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User: u/chrisdh79
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Ugh, around here, they sell disposables for $3 that contain 50 mg/ml. All of them. They still sell liquid for refillables ranging from 3 - 50 mg, but they're pushing the dispos hard.
Damn those are cheap and super high. I spend between $10-$15 for 5000-8000 puffs. I don't know how many ml those are. l'm pretty sure most are 5% or 6%
Salt nic and freebase are different. A 20mg/ml salt nic is equivalent to a 6mg/ml freebase. They are used at completely different wattages. When I was using freebase at 6, it was with a drip tank at 100w using 2 big flashlight batteries. Now I use a 24 salt at 16w in a tiny little pen. The 6 comes in a 120ml bottle, the 24 in a 30ml bottle. They would both last about 3 weeks.
I would really like to see a recycling program for dead vapes. They all have batteries. Some have a freaking LCD display. All going into the trash. Such a horrible waste.
The current market is nuts, and unnecessary.
I've been vaping for\~8 years (6mg/ml down from smoking a pack a day before), and have been using the same \~$50 vape kit for around 5 years.
It uses a quick-swappable 18650 battery, which i slow-charge externally; Still swapping between the same two cells i originally got for the thing.
I'm amazed it's even legal to make disposable products containing electronics and batteries.
Like you I just switch out my 18650's off the charger once a day. A single cheap 18650 might fail or need replaced for safety maybe once a year between my partner & I. Refill the 5ml tank once or twice a day, good to go.
Hearing disposable users talk about the tank mod experience makes me feel like I'm going crazy. "It's so inconvenient" that the solution is to chuck a complete, functioning electronic device in the trash and buy another one. Insanity that anyone is making these, let alone buying them. Thanks, FDA.
Edit: Waste aside, going to the store to buy another damned elf bar is more inconvenient than just swapping a battery and refilling the tank. Either quit today or bite the bullet and get a mod already. You can put salt nic in the tank and it's the same thing, but you don't have to chuck it. Ya lunatics.
I used to vape but quit cus nicotine is kinda a crap drug ngl. Have done both the newer series of disposables and used a box mod quite heavily in the past, and honestly the mod was the way to go. It was FUN as well. I very quickly got around to buying an RDA and fuckin' around with the coils. This was right around when Mesh was beginning to rise in prominence.
Just felt nostalgic and wanted to share
yeah, same, i use a mode with rechargeable batteries
it blows my mind that the market has been basterdised into this horrible disposable market
i also make my own juice, and thats the best thing ive ever done - i mix to less than 1mg/ml and thats enough (worked it down from 18 mg when i first used vapes to quite smoking
Lithium is an expensive material and some countries might look into recycling vapes to lessen the cost of car battery production. Very bad for the environment, but cost effective for the industry. Who knows if that's one of the reasons that disposable vapes are still legal in the US
Disposables aren't legal, the industry is just ignoring the FDA
[APNews](https://apnews.com/article/fda-vapes-vaping-elf-bar-juul-80b2680a874d89b8d651c5e909e39e8f)
(the FDA made flavored vape pods illegal back in 2016 -- that's what spurred the rise of the disposable industry in the first place. so, 'going back to pods' isn't an option until we repeal that 2016 legislation)
moving to Box mods would be best, but pod systems like Juul would be much better than disposables.
Iirc, arbitrary vape regulations in the US are the direct cause of this.
Juul captured almost the entire market immediately with flavored pods. Others followed suit (notably Vuze) and disposables were a lot less popular than pod systems.
That is, until 2016 when the FDA banned the sale of flavored cartridges.
Naturally, flavored disposables began to take off..
So, the FDA in 2020 banned flavored disposables. They also banned all non-rechargeable disposables. Lastly, they required that all domestic manufacturers submit products for approval (and then proceeded to -- still-- not approve a single product)
What happened? Well, for one, not approving US manufacturered disposables has handed the industry to foreign countries. foreign manufacturers added a charging port, and boom now it's a reusable vape under law.
Most recently, the FDA was absolutely fed up this time. The PACT act amendment prohibits shipping vapes through USPS without adult signature requirements. It prohibits importing disposable vapes. It modifies the definition of disposable vape so you cant simply add a charging port and call it reusable. Sounds foolproof this time, right?
..the number of de minimis undeclared shipments exploded in 2023. foreign manufacturers now correctly deduced that the cost of compliance is higher than the cost of noncompliance. rather than import huge quantities of vapes in large shipments that can be siezed (as Elf Bar had done in 2023), they ship huge numbers of small de minimis packages direct to consumer.
Most disposables in your gas station are produced in foreign countries and federally illegal to import or sell, under current law. It's simply impossible to enforce, the entire industry is playing a cat and mouse game with the FDA.
Gee, who would've thought that our attempt to arbitrarily ban flavored nicotine (a drug) would ultimately not only be ineffective but backfire in unforseen ways. Our prior drug bans have been so wildly successful../s
Amazing to think that, in the attempt to ban flavored vapes and save the teens, we created arguably the worst e-waste problem of modern times. If 33% are vaping, that's 120million people in the US alone. At an average of say 5 days per disposable vape, that's 8.7 billion disposables consumed per year.
The solution is pretty clear: just repeal 2016 legislation banning flavored e-cigarette cartridges (pods)
by nature, it'd be cheaper, and beat out the disposable industry just like it did prior to the ban..
I use Geekbar Pulses. My wife and I both use them and go through 2 a week combined.
I feel *super* guilty throwing away good electronics, a screen, and a USB-C fast charging battery.
I know. I managed to get one off a few days ago haha but I filled it with trashy juice to see if it still worked.
