Infamous – "Smoking Equals Death, So Why Is It Cool Again?"

Date: October 16, 2025
Hosts: Vanessa Grigoriadis, Gabriel Sherman, Natalie Robehmed
Producer Introduction: Lily Houston Smith

Episode Overview

This episode of Infamous dives into the resurgence of smoking's cultural cachet and the rapid evolution of nicotine consumption—from combustible cigarettes to vaping juggernauts like Juul and its successors. Hosts Vanessa Grigoriadis and Natalie Robehmed trace how, despite decades of anti-smoking efforts and the advent of supposedly safer nicotine-delivery devices, both vaping and smoking are experiencing a renewed mainstream popularity, especially among youth. The conversation brings together first-person reporting, regulatory perspectives, and industry analysis—including expert insights from Dr. Robert Jackler, a Stanford anti-tobacco advocate, and Clive Bates, a public health consultant with a harm-reduction approach.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Cultural Comeback of Smoking

• [01:05] Producer Lily Houston Smith sets the stage:
  • Smoking's visual resurgence in pop culture (TV, movies, celebrities).
  • Notable recent on-screen smokers: Dakota Johnson ("Materialists"), the cast of "The Bear," and "Just Like That." Pop stars like Charli XCX signal a kind of glamorization.
• Smith wonders if smoking’s return is a backlash against hyper-health trends: “It seems... smoking’s re-emergence might be a cultural backlash to the hyper healthy Erewhon lifestyle, a rejection of protein maxing and intermittent fasting, or at least a cigarette-length break from it.” [01:39]

2. From Cigarettes to Vaping: The Rise (and Fall?) of Juul

• [02:59] Natalie Robehmed on vape ubiquity:
  • Vaping is “everywhere in a big way … I’ve seen people vape on trains, in restaurants, at bars, just puffing away mid-conversation.”
• The early e-cigarettes weren’t “cool,” but big, clunky, and visually unappealing, which stunted their mainstream impact.
• Juul, launched in 2015, “made vaping sleek, convenient and cool. Ditched the bulky boxes and lame cigarette mimics for a small, high-tech black device that looked almost like a USB.” [04:30]
• Juul’s meteoric rise:
  • “In the past year, Juul sales have skyrocketed almost 800%.” [04:54]
  • By 2018, Juul controlled “72% of the e-cigarette market … $38 billion, that’s Juul’s latest valuation.” [04:57] (Dr. Robert Jackler quoting data)

3. Juul’s Targeting of Youth & The “Youth Vaping Epidemic”

• Juul’s initial strategy included “seemingly kid-friendly flavors like mango and crème brûlée,” with lawsuits alleging targeted advertising on websites for children, such as Nick Jr. “[Juul] arguably kicked off what’s called the youth vaping epidemic, where students are vaping in the playground, in the hallways, even in class.” [05:34]
• According to the FDA (2024): “about 8% of high school students in the US said that they did currently smoke e-cigarettes…in countries with data on the subject, children are about nine times more likely than adults to vape.” [06:20]

4. Expert Insight: Dr. Robert Jackler on Juul’s Ethics and Design

• Jackler’s team interviewed Juul co-founder James Monseys. Monseys acknowledged using “Stanford’s tobacco advertising resource” to inform Juul’s marketing.
  • “When we were deciding how to market Juul, it was very helpful to us to be able to look at how the tobacco industry marketed.” [08:08]
• Jackler:
  • Juul’s “stealthy” design enabled concealed use among teens: “They had a very small vaporizer that didn’t look at all like a smoking device…if it was left on the bedside stand of a teenager, a parent wouldn’t recognize it as a smoking device. Also, it’s so small it can fit in your pocket…” [09:45]
  • On potency: “One little Juulpod… packs the same nicotine wallop into the user’s bloodstream as an entire pack of 20 Marlboro cigarettes.” [11:49]
  • The unintended consequence: “I do hold them accountable for hooking a large number. About 6 million American youth were using Juul.” [11:33]
• Jackler contends Juul’s founders “started with noble intentions”—wanting to help smokers quit by offering a less harmful alternative—but financial success changed priorities:
  • “As with so many Silicon Valley companies… as the money rolls in and they become very successful, it becomes more about the financial success than the implications to the population.” [12:46]

5. Are Vapes Actually Safer? The Health Question

• Jackler warns that while tar is removed, “There’s nothing especially natural about breathing propylene glycol and glycerin mist with all these flavoring chemicals in your lungs over and over. … We will not know the effect of routine e-cigarette uses for 20, 30, 40 years.” [16:05]
• He notes a possible "gateway effect": Vaping hooks teens on nicotine, making them more likely to seek it from other sources, including cigarettes.
• He criticizes US regulatory inaction: “The regulations so far in America, at least the federal government, has really not been effective in helping to protect young people.” [17:26]

6. Big Tobacco Jumps Aboard—and the Regulatory Backlash

• In 2018, Altria (parent of Philip Morris) invested $12.8 billion for a 35% stake in Juul.
  • Jackler: “What Juul proved is you could make money with vapor products…this is part of a master plan to dominate and really to reverse the worldwide downward trend in cigarette use.” [18:03]
• Government clampdown:
  • In 2022, the FDA issued a full ban on the sale of all Juul products; later, Juul paid out almost half a billion dollars to settle underage marketing suits. [18:46]

