Vaping nicotine as a never-smoker, why not?

[englishmick]

vaping has been out for a while, but studies have not been...
If teens are vaping in droves now, yet smoking rates for 20-25 year olds have not declined dramatically, it would be safe to assume these smokers started with an e-cig...

I just carried out an extensive and rigorous survey of 25 year olds. He said that according to his younger brother who vapes, vaping first appeared in a significant way in high schools around 3 years ago. A few did it a little earlier than that. OK, that's not real science, but it's all I have.

Given that vaping has been around for about 8 years, a 25 year old would have been 17 when it started. And 22 when it became cool in school.

I have to guess that vaping among teens has not been around long enough for it to affect the 20 - 25 age group much.

The only graph I've seen addressing vaping in high school showed a drop in cigarette use that was almost exactly matched by the rise in vaping. So maybe the vapers would have smoked if vaping hadn't been available. Or maybe not. It may be 10 years at least before we can say with any confidence what the effect of teen vaping will be.

 

[AndriaD]

There are two possibilities here...
1) What you experienced is not what he is calling a craving
2) What we generally construe to be mental vs physical may not be correct, at least in mosspa's context.

He's a smart guy and I think we are lucky to have him here, and can learn from him. But we need to keep an open mind.

I'm a smart woman, and I know what I experienced, and I don't appreciate being told "it's all in your head, get over it" when I know what I experienced, I have LENGTHY, PERSONAL experience with MANY addictions, and I know the difference between something physical and something psychological. I suppose he thinks my clinical depression was psychological too, even though it took 2 yrs of Effexor to make it start receding.

Andria

 

[Jode]

Lots of interesting reading there, thanks for the link.

If any ADULT asked me if they should vape with nicotine as a non-tobacco user, I'd ask a few questions

1. Have you looked into the health effects and addictive properties of nicotine?

2. Have you looked into the safety of inhaling PG and/or VG?

3. Are you going to use flavoring, and if so, are you aware that there is some debate over the safety of some flavoring substances? (Diacetyl etc.)

If they've thought about the issues and are comfortable with their personal choice, go for it.

The Mom/Grammy in my would want to ask those questions as well, but then I would remind myself that I am not in charge of others choices nor the research they do or don't do to get to them. Live and let Live or Live and Let Die!?!

 

[VNeil]

The Mom/Grammy in my would want to ask those questions as well, but then I would remind myself that I am not in charge of others choices nor the research they do or don't do to get to them. Live and let Live or Live and Let Die!?!

One of the unfortunate facts of life here is that it is that a never-smoker would have extreme difficulty finding any actual facts on the matter. As evidence I present this thread, and others like it. Sigh.

 

[mosspa]

You are wrong, and until you have experienced that type of craving yourself, you should not opine about it.

Andria

OK, if a craving is not a thought' what is it? You are correct, I have never experienced cravings (except, possibly, in my younger years when I was horny [which is sexual craving, I think]). I have several friends that were opiate addicts. They explained cravings as an intense desire for their drugs. If an 'intense desire' isn't a thought, what is it?

 

[mosspa]

I think this is the crux of the differences in thinking. The behavior looks one way, but that (IMO) should not be called addiction (at least not automatically). I will leave the house in the middle of the night just to go get a bottle of soda water from the store (if my cartridge on my Sodastream got empty at an inopportune time). My wife just laughs because I just have to have soda water on hand at all times! Now, can I stop drinking it? Probably, but I really don't want to. And just becasue I don't want to does not mean I have a disease. I don't think I have gone one day in the past two years or so without drinking soda water (I drink about 2 liters a day on average). I have gone several days without vaping, drinking alcohol, coffee or sex (I've even gone whole days without food), but no way will I entertain not having my fizz!

Very well said. Bravo!

 

[mosspa]

@mosspa I think you missed his point. He was trying to tell you he is a mindless ideologue and you should not try to reason with him. Or maybe you did get it. You're a lot smarter than I am so I shouldn't assume anything.

I do get it However, one of the problems with ignoring ideologues is that you are allowing a repetition of a lie. I doubt that anybody would be vaping 45 mg/ml nicotine in the 90s. I wasn't a smoker then so I have no idea what was actually available, but, since there was no real market back then, I doubt that nicotine in high concentrations would have been generally available. If anybody who is not a flat earther knows, could you please tell me what the options were back then. As to my intelligence, I have a PhD in psychopharmacology and I have been studying drugs for almost 40 years, if I didn't appear to know something about this stuff I should be shot. On the other hand, you and several others here who have no specific training in the field seem to get it, and can even relay it so that others can understand it. That is real brilliance!