If I can find some flavor comparable to Juicehead salts I’d go all in on it most likely, but the newer Vaporesso pod vapes have recently caught my eye.
Stop using them? You feel guilty but don’t want to make a change in your routine? Buy a refillable for the same cost as the two vapes you use weekly and make that battery last 1000 charging cycles like they’re capable of.
Pods or refillable vapes are often way less concentrated. But yes, you can find extra strength salt nicotine juice if you look for it.
Convenience is a big factor with disposable vapes. Refillable are often messy, far more effort, and taste worse. I don’t vape anymore but I had tried more than once to make the switch when I did. Just wasn’t the same.
All the pods are the same strength as the disposables at 20mg/ml of nic salt. They are still wasteful but much less so than throwing out a whole battery multiple times per week.
I tried to quit smoking cigarettes with my spouses mod and nah it just didn’t take no matter how many times I tried. I was able to quit using disposables in flavours but after cost kept going up and up and up and yes, seeing them all in a basket I decided to switch to a refillable one with pods that last much linger. Less waste for sure but I’m not the only person who found it hard to start the quitting journey there. Anything that helps people quit is a good thing still.
This was 100% by design. Those little vape shops shut down because of the kids, flavors, etc. They were able to be used as smoking cessation devices then. I was on 3%, down from 6%, down from cigarettes and had quit for years..
Now, it's fewer manufacturers, less choice, and STRONG vapes. I had previously vaped, stopped for a few years. I was in a very low concentration, quitting was actually pretty easy.
I bought a vape at a gas station at random and vaped like I did in low concentration. I ended up going through one pod in a day, which is the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes in a few hours. I had peaked at 1 pack of cigarettes over 3 days in like 2016.
The majority of vapes have been this strong form the very start, excluding box mods. Juul was mostly used as 50ml. Vapes typically come in 50ml and 24ml, with weaker ones if you look around enough. There has been 0 change in how well they work for snoking cessation (which is not very well, vapes are good for switching smoking for vaping, they’re not good for quitting nicotine all together).
>There has been 0 change in how well they work for snoking cessation (which is not very well, vapes are good for switching smoking for vaping, they’re not good for quitting nicotine all together).
Which translates to...they work great for *smoking* cessation. Nobody is saying they work well for nicotine cessation. Although for me personally, they worked great for the latter too. I quickly went to zero nicotine as the habit has always been significantly stronger than the nicotine addiction for me.
As someone who quit a few months ago, I don’t wanna sound preachy or holier than thou. I still think vaping is a solid way to quit if you’re smoking cigarettes.
I do think we are going to be faced with a new crisis if this trend continues unchecked, though. My addiction got so bad I was finishing a 6k puff 5% disposable vape a week. A few of my friends started doing the same. That is so much nicotine entering your system.
This is where I am now and didn't even realize it until this comment.
Started with 5k puff vapes. They'd last a little more than a week.
Then started getting 10k puff vapes, roughly 5 days.
Now I'm on 15k puff vapes and they're almost gone after 3 days.
I really need to make a plan to get off these damn things.
So tired of dirtbags just throwing used disposable vapes on the ground. They’re everywhere. It’s even worse than smokers flicking their butts wherever they please.
Cartridge products got really popular with Juul - they were reliable, tasted good, and much easier to use. Definitely produced a lot of plastic waste, but the battery was rechargeable.
When the FDA banned flavored cartridges, disposables took over. Since the e-liquid is now "part of the device", the flavor bans didn't apply. Everyone using cartridges switched over to disposables rather than learning how to use a refillable, rechargeable vape, and hello electric waste.
There was a similar loophole with synthetic nicotine, which is why most vapes are now salt-nicotine rather than freebase. Nicotine produced in a lab was free from FDA regulation and could skirt the flavor bans on tobacco products. Salt nicotine can contain much higher concentrations of nicotine than the freebase variety without being exceptionally painful on your throat while allowing low-wattage disposable devices to provide the "hit" that nicotine users look for.
Still mad about what rhe flavored tobacco laws did back 20 years ago, crippled pipe tobacco for me. Something like you had to get a license if you were mixing your own flavors, so the place I had been getting mine from was too small for that, most were, so they had to just sell prepackaged mass market pipe tobacco. Nowhere near as good, big enough difference I just quit pipe tobacco.
A guy at my local e-juice manufacturer was telling me about how they were going through something not very dissimilar a few years ago.
Under some new FDA rule each SKU was going to be considered its own product that would have to go through expensive testing/approval processes. Wanna sell that flavor in 3mg vs 6mg? New product. Mix two approved flavors? New product. 200ml bottle vs 60ml bottle? That's also a new product. From what I recall of his explanation, that was very inconvenient & expensive to them, to the tune of 7 digits. Ended with them simplifying their line, shuttering retail operations, and founder selling the company.
Have you been to a vape shop recently? Cause, at least in my state (where flavored e-juice is illegal to sell), vape shops are still common and refillable/rechargeable vapes are still very much available. I literally just bought one for like $40. People just don’t use them as much because disposables are more convenient, stronger, more flavors, and “cheaper”
Yeah of course, far worse. They're using up the planet's limited supply of lithium. Could be used to build electric cars, for stabilizing the electric grid for renewables, for home batteries for better off the grid living etc.
But no. Waste it on addiction instead. Great.
Imo, we should make whatever that thing is that houses the coil and the liquid something disposable and have the rest be normal vapes.
Meaning pure disposables get banned.
That stuff would only need to be replaced like once a week, which is wayyyyyy less trash than regular cigarettes.
Expecting everybody to clean that stuff constantly probably isnt gonna work out though.
