Whilst vape juice is enjoyable in its own right, and there are a wide range of products and flavours to choose from, all of these elements are ultimately designed with the singular aim to help people stop smoking for good.
It is an effective nicotine replacement therapy, as it can replicate many of the actions and sensations of smoking but without the pain in the lungs, the harsh smoky flavours and the long-term health effects.
Smoking has dropped considerably since the start of the 21st century, with just under 12 per cent of the UK population having smoked, the lowest figure since records began, and vaping has played a huge role in this.
Another part is the downfall of tobacco, the admission that smoking causes harm and the revelations of the shocking tactics that Big Tobacco used to keep people smoking even as the evidence became unanimous that they were killing their customers.
Here is how the final downfall played out.
Operation Berkshire
The first reports that linked smoking to lung cancer and heart disease were published in September 1950, leading to the UK government advising people that smoking was causing them significant harm. In 1964, a similar warning was provided by the United States Surgeon General.
However, a combination of tobacco advertising and lobbying efforts had made smoking appear not only socially acceptable but socially desirable, often deliberately linking it with rebellion, freedom and sociability despite the opposite so often being true.
When limitations began on tobacco marketing, the biggest tobacco manufacturers colluded in a plot known as Operation Berkshire, designed to deny that smoking caused harm and promote controversy over the growing medical consensus when it came to the long-term harms of tobacco.
This agreement would ultimately cause several top executives to lie in court whilst under oath in the midst of the lawsuits and controversy that would pierce the illusion for good.
Class Action Lawsuits
From 1954 until 1994, over 800 lawsuits were filed against tobacco companies by individuals who claimed they caused injury. Only two succeeded, and even they were reversed on appeal, based on the idea that the plaintiffs had chosen to smoke and thus caused their own harm.
Ultimately, 40 states would sue the tobacco industry as a whole, claiming that the tobacco industry had to pay for the widespread health crisis they caused through deceptive and fraudulent practices.
Big Tobacco could not use the same defense they had used against individuals, and the lies under oath under Project Berkshire would backfire quickly when it became clear that they were both aware and colluding.
Project SCUM
It is possible that the tobacco industry could have settled, fought it in the courts or lobbied to try and get the charges dropped, and continued to focus on the types of subversive marketing that had continued to be successful, such as sports sponsorships.
However, Project SCUM would end any chance of an easy escape and revealed the true levels of depraved contempt the tobacco industry had for its customers.
Project SCUM, allegedly short for “Subculture Urban Marketing”, was a proposed sales and marketing campaign that was intended to target LGBTQ people, homeless people, and other members of alternative lifestyle and marginalised communities.
The name was eventually changed to Project Sourdough, in no small part because of the rather transparent nature of calling their potential customers “scum” whilst selling them a highly addictive product that is guaranteed to shorten their life.
These documents came out during litigation by the State of California against Big Tobacco, as California was one of the 40 states against the industry.
Once this came out, the backlash was swift and extreme, and it soon became less of a matter of if they might need to settle with most of the United States, but when.
The Master Settlement Agreement And The Truth
The tobacco industry eventually agreed to the Master Settlement Agreement in 1998, the largest civil litigation settlement in history.
It led to the end of many tobacco advertising and promotion practices, particularly those that may target or affect children, disbanding several organisations that operated similarly to Operation Berkshire, to release the documents disclosed during the earlier litigation, such as Project Scum, and to make annual payments to the states that settled.
It also led to a national campaign known as “The Truth”, which presented many of the facts revealed during this litigation to the wider audience.
In the long term, it encouraged bans on cigarette marketing and smoking indoors, which in turn was one of the catalysts for the popularity of vaping.