Hey guys I am pretty new to e cigs and was wondering something. This may sound completely stupid but, why is nicotine poisonous when it enters your body as a liquid but not as a vapor? The three states of water or the liquid is gas liquid and solid so isn't it pretty much the same thing. I know it's obviously not poisonous as a vapor I just want to know why when it is poisonous as a liquid.
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I think it just boils down to concentration. If the concentration was enough it would kill you also.. lol
1mg of nic injected in a vein will cause a heart attack, but when inhaled only a minute quantity is absorbed, the majority is exhaled with the vapor.
Like so many things in life...it comes down to dosages and points of entry.
Many things are poisonous in sufficient quantity or taken in the wrong way. In high enough concentrations, nicotine is a pesticide, after all.
When you vape, you're consuming very small amounts of the liquid. People tend to vape 1-4ml a day -- 20-80 drops. What's more, estimates vary as to how much of the nicotine we're actually absorbing from the vapor, but it's far less than 100%. If you let your mouth absorb that much, or swallowed it, you'd likely get a lot more, much faster, hitting your bloodstream. Nicotine patches top out at 21mg released slowly into your bloodstream; twenty drops of 24 mg/ml straight in your mouth is risky territory to say the least. The chance of overdoing it is pretty great.
When you're inhaling nicotine from cigarettes or ecigs, you're getting it into the lungs and then straight into the bloodstream. If you swallow nicotine liquid, it'll probably give you a stomachache or nausea. There's a good reason nobody has used "nicotine pills" as a form of smoking cessation; patches, gum and lozenges are all meant to be absorbed into the bloodstream. The digestive system gets irritated by nicotine (and there's probably pretty poor bioavailability to swallowed nicotine, but that's just a guess).
Just my understanding.
Many things are poisonous in sufficient quantity or taken in the wrong way. In high enough concentrations, nicotine is a pesticide, after all.
When you vape, you're consuming very small amounts of the liquid. People tend to vape 1-4ml a day -- 20-80 drops. What's more, estimates vary as to how much of the nicotine we're actually absorbing from the vapor, but it's far less than 100%. If you let your mouth absorb that much, or swallowed it, you'd likely get a lot more, much faster, hitting your bloodstream. Nicotine patches top out at 21mg released slowly into your bloodstream; twenty drops of 24 mg/ml straight in your mouth is risky territory to say the least. The chance of overdoing it is pretty great.
When you're inhaling nicotine from cigarettes or ecigs, you're getting it into the lungs and then straight into the bloodstream. If you swallow nicotine liquid, it'll probably give you a stomachache or nausea. There's a good reason nobody has used "nicotine pills" as a form of smoking cessation; patches, gum and lozenges are all meant to be absorbed into the bloodstream. The digestive system gets irritated by nicotine (and there's probably pretty poor bioavailability to swallowed nicotine, but that's just a guess).
Just my understanding.
You could get enought nicoine from vaper to cause an OD. Though it would be very hard. But people have complained of racing heart rate which is the start of your body telling you there is something not right. Don't worry though I don't think you can even buy liquid strong enough to harm you. Just don't drink it!
Cite the source of this information. It would be a shame to mislead new vapers.
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Cite you source for this information. To my knowledge, there have been zero reports of serious complications from vaping.
This is a funny thread to come across, because having just received my 510 earlier today I have been vaping a hell of a lot, and just had a bit of an overfill issue and got some liquid in my mouth and on my fingers from an it leaking. I washed my hands and mouth out, and have had no problem but got to thinking how ....ty it would be to get nicotine poisoning =P
It would be difficult to do with the activities you just described. Nicotine poisoning would probably make you very sick if you were able to get enough of it into your system unless you were doing all that you described using "pure" nicotine. Luckily "pure" nicotine is hard to come by and should be handled very carefully. Normal nicotine eJuice is a lot lower in strength. Add to this the relatively short half life of nicotine and you really would have to try hard to get an fatal OD. Even then like I said you would get very sick before reaching the point of fatal OD.
Also, most of the nic in the vapor is filtered thru the lungs so "second hand vapor" is even less potent ...
Well, if you manage to eat a pound of salt or so, you will kill yourself, too. People actually use that to comit suicide. That does not make me worry about putting salt into my food, either.