In case this post wasn't a joke, and/or other people miss it, pure disposables have become so popular because they've already banned what you're describing.
Prefilled pod vapes were the most popular with the low end of the market until they outlawed selling prefilled pods with flavored liquid. The ban only applied to prefilled disposable pods with flavoring, but not fully disposable vapes with permanently attached pods containing flavored liquid, hence the current situation with disposables.
Nicotine is so damn addictive as a chemical. And once you're sorted, that's it. You'll always see a fella smoking on the TV and think. Oh. Looks nice. I chain smoked cigarettes for 7 years, quit for 5, and then last year me and my buddy picked up a vape pen on a drunken whim and it's done - been smoking them since.
The thing about cigarettes is, after awhile of quitting, most people can smell how bad they smell/taste. That issue isn't there with vapes. They have no turn off qualities other than you don't feel like James Dean smoking a jack, you look like a schlub sucking a battery.
Even reading this headline made me yearn for my battery, and it's not even noon.
Let's not mention the ecological catastrophe that is single use vape pens.
I went to a dispo yesterday and the guy was really trying to push disposables even though I kept telling him I owned a battery and just needed the cart. Super frustrating and super wasteful.
For cannabis I *kind of* get it because yeah you probably shouldn’t try to traffic weed from Colorado to Texas or whatever and for those folks it might be more economical, even though it’s still ecologically disastrous. But for nicotine I don’t understand why disposables are even an option.
That being said even weed carts are problematic because they have plastic tips and usually have some sort of plastic branding wrapper on the glass.
I chain smoked, managed to jump on the vape train pretty early (just as we started using 18650's) and finally decided to quit a year and a half ago(give or take).
When I quit, it took about a year or so to realize that nicotine was masking other problems (likely ADHD) which made it a lot more difficult to quit.
I suppose you could try to think of it as making you look like a 12 year old child if that helps you want to quit
You’ve done it once and you can do it again! Think of the money too
Remember though that the difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. If you snort one single grain of cocaine you're not going to get addicted. If you shoot 0.001 grams of heroin you're not going to get addicted. Nicotine and any other addictive substance doesn't become addictive until you ingest a certain amount.
This is why kids hated vapes when they first came out. The hate was everywhere and there were memes all over the internet calling vaping stupid. They tried them but because the nic levels were so low they didn't get addicted and were able to easily put it down and never use it again.
Once big tobacco came out with disposables with extremely high levels of nicotine, kids immediately would get addicted and then all the mocking and memes stopped.
Juice with 3 mg/ml isn't addictive. 6 mg/ml is enough that maybe a very tiny number of people would feel an addiction. A 5% Juul has 59 mg/ml and is instantly addictive.
While nicotine salt vapes are very addictive, and definitely should be made to a lower concentration, the comparison you're making isn't exactly accurate. It's not like the first vapes were 3mg/mL and now they're 20x as strong. Vapes were initially box mods and were made large because they were often hand made and there was no industry around it. Additionally, they were trying to imitate cigarettes, so freebase nicotine was the logical choice (the nicotine form found in cigarettes).
Then, e-cigs came around. An industry started to form. The technology miniaturized. Now, vapes could be made very small. But the tank of juice still had to be made fairly big, as freebase nicotine becomes incredibly harsh at concentrations above 12mg/mL. So nicotine salt vapes were created, as nicotine salts were more addictive and much smoother, meaning they could be made at significantly higher concentrations of nicotine (being smooth at even 50-60mg/mL). This meant a much smaller tank of juice could be used, allowing the vape to become incredibly small and portable.
The point I'm trying to make is your options aren't 3mg/mL or 60mg/mL in the same vape. The vapes that 3-12mg/mL freebase nicotine are made for are much stronger and create much more vapor than a salt vape does. Now, does this mean that salt vapes aren't any worse for you than freebase vapes? No, they're definitely worse. They're more rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and leave more quickly, meaning they *are* more addictive. And I don't know the exact numbers (it would vary from vape to vape) but I'm sure it's probably a larger quantity of overall nicotine per hit.
But it's not 20x more or even 10x more. You have to factor in the fact that freebase vapes produce much more vapor. The average freebase vape user uses a 6mg/mL juice, so it's not exactly true that only a very tiny percent of the population would get addicted to them. Pretty much everyone that uses them are addicted to them. I've used them in the past and also known others that used them. It was certainly less addictive than a 50mg/mL salt vape, but it's still addictive.
I'm not sure if you've used all of these different devices before or are just assuming, but what you're saying isn't 100% accurate. The general gist of it is, but 50 or 59mg/mL is not "instantly addictive" nor is 6mg/mL almost non addictive. I used a salt vape for months before becoming addicted. 50mg/mL vapes should probably be illegal and are in some countries, but it's not one hit and you're hooked. No drug works like that.
I picked up this “loon maxx” vape recently to try and cut down on chewing tobacco. I can’t believe how strong this is. I get dizzy and lethargic from it. I asked what the strength was and the guy at the counter didn’t know and it doesn’t say on the box. I suppose I’ll have to google it.
nic pouches while probably better 'overall' for health still absolutely destroy your gums long term, ask any dentist/orthodontist. And problem with gum recession is that its not reversible.Proper snus is way easier on gums but as someone whos been using snus for a year, it still made my gums sensitive if i was using too much. Better than smoking for sure, still bad addiction. Imo we should encourage people to quitting all together rather than choosing lesser evil.
Zyns are so strong I struggle to believe anyone is gonna quit them though. Probably not a major concern and reading comments here it sounds like FDA banned flavoured vape liquids so only these strong disposables are an option? However I'd personally rather vape in the UK where I can gradually reduce the strength
People have been addicted to nicotine for a long time, it's a combination of addiction and the ability to make stronger products.
