Yet...
I don't think we should wait until somethng serious happens, then have big brother step in. The minute something terrible does happen, I feel our vaping days will be numbered.
Houston, we have a problem...BE nic titration results
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Yet...
I don't think we should wait until somethng serious happens, then have big brother step in. The minute something terrible does happen, I feel our vaping days will be numbered.
Having a responsible trade group provide testing guidelines and procedures would be beneficial, and no, it would not force Mom and Pop shops out of business. Every batch of mixed, flavored eliquid doesn't have to be tested, to be honest. Just the raw ingredients. You test your main base nic solution, maybe your PG and VG, flavors, etc. If you are prudent in your mixing and confident in your raw materials, the end result will be acceptable, as well. A test of a small sampling of your base ingredients is much more cost-effective than testing every single mix you make out of those base ingredients.
Yes, ECF cannot make or enforce any rules for anyone. This place is a resource, not some kind of industry regulatory body. It's hard enough trying to enforce minimum rules for people that want to take part here, and that is as far as we can go.
All government regulation is unduly restrictive, extremely expensive, and generally bad for everyone everywhere. All it does is legislate for contraventions of standards, it doesn't improve anything and it costs everyone dear in the end. Making laws doesn't stop criminals as they ignore laws, that's why they're criminals. In the same way, having federal regulations doesn't stop evaders or mistakes, it just makes everything more expensive.
The best system by far is trade association regulation - that is, you can't join unless you comply with basic safety regulations that are voluntary: no comply, no membership. Then people can choose who they buy from.
In the end the only people who can fix this problem are the consumer associations and the trade associations. If you wait for the government to get involved, you lose everything. How would you like pre-filled cartos only, no flavors, 18mg max strength, etc etc. That's what you'll get, if more of these vendor screw-ups go public.
The trade need to regulate themselves, the consumer groups need to force them to do it, and if that doesn't happen then the FDA will have a legitimate reason for introducing new regs. And no one will be able to complain because they brought it on themselves. If you buy from a vendor who does not have testing done on their product, what exactly do you expect? Would you be happy to buy an asthma inhaler if you knew the vendor did no testing and had no real idea what is in it? OK - then how about something you'll be inhaling 1,000 times more than an asthma inhaler?
It is way past time this was sorted out, and the whole situation is a direct invitation for government to step in.
All government regulation is unduly restrictive, extremely expensive, and generally bad for everyone everywhere. All it does is legislate for contraventions of standards, it doesn't improve anything and it costs everyone dear in the end. Making laws doesn't stop criminals as they ignore laws, that's why they're criminals. In the same way, having federal regulations doesn't stop evaders or mistakes, it just makes everything more expensive.
The best system by far is trade association regulation - that is, you can't join unless you comply with basic safety regulations that are voluntary: no comply, no membership. Then people can choose who they buy from.
In the end the only people who can fix this problem are the consumer associations and the trade associations. If you wait for the government to get involved, you lose everything. How would you like pre-filled cartos only, no flavors, 18mg max strength, etc etc. That's what you'll get, if more of these vendor screw-ups go public.
The trade need to regulate themselves, the consumer groups need to force them to do it, and if that doesn't happen then the FDA will have a legitimate reason for introducing new regs. And no one will be able to complain because they brought it on themselves. If you buy from a vendor who does not have testing done on their product, what exactly do you expect? Would you be happy to buy an asthma inhaler if you knew the vendor did no testing and had no real idea what is in it? OK - then how about something you'll be inhaling 1,000 times more than an asthma inhaler?
It is way past time this was sorted out, and the whole situation is a direct invitation for government to step in.
I had some serious thought about this last night. If BB does step in, and consumers aren't allowed to buy nic liquid, then I'll just vape 0 nic. I can buy everything else I need, and most of it locally. From what I understand, I can even get flavors if I ask the pharmacist. With a little ingenuity, I can make a PV too. Knowledge is out, can't take that away.
Thanks Roly. I beleive these were the straws I was grasping for when I tried to explain what was in my head.
This is good and I'm glad Kurt was here to test this nicotine out for us, but it also leaves open the possibility of sabotage by another company. I'm just making up conspiracy theories here, but what if another vendor puts someone up to spiking another vendor's nicotine or just plain faking some results. Then we all get out our pitchforks and torches and figuratively burn business 1 to the ground without 'real' proof. Just from what I've read between the lines here at ECF and other sites there seems to be some real bitterness/animosity/competition between a couple of nicotine vendors. It would be relatively easy with the anonymity of a computer identity to virtually destroy another company in this way. Some sort of independent testing where an agency randomly bought and tested nicotine from various vendors and published the results would (hopefully) prevent that from happening. It would be expensive and take lots of organization though.
ETA: I trust Kurt. I don't know him except for what I've seen on here, so as far as I can I trust that he is honest. However... these nicotine samples in question have been through several hands, and this evidence would never hold up to scrutiny. In my mind, I do believe the results and I do believe that Box Elder messed up, BUT I think holes could be punched because of the fact that nobody here really knows for sure the 'chain of custody' of the samples, so to speak, that these samples went through. Does this make sense?
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For the record, I sent an email to Jason at Vapor Renu asking if his liquids were based on this source. This is the response I got:
So it looks like their liquid at least isn't affected by these shoddy QC issues.
So it looks like their liquid at least isn't affected by these shoddy QC issues.
I don't think so. Once in solution, it shouldn't start to separate back out. The initial mixing, however, does need to be complete, and hot spots can occur, especially in very thick VG juices. Diffusion of nic is slower in VG, and I could imagine a gallon of 100 mg/mL total nic content still not mixed completely, with hot portions coming out for sale. But it is not like vinegar and oil. More like honey and milk. Takes a bit to mix fully, but once in, it stays in.
If it was all VG, yes it could, depending on the air temperature and shipping time. Over time, anything dissolved but not fully mixed will become fully mixed. Your example of Chris was with 100 mg VG that he was concerned MIGHT have hot spots, and he stopping shipping that until he had a good mixing method. But no one got poisoned and no one thought theirs was too strong. Someone thought theirs tasted funny. I think it did, it tasted like nic. His is on the aromatic side. So I was impressed that Chris very quickly stepped up and fixed the issue before anyone was injured. Made me want to buy from him again...although I have not needed to.
I'm probably saying the same things as a million others here, but, wow, this is BAD. I really think we need a list of other vendors who use BE base, pronto. I don't want regulation out the nose, but it's going to be needed with things like this popping up. Of course, regulation never assures us of anything. The FDA ....s things up all the time, and it really falls on the vendor of any product to do the due diligence and make sure that quality is proper.. I am really picky about whom I purchase juice from, I prefer to know something about their process, which is why I like Vaperite and DFW and some others - transparency in their mixing.
Something like this can be seriously detrimental to the community as a whole, it's a serious smoking gun for the FDA and these other jackholes to pull out and point at vaping - despite the fact that cigarette companies get to put thousands of chemicals into cigarettes and not divulge what they put into them.
I certainly hope this doesn't reach as far as it possibly could.
Something like this can be seriously detrimental to the community as a whole, it's a serious smoking gun for the FDA and these other jackholes to pull out and point at vaping - despite the fact that cigarette companies get to put thousands of chemicals into cigarettes and not divulge what they put into them.
I certainly hope this doesn't reach as far as it possibly could.
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Not necessarily. I found the ones up to 121 mg to be almost without color. BE nic is also less odor than say MFS nic at the same strength, so you would have to be very familiar with the BE odor in the first place. Until now, I only knew my own 100 mg VG from them...oh, wait...my own 48 mg VG from them. Had to twist that knife again. This shame of this is that their nic IS of high quality!! It looks like their QC in making liquids from a very high base nic are the problems, not the quality of the nic itself. It was the extreme 272 mg one that was amber. So their storage was also very good, since color is oxidation in general if you are starting with a pure freebase nic, which I do think they were.
Had I not tested mine, I would have continued to think that I didn't know as much about nic as I thought, and that some nics just hit very very differently than others or are less effective. I am not thinking this way as much now, and I am wondering if all those people that said that BE has very little pepper effect didn't also just get nic that was way too low, like I did.
That is so true. I have purchased premade juice from vendors in the past that I knew were lower nic level than what I paid for. I just figured that the vendor was being cheap with the nic during sales, etc. Now I wonder if maybe they were not even aware that they were using lower nic to start with.
I think what Kurt did here should really be a practice for all vendors. It adds time to the process, but it would be best in the long run.
This whole thing were as if New PM's couldn't be sent because the PM box was full, and that someone might be sitting in the last tiny chat room waiting for someone else to show up.
Kurt, thank you for your service to this community. As others have already offered, if you are willing to take donations to help cover your costs, count me in. All I need is a PayPal addy. 
Scurrying off to find out if my favorite vendor is getting nic from BE.
Scurrying off to find out if my favorite vendor is getting nic from BE.
Brianbotkiller, I asked if the simple BB/acid test produces comparable results because the smaller artisan eliquid shops are unlikely to have the skill and equipment to do what Kurt has done.
"Titration curves are not difficult to obtain, but to do them accurately requires specialized glassware and electronics."
A smaller vendor buying maybe 500ml of 100mg/ml to work with is probably not set up to do this, while it would be reasonable to ask them to do the BB/acid check on incoming nic base. A result that's more than a handful of mg/ml off would be enough to at least get a question going upstream, to whoever they bought that base from, and if they only do it on the incoming bulk bottles of base, not repeat the test on every output bottle of eliquid, it shouldn't be overly burdensome in time/$.
"Titration curves are not difficult to obtain, but to do them accurately requires specialized glassware and electronics."
A smaller vendor buying maybe 500ml of 100mg/ml to work with is probably not set up to do this, while it would be reasonable to ask them to do the BB/acid check on incoming nic base. A result that's more than a handful of mg/ml off would be enough to at least get a question going upstream, to whoever they bought that base from, and if they only do it on the incoming bulk bottles of base, not repeat the test on every output bottle of eliquid, it shouldn't be overly burdensome in time/$.
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