It'd take you hours to actually "vape" that much e-liquid (that is, in the common usage of vaporizing an inhaling the result). Concievable, there is enough nicotine in 10ml of even the "low" e-liquid that if you managed to get every bit of it into your bloodstream you'd have a negative reaction, possibly even fatal. That's why we don't drink it!
If you just vaporized all of it at once and took a lung-filling hit... I suspect that the worst you could do it make yourself dizzy for a moment before the rest of the vapor started dissipating. You'd just waste the vast majority of it.
Last I heard, a "fatal dose" of nicotine in an adult human was supposed to be 40-50mg or so. I don't know where that "1mg directly in a vein will kill you" comment on the first page comes from, but I doubt it's truth.
I was having a bit of overbearing anxiety when it happened so I was a bit more worried than I should have been heh and yes, I have yet to find any research to back up the 1mg in the vein statement, but here is something that someone could easily misconstrue into the aforementioned statement: "0.5-1.0 mg/kg can be a lethal dosage for adult humans." Although it would take a lot of fanatical thinking to misconstrue that statement ha oh and I noticed my cursing was censored. My apologies for that, will keep my mouth clean from here on out =|
Okay, let's take a moment to look at this from the "geek" eyes.
The best info I can find is the absolute lethal level of nicotine in the average adult is between 40-60mg.
Nicotine is fully processed in about an hour in the body.
So, similar to drinking, if you have 60 mg over 3 hours, it's not the same as 60 mg in five minutes.
The common info suggests vapor to be about 30-40% effective at delivering nicotine.
NOW, let's take the best efficiency rating, the lowest OD level:40% effective, 40mg OD. If you had juice that is 24mg per ml, you'd need to vape 4.16 ml very quickly to "OD".
side note you'd have to drink 1.6ml.. So that little bit you sometimes end up with on your lips after topping off... wipe it away and take a sip of your beverage.
The other thing to consider is your prior nicotine consumption. We build tolerance to this drug much like almost ALL others. (except salvia, some have reported backwards tolerance.. lucky)
So, if you were already used to a two pack a day habit... your nicotine level would have to be much higher to cause OD.
So, if you were an average smoker before, and now vape 24mg/ml juice and vape eight carts in a 14 hour day, you're taking in ~ 5mg an hour. Now I'm not a doctor but it's a safe bet your FINE!
If you vape 64 carts in 14 hours, I'd be worried about more than just the OD... there's issues there none of us could explain!
All my DIY juice is 28-36mg, and I have been known to sneak a drop or two of something much stronger (secrecy for the nay-sayers) onto the atty when out drinking. And I wake up everyday, still feeling a thousand times better than when I smoked those nasty analogs!!!
I'm not a doctor or a chemist, but I hope this will ease the minds of some, and amuse others
If you put a worst-case scenario on it you'd still have to really mean it to OD from vaping. Enjoy!
The best info I can find is the absolute lethal level of nicotine in the average adult is between 40-60mg.
Nicotine is fully processed in about an hour in the body.
So, similar to drinking, if you have 60 mg over 3 hours, it's not the same as 60 mg in five minutes.
The common info suggests vapor to be about 30-40% effective at delivering nicotine.
NOW, let's take the best efficiency rating, the lowest OD level:40% effective, 40mg OD. If you had juice that is 24mg per ml, you'd need to vape 4.16 ml very quickly to "OD".
side note you'd have to drink 1.6ml.. So that little bit you sometimes end up with on your lips after topping off... wipe it away and take a sip of your beverage.
The other thing to consider is your prior nicotine consumption. We build tolerance to this drug much like almost ALL others. (except salvia, some have reported backwards tolerance.. lucky)
So, if you were already used to a two pack a day habit... your nicotine level would have to be much higher to cause OD.
So, if you were an average smoker before, and now vape 24mg/ml juice and vape eight carts in a 14 hour day, you're taking in ~ 5mg an hour. Now I'm not a doctor but it's a safe bet your FINE!
If you vape 64 carts in 14 hours, I'd be worried about more than just the OD... there's issues there none of us could explain!
All my DIY juice is 28-36mg, and I have been known to sneak a drop or two of something much stronger (secrecy for the nay-sayers) onto the atty when out drinking. And I wake up everyday, still feeling a thousand times better than when I smoked those nasty analogs!!!
I'm not a doctor or a chemist, but I hope this will ease the minds of some, and amuse others
If you put a worst-case scenario on it you'd still have to really mean it to OD from vaping. Enjoy!
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