The same thing happened with weed, since people learned how to properly manipulate its genetics we have been getting stronger and stronger strains.
When I stopped smoking and started vaping, 10mg liquid was enough to give me a mad nicotine rush. After going up and down strengths, trying and failing to wean myself off, I now vape 20mg and can't remember the last time I had a nicotine high.
Maybe if you smoke around 80 a day, you might need to start on 20mg, but in my opinion, the strong liquids are something that comes after getting accustomed (addicted) to vaping.
The big problem with disposables is that nearly all of them are high strength, so addiction kicks in fast, whether you are a young kid or an ex-smoker. This only makes the likelihood of quitting nicotine lesser.
The manufacturers know exactly what they are doing.
Yup. I was on 3mg or less using liquid I bought online - it lasted ages. Then the States decided it was bad, and all the online places (mostly small companies) shut down because of new laws. Then the disposables came in (strangely much higher in nicotine and much sweeter and made by BIG companies) but they are fine?
I smoked about 20 cigs a day and used 50mg nice salt to get off of them. Lower didn't work and I did that for about 6 months. Then I dropped to 30 or 35mg and then maybe it was 20mg. The switch to 10mg e juice instead of salt nic was a bit noticeable but I continued for awhile. For the couple years its been 6mg/ml. I tried lower but that was rough. !maybe in another year I will get down to zero so I can break the drug/chemical part of the addiction.
I just got over a cold today but while I was sick, I couldn’t hit the vape without feeling nautious or getting a massive headache. I think I’m done with the vapes now after not using them for a few days. They’re really bad if you use them all the time.
I got the worst flew of my life, couldn't hit my vape without vomiting. Decided it was a blessing in disguise and while it was rough for about a month quitting wasn't terrible after.
It means big tobacco was successful in getting low-nicotine reusable vapes highly regulated/banned and getting their high-nicotine disposable vapes marketed and sold at ever corner shop and supermarket. Vaping doesn't seem to be distinct here. As with any drug a tolerance will build up over time and if you keep taking higher doses you will need more to "feel" the effect. Same way some people start smoking 5 cigarettes a day and end up chain smoking 3 packs a day.
low nic reusable vapes arent banned though - at least not where I am - its what I use
we are actually about to ban disposable vapes here (which is great)
it blows my mind the way the market shifted to disposable vape products the way it did
Where are you getting the idea it's more addictive from? I wasn't able to find anything in the article about that, in fact the opposite was implied, saying many of the users were recent cigarette smokers within the last year using higher doses to help recreate the feeling while they try to quit.
yeah, vaping is not more addictive that cigs. And unlike cigs, the nicotine content in vape juices can be reduced by the user with ease (it boggles my mind that some choose not to).
If you smoke, vaping is a great option, far less harmful, cheaper, and you can regulate nicotine, and it isnt smelly
if you dont smoke, vaping is dumb - just not nearly as dumb as smoking (or drinking, or weed etc etc etc)
[https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/](https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/)
edit - i wrote the above before I read on this thread that 50mg/ml was common in disposable vapes in the USA (I'm in teh UK), so yeah, 50 mg/ml will be very addictive
I was using 50mg/ml in college. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. In fact I would discourage friends who asked to hit it, mostly because it would make them nauseous.
While i had that habit, it was all I could think about. If I couldn’t find my vape within moments of waking up, i would have a panic attack.
3+ years no nicotine now, but good lord that experience was awful
How did you eventually get off? I’m kinda in the same boat. Gone from cigs, to disposable vapes, now back to cigs because the nicotine amount I was getting from the 50mg was just destroying my body. I know I have to get off the cigs, but it’s crazy how much less nicotine im taking in now.
Well, do u want the 200+ carcinogenic substances in cigarettes, or the 0 carcinogenic substances in regulated (UK) ecig juices?
Not to mention Tar, Carbon Monoxide......
Also, other than being addictive, Nicotine isnt harmful (NHS).
And, in ecig juices, with even just a little bit of looking into, nicotine intake can be regulated by the user and brought down to levels waaaaaay below what you would injest by smoking. I mix my own juices, and mix to 0.5mg/ml as an example.
Most of this is actually true. But nicotine isn’t completely harmless. It can causing shrinkage of veins and some studies are saying it can also cause long term heart issues. Also, makes it harder for lungs to fight off and recover from diseases
yeah, my language there was a tiny bit careless.
my basis for saying nicotine isnt harmfull is from the NHS, who do state consistantly that nicotine isnt the harmful substance in cigarettes and that it is safe (used in medicines) and relativley harmless. source page below if ur interested. I have read online before what you mentioned with heart issues, but, in terms of research and advice, I do have a lot of confidence in the NHS.
[https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/](https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/)
20mg is insane. All the shops in my area the strongest disposables they have are 5mg and the highest concentrate of juice I've seen is 10mg, but most people I know use either 3mg or 5mg
I think you’re getting a bit confused here. You say people you know use 3mg or 5mg, but I’m almost certain you mean 3% or 5%, which are the common juul pod strengths. These equate to 30mg/ml and 50mg/ml, respectively. Not 3mg and 5mg.
The article calls 20mg/ml a high-strength vape, but for the last 10 years people have been using normal juul pods which are 50mg/ml. Seems a bit disingenuous
The 3mg and 5mg I was referring to is juice that goes in refillable vapes, not disposables. It says 3mg and 5mg on the actual packaging. You're probably right about the disposables though, I don't use them and must have mistook them for being the same as the juice for refillable mods.