 

[mosspa]

Here, Kurt says 5.5 years and going strong.... Nicotine Comparisons | Page 120 | E-Cigarette Forum

Oxidation is the major culprit. If the stuff is in a freezer, it is getting minimal light exposure (unless you are of the mindset that the light really doesn't go off when you close the door), so no UV. Alcohols are very stable at low temperatures so you would be looking at near zero nicotine oxidation in any alcohol vehicle. Just like the VW in Woody Allen's 'Sleeper' it wouldn't surprise me if nicotine stored in PG in a freezer for 100 years was still potent. However, I would be interested in seeing how much degradation there actually was after 5.5 years.

 

[mosspa]

You seem to post your bunk science to justify your own personal nic use. Why do you need to rationalize your nic use here? I just don't get it. I am a vapor. I am a former 40 year analog user. I use nicotine. I don't need to rationalize to myself or anyone here whether it is okay or not and get my hackles up when someone disagrees with bogus information I post even though I believe it to justify my own personal behavior. Give it a rest.

The next to the last sentence says it all. Just because the information you post is bogus it doesn't mean that the information culled from peer-reviewed science journals posted by others is bogus.

 

[stevegmu]

And you can quit anytime...then quit and you don't have to log onto these ridiculous threads anymore.

Some feel better about their addictions by pushing them on others. Why else encourage nonsmokers to vape e-liquid with nicotine?

 

[VNeil]

However, I would be interested in seeing how much degradation there actually was after 5.5 years.

My recollection was that he simply said "none". You can PM member "Kurt" and ask him. He's a chemist so I'm sure he would love to talk chem geek with you

 

[mosspa]

Such a joke. Yea just stop vaping and all nic use. Resign your membership to ECF and give it all a rest since you aren't addicted.

Read my 'Advantages' thread! I was smoke free for over 40 years and I started vaping nicotine to reap the potential cognitive improvement benefits. It appears to be working. I stopped vaping over 2 months ago after vaping for 17 weeks at between 1-1.5 ml of 45 mg/ml ejuice. For me, its all about the nicotine. Obviously, I'm not addicted (whatever you may construe that to mean). I'm here at EFC because I was interested to find out is there were others like me here. Not everyone, including kids, vape to replace smoking. Many people vape for vaping sake. What I find hilarious, is the idea that vaping less nicotine is somehow better than vaping relatively high concentrations (35 mg/ml+). What I find even more bizarre is the notion that one needs to gradually lower nicotine concentration to avoid withdrawal symptoms. Of course, you are free to believe what you want and to do what you want, but that doesn't make it any less (in my opinion) silly.

 

[mosspa]

But peer reviews are not as well as all the bunk science posted in this thread?

What? That sentence makes no sense, grammatically or otherwise.

 

[mosspa]

And you can quit anytime...then quit and you don't have to log onto these ridiculous threads anymore.

I did quit. Again, I'm not here because I smoked most of my life away.

 

[mosspa]

Hello Professor, thank you for joining us, I really appreciate your contribution to this discussion.

I have also been reading through your thread and 45mg sounds really strong, according to what I have read on most places where they recommend 36mg at most, for people going over from >2 packs of cigarettes a day.

Granted though, it does make sense, approaching vaping as a drug delivery system rather than an activity, where the main purpose is getting a dose of nicotine delivered in the most efficient and quickest way possible, in contrast to smokers which casually go about it, vaping for hours on end.

With that being said I keep hearing about "throat hit", a burning sensation produced in the throat caused by irritation, that smokers/vapers get pleasure from. Apparently this gets more intense as the nicotine concentration increases. Though having never experienced it, I can't really know what it's like, wouldn't 45mg/ml be cause an overly harsh/intense "throat hit"?

