing history about vaping

Never vaped myself. So learning more about vaping and the whole controversy around flavored pods was pretty intriguing. I will say it's disappointing about how the show has no accountability for the parents. Like the one mother who sues other companies magically finding out from her son about vaping and then wants to go ahead and sue. That story doesn't fly with me. Also the father who's a smoker buying a vape for their kid. Come on. That's like buying non-alcoholic beer for your kid, because you drink. That doesn't make any sense. You know that that's a slippery slope, but whatever. No accountability, right? Kids are already messed up. Parents who smoke already know what nicotine does to them, but hey, let's buy our kids this stuff. Then act surprise when they go down that slippery slope and now their nicotine heavy and their depression is higher and they're more irritable and everything that they experience when they smoke, so lets sue the company and not our bad decisions as parents.

Great Info

Open to both sides and did a great job splicing in interviews. I am not a smoker or vaper but was still interested in the topic just for the sake of learning and it satisfied me

Eye opening deep dive into Vaping

I was blown away at how thorough and captivating this deep dive was. The hosts did a fantastic job looking at all sides of the story and bringing guests and perspectives to their story. It was a great intersection between capitalism, addiction, technology, and politics.

Very well done, would love to see them tackle more topics like this.

even handed. parents groups vape makers FDA all made thier cases

good rapport between co-hosts. they while not trying to fix blame, they did search for causes

Great and covered a lot

definitely learned a lot and covered a lot of the how we got here. The host were able to get great access to a lot of people, bit only really posed the hard questions to the vape side. Not really to government or parents. most surprisingly the one thing in trying to place responsibility to government or industry there was no responsibility on the parents to parent.

Insightful & Well-Researched

This podcast gave an extensive insight into the vaping industry without being over the top on whether vaping is “good” or “bad.” It’s also really interesting to know the history of it, since sometimes it can feel like vaping has been around forever, and the coverage of it in a lot of media and by a lot of political figures can be sensationalized and misleading. The kind of meta-coverage of media added a helpful dimension in understanding how it’s been covered and how that’s shaped the public understanding of vaping was fascinating.

Great listen

I really enjoyed the quality of the backfire series very informative and it provides insight. Can’t wait for the next episode.