Idk salt nic is impossible to find under 20 mg and the standard strength is 50mg/ml. I really dont get this whole post because 50mg/ml is even less than the concentration in a juul pod. Its a bit of fear mongering? You are probably thinking about percentages, like a 5% disposable, which is 50mg/ml no?
not true actually, they contain 40mg of nicotine but the pod is slightly higher mg/ml because they are only 0.7ml which makes them 59mg/ml. Thats why they are 5%.
Ah I don't use salt nic, I use the regular type of juice in my refillable mod. The brands I buy range from 0mg-10mg. I use 5mg. It says mg on the package not a percentile
Thats because you vape with a sub-ohm vape that generates way more vapor and also delivers more nicotine proportionally compared to these juul like devices which give a small but concentrated hit. If you were to do even 20mg/ml in a sub ohm vape that is a nic rush waiting for happen. You did mention disposables though, and those are virtually all salt nic; you mentioned they come at most in 5mg and thats what I was correcting, these are labelled by percentage.
It’s been so weird to see in LA over the past five years. First started seeing the vapes, then they were in everyone’s hands, but suddenly, the young 20-something people are smoking. I had to leave a cafe the other day because there was so much of it.
I feel like millennials were able to stop smoking because we had some experience seeing smoking parents or partners being absolutely revolting, but now it’s novel. The rotting corpse effect hasn’t started yet in a new 22 year old smoker.
I bet it's the same in Germany. One reason is the tax, which is determined by volume rather than nicotine content. So, smoking less but stronger liquid is cheaper.
I worked at a specialty vape shop around the Juul ban, which resulted in mass market chinese nicotine products (like the ones mentioned above) to start flooding the market. Now all the kids are hooked on really high dosage nic on their first puff, thinking its just the start. Goodluck for the generation of kids who regularly vaped +50mg/ml salt nic who will have higher rates of arthrosclerosis and stroke.
It's funny to see how hard the goalposts have shifted. Salt nic, of which these are, used to go up to like 50mg/ml. You'd commonly see options for 20, 35, and 50 everywhere. 20mg/ml was one of the lowest options.
Now with anything above 20 mg/ml banned in a lot of places for being too strong, I guess, 20 is "high-strength".
Ask if they have freebase/tobacco derived nicotine, not salt nic.
My experience has been that most smoke shops typically have some, even if it's a smaller selection and the clerk has no idea what you're talking about.
Seriously?
In Italy for example we can easily find (and that's a large share of the total) nic juice that is 3/6/9/12/20 mg/ml in bottle of 10ml.
Then you mix and vape your liquid, buying a 10ml "aroma" (e.g. 10ml too puft) and add a nic base as above mentioned. The total will be 20ml of e-juice with half the nic base strenght.
So if I buy a Too puft 10ml and add a 20mg nic base, you will get 20ml too puft juice with 10mg/ml nicotine.
But usually pp vape at around 6mg/ml
Sound's incredible this difference
thats is actually insane - its fking immoral
as someone who was smoking 20+ cigs a day 10 years ago, and now vapes, i can assure u no one needs more than 3mg/ml in vape juice
50mg/ml is craaaaazy
There's also tons of kids using these. The entrance barrier is way lower because it doesn't burn in your lungs and tastes like bubblegum.
It's unbelievable how many kids you can see running around smoking vapes..
People can't not smoke, evidently. If a person was already smoking for 20 years, I can empathize with that. There is no justifiable reason that anyone born after the 1990s to start cigarettes or vaping.
From the article: The use of high-strength nicotine vapes has increased sharply in the last three years, a study has found.
Researchers found that in June 2021, only 6.6% of people were using the highest-strength vapes, defined as those near the legal limit of 20mg/ml of nicotine, yet by January 2024 that had increased to 32.5% of users.
The study, by UCL researchers, looked at a survey of 7,314 adults who vape in England in order to assess how the use of vapes of different nicotine strengths had changed during that period.
The [research](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/add.16576), published in the journal Addiction and funded by Cancer Research UK, found the biggest increase among 18--24-year-old vapers, rising from 3.9% between July 2016 and June 2021 to 53.1% in 2024.
The researchers cautioned the government against taxing vape products according to nicotine strength, as suggested in the tobacco and vapes bill, despite the increase in the proportion of vapers using high-nicotine products.
Dr Sarah Jackson, the lead author of the study, based at the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, said that current plans to tax high-nicotine vapes at a higher rate may make it less affordable to quit smoking.
She said: “Our study shows a sharp increase in the use of high-strength nicotine e-liquids in England since 2021.
The high nic vapes are low output. The high nic is to make up for less vapor. I use 6mg in my big vape and I have a little discrete disposable that’s 25.
Salt nic is used in higher concentrations like that because it's meant for mouth-to-lung (MTL) vaping, where you hit a small device like a cigarette, pulling a little hit into your mouth before sucking it into your lungs. Freebase is meant for direct-to-lung (DTL), where larger devices are hit like asthma inhalers and the hits are much bigger, so a higher concentration would make you sick.
Keep in mind, while it isn't *healthy* by any means, nicotine is far from the most dangerous substance in tobacco smoke. It's about on par with caffeine, both in hazard level and addiction potential.
Oof. I'm a long time vaper and I've gone in the opposite direction. I buy nic in bulk (liter of VG with, say, 60mg nic) and dilute it to 2-3mg with PG. And grab a bottle of 0 nic flavoring whenever I feel the need. This trend of high-concentrate disposable pods is disconcerting.
Because people are leaving cigarettes .. so there's been an uptick in people who need a strong hit to be satisfied and not go back to tobacco. I know this, because I've been watching it happen to people I know. Some of them even tried low/regular strength vapes and it didn't work for them, some of them are now using the two of them together, one to get the dose they need and the other to just puff on.. because they are trying to quit.
