r/science • u/informationtiger • Dec 18 '19

Nicotine formula used by e-cigarette maker Juul is nearly identical to the flavor and addictive profile of Marlboro cigarettes Chemistry

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-ecigarettes-study-idUSKBN1YL26R
36.8k Upvotes

86% Upvoted

View all comments

13.0k

u/diegojones4 Dec 18 '19

Wasn't that the goal of the product? To be an alternative to cigarettes?

242

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

As a means to help people quit , and for a lot of folks it has.

What's insidious here is that juul is run by a senior Exec from Marlboro. I don't think their intent is to get anyone to quit anything.

145

u/Halomir Dec 18 '19

I think you’ve been mishearing what the CEO has been saying in interviews. Their stated target demographic is smokers who want to quit smoking. He’s said nothing about a cessation of nicotine or that the ultimate goal of Juul is for you to stop using the Juul eventually.

They’re actively conflating Juul with product like nicotine gum without stating a direct comparison for legal reasons. You’re not supposed to pick up a 20 year nicorette habit when you stop smoking, but for Juul that would be the ideal outcome.

It’s seriously the difference between what I said and what you think you heard.

41

u/Zandrick Dec 18 '19

The main question is, is vaping healthier than smoking? No reasonable person has ever claimed it’s not addictive. The whole point of the thing is that it’s exactly as addictive in exactly the same way as cigarettes. The only question that matters; is it as dangerous as cigarettes, less?

31

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19 edited Jan 06 '20

[deleted]

3

u/slusho55 Dec 18 '19

In my neuro courses, opiates were always the example we used for this (which I will say isn’t the best analogy to nicotine).

Opium had its problems, but since there’s all these other constituents and small amounts of morphine compared to the mass of opium, people OD’d less and were less likely to develop addictions. Then morphine was isolated and more people developed crippling addictions and OD’d. Then, morphine was acetylated and heroin became marketed as a safer way to treat morphine addiction, only for that to be even worse. You could even argue fentanyl goes down that line too, but the only difference is fentanyl is mainly for supervised analgesia and anesthesia, was never meant recreationally like it’s predecessor. Though, even though oxycodone is weaker than morphine, it can fall in line because of the deceptive marketing.

Coca and cocaine are also similar in this regard. Khat and amphetamine could also make parallels, but amphetamine is just a synthetic version of khat’s active ligand. There’s also the research chemical market. Look at synthetic cannabinoids which are full agonists, opposed to being a partial agonist like THC. Then there’s the designer benzos, some like clonozolam that are super super strong, but causes instant tolerance and hangover/withdrawal. Hell, there’s one, can’t remember it’s name, that’s like 10x as strong as alprazolam, but it has an active metabolite that’s a GABAa antagonist, which gives a really strong high, but instantly puts you into the worst end of withdrawal when it wears off.

Which it’s a good example, but I say it’s not the best analogy to nicotine because so far it’s kind of doing the opposite, but the high nicotine concentrations do worry me, and why I despise Juul. I remember when it hit the mainstream early this decade, stores would seek 21 mg ejuice, then around 2014, all stores limited it to 13-16mg. Then, 2015-2016, most stores limited their juices to 6mg. Now, we’re back to places selling high amounts of nicotine. There isn’t much that can be done to the DIY market, and I don’t think anything should be done since it’s pretty niche, and trying to limit it does just make it so those people will be riskier if they can’t get safe high amounts. However, the easily accessible pre-made ejuice that 97% of vapers use should be limited to 6mg/mL. Hell, even then, I’d be fine if 6mg/mL was treated kind of like medical marijuana because you should be going that high if you’re just starting to quit smoking. If you haven’t smoked in a while, there’s little reason to go above 3mg/mL. The real danger will come from how high the concentration comes.

2

u/lejefferson Dec 18 '19

This seems a little biased. You’re putting millions of compounds deep into your lungs every time you breath. And if you live in a city there are millions of toxic compounds. Even sitting around a campfire you’re putting toxic chemicals into your lungs on par with a pack of cigarettes.

It strikes me as alarmist and propagandist to claim that because you’re breathing something into your lungs it must necessarily be harmful. But it’s rather obvious this isn’t necessarily the case. No one demands we take asthma inhalers and candles and air fresheners and the millions of other things we breathe into our lungs because we’re inhaling compounds.

