I may be wrong about some aspects of protonated nic

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bombastinator

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I have made a lot of posts for a long time about what i thought the problems with protonated nic were.
They were based very heavily on other previous posts and article references made here.

In particular it was the existence of a single class action lawsuit where juul was served a no-knock warrant and a bunch of documents were seized. The suit was apparently lost by the plaintiffs, or the suit was thrown out. Nothing came of it, but I never got a look at the straight documents so I never knew exactly why this happened.
It was, as I remember it, the talk of the forum for some time. Many threads were created on the subject as various reports and articles were looked at.

This produced several points

1. juul never did any safety or addiction testing on protonated nic.

2. JUUL admitted that the active ingredient in their product was n-benzoate.

3. that the internal pre marketing department stroked reports seized said that the scientists working on the actual stuff referred to the compounds they were working on as “protonated nicotine” rather than “salt”.

I believed what I had read, and championed these concepts. Lately though I have run into a problem.

I can’t find the data.

This does not mean that it never happened. My memory of the whole event remains reasonably clear. I can’t find references to what I remember reading though.

The problem is two fold:

1. The Google search engine doesn’t seem to like to look for old information. Finding anything pre 2019 is difficult as it is swamped by newer data. I didn’t copy the stuff I saw, assuming the information would remain involate and findable.
This did not happen.

2. while I remember these conversations taking place, and seeing the articles here, and this site DOES have a search engine willing to look for old stuff, I have trouble actually using it. I have made attempts to find references to the stuff and failed.

The upshot is while I remember it I can’t prove it. At least anymore. I remember there being a time when I could, and the data was easily referenced. This no longer seems to be the case. The only thing I have to say it ever even happened was is my memory of the posts about the event.

I stopped talking about it much, mostly because it seemed to annoy people, but it came up again recently. I attempted to find the earlier data and was unable to. There WAS some data, but it was thin. Specifics were missing and the articles were from less than reputable sources.

I then reached outside of the vaping community to a legal firm in the midst of attempting to sue JUUL thinking that they might have references I lack because they actually have research people for such things and would have already found the information, or at least references to the information.

the reply returned was wild to me. “Currently there have not been any JUUL trials to date”. This could mean several things.
1. They hadn’t really looked yet
2. The trial I was thinking of did not apply to the particular issue they were investigating and didn’t matter.
3. (Which is weak and based on confluent possibilities I know little about making it unbelievably weak) that trials that are thrown out are not considered to have happened and thus did not show up on their radar.
4. (Which is the giant one for me) is that the thing I thought happened simply didn’t.

This means that unless or until I unearth this stuff, such statements are not supportable, at least by me, and that much of what I have said about JUUL cannot be supported either.

Statements I have made about the nature of JUUL and the product it sells are not currently provable by me as not being simply assumptions and rantings.

I am profoundly disturbed by this.

I cannot conclusively show that what I remember happening actually did. This places me in the same position as Deep state theorists. Spouting stuff based on the thinnest of evidence or no evidence at all. For what it’s worth I believe I saw what I said I saw. What that is worth is not much of anything though.

The statement I made about this are consequently untrustable. I will keep looking. Mostly because this whole thing makes me doubt my own mind.
I am not someone who believes that conspiracies exist. They’re mathematically stupid. Confluence of unlikely events multiples unlikelihood and massively magnifies it.
I do believe myself someone capable of incompetence. Right now incompetence is more likely.

The greatest likelihood right now, lacking data, is that I was just wrong.

I’m still not going to call protonated nic “salt”. It remains a more accurate term. One of the weirdnesses of all this is I learned the term “protonated” during those exchanges. It itself is evidence that they happened, at least to me.

I can’t make statements about problems with it though, because I don’t have the data.

I apologize to those who took my words as supported, and those who I annoyed by making claims that at this time I cannot back up.

I do not like doubting my own mind. I don’t like it at all. I like even less that I might have misled someone through my own failures.
 
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bombastinator

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On behalf of the annoyed, thank you for this disclosure, and for the admission of fallibility.
The definition between “may be wrong” and “wrong” are distinct. The whole lack of testing of protonated nic iirc remains multiply sourced, one of which was an actual account by JUUL in an advertising piece, though now I’m going to have to look that up and make sure since iirc has a harsher meaning right now. Also the issue with multiple compounds all being referred to as “salt”. That data is still around as well. That’s chemistry. And a chart that still exists.

The lawsuit I can’t seem to find at the moment though, which has ugly implications for my veracity.

...and I’m also not finding the description of of no research. I’m also not finding any research. Goes on my list I guess. I did get google to find older posts, sort of. My googleFu needs work.
 
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LoveVanilla

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I have made a lot of posts for a long time about what i thought the problems with protonated nic were.
...
I can’t find the data.