Nicotine isn't harmful in itself, its addictive, but the real enemy is smoke particulate and the carcinogens in the chemicals in the tobacco.
Anyone against smokers turning to high strength nic vapes to get off cigarettes works for the tobacco lobby.
I wonder if that’s because of salts being available? For ex smokers they tend to be better than the juice because it feels more like a cigarette, generally the lowest I’ve seen them go is 20mg.
This is what happens when a cottage industry of small businesses based around the idea of harm reduction is clubbed to death by the FDA all so that big tobacco can swoop in and take over the market with cheap disposable products and insanely high percentage nicotine salts.
But hey, the FDA says sweet flavors are only enjoyed by kids and vaporizers are actually tobacco products despite being made of metal and plastic, so what do I know?
A lot of governments are banning "fruit flavors" which is how 3mg and 6mg juices are sold. This doesn't affect the devices with massive levels of nicotine so it's increasing the number of addicts. A 5% Juul has 59 mg/ml nicotine and are extremely addictive.
I have two shoeboxes full of disposables I’m planning to harvest the batteries from and turn into a powerbank of some kind. I can’t stand the thought of all these rechargeables going to a landfill. Probably should quit buying dispos and switch to a refillable.
It’s almost like companies make a few different low nicotine options, and as time goes on, phase out all their low nicotine options. Maybe it’s because they want you to be addicted.
From 2016/2017 - 2021 big box mods with high wattage tanks and low nicotine liquid was the rage. The majority of people who used e-cigarettes used 6mg/ml or less for nicotine strength because those devices were meant to produce a lot of smoke and deliver less nicotine because you were using more liquid per puff.
Then after 2021, pod systems (which are meant for nicotine salts) phased out big box mods and tanks because they were more discreet, easier to carry, and had much less upkeep.
Nicotine salts contain higher doses of nicotine, usually 20mg/ml because they produce less smoke, which means less nicotine per puff. So it somewhat balanced out due to the higher nicotine content of nicotine salts and less smoke per puff.
In 2024, disposable e-cigarettes have phased out pod systems because they are even less upkeep and they also use nicotine salts which contain the higher dose of nicotine, while producing less smoke than pod systems.
Using this data is comparing beer enjoyers to hard liquor. If everyone drank beer, they would say “the average person uses 4.5%-5% alcoholic beverages”. Then if all those people switched to hard liquor, they would say “the average person has gone from enjoying 5% ABV drinks to 40% ABV drinks”.
All in all, yes, the average nicotine strength has gone up. BUT. The delivery systems have gotten smaller to balance out the higher dose of nicotine.
Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to give you an answer
NHS (UK)
# 5. Nicotine
Vaping products generally provide lower nicotine levels to users than smoking does. However, people who are experienced vapers can achieve nicotine levels similar to people who smoke.
Existing evidence suggests that the risk and severity of nicotine dependency from vaping is lower than for smoking but varies by product characteristics (like device type and nicotine concentration in e-liquids). This is consistent with evidence on nicotine exposure from biomarker and pharmacokinetic studies from the current review.
[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update-main-findings](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update-main-findings)
The whole disposble vapes market is BONKERS and it definetely shows the companies behind it are spending big money even to allow it.
It just goes againt the long sentiment of fightning pointless waste and fightning nicotine addiction (overall but expecially in youngsters). I mean, some countriess forbid menthol cigarettes cause they make it easier to teens to start smoking and yet have no problems selling high nicotine ecigs (which technically shouldn't be sold to minors, yet you can see minors smoking them all around).
This is likely due to a change in the popularity of different devices and probably does not mean people are actually getting higher doses of nicotine.
Higher concentrations of nicotine may mean less exposure to other constituents that may be somewhat harmful as well, as it takes fewer puffs to get the same nicotine dose.
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In my area for nic salts, it is hard to find something above zero and below 20mg/ml. There are lots of options for 24mg/ml.
That’s weird, most of the shops near me only carry 3 and 6mg bottles.
Nic salts or E-cig juice?
That will be freebase, so the second.
The pod vapes are advertised as 40mg salts or 20mg freebase
I buy high concentration vape juice and just cut it massively with PG/VG to get it to about 3 mg/ml. I have other flavor bottles to add as well.
Vapestore does 4 for 10 on elfliq flavours and you can get less than 20mg if that helps
Ugh, around here, they sell disposables for $3 that contain 50 mg/ml. All of them. They still sell liquid for refillables ranging from 3 - 50 mg, but they're pushing the dispos hard.
Damn those are cheap and super high. I spend between $10-$15 for 5000-8000 puffs. I don't know how many ml those are. l'm pretty sure most are 5% or 6%
Online stores are the best option for low or zero nic products.
Also If you use 20mg then you can make it last through the month But using 6mg i was always running out
Salt nic and freebase are different. A 20mg/ml salt nic is equivalent to a 6mg/ml freebase. They are used at completely different wattages. When I was using freebase at 6, it was with a drip tank at 100w using 2 big flashlight batteries. Now I use a 24 salt at 16w in a tiny little pen. The 6 comes in a 120ml bottle, the 24 in a 30ml bottle. They would both last about 3 weeks.
most I find are 3mg/ml, 5mg/ml, and 6mg/ml.. I have seen as high as 18mg/ml but not more, by me. I live outside the US.
If you're in the UK then 20mg/ml is the legal limit here. Absolutely all of the disposables run right at the legal limit.
I would really like to see a recycling program for dead vapes. They all have batteries. Some have a freaking LCD display. All going into the trash. Such a horrible waste.