7. Alternate Perspective: Harm Reduction with Clive Bates

• Bates, former Director of Action on Smoking and Health (UK), argues for pragmatic harm reduction:
  • “If you could separate the problem of smoke from the behavioral use of nicotine, which is the reason why people smoke, then you could potentially save thousands, maybe millions of lives.” [19:43]
  • “The drug itself (nicotine) is relatively benign. It’s not responsible for cancer, heart disease, obstructive lung disease…” [20:33]
  • “The World Health Organization has tried to characterize vaping as essentially a tobacco industry ploy, a gambit to hook kids and get them into the smoking franchise…” [21:18]
• Bates is sharply critical of the anti-vaping stance taken by many public health agencies, attributing it in part to funding and “policy priors” from major philanthropists like Michael Bloomberg:
  • “Bloomberg is all over this landscape and has quite strong policy priors… Michael Bloomberg himself is on the record as being in favor of prohibiting outright vaping.” [22:25]
• Bates unpacks panics of the late 2010s:
  • "The lung injury outbreak ... was nothing to do with nicotine vaping at all. ... At the time it was spun and understood to be a consequence of vaping." [23:58]

8. Juul’s Real Impact: Contrasting Narratives

• Vanessa challenges Bates: Has Juul been unfairly villainized?
• Bates’s nuanced response:
  • “Juul set off with a tech company, Silicon Valley mindset…let’s go for it.” [28:08]
  • “The data on Juul switching smokers and reducing cigarette consumption is amazing … there was a period of accelerated decline in cigarette consumption in the United States…largely attributable to the rise of Juul.” [29:00]
  • “Juul’s secret is that they created a nicotine experience that was not quite, but nearly equivalent to using a cigarette … in a form that was small, relatively inexpensive, convenient.” [29:25]
  • “I suspect Juul has done more for smoking cessation than any other company, pharma or any other, in the history of smoking in the United States.” [30:00]
  • But: “Juul did do some stupid things. Some of their marketing was too youth orientated…But I think there’s a very strong upside story…” [30:59]

9. Where Are We Now? Vaping’s New Phase

• Juul’s brand collapse hasn’t ended youth vaping. “These days, Juul is basically over. The vaping very much lives on ... That’s Elf Bar, which according to the FDA is the brand of choice for more than a third of the high schoolers who use E-cigarettes.” [31:34]
• Robehmed’s closing reflection: “Vaping seems, or at least seemed, like a healthy alternative to a traditional vice ... But at the end of the day, whether it’s really better for you, the jury’s out on that. It might just be another vice in a different form.” [32:20]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Lily Houston Smith (on the smoking comeback):
  • “Smoking cigarettes is well and truly cool again. We might have Charli XCX to thank for that.”
  • [01:19]
• Dr. Robert Jackler (on Juul copying big tobacco):
  • “Monseys said to me, ‘Thank you so much for your wonderful Stanford tobacco advertising resource, because when we were deciding how to market Juul, it was very helpful to us to be able to look at how the tobacco industry marketed.’” [08:15]
  • “One little Juulpod, little tiny pod, packs the same nicotine wallop…as an entire pack of 20 Marlboro cigarettes.” [11:49]
  • “I do hold them accountable for hooking a large number. About six million American youth were using Juul.” [11:33]
• Clive Bates (on the harm reduction philosophy):
  • “The drug itself is relatively benign. It’s not responsible for cancer, heart disease, obstructive lung disease...” [20:33]
  • “If you can find a way to avoid [burning tobacco], still giving people nicotine, you greatly reduce the risks to their health.” [21:00]
  • “I suspect Juul has done more for smoking cessation than any other company, pharma or any other, in the history of smoking in the United States.” [30:00]
• Natalie Robehmed (on youth vaping’s endurance):
  • “These days, Juul is basically over. The vaping very much lives on. … Not Juul, that’s Elf Bar, which … is the brand of choice for more than a third of the high schoolers who use e-cigarettes.” [31:34]

Timestamps for Major Segments

| Time | Topic | |-------------|------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:05–02:59 | Smoking’s return in pop culture and the roots of vaping’s appeal | | 02:59–05:32 | The birth and mainstreaming of Juul | | 05:32–07:48 | Juul’s strategy, youth uptake, and regulatory concerns | | 07:48–13:31 | Dr. Jackler’s interview: marketing, design, impact | | 15:38–17:40 | Is vaping safer? Health uncertainties, potential consequences | | 17:40–18:46 | Big Tobacco investment and intentions | | 18:46–19:18 | Regulatory crackdown and settlements | | 19:18–27:30 | Clive Bates interview: harm reduction, global policy, panics | | 27:30–31:34 | Contrasting narratives—Juul’s benefits and mistakes | | 31:34–end | The future: Juul fades, vaping endures, health ambiguities |

Tone and Style

Throughout, the episode balances the Infamous blend of skepticism, investigative rigor, and conversational intrigue. The hosts and guests mix critique with empathy, presenting conflicting evidence and perspectives without losing sight of who profits, who is harmed, and what the science (and marketing) really say about modern nicotine culture.

This summary provides a full, nuanced account of the episode’s key arguments and moments, complete with speaker quotes and timestamped highlights, for listeners who want the facts and flavor without sitting through the ads.