by Sean Hoade
Vape e-liquid and the devices that use them have shot up in popularity over the past few years. Disposable pods like MOJO or JUUL and refillables like MOTI give the nicotine users crave, but without using harmful cigarettes. Why then are Nanny State legislators crawling all over themselves to ban vaping and tax devices and e-liquid to death? It’s anybody’s guess, but they seem to be falling for a myth disproved by hard science — that nicotine itself is harmful.
Spoiler alert: It’s not.
This may come as a surprise to those of us raised with the understanding that cigarettes are extremely harmful. Not to mention that people use them despite knowing how detrimental to health they are because they’re highly addictive. And why (we are told) are they so addictive? Because of their high nicotine content. All of this has been shown by scientific and psychological studies again and again over the decades.
But it’s not the whole story. Not by a long shot.
Vape e-liquid–and this include both “freebase” and nicotine salt varieties — contain nicotine. Doesn’t this mean they’re just as addictive as cigarettes, even if they don’t cause harm to health? (By the way, relax about the “popcorn lung” thing. Vape e-liquid companies have abandoned the use of diacetyl, the chemical that causes that condition.)
The answer, according to new scientific and psychological studies, is NO. Nicotine by itself, which is in potatoes and eggplant and other consumable plants other than tobacco, has been found innocent. It appears that nicotine in itself, while providing an increase in alertness and pleasure, is not addictive.
But wait … if that’s the case, then why are cigarettes so damnably addictive? It turns out that it’s the other chemicals cigarette companies add to the cigarettes and their natural tobacco nicotine. This report from The Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids revealed exactly what cigarette companies add to make people unable to quit cigarettes. (By the way, Marlboro owns JUUL, so those vapes are in bed with Big Tobacco. Make of that what you will.)
Vape e-liquid has NONE of those addiction-enhancing chemicals. That’s why it’s the cleanest, safest, most effective way for adult smokers to break the cycle of cigarette addiction.
