I was poking around some of the earliest posts on ECF today. It's always fun.
Back at the very start of the DIY forum people were talking about extracting nicotine from cigarettes. Nobody knew anything about it. People were boiling up rolling tobacco in water, then letting it evaporate until they ended up with an oily residue. They were convinced that what they had created was pure nicotine. Someone looked that up and discovered that a couple of drops on the skin were enough to kill you. One poor guy got half a drop on the back of his hand and suffered all the side effects of severe nicotine poisoning, killer headache, dizziness, etc. He told his wife if he passed out to call emergency and tell them about the nicotine, but after a few hours he recovered (don't mean to embarrass him but he hasn't posted since 09). So they were carefully taking the oily residue and diluting it way down and adding a tiny drop to their carts. And still afraid they would get nicotine poisoning. Then someone who knew a chemist asked and was told that boiling cigarettes would likely produce little to no nicotine but most folks weren't convinced.
They had no idea what was in e-juice. They were trying to make juice out of water, alcohol, a little PG, and boiled tobacco residue. Someone mixed the residue with lip balm and vaped it. Someone had the idea of adding a little VG to his cart. He said it tasted nice and produced really thick white vapor. Might have been the very first cloud chaser.
People were scouring the web looking for sources of nicotine. All they found was one supplier who sold it at 98% pure, and you had to have a company address to order it. They decided that was too dangerous to mess with.
Then I saw this plaintive comment, from a lady who moved on years ago..
Dec 2008 - "I'd love to get my hands on liquid nicotine diluted with nothing but propylene glycol or glycerine. All the other additives and flavourings are what I think are causing me sensitivity problems at the moment."
A few pages later someone discovered a source for nic dissolved in either PG or VG with nothing else added. Small bottles, quite expensive, probably originating from a vaping company in China they reckoned. A few of them got together and ordered a couple of bottles of each to try out. Maybe the availability of diluted nic in PG and VG that we take for granted now is something that only came about because of vaping.
It was fascinating to see the knowledge base start to build up as people experimented and read and asked questions and compared notes. They really did start from nothing. People can be amazingly smart and persistent sometimes.
We know so much now compared to those pioneers. You have to respect them. We owe them a lot.
Back at the very start of the DIY forum people were talking about extracting nicotine from cigarettes. Nobody knew anything about it. People were boiling up rolling tobacco in water, then letting it evaporate until they ended up with an oily residue. They were convinced that what they had created was pure nicotine. Someone looked that up and discovered that a couple of drops on the skin were enough to kill you. One poor guy got half a drop on the back of his hand and suffered all the side effects of severe nicotine poisoning, killer headache, dizziness, etc. He told his wife if he passed out to call emergency and tell them about the nicotine, but after a few hours he recovered (don't mean to embarrass him but he hasn't posted since 09). So they were carefully taking the oily residue and diluting it way down and adding a tiny drop to their carts. And still afraid they would get nicotine poisoning. Then someone who knew a chemist asked and was told that boiling cigarettes would likely produce little to no nicotine but most folks weren't convinced.
They had no idea what was in e-juice. They were trying to make juice out of water, alcohol, a little PG, and boiled tobacco residue. Someone mixed the residue with lip balm and vaped it. Someone had the idea of adding a little VG to his cart. He said it tasted nice and produced really thick white vapor. Might have been the very first cloud chaser.
People were scouring the web looking for sources of nicotine. All they found was one supplier who sold it at 98% pure, and you had to have a company address to order it. They decided that was too dangerous to mess with.
Then I saw this plaintive comment, from a lady who moved on years ago..
Dec 2008 - "I'd love to get my hands on liquid nicotine diluted with nothing but propylene glycol or glycerine. All the other additives and flavourings are what I think are causing me sensitivity problems at the moment."
A few pages later someone discovered a source for nic dissolved in either PG or VG with nothing else added. Small bottles, quite expensive, probably originating from a vaping company in China they reckoned. A few of them got together and ordered a couple of bottles of each to try out. Maybe the availability of diluted nic in PG and VG that we take for granted now is something that only came about because of vaping.
It was fascinating to see the knowledge base start to build up as people experimented and read and asked questions and compared notes. They really did start from nothing. People can be amazingly smart and persistent sometimes.
We know so much now compared to those pioneers. You have to respect them. We owe them a lot.
