Addicted to vaped nicotine, teenagers have no clear path to quitting

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle...

If you look at Figure 1, the e-cig users and never smokers are pretty similar.

The devices themselves have varying liquid capacity and vaporizing volume settings--you can't easily track how many pulls until the device is empty.

Battery limitations also confuse the amount "left" in the device.

Cigarette units are simpler, in part because there aren't that many brands, and even if you roll your own, you probably have a pretty good idea of how much tobacco you're putting in the cigarettes.

But especially with boxes of cigarettes, you can easily count them down and keep track knowing each starts with 20.

I'd also suggest that cigarette use is far more difficult to hide than vaporizer use. Cigarettes smell terrible compared to most vape clouds. The smell and risk of iscovery could be important elements of cigarettes that might make them easier for teenagers to quit.

Finally, vaping comes in just about every flavor imaginable. Much more diverse in taste offering than cigarettes with the same high. It is really a much more refined narcotic delivery than cigarettes and so it aught to be harder for anyone to quit.

Vaped nicotine feels way less addicting. I think its got something to do with other "active agents" and additives missing compared to cigarettes.

Edit: For example, studies have shown cigarette smoke to inhibit MAO in the brain due to some agent besides nicotine, which vaping very probably doesnt.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC19495/

A tiny amount of nicotine is enough to maintain or reactivate your physical addiction. This is why the phrase “once a smoker always a smoker”, because for people like me it doesn’t matter that we haven’t smoked in 4 years, a single cigarette will bring back that addiction with a vengeance.

A minority of people supposedly have an easier time quitting. Hence the joke: Quitting is easy, I did it dozens of times already.

Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances. AFAIK it ranks higher than drugs like cocaine.

The best strategy is quitting cold turkey, but the withdrawal symptoms can be severe. For people that failed that, there is some medication available that can interfere with the brain receptors to reduce the cravings.

This article is an example of a bit of our society's insanity.

Quitting nicotine is difficult. But people who want to quit work at it and achieve their goals. Throw the shit away, talk to your family for support, don't buy more.

It's insane to imply that we need some sort of product or medical supervision to make a decision and work at something like quitting nicotine.

That's one segment of the market. The store I go to mixes everything on site, so I can choose my nicotine level. You can get anywhere from 0mg to 24mg in 3mg increments. When I was quitting smoking, I'd say 18-21 was the closest to a "cigarette" level.

Today I typically vape 6mg, simply because I enjoy the benefits of nicotine and see no immediate reason to quit. I have also helped many stores get setup in my county and most of the pre-made vape juice for the "mod" market that they sell comes in either 0mg or 6mg concentrations; and from my shopping at the wholesaler, this seems to be the vast majority of the market overall and outside of products like JUUL.

That's not true, from my personal experience cigarettes are MUCH more powerful.

Also I don't understand why everyone so obsessed about nicotine as a main active agent. It looks relatively harmless when comparing with smoke, carbon monoxide, tar in cigarettes and strange substances in e-cigarette vapor (not including nicotine).

"If you ever touch drugs or a drop of alcohol I will take your life with my own two hands." He stared into my eyes and said that with a ferocity I didn't dare challenge (if I recall I was in the 10-11 range).

I didn't touch a thing until college and despite a brief "binge" phase then, I still don't do much of anything save for the rare occasion (in my 30's now).

In short: don't think so helplessly. You can have a serious impact on your kids avoidance of negative stuff. Especially if you explain "why."

Edit: Not sure why the downvotes. There is a trend of putting the blame for N things on external factors, e.g "he is in debt because of all those credit card advertisements". For Americans, it might seem like corporations are the cause of many such ills, but there are societies where e.g aggressive advertisements which are common in the US are non-existent, and people still get in debt, eat badly or drink too many sugary drinks.

I agree on the coughing, but from a straight-up nicotine delivery standpoint, cigarettes seem more pronounced for me.

No idea about the down votes; yours is a very reasonable suggestion.

Also, if Nicotine is the only reason people are addicted to cigarettes, why doesn't something like nicorette see just as much abuse? Delivery mechanism. Cigarette/Vape users are mentally addicted just as much to the routine and throat hit as they are to the chemical. I'd actually argue more-so.

The problem with cigarettes is that you have to buy 20 of them at a time and they're all full-length which makes reducing your intake harder as an addict.

It seems like a dangerous gateway for non-smokers to get hooked but I do still think it can help smokers taper off. I haven't smoked (or vaped) in two years after tapering down my intake and quitting.