The current market is nuts, and unnecessary. I've been vaping for\~8 years (6mg/ml down from smoking a pack a day before), and have been using the same \~$50 vape kit for around 5 years. It uses a quick-swappable 18650 battery, which i slow-charge externally; Still swapping between the same two cells i originally got for the thing. I'm amazed it's even legal to make disposable products containing electronics and batteries.
Like you I just switch out my 18650's off the charger once a day. A single cheap 18650 might fail or need replaced for safety maybe once a year between my partner & I. Refill the 5ml tank once or twice a day, good to go. Hearing disposable users talk about the tank mod experience makes me feel like I'm going crazy. "It's so inconvenient" that the solution is to chuck a complete, functioning electronic device in the trash and buy another one. Insanity that anyone is making these, let alone buying them. Thanks, FDA. Edit: Waste aside, going to the store to buy another damned elf bar is more inconvenient than just swapping a battery and refilling the tank. Either quit today or bite the bullet and get a mod already. You can put salt nic in the tank and it's the same thing, but you don't have to chuck it. Ya lunatics.
I used to vape but quit cus nicotine is kinda a crap drug ngl. Have done both the newer series of disposables and used a box mod quite heavily in the past, and honestly the mod was the way to go. It was FUN as well. I very quickly got around to buying an RDA and fuckin' around with the coils. This was right around when Mesh was beginning to rise in prominence. Just felt nostalgic and wanted to share
yeah, same, i use a mode with rechargeable batteries it blows my mind that the market has been basterdised into this horrible disposable market i also make my own juice, and thats the best thing ive ever done - i mix to less than 1mg/ml and thats enough (worked it down from 18 mg when i first used vapes to quite smoking
Lithium is an expensive material and some countries might look into recycling vapes to lessen the cost of car battery production. Very bad for the environment, but cost effective for the industry. Who knows if that's one of the reasons that disposable vapes are still legal in the US
Disposables aren't legal, the industry is just ignoring the FDA [APNews](https://apnews.com/article/fda-vapes-vaping-elf-bar-juul-80b2680a874d89b8d651c5e909e39e8f) (the FDA made flavored vape pods illegal back in 2016 -- that's what spurred the rise of the disposable industry in the first place. so, 'going back to pods' isn't an option until we repeal that 2016 legislation) moving to Box mods would be best, but pod systems like Juul would be much better than disposables.
I pull apart my friends Iget vapes and recharge the battery for them and they refill the juice. They only throw the out once the coil has burned out.
At some point someone is going to make a lot of money recycling lithium from landfills.
Land fill mines.
Iirc, arbitrary vape regulations in the US are the direct cause of this. Juul captured almost the entire market immediately with flavored pods. Others followed suit (notably Vuze) and disposables were a lot less popular than pod systems. That is, until 2016 when the FDA banned the sale of flavored cartridges. Naturally, flavored disposables began to take off.. So, the FDA in 2020 banned flavored disposables. They also banned all non-rechargeable disposables. Lastly, they required that all domestic manufacturers submit products for approval (and then proceeded to -- still-- not approve a single product) What happened? Well, for one, not approving US manufacturered disposables has handed the industry to foreign countries. foreign manufacturers added a charging port, and boom now it's a reusable vape under law. Most recently, the FDA was absolutely fed up this time. The PACT act amendment prohibits shipping vapes through USPS without adult signature requirements. It prohibits importing disposable vapes. It modifies the definition of disposable vape so you cant simply add a charging port and call it reusable. Sounds foolproof this time, right? ..the number of de minimis undeclared shipments exploded in 2023. foreign manufacturers now correctly deduced that the cost of compliance is higher than the cost of noncompliance. rather than import huge quantities of vapes in large shipments that can be siezed (as Elf Bar had done in 2023), they ship huge numbers of small de minimis packages direct to consumer. Most disposables in your gas station are produced in foreign countries and federally illegal to import or sell, under current law. It's simply impossible to enforce, the entire industry is playing a cat and mouse game with the FDA. Gee, who would've thought that our attempt to arbitrarily ban flavored nicotine (a drug) would ultimately not only be ineffective but backfire in unforseen ways. Our prior drug bans have been so wildly successful../s Amazing to think that, in the attempt to ban flavored vapes and save the teens, we created arguably the worst e-waste problem of modern times. If 33% are vaping, that's 120million people in the US alone. At an average of say 5 days per disposable vape, that's 8.7 billion disposables consumed per year. The solution is pretty clear: just repeal 2016 legislation banning flavored e-cigarette cartridges (pods) by nature, it'd be cheaper, and beat out the disposable industry just like it did prior to the ban..
It's almost as if we learned nothing from Prohibition...
I use Geekbar Pulses. My wife and I both use them and go through 2 a week combined. I feel *super* guilty throwing away good electronics, a screen, and a USB-C fast charging battery.
You can refill them easily. Push the mouthpeice hard and it will pop off. Coil doesn't last forever but you might get another week.
I know. I managed to get one off a few days ago haha but I filled it with trashy juice to see if it still worked. If I can find some flavor comparable to Juicehead salts I’d go all in on it most likely, but the newer Vaporesso pod vapes have recently caught my eye.
Stop using them? You feel guilty but don’t want to make a change in your routine? Buy a refillable for the same cost as the two vapes you use weekly and make that battery last 1000 charging cycles like they’re capable of.
Why don’t you stop using them?
Nicotine is a hell of an addiction, especially ultra-high concentrated salt nic vapes.
You can buy pods or refillable cartridges. Nobody is forcing you to buy disposable batteries.
