Dvap - not referring to experimental plans, only having a dialog rather than a monolog. No point spending time looking into and thinking about things just for the sake of it.
Looking into things and thinking about things for the sake of it is really the basis of revelation. We've all been involved in quite a bit of it, and I don't want to give the impression that I'm not interested in many of the questions you ask. I've said before that sometimes I have to give a miss to discussions that are too speculative for my tastes, this is not to imply dismissal as unimportant. These discussions are certainly meritorious.
Perhaps we get caught up in the present and too quickly forget the stepwise progression that's gotten us to where we are: discussing an efficacious e-liquid for those who don't get satisfaction from regular e-liquid.
Here's my perspective on how we got from point A to point C.
We've come a long way toward understanding the chemistry of
vaping vis a vis nicotine delivery, I believe it was your "elephant in the room", that got me to start collecting empirical data from vapers who find
vaping a satisfying substitute for analogs. This empirical data showed that these folks generally seem to vape 2.5X the nicotine compared to what they used to get from analogs. This led to the hypothesis that vaping was likely much more efficient ~40% versus the 10% figure coming from some oft quoted research. This hypothesis required testing to either support or refute the hypothesis, thus the cryogenic vapor trapping test which appeared to confirm the hypothesis that vaping isn't all that inefficient as we've been led to believe. This led to the need to reconcile the 40% figure with the 10% figure, and analysis of such variables as e-liquid consumption per vape to arrive at the conclusion that 16 mg e-liquid is not an appropriate concentration to be comparing to a full flavor analog when looking at blood levels. Seeing that vaping was handicapped from the start in the comparison, the rest of the picture was filled with the realization that testing for peak nicotine levels was a red herring, but still a useful piece of data in that it demonstrated that analogs do deliver the goods more quickly, but over the course of the day, vaping holds it's own. Ultimately the 10% test was reconciled with the 40% test through understanding the defects in methodology and data interpretation in the 10% test. It's been a hard sell as we all know, the forums are full of boards that still throw around the flawed 10% test as evidence of vaping's inefficacy.
So there we all were, still hearing from all sides that "vaping only delivers 10% of the nicotine", and knowing better. We saw many happy vapers with nothing but their PV's consuming approximately 2.5X the nicotine that they used to get from analogs. It all made perfect sense. But the anomaly wouldn't leave us alone. How can some people who did fine on 2.5 packs of full flavor analogs per day not find satisfaction vaping at any nicotine level? Less than 4 mL per day of 36 mg should have been working fine for these people, but it wasn't. Enter the x-factor. Again, your focus on the x-factor got me thinking about it, and it got us all thinking that analogs must contain something beside nicotine that completes the equation of satisfaction. Snus was mentioned often as something that seemed to help fill in the x-factor that vaping was missing, and MAOI's became the hot topic. That got me thinking and modeling, and I hypothesized four groups based on an x-y axis comparing susceptibility to nicotine addiction with susceptibility to x-factor (suspected MAOI) addiction. Group one and two seemed to do OK with vaping, but poor group three, and to a lesser extent group four found themselves vaping high levels and having to supplement with snus to stay sane. Your page upon page of quoted studies were meanwhile saying the same thing. When a model is good, you start to see people saying, "Yea, I'm a group two", or "Crap, I'm group three!". Models create categories, and individuals can find themselves reflected in one of the categories created by the model.
We had crossed some bridges, we knew that vaping was actually a more efficient nicotine delivery system than analogs (if we considered nicotine content of the starting material). We knew vaping was effective for some and not for others, and it could not possibly be about the nicotine which vaping did a wonderful job of delivering on a slow even keel. Your MAOI research was compelling, and it got me hypothesizing again. It was a simple hypothesis that we'd really all just taken for granted, "E-liquid is not as effective as analogs for some people". I simply had a flash insight and asked myself, "If nicotine e-liquid is not effective for some people, what would it have to look like to be effective for those people?" Lightning cracks overhead... "E-liquid must contain the same alkaloid distribution that is found in an analog!" It was a fortuitous hypothesis because I was fairly uniquely qualified to test this hypothesis via the isolation of tobacco alkaloids from tobacco in an essentially pure form. At this point, there was nothing left for it but to produce some WTA liquid and hand it over to a tester who couldn't find satisfaction from vaping alone, and wait for his feedback.
In this whole evolution, I've been happy to be a "doer", when the doing involves chemical materials, it's just the thing I've spent my career doing, but I've relied on every thinker, guesser, and speculator along the way who kept the focus on those pieces that just didn't fit.
?
Years of being in the company of engineers has taught me the guys packin' the brains will sort it out and make it happen. kin is hot on the trail busy picking apart all aspects, studying the finest details that, I don't think, even the big tobacco boys looked at. There is an impressive array of minds focussing on a single subject here and don't forget...people know people who know people.
. Sorry, OTD.
