Are E-Cigs the Market Solution that Can Save a Billion Lives?
Q&A with "A Billion Lives" director Aaron Biebert.
"This is a market solution to one of the biggest health crises we've ever seen in the history of the world," says Aaron Biebert, director of A Billion Lives, a documentary that makes the case that regulatory agencies and non-governmental organizations are engaged in a campaign of misinformation against e-cigarettes. "It's disturbing to me that something that's working is being demonized."
Biebert sat down with Reason TV's Zach Weissmueller to discuss the film and the state of the vaping industry in the wake of new Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidelines that the American Vaping Association, a pro-vaping industry group, claims could wipe out 99 percent of existing e-cigarette manufacturers and retailers. The FDA, for its part, plans to "hire additional Office of Small Business Assistance staff to provide assistance to small tobacco product entities wherever possible." And just today, the Surgeon General issued a report claiming that e-cigarettes are "now a major public health concern."
But are e-cigarettes actually dangerous, or is this simply fear-mongering propaganda from public health agencies that are slow to adapt to innovation?
Watch the full interview above to hear more on that question. Click below to listen now via SoundCloud.
Interview by Zach Weissmueller. Shot by Alex Manning and Lexy Garcia. Music by Chris Zabriskie.