I don't have time to look for it now, but there is one scientist that does basic fresearch on vaping. He is pretty highly regarded here, and somebody may be able to direct you to his work. I mentioned him and his work on nicotine delivery by vaping in the Advantages thread (probably within the last 6 pages). Anyway, using second generation devices (KangerTech and the clones, which is what I use) 45 mg/ml is the closest approximation of the nicotine delivered to the bloodstream by a standard non-light cigarette. Most places recommend 36 mg/ml or lower because they are either trying to cover their asses, or just uninformed. Yes, the 'throat hit' at 45 mg/ml is pretty intense. Like I said, I smoked from 7th grade through high school, so I kind of like the throat hit. As a matter of fact, I can't vape less than 36 mg/ml because it feels, to me, like I'm vaping air. As you probably know by now, I started vaping for the potential cognitive benefit, and most of the early published data was work done with smokers. So, my goal was to try to achieve blood concentrations of nicotine that were about on par with ehat a smoker gets.

 

[mosspa]

The highest I've ever vaped is 40 mg/mL. It's definitely got a wallop of a hit, but to me it's only pleasurable if vaping out of something like an ol' shool 510 dripping atomizer or even a carotomizer. Once it goes into tanks and more 'modern' atomizers, for me it starts to get some serious scratching/burning and not necessarily TH. Well, at least not the TH we used to refer to when the term TH first started popping up.

Edit: I think the TH phenomenon has more to do with nic and also types of vape styles. So if vaping with a lung-hit, it's going to be a lot different than a mouth-to-lung and one that I would not recommend to many people if we're talking about high nic.

Just to set the record straight. I drag on my cartomizer as though it were a cigarette. Mouth to lung, with a little swishing in the mouth.

 

[VNeil]

I do get it However, one of the problems with ignoring ideologues is that you are allowing a repetition of a lie. I doubt that anybody would be vaping 45 mg/ml nicotine in the 90s. I wasn't a smoker then so I have no idea what was actually available, but, since there was no real market back then, I doubt that nicotine in high concentrations would have been generally available. If anybody who is not a flat earther knows, could you please tell me what the options were back then. As to my intelligence, I have a PhD in psychopharmacology and I have been studying drugs for almost 40 years, if I didn't appear to know something about this stuff I should be shot. On the other hand, you and several others here who have no specific training in the field seem to get it, and can even relay it so that others can understand it. That is real brilliance!

It is my understanding that vaping is only about 6-8 years old. There simply was no vaping in the 90s. Someone with a more first hand grasp of the history is welcome to correct me if I'm wrong on my era.

I agree that it is as hard to ignore an ideologue as it is to try to reason with them. Tough problem.

While I'm here, I found two interesting discussion points in your thread....

1) You claimed, I believe, that your anecdotal experience with your students is that those who smoked relatively briefly had no problems giving up smoking. IOW, the idea that nicotine (or cigarettes) "latches it's hooks in you quickly" is an urban legend of sorts. It's been so long for me I don't remember. But I respect that you spend your days surrounded by that particular lab rat. Here you claimed you quit smoking, without "withdrawal issues", after 6 years (at around age 17-18). That, by my way of thinking, is a "long" time. I wonder if you are somewhat of an outlier on that. Most people around here (and I'm including those with fresher recollections) say otherwise.

I'm not arguing the point, only mentioning that your experiences are not "mainstream" here, for whatever that is worth.

2) You got into the issue of psychological vs physical addiction. I should go back and re-read the thread to refresh my memory but I had a distinct sense that separating the physical from the "mental" is not a simple matter, nor is it very intuitive to a layman. My sense was that few of us probably understood what you were trying to say. Simply because we are not trained to understand that and it is not a simple matter.

You would have had a very difficult time convincing me, back around day 4-5 of my final (and successful so far) quit attempt, that what I was feeling was not physical. Those were my worst days, and they were rather ugly. Yet at the same time I understand that I am not in a position to argue the point . It is quite complex indeed.

You said here that most of the dependency is behavioral, not chemical. Yet with vaping it is easy to separate that variable. By vaping 0mg juice. And if the user senses discomfort with 0mg juice than isn't there something chemical going on?

A similar issue with WTA. There are a number of people here that claim great benefit to WTA, in terms of easing their "withdrawal symptoms". And that is an issue of great interest here since WTA adds in some of the chemicals missing from tobacco that are thought to be addictive/dependent.

 

[mosspa]

I'm a smart woman, and I know what I experienced, and I don't appreciate being told "it's all in your head, get over it" when I know what I experienced, I have LENGTHY, PERSONAL experience with MANY addictions, and I know the difference between something physical and something psychological. I suppose he thinks my clinical depression was psychological too, even though it took 2 yrs of Effexor to make it start receding.

