John Safran is joined by Gold FM’s Steve Kendall, for a conversation about Puff Piece, his investigation into the corporate shenanigans behind the vaping industry.
When the cigarette giant Philip Morris announced it was shutting down and relaunching as a health enterprise dedicated to convincing one billion smokers to quit, John Safran was curious. Digging away in his inimitable fashion, he discovered a company up to brand new shenanigans, wangling their way into unexpected places, desperately trying to keep their tobacco business alive by brandishing a mysterious new doohickey called an IQOS.
Now they’re upending language itself, changing the meaning of words. Will they slip past bans by convincing governments they don’t sell ‘cigarettes’ but rather ‘HeatSticks’, and that these don’t emit ‘smoke’ but ‘aerosol’? Did John get the real story out of them without his life catching fire?
Wild, hilarious and thought-provoking, Puff Piece is a probing look into Big Tobacco and the vaping industry, and how words can be literally a matter of life and death.
