It's Not Just the Nicotine

[StormFinch]

Not sure if this has been posted before, I looked through the first page and didn't see it though.

Why Is Smoking Addictive? It's Probably Not Just Nicotine, Despite What We've Been Told For Years

Something we could have told them a long time ago.

 

[Ranic85]

I vape 0mg nicotine now, sometimes 6mg if I want a kick. It has nothing to do with the nicotine. I just enjoy the hand to mouth actions, and since sucking my thumb is socially unacceptable. I will vape.

 

[TomCatt]

When I first started vaping, I was vaping/smoking for about a month before deciding to quit smoking. And even then it took a couple of days for the cravings to die away.

Over the past 2.5 years, I've dropped down to 6mg. Not purposefully, after a while at one mg level, I'd start getting "over-nicced" in the evening; then decrease nic level. After vaping a 6mg for a few months; I started getting a similar feeling and tried going to 0mg - that didn't work for me. I bounced between 0mg and 6mg for a couple of weeks and since then have been fine once more with 6mg. I still need some nicotine.

 

[Petrodus]

We became "addicted" to smoking
and "dependent" on nicotine ... NOT "addicted" to nicotine.
This is why we continue to vape ... even with low to zero nicotine.

Many, even here, have bought into the years of propaganda demonizing nicotine
claiming nicotine is one of the most addictive substances on the planet.

Nic patches and gums seldom work ...
Why? ... they contain nicotine
We are addicted to smoking

 

[StormFinch]

I had pretty much the same experience TomCatt. Started at 18 and was fine with it, but as time went on it became too much. I dropped it by 2 mgs each time my head started to swim on a regular basis until I got to 10, which seems to be where I'm most comfortable, although when a vivi head is working well even the 10 can be a bit too much here recently. I also love the fact that I can set down the pv and walk away for an hour or two while involved with something and not even really notice. That never would have been possible with a pack of cigarettes.

 

[Kent C]

"Because rats showed a significantly higher willingness to go the distance to get a taste of rolling tobacco smoke, the authors concluded that a substance other than nicotine must be getting them hooked.

“[N]on-nicotinic components have a role in tobacco dependence and…some tobacco products have higher abuse liability, irrespective of nicotine levels,” the study authors concluded."

Close, but no cigar I don't know about lab rats, but it's the smoke itself, not necessarily any non-nicotinic components. If it's only the 'hand to mouth' action then any 'plastic cigarette' would work. It's the environmental smoke/vapor, which patches or gum don't provide, but ecigs do. Even ecigs that don't produce much vapor don't work.

I've posted this before but it's relevant here:


"Sherlock Holmes sat silent for a few minutes with his finger tips still pressed together, his legs stretched out in front of him and his gaze directed upwards to the ceiling. Then he took down from the rack the old and oily clay pipe , which was to him as a counselor, and, having it, he leaned back in his chair, with the thick blue cloud-wreaths spinning up from him, and a look of infinite languor in his face."

Holmes again, to Watson:
"It is quite a three pipe problem, and I beg that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes."

Or, we can remember the case in which Holmes needed a pound of the strongest shag tobacco to resolve the problem and stayed alone all the day smoking, and Watson found him in a sort of trance, in a room that "was so filled with the smoke that the light of the lamp upon the table was blurred by it and my first impression as I opened the door was that a fire has broken out".
---

Scientists want to find non-nicotinic component, it's their job! ... but they may be missing the forest for the trees.

 

[StormFinch]

In ways I believe you're right Kent, but I think it goes even further than that. Smoking (or vaping) is a complex... habit, addiction, whatever you want to call it. The hand to mouth or fiddling, the smoke or vapor, plus the MAOIs and nicotine combine to create something hard to kick. And I truly do believe that what they're looking for is probably the MAOIs. Animals have a lot more wisdom than people give them credit for, and have been known to use simple tools to reach a goal as well as self treat for health problems. Wouldn't it be natural then to say that the rats became aware that they felt better (at least temporarily) while ingesting whole tobacco, but didn't receive the same effect from pharma grade nicotine? It's the same reason that even with vaping, some of our group can't get past the tobacco unless they supplement with either WTA juices or snus.

 

[Bill Godshall]

As I posted at another thread citing this same study
http://www.e-cigarette-forum.com/fo...ole-addiction-causing-agent-cigarettes-2.html
This study was done on rats, not on humans, and therefore the results are NOT applicable to humans.

Rats aren't humans, and humans aren't rats. That why the rat poison Coumadin kills rats, but is the most commonly used FDA approved blood thinner drug (also called warfarin) to treat blood clots in humans.

Whether nicotine is the primary or sole cause of cigarette addiction is not known. But this study provides no evidence to help understand the addictive nature of cigarettes on humans.

 

[Petrodus]

Never tried WTA liquids ...
However, some told me WTA would give me the Ahhhh feeling
that I miss so much from lighting up during times of stress
or when lighting up after not having a smoke for a few hours.

 

[Kent C]

In ways I believe you're right Kent, but I think it goes even further than that. Smoking (or vaping) is a complex... habit, addiction, whatever you want to call it. The hand to mouth or fiddling, the smoke or vapor, plus the MAOIs and nicotine combine to create something hard to kick. And I truly do believe that what they're looking for is probably the MAOIs. Animals have a lot more wisdom than people give them credit for, and have been known to use simple tools to reach a goal as well as self treat for health problems. Wouldn't it be natural then to say that the rats became aware that they felt better (at least temporarily) while ingesting whole tobacco, but didn't receive the same effect from pharma grade nicotine? It's the same reason that even with vaping, some of our group can't get past the tobacco unless they supplement with either WTA juices or snus.

I did take WTA into consideration - hence the "not necessarily" However, I don't think something that delivers the nic plus the WTA (or whatever) without the vapor would work for most of us.

The study didn't say the rats 'felt better' something incomprehensible and impossible to measure. And I'd have to read the study to understand what they meant by, or what they perceived to be the rats "exhibited a greater willingness to obtain a dose of smoke ..."

I agree wtih Bill's 'Rats are not humans' etc. and esp. on the contemplative aspect that I (and I suspect many humans) find as a part of smoke/vapor aspect that is pleasurable - and not necessarily 'addictive', but perhaps 'habitual'.

And while I understand the 'complex' part of the paraphernalia of vaping and all that goes with that, I look at that as what we've had to do in order to duplicate the process of smoking. I'd much prefer not to have had to do all of that. Smoking was easier. And if there were a true cig style ecig that could do that, without all the atty, ohms, volts, leaking, tank, juice in mouth, battery safety issues stuff, ...that's what I'd have... as long as it produced vapor and some nic. (I don't seem to be one that needs WTA or other alkaloids).