Bombastinator, here's one source spelling out some of this details, though maybe not with desired detail:
Special Report: Juul disregarded...
Employees tested new liquid-nicotine formulations on themselves or on strangers taking smoke breaks on the street. Sometimes, the mix packed too much punch – enough nicotine to make some testers’ hands shake or send them to the bathroom to vomit, a former company manager told Reuters.
Xing and others started to research the smoother type of nicotine that naturally occurred in the tobacco plant, known as “nicotine salts” or “protonated nicotine.” This form of the drug was highlighted in a cache of documents from R.J. Reynolds in the 1980s as part of an experiment called “Project XGT.”

R.J. Reynolds aimed to make the nicotine in low-tar “light” cigarettes more palatable to smokers. The company showed that adding organic acids to cigarettes could neutralize nicotine’s bitter taste by reducing its pH, or acid-base scale, while also delivering more nicotine. The addition would please customers wanting “a cigarette that is smooth, mild, highest quality, and very refreshing,” according to the R.J. Reynolds documents. The records do not make clear whether or how the company used the research in its cigarettes.

The use of acids to reduce harshness was “a key,” Xing said. “It was an avenue we could try to go down.”

When Juul’s predecessor company in 2014 filed patent documents describing its nicotine salts formula, it referenced the R.J. Reynolds patent on using acids as a cigarette additive.

Xing and others tested different kinds of acids to create a nicotine liquid with the optimal blend of smoothness and potency. They ultimately settled on benzoic acid after a series of blind trials.
 

bombastinator

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Bombastinator, here's one source spelling out some of this details, though maybe not with desired detail:
Special Report: Juul disregarded...
Bless you. I feel much more grounded. MSN isn’t much more respected than the daily beast or daily mail in some circles but it’s got references.

UPDATE: the thing appears to be done from data in a Reuter’s interview with JUUL executives.
 
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bombastinator

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No, you really don't.
Possible. I’d have to try both. Senile feels cleaner to me somehow. Plus it happens to everyone. Can’t make fun of senility. Some day it’s going to be your turn. Today was scary as hell though. False surety would likely feel better. I’ll see how it goes. I may agree with you tomorrow.
 
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LoveVanilla

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Bless you. I feel much more grounded. MSN isn’t much more respected than the daily beast or daily mail in some circles but it’s got references.

UPDATE: the thing appears to be done from data in a Reuter’s interview with JUUL executives.

Bombastinator, you may have been more well-tuned on Juul's evolution and timeline, but following filled in some pieces for me. Appears relatively factual and unbiased.

 
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Jebbn

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@bombastinator a lot of research papers I had bookmarked 3yrs ago are gone.
I have found some behind paywalls but the ones I really want to find seem to have gone using usual search phrases. A big mistake for me was not down loading them or at least writing down the researchers full names, research centers etc.
In 2016 I could type in "tobacco study" or "nicotine vs tobacco" into google or google scholar and would find relevant links, in 2019 if I type those same same search phrases I am more likely to get 10 pages of links to anti vape and anti tobacco buzz feed articles or bs commentaries on studies.
 

bombastinator

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We're all mistaken sometimes @bombastinator , you don't have to turn it into an existential senility crisis. Not yet. If it continues to happen... But for now? :)

Anna
Yes and no. Mostly what I do here is quote from memory about things, knowing that they happened, and assuming I can prove them if necessary. There was a failure. A big one. It appears from other sources that what I thought happened as far as JUUL’s behavior goes actually did. That removes the possibility that I may have grossly misled someone, which was my primary concern.
Doing it by accident is unacceptable. It’s too close to doing it on purpose. That IMHO is evil. An all too common evil lately.

I remember that stuff though and it seems to be not findable. Is it a silly crisis? Sure.
 
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bombastinator

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@bombastinator a lot of research papers I had bookmarked 3yrs ago are gone.
I have found some behind paywalls but the ones I really want to find seem to have gone using usual search phrases. A big mistake for me was not down loading them or at least writing down the researchers full names, research centers etc.
In 2016 I could type in "tobacco study" or "nicotine vs tobacco" into google or google scholar and would find relevant links, in 2019 if I type those same same search phrases I am more likely to get 10 pages of links to anti vape and anti tobacco buzz feed articles or bs commentaries on studies.
For what it’s worth my next stop after attempting to learn the dark magic of power searches on this site is the wayback machine. A true random shot in the dark. I don’t know if the thing is even still active. I can’t really see it even living past the 90’s what with the exponential growth of information. If it is even still alive it’s doubtful it would be any help. The sheer amount of data is mind bending. I can’t even find stuff here.
Still, If it’s alive it’s just a click away. Some of the stuff you are looking for might be there. If it’s alive, and is still collecting data, and it happened to collect the page you were looking for, and it’s navigable. A lot of “and”s. Too many, probably.
 
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