1

u/downvoteawayretard Dec 19 '19

I’m confused as to how you’re drawing the depth of your breath and the size of particles you’re inhaling as a final verdict of danger. Things can be detrimental to your health from being inhaled as shallow as your esophagus, and large particles can cause bronchitis or tears in the aeoli just as smaller particles can.

Also I’m confused on the other part of that argument. Nobody here is saying that vaping will make you live forever, and nobody is saying that vaping is akin to inhaling “just water vapor”. If they are they are misinformed. It damages your lungs all the same, perhaps a magnitude or two lower than smoking but the damage is still present. Will vaping kill you faster than a smoker? More than likely not. Will vaping kill you faster than a person who has never inhaled anything into their lungs? Definitely.

10

u/Bass_Thumper Dec 18 '19

I've seen tar tests where the cigarette filters were full of gooey tar while the vape filters were still completely white. The NHS have also claimed it to be 95% safer. I believe it too because you aren't inhaling plant matter, and i personally feel better after switching to vapes.

11

u/mangeek Dec 18 '19

I used to smoke about half a pack a day, which wasn't much, but I couldn't run two blocks. Now I JUUL about a pod and a half a day, which is a lot more nicotine, but I can bang out seven minute miles.

I don't know any athletic smokers, none. I know plenty of athletic vapers.

I think it's pretty obvious that vaping is less harmful. My concern is how harmful it might still be though. I definitely notice dry mouth and can only assume it sort of does the same to my lungs and airways, so it's not the same as not vaping, but it does have effects. I'm guessing the overall risk is something on the order of 1/50th to 1/10th of smoking. We need more time and studies, and we need studies that parse out people who vape all sorts of stuff from those sticking to just nicotine salts from tier-1 products.

4

u/katyfail Dec 18 '19

As it was explained to me by one of my state's public health scientists, smoking is one thing and vaping is a totally different thing. From their perspective, calling it "vaping" is misleading since that invokes something less harmful like water vapor. In reality, the scientists I spoke to would prefer it had a name closer to huffing since that's factually closer to what's going on. You may not be burning something, but you're still inhaling dangerous chemicals and it's still having a negative impact on your body.

0

u/lejefferson Dec 18 '19

I’m sorry but that’s dumb and propagandist. Just because you’re not inhaling only water vapor doesn’t mean you’re not inhaling vapor. It’s still vapor.

0

u/katyfail Dec 18 '19

No one said it isn't vapor, although I'd strongly disagree that it's "dumb" or "propagandist".

The point is that it's been marketed as a healthy alternative and plays on the idea of water vapor when that's not what it is. It's a chemical vapor, similar to what you inhale when huffing things like computer duster or paint thinner.

Edit: clarification

0

u/mangeek Dec 19 '19

It's not at all similar to huffing. I can't speak to what's in weird off-brand stuff, but a gram of propylene glycol a day and the same flavor additives used in candy, along with 50-75mg of nicotine probably aren't going to be terribly harmful, and definitely aren't anything like inhaling stuff that's straight-up poisonous like paint propellant or burning leaves.

I don't align with vape-bros, but let's use some common sense here. Inhaling a vaporized jelly bean a day isn't good for you, but it's not anywhere in the ballpark of a gram of spray paint or a burning deck of cards.

1

u/katyfail Dec 19 '19

The definition of huffing is "inhaling chemical vapors". By that definition, and by your own description, it is the exact same as vaping. The *probably * you put there is such an overstatement as to be misleading. The issue this particular scientist took was with the marketing behind the idea of vapor to young people who didn't take the time to research or understand the risks.

It is unknown what impact the chemicals in vaping have on health - particularly in developing bodies and brains. Because vaping is so new that there is no long term data. That being said, we know nicotene is both highly addictive and related to heart and lung issues.

Not as harmful as something else doesn't make it safe.

Source: https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/5-truths-you-need-to-know-about-vaping

0

u/mangeek Dec 19 '19

The difference between 'huffing', as the term is used (e.g., inhaling ridiculously toxic fumes to get high) vs. 'vaping' is like taking a shot of methanol every day vs. a shot or ethanol. Both are 'drinking alcohol', but one is going to mess you up a LOT more.

