| Director | Aaron Biebert |
|---|---|
| Genre | documentary film |
| Runtime | 95 min |
| Country | United States |
As the film begins, viewers are confronted by a claim that "this century a billion people are projected to die from smoking." The film continues to show the depth of harm tobacco can cause to human health, including increased risk of lung cancer, asthma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. A Billion Lives continues by outlining the history of the tobacco industry, focusing primarily on tobacco corporations' attempts to hide the deleterious effects of tobacco and tobacco products. Many shots are accompanied and framed with interviews of the former Winston Man, David Goerlitz; Goerlitz, formerly the main model in a campaign by Winston Cigarettes to glamorize smoking, publicly denounced the tobacco industry in the late 1980s.
The second segment of the film shifts focus from the tobacco industry to the e-cigarette and vaping industry. Showcasing interviews and talks by Dr. Derek Yach, a former World Health Organization tobacco control chief; Clive Bates, a prominent anti-smoking activist; and many other experts, Biebert narrates the possibility that e-cigarettes may be able to save a majority of the billion lives that could be lost to tobacco.
The final section of the film centers on the attempts the tobacco industry has made to stop e-cigarettes from encroaching on the money-making abilities of the large multinational corporations involved. Set as an exploration of the reasons many people are critical toward vaping, the third act of the film shows how money is integral to the tobacco industry's survival. Tackling issues such as the involvement of pharmaceutical corporations and even governments in dealings with tobacco companies, the documentary reaches out to find out why there is such a negative bias toward vaping. Culminating in an extensive breakdown of how much money lies in the hands of tobacco industries, A Billion Lives covers a wide range of topics related to smoking.