Andria

First, I never meant to imply that your 'symptoms' are not real to you. The characterization of something being 'all in your head' has taken on some kind of negative valence. Unfortunately, it is 'all in your head' because where else would it be? Think about it. Everything you experience is in your head, because that's where your brain resides. The problem is, you are unable to objectively separate something physical from something psychological unless there is an obvious physical marker. For example, if you suddenly get a shooting pain in your leg and you look down and see that you have impaled yourself on a chard of glass, you can rationally attribute the pain to the injury. If you suddenly get a shooting pain in your leg without obvious cause, you seek medical attention. If the medical analysis does not turn up a physical cause for the pain, then, it had to have been in your head. That doesn't make the pain less real, it just means that there is no physical cause for it.

Clinical depression is, generally, psychological. That's why you go to a psychologist or a psychiatrist and not a GP or internist for treatment. Yes, there are instances when brain maladies are the cause of clinical depression, but for most depressed people, depression is a psychological ailment. That Effexor worked for you is outstanding. In most studies on the psychopharmacology of depression, antidepressants perform only marginally better than placebos, and they only work better than placebos for people who score very high on the clinical depression scale. When a placebo works in treating depression about as well as an antidepressant, one has to conclude that depression is of a psychological nature. Remember, the brain is responsible for everything you know or think about yourself. Just because a drug can cause alterations in the way your brain works does not imply that there was physical damage that was repaired. I have suffered from major depression in the past. Knowing what I know about antidepressants, I never sought them out. The two major bouts I had (the most recent around 2006) sorted themselves out within a year or two. The resolution of my latest depression coincided with my return to teaching and research. I'm not asserting that getting back in the classroom 'cured' me of my depression, but I think it may have changed my focus, and that was all that was needed.

 

[mosspa]

Some feel better about their addictions by pushing them on others. Why else encourage nonsmokers to vape e-liquid with nicotine?

Duh, for cognitive enhancement, for example. BTW, I strongly you suggest you substantially up your nicotine dose

 

[VNeil]

Hello Professor, thank you for joining us, I really appreciate your contribution to this discussion.

I have also been reading through your thread and 45mg sounds really strong, according to what I have read on most places where they recommend 36mg at most, for people going over from >2 packs of cigarettes a day.

Granted though, it does make sense, approaching vaping as a drug delivery system rather than an activity, where the main purpose is getting a dose of nicotine delivered in the most efficient and quickest way possible, in contrast to smokers which casually go about it, vaping for hours on end.

With that being said I keep hearing about "throat hit", a burning sensation produced in the throat caused by irritation, that smokers/vapers get pleasure from. Apparently this gets more intense as the nicotine concentration increases. Though having never experienced it, I can't really know what it's like, wouldn't 45mg/ml be cause an overly harsh/intense "throat hit"?

After reading mosspa's thread, contemporaneously with it developing, I mixed up a batch of 50mg juice, just in the interests of science, you could say

I am one of those people that are not into throat hit, and I never was. When I quit smoking I started with 24mg, which was the strongest I could acquire locally. I did that not for the hit but purely for the nicotine, assuming that was what was making me so uncomfortable with smoking abstinence.

I found it (50mg) quite irritating. Interestingly, other than getting slightly light headed I can't say I got any great rush from it, and I was probably down to 10-12mg or so when I first did that. Although mosspa did that with an EVOD type of gen 2 device, I had a dripper handy and dripped it at about 10-14W.

I tried it again about a week ago, just for grins, and vaped it for about an hour, starting at about 25W in a dripper. I used a dripper just because that is what I always use for vaping odd juices, and reserve tanks for my ADVs. It was way too harsh for me. So I think I backed off to about 15W or so and actually got accustomed enough to do it for an hour or so.

I am now down to 1 or 3mg. The 1mg mainly for 25-35W dripping, and my tank I run at 25W. I am back and forth as I use up old juice and too lazy to make 0mg baches of my favs to dilute it down. I occasionally drip 6mg now, mostly old juice recipes I never repeated at lower nic ratios. When I drip 6mg I often find it uncomfortable. Just to say I am really not into this throat hit thing.

That is my experience. I am a sample of one, for sure, but a guy that wants to be way on the left side of the TH curve. When you get your 72mg concentrate you will be able to play lab rat and see where you fall on it.