There has been considerable discussion on the forum lately regarding the possibility of overdosing (by high nicotine content liquids, absorption through the skin, etc.), with occasional remarks about ultimately landing oneself in a hospital at best and under 6 feet of dirt at worst. But how likely is either, in the absence of purposely drinking this stuff or using it as a bug repellent on one's chest?
When we all had that first cigarette (damned that day!), I suspect most of us experienced--depending on our perseverance--at least one or all of the following symptoms: light-headedness, shakiness, dizziness (mild to extreme), and even nausea. I suspect that this was not the effect of introducing smoke into our lungs for the first time. I'm certainly no expert on the subject, but wasn't this our first experience with nicotine poisoning? And wouldn't we experience these symptoms again if, through mishandling or over-puffing, we were to begin overdosing (and thus catch ourselves long before we felt a need to dial 911)?
Certainly, the amount of nicotine inhaled from a cigarette is miniscule compared to the amount in a bottle of liquid. Or is it? According to cancer.org, an individual will inhale between 1 and 2 mg of nicotine per cigarette. Averaging 1.5 mg per cigarette, that's 30 mg of nicotine per pack (which I used to go through in a four-hour time period easily).
Now I have no intention of seeing if I can sip my bottle of 24 mg bottle of liquid over the next four hours to see if I am still able to stand afterward. But if cancer.org is correct (along with my math), it would certainly explain why I can get liquid on my fingers all day long and even in my mouth occasionally while not experiencing symptoms of nicotine poisoning.
In addition, I recently came across this, as related to a health advisory in Europe concerning the presence of nicotine in wild mushrooms:
"Due to the short biological half-life of nicotine in humans, it does not accumulate in the body and the most sensitive effect of nicotine is considered to be its pharmacological effect on the cardiovascular system."
In other words, while traces of nicotine do remain in our body over a period of hours (or even days for frequent smokers), it doesn't sit there for weeks on end until one day we wake up vomiting and barely able to stand (however, don't discount here the cumulative effect of nicotine on the cardiovascular system).
Anyway, I'm rambling. I THINK the initial intent of this post was to note that while nicotine is in fact an extremely dangerous poison and that we have a responsibility as adults to keep it well away from children and pets and to handle it ourselves with reasonable care, an occasional drop on the fingers or a leaky cartridge to the lips or even a hit off 48mg liquid isn't going to kill a seasoned post-ecig smoker out of the blue. If it did, I don't think this forum would be as active as it is.