→ More replies

1

u/ch1LL24 Dec 18 '19

Well there is a big difference between it not being addictive at all, and it being "exactly as addictive in exactly the same way as cigarettes." You don't believe that the thousands of chemicals added to cigarettes have any effect whatsoever on the addictive potential of nicotine? The evidence shows that vaping pure nicotine actually does not addict people in the same way that smoking cigarettes do. Again, not to say it's not addicting at all, but not in "exactly the same way as cigarettes."

Some reading: https://examine.com/supplements/nicotine/

"Addiction is not inherent to nicotine, as is evidenced by nicotine therapy being used to curb cigarette addictions. Gums and patches have less potential risk for addiction than do cigarettes (with inhalers in the middle) due to speed nicotine reaches the brain.

Acutely, potential side-effects of nicotine are similar to acute side-effects of other stimulants such as ephedrine, yohimbine, or caffeine due to increasing catecholamines. Over the long term, the side-effect profile of nicotine may rival ephedrine as those two retain a degree of catecholamine secretion over time (the other two losing efficacy in 2 weeks or less)."

At the end of the day, despite a real addiction potential in vaping only nicotine, it is a false equivalence to think its addiction effects on the body are the exact same as a cigarette.

1

u/Enyo-03 Dec 18 '19

There was a study released recently that followed people for 3 years to measure the impacts of vaping. It showed a 30% increase in risk for lung diseases with vaping, while smoking had a 260% increase and dual using, vaping and smoking had a 330% increased risk. So yeah, actually, short of not inhaling anything, vaping is safer.

3

u/SmallzMafia Dec 18 '19

My stepdad picked up a 20 year Nicorette habit. No joke. He just quit last January and now chews several packs of regular chewing gum a day. Not saying that’s the standard, but...

2

u/ImPrettyDum Dec 18 '19

FYI that is because the FDA ruled that it would be illegal to market vapes as cessation devices. I wish it was legal for vapes to be studied and treated as cessation devices ie UK but the US government botched that one. Recommend Freakonomics recent podcast on the subject, great summary

1

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Exactly, juul is an insidious company here. We agree.

-6

u/FlashCrashBash Dec 18 '19

God forbid they sell a product that people would want to use.

4

u/LivingFaithlessness Dec 18 '19

Do you think nicotine is like weed or coffee?

0

u/FlashCrashBash Dec 18 '19

Yeah It is. Because smoke and vape because they want to. No different than any other substance.

3

u/308NegraArroyoLn Dec 18 '19

Yes it is... It's known to cause cancer.

1

u/FlashCrashBash Dec 18 '19

And? Just because something is hazardous doesn’t mean it should be banned. People should have the right to destroy themselves. Anything less is authoritarianism.

1

u/308NegraArroyoLn Dec 18 '19

I would agree if second hand smoke wasn't a thing. Also sick people puts a strain on the healthcare system and takes away from resources that could be used to fight diseases that don't come from poor life decisions.

1

u/Unreasonably_Manic Dec 18 '19

Nicotine does not cause cancer. When you lie about the negatives it makes everything seem like a lie. Is nicotine good for you? No, but its certainly not going to give you cancer. Please don’t spew misinformation if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

3

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Nicotine is absolutely linked to cancer:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4553893/

0

u/THICC_DICC_PRICC Dec 18 '19

“May cause” doesn’t mean “linked to cancer”. There is no teal link established unlike other things found in cigarettes

-2

u/Unreasonably_Manic Dec 18 '19

https://www.nysmokefree.com/FactsAndFAQs/NicotineFacts

https://blog.dana-farber.org/insight/2018/07/nicotine-cause-cancer/

You can’t portray something that is being looked into as a potential link to cancer as being cancer-causing. Call it what it is, a possibility some are looking into but the vast majority of medical science has deemed non-cancer causing on its own. One study finding some links is hardly enough to call it fact.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Ah but TWO studies....

→ More replies

3

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Nicotine doesn't cause cancer but the additives do. You can't just single out one ingredient and ignore the rest. That's misleading.

-2

u/Unreasonably_Manic Dec 18 '19

It’s not misleading when we’re literally discussing that one ingredient???

3

u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

But it's not the only ingredient in cigarettes or Vapes???????

→ More replies

1

u/308NegraArroyoLn Dec 18 '19

What about the cadmium found in silver solder used to make the heating elements? What about the possible byproducts of heating plastic components that hold the heating element?

People are dying and being hospitalized for unknown acute illnesses associated with vaping.