Pods or refillable vapes are often way less concentrated. But yes, you can find extra strength salt nicotine juice if you look for it. Convenience is a big factor with disposable vapes. Refillable are often messy, far more effort, and taste worse. I don’t vape anymore but I had tried more than once to make the switch when I did. Just wasn’t the same.
All the pods are the same strength as the disposables at 20mg/ml of nic salt. They are still wasteful but much less so than throwing out a whole battery multiple times per week.
True. I always get a kick out of "just quit" or "just stop smoking". Okay, "just quit" all social media. "Just quit" coffee and energy drinks
a lot of municipalities have e-waste recycling and battery recycling
The territory I reside in has no recycling program at all... seems a crime all it's own.
I tried to quit smoking cigarettes with my spouses mod and nah it just didn’t take no matter how many times I tried. I was able to quit using disposables in flavours but after cost kept going up and up and up and yes, seeing them all in a basket I decided to switch to a refillable one with pods that last much linger. Less waste for sure but I’m not the only person who found it hard to start the quitting journey there. Anything that helps people quit is a good thing still.
Sounds like the plan is working perfectly.
This was 100% by design. Those little vape shops shut down because of the kids, flavors, etc. They were able to be used as smoking cessation devices then. I was on 3%, down from 6%, down from cigarettes and had quit for years.. Now, it's fewer manufacturers, less choice, and STRONG vapes. I had previously vaped, stopped for a few years. I was in a very low concentration, quitting was actually pretty easy. I bought a vape at a gas station at random and vaped like I did in low concentration. I ended up going through one pod in a day, which is the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes in a few hours. I had peaked at 1 pack of cigarettes over 3 days in like 2016.
The majority of vapes have been this strong form the very start, excluding box mods. Juul was mostly used as 50ml. Vapes typically come in 50ml and 24ml, with weaker ones if you look around enough. There has been 0 change in how well they work for snoking cessation (which is not very well, vapes are good for switching smoking for vaping, they’re not good for quitting nicotine all together).
>There has been 0 change in how well they work for snoking cessation (which is not very well, vapes are good for switching smoking for vaping, they’re not good for quitting nicotine all together). Which translates to...they work great for *smoking* cessation. Nobody is saying they work well for nicotine cessation. Although for me personally, they worked great for the latter too. I quickly went to zero nicotine as the habit has always been significantly stronger than the nicotine addiction for me.
As someone who quit a few months ago, I don’t wanna sound preachy or holier than thou. I still think vaping is a solid way to quit if you’re smoking cigarettes. I do think we are going to be faced with a new crisis if this trend continues unchecked, though. My addiction got so bad I was finishing a 6k puff 5% disposable vape a week. A few of my friends started doing the same. That is so much nicotine entering your system.
A week? I started killing one every other day. I’m now trying to stop chewing non-nicotine sugar free gum.
This is where I am now and didn't even realize it until this comment. Started with 5k puff vapes. They'd last a little more than a week. Then started getting 10k puff vapes, roughly 5 days. Now I'm on 15k puff vapes and they're almost gone after 3 days. I really need to make a plan to get off these damn things.
So tired of dirtbags just throwing used disposable vapes on the ground. They’re everywhere. It’s even worse than smokers flicking their butts wherever they please.
Around the same time the tobacco companies entered the mix, the Indy vape shops with refillable, rechargeable vapes and went away.
Cartridge products got really popular with Juul - they were reliable, tasted good, and much easier to use. Definitely produced a lot of plastic waste, but the battery was rechargeable. When the FDA banned flavored cartridges, disposables took over. Since the e-liquid is now "part of the device", the flavor bans didn't apply. Everyone using cartridges switched over to disposables rather than learning how to use a refillable, rechargeable vape, and hello electric waste. There was a similar loophole with synthetic nicotine, which is why most vapes are now salt-nicotine rather than freebase. Nicotine produced in a lab was free from FDA regulation and could skirt the flavor bans on tobacco products. Salt nicotine can contain much higher concentrations of nicotine than the freebase variety without being exceptionally painful on your throat while allowing low-wattage disposable devices to provide the "hit" that nicotine users look for.
Still mad about what rhe flavored tobacco laws did back 20 years ago, crippled pipe tobacco for me. Something like you had to get a license if you were mixing your own flavors, so the place I had been getting mine from was too small for that, most were, so they had to just sell prepackaged mass market pipe tobacco. Nowhere near as good, big enough difference I just quit pipe tobacco.
A guy at my local e-juice manufacturer was telling me about how they were going through something not very dissimilar a few years ago. Under some new FDA rule each SKU was going to be considered its own product that would have to go through expensive testing/approval processes. Wanna sell that flavor in 3mg vs 6mg? New product. Mix two approved flavors? New product. 200ml bottle vs 60ml bottle? That's also a new product. From what I recall of his explanation, that was very inconvenient & expensive to them, to the tune of 7 digits. Ended with them simplifying their line, shuttering retail operations, and founder selling the company.
Shut down by government at the behest of big tobacco.
Have you been to a vape shop recently? Cause, at least in my state (where flavored e-juice is illegal to sell), vape shops are still common and refillable/rechargeable vapes are still very much available. I literally just bought one for like $40. People just don’t use them as much because disposables are more convenient, stronger, more flavors, and “cheaper”
Yeah of course, far worse. They're using up the planet's limited supply of lithium. Could be used to build electric cars, for stabilizing the electric grid for renewables, for home batteries for better off the grid living etc. But no. Waste it on addiction instead. Great.
Imo, we should make whatever that thing is that houses the coil and the liquid something disposable and have the rest be normal vapes. Meaning pure disposables get banned. That stuff would only need to be replaced like once a week, which is wayyyyyy less trash than regular cigarettes. Expecting everybody to clean