John Safran: Puff Piece

Cigarettes are rapidly falling out of favour with everyone from policy-makers to smokers themselves. Philip Morris – the company behind Marlboro – have made ‘a dramatic decision’: they are ceasing operations as a cigarette company and relaunching as a health enterprise, dedicated to convincing the one billion smokers of the world to quit. Enter the ever-curious John Safran, the writer and filmmaker who always gets in too deep for his own good, to find out what on God’s green earth is going on.

In his new book, Puff Piece: How Philip Morris set vaping alight (and burned down the English language), Safran discovers a company up to brand new shenanigans, desperately trying to keep their tobacco business alive by pivoting to vaping and manipulating language to suit their needs. 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’? 

Join Safran for a wild, hilarious and thought-provoking look into Big Tobacco and the vaping industry, and how words can be literally a matter of life and death. Prepare to be dazzled. Or, at the very least, befuddled. Hosted by Tony Wilson.

Presented in partnership with Macedon Ranges Shire Council

The online bookseller for this event is Aesop’s Attic