How does the nicotine in cigarettes compare to vape oil?

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Hawise

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Mar 25, 2013
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Hi @Sarah_Cynthia,

There's a lot of good advice here, but I'm going to add my bit anyway. From your description of your vaping habits, I get the impression that you're worried about the risk of increasing your nicotine intake and basically making the addiction worse. If I'm wrong, go ahead and ignore the rest of my post. If I'm right, let me assure you that there's not much to worry about, at least with your current setup.

First, as @zoiDman said above, there's no accurate way to calculate comparable nicotine levels. One point he didn't mention is that tobacco contains lots of other things besides nicotine, a number of which seem to enhance its effect making cigarette nicotine more effective and likely more addictive than vaping freebase nicotine.

The only way to assess the amount of nic you're using is by how you feel, as @DeloresRose described. If that leaves you concerned about the chance of increasing your nicotine intake, the experiences of the rest of us should be reassuring. I'm afraid I only have anecdotal evidence for what I'm about to say as no proper studies have yet been done, but talking to people on this board I've found that increasing nicotine levels after switching to vaping is vanishingly rare, while lowering them is very common (though not universal).

Most people struggle a bit at first to find the nicotine level that controls their cigarette cravings. Once they hit that spot, they either stay there or start dropping. I started at 28 mg/ml (admittedly that was several years ago with less effective equipment). I quickly dropped to 24 mg/ml, where I stayed for several years as I had no motivation to quit vaping. Then one day I wondered what dropping it would be like. Over the next 6 months to a year I dropped from 24 mg/ml to 2.4 mg/ml, where I am now, with little to no discomfort.

I would add that it might be better to avoid really high salt nic pods like the Juul. I have heard of people increasing their nicotine usage and even feeling tempted to return to cigarettes after using that type of device, although I have no way of knowing how common that type of reaction might be.

Finally, even if you do end up with a higher nicotine level than you'd prefer, it's probably worth it if it gets you off the cigarettes. Nicotine itself doesn't seem to be overly harmful (it's a stimulant with some effects on circulation) once you separate it from all the other stuff you get by inhaling tobacco smoke.

Whatever you do next, I wish you success in quitting.
 
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stols001

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I too smoked American Spirit tobacco and yeah, they DO have the highest nic content out there (although "no additives0 those sneaky Natives and now Phillip Morris bought them I guess. But yeah they are the highest there is. I was smoking 3 ppd and 18 mg was enough for me when I quit. I did a fair share of chain vaping mind you, but it was sort of comforting. If I had to go long stretches between vaping my guess is it would be considerably higher.

The thing it, it's super individual you might buy some of your favorite juices in really high nic and 0 nic, and then you can mix them to different strengths if you want to trial and error... .Since we ALL absorb nic differently and since ecig nic is absorbed differently anyway. There just isn't a "hard and fast" number.

Anna
 
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