Big Vape

Big Vape: The Incendiary Rise of Juul charts the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of the e-cigarette company Juul Labs, drawing on interviews with company insiders, investors, advisors, and more.

After Big Vape was published in 2021, the book was adapted into a 2023 docuseries for Netflix, directed by R.J. Cutler and produced by This Machine, Amblin Television, and TIME Studios. It won a News and Documentary Emmy and was nominated for a Critics Choice Documentary Award.

Praise for Big Vape by Jamie Ducharme

“Ducharme presents an evenhanded retelling of the company’s scandals…Fast-paced and impressively researched, this detailed account sings.”
-Publisher’s Weekly, starred review

“This well-rounded journalistic narrative is consistently informative and alarming. Intensive, exemplary reportage on a controversial industry cloaked in scandal.”
-Kirkus, starred review

"Ducharme shines a light on the company's exceptional rise in this un-put-downable saga."
—Newsweek

“A capably reported and readable account of the company’s origins and current battles”
—The Wall Street Journal

“Ducharme provides a balanced, methodical account of how an addictive new smoking product with unknown health hazards became ubiquitous in American high schools.”
—The Washington Post

"Big Vape is a dazzling story that crackles with the energy of a nicotine buzz, mixing tales of groundbreaking innovation with those of corporate greed and government dysfunction. More than anything, this is a story about American capitalism today, and it explains why a new generation is hooked on the most addictive of drugs. This is a landmark piece of investigative reporting."
—Christopher Leonard, author of the New York Times bestseller Kochland

“Big Vape is more than just brilliantly reported and elegantly written. It is also a richly populated book—filled not just with human characters, but with matters of science, finance, invention, ambition, ethics, hubris and blazing ingenuity. Even the cunning little product at the center of the story—the Juul itself—becomes a sort of character in Jamie Ducharme’s hands. Ducharme brings the best skills of journalist and lyricist to tell an exceedingly important story—and to tell it irresistibly.”
—Jeffrey Kluger, bestselling co-author of Apollo 13 and author of Apollo 8

"Combining meticulous research with gripping storytelling, this is a must-read with important lessons for policymakers, CEOs, and public health professionals alike. As a physician, I witnessed firsthand the harmful impact of vaping on young people. Big Vape explains how this happened. Readers will learn a lot."
—Leana Wen, M.D. author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health

"The rise and fall of Juul is an instructive tale, and Jamie Ducharme does an excellent job detailing how one bad decision after another led the company astray in this deft rendition of grand start-up dreams gone up in smoke."
—Reeves Wiedeman, author of Billion Dollar Loser

"Big Vape illuminates the direct threat to life when sharp, well-funded minds can harness addiction to pursue profit over health. As with the Theranos saga, Ducharme's urgent story shows that medical safety is the last place that venture capitalists should be aiming their wrecking balls.”
—Joseph Menn, author of All the Rave: The Rise and Fall of Shawn Fanning's Napster and co-author of The People vs. Big Tobacco