Should You Be Worried About Nicotine Addiction From Vaping?

[Sharrivz]

A new study is causing growing concern that electronic cigarettes could lead to stronger nicotine addiction than regular cigarettes. In most cases, people begin using ecigs as a way to reduce the risks of smoking, but are they trading one problem for another?

The alarming study was published earlier this month in the Chemical Research in Toxicology journal. After testing 17 ecig brands, the researchers found that nine contained nicotine in its most addictive form. Najat Salibu, an analytical chemistry professor from American University of Beirut, led the study and he said that nicotine levels were not always consistent with the labels when tested in a lab.

Salibu claimed that ecigs could in fact be more addictive than tobacco cigarettes because the “free-base” nicotine is absorbed directly into the body. “Products with very high nicotine delivery may make quitting e-cigs particularly difficult should users decide to try,” he said.

Not everyone is so convinced that Salibu’s perspective is accurate. Chris Snowdon, director of Lifestyle Economics, said that ecigs are still a good option to reduce health risks associated with smoking. “The whole point of tobacco harm reduction is to give people a substitute for the think they are addicted to,” he said. “Opiates are also addictive, which is why we give people methadone instead of heroin. It is not about addiction, it is about health, and nicotine is not damaging to health.”

Snowdon argued that ecigs are dramatically safer than using tobacco products and nicotine is really not a major concern from a health standpoint. Cigarettes are lethal because they contain tobacco, not because of nicotine. “Not only is nicotine not damaging to health but over a billion people worldwide enjoy using it, and so if a product can deliver nicotine without delivering cancer it should be seen as a very welcome development.”

So far, no studies have proven that ecigs cause any long-term health damage. In fact, current studies have shown that ecigs help smokers quit and they are not a gateway to traditional tobacco use. Despite what the mainstream media is printing in their attempts to draw traffic and create a lot of hype, ecigs are not the enemy. In fact, vaping offers a lot of smokers an escape from decades of tobacco addiction.

Are you concerned about nicotine addiction? Do you feel like you are more addicted to nicotine since you switched to e-cigarettes?

http://www.churnmag.com/news/should-you-be-worried-about-nicotine-addiction-from-vaping/

 

[johan]

The mere fact that I could come down from 36mg (or 3.6%) to +/- 9mg (or 0.9%) in a one year span, is contradictory to the learned Najat Salibu's statement, sorry.

 

[Marzuq]

very interesting read.
I have to say that i started vaping at 18mg nice strength just over a year ago. Ive since dropped to 3mg. I dont chase the nic in my vape. I vape purely because i enjoy vaping. if i went to 0 nic i doubt id be phased about it. Just the flavour on 0 nic isnt as good lol.
I have gone a full day without a vape and i had no cravings for a vape or thought about a cig.
nicotine is not addictive in my opinion. Nicotine is a choice we make

 

[Kuhlkatz]

I dropped from 18, to 12 to 6 in a year or so as well. Besides the drop, I do not feel the need to kill anyone that dare stand between me and a smoke break any more. I don't really care if I did not have my nic fix in the last hour or so, and there is no more urgency to go and have a smoke the moment I open my eyes in the morning. I think I am much more chilled than ever before.

So yes, vaping does save lives - mostly those of some of the idiots we are surrounded by.

 

[Silver]

There is no way i am more addicted to nicotine since i started vaping

I can go for a few hours quite easily without "remembering" to vape

That never happened when I smoked. I would get fidgety and restless and need a smoke real bad

 

[Alex]

The Rest of the Story: Tobacco News Analysis and Commentary

Monday, July 27, 2015
American Chemical Society Grossly Misrepresents Scientific Study in Order to Demonize E-Cigarettes

The American Chemical Society (ACS) became yet the next organization to work a hatchet job on electronic cigarettes. This time, it was the ACS claiming publicly that based on a new study, e-cigarettes may be as addictive as traditional ones.

Last Wednesday, the ACS issued a press release to accompany the publication of a new article in its journal "Chemical Research in Toxicology." The press release headline warned that "E-cigarettes May Be As Addictive as Traditional Ones."

Responding to this press release, media outlets throughout the world published articles touting the extreme addictive dangers of e-cigarettes. For example, The Daily Mail article headline warned that "E-cigarettes are just as addictive as the real thing." The first sentence of the article read: "E-cigarettes are just as addictive as the real thing, researchers have found." The article goes on to cite the new study published in Chemical Research in Toxicology.

The Rest of the Story

After reading the press release and these articles and headlines, I fully expected to find in the actual study a comparison of the addictiveness of e-cigarettes and cigarettes. But the study did nothing of the sort. In fact, there was absolutely no study of cigarettes at all, and there was no comparison of nicotine levels produced from e-cigarettes compared to regular cigarettes.

In fact, all the study did was to demonstrate a new method for determining the fraction of nicotine in e-liquids and aerosols that is present in the free-base, rather than the protonated form. And it then used that method on several e-liquids and reported that most of the nicotine in these liquids and their aerosols was in the free-base form. This is important because the free-base form is the only form that is readily absorbed into the body.

That's it! That's all the study did. It did not make any comparisons with regular cigarettes. And most importantly, it did not compare the blood nicotine profile over time with e-cigarettes to that with tobacco cigarettes. So there is no way from this study that one can draw any conclusions about the relative addictiveness of e-cigarettes and regular cigarettes.

The truth is that multiple studies have compared the profile of blood nicotine levels over time between vaping and smoking. The result, unequivocally, has been that nicotine delivery is much more efficient with real cigarettes. Most important, real cigarettes, but not most e-cigarettes, deliver nicotine in such a fashion as to create a huge nicotine spike, resulting in what users experience as a "nicotine hit." E-cigarettes generally do not produce such an effect. Thus, the scientific evidence clearly shows that e-cigarettes are not nearly as addictive as tobacco cigarettes.

So how can the American Chemical Society conclude that based on this new study, e-cigarettes are just as addictive as tobacco cigarettes? The answer is: they can't. In other words, they are literally just making it up! And even worse, because the claim is not true, they are disseminating a blatant lie to the public.

This is how low the tactics of e-cigarette opponents have fallen. They now just make it up. They literally make up evidence to support their pre-determined conclusion that e-cigarettes are every bit as terrible as regular cigarettes. In the process, they lie.

I have long since realized that the reason for their need to make things up and tell lies to the public is that they just don't have any solid evidence to rely upon to support their anti-e-cigarette positions. All of the actual scientific evidence at present points to the tremendous benefits of e-cigarettes with only minimal harms. That's not convenient for advocates who have determined in advance to oppose e-cigarettes. So they have to start making things up and telling lies.

Today's is just another example in a long string of similar stories. But now you know the rest of the story behind these hysterical headlines about the extreme health risks of e-cigarettes.

source: http://tobaccoanalysis.blogspot.com/2015/07/american-chemical-society-grossly.html?m=1

 

[Deckie]

Interesting article.

In less than 6 months vaping has enabled me to drop from 18mg initially to 3mg currently - 6mg makes my head spin, so I disagree with he's study but that is my personal view. I'm thinking of dropping my nic level to 0mg to see what my reactions are but based upon statements made other forum members in various posts, flavour without nic is not so nice. That I need to taste for myself.

 

[Viper_SA]

Why are we even caring about a study doen in Beirut?

 

[NnoS]

As per the trend shown in comments above, I have dropped from 18mg to between 9-12mg in only two months. I still keep some 18mg close by in case the cravings get too hectic. They haven't, thankfully, and I'm planning on dropping my nic level even further as my vaping journey continues. So, no. I'm not at all worried.

 

[Ohmen]

In today's world we know that tobacco cigarettes are very bad for your health. Many years of research has provided solid evidence that smoking tobacco cigarettes will result in a painful death.

So what do we do? We take the "safer" alternative which is vaping. We were all (or at least most of us) addicted to the nicotine in the cigarettes and now we can "safely" get the nicotine dose by vaping (among all the other great things that vaping comes with like awesome flavor and building colis and massive clouds and and and ).

What gets me is the uncertainty factor. We vaping copious amounts of E-liquid based on the evidence currently available stating that it's "safer" than cigarettes but we don't know the whole truth yet.

I surely hope in the near future we will get solid evidence showing exactly what vaping is doing to our bodies in the short and long term. They should look at the effects of smoking E-cigarettes without making reference to tobacco cigarettes because it's not the same thing (In my opinion).

 

[rvdwesth]

Yip I also disagree.
So a titbit about myself... I have a couple of degrees behind my name, and have done some research myself, in terms of Masters and PHD studies and this esteemed researcher has obviously missed the boat a little with his sample, "black swan theory".
Most vapers I know started, like in the comments above, with high nic and reduced over time. I personally went from 12mg all the way down to 3mg...
My conclusion thus is that this study is severely flawed... Just shows you, inductive epistemology is just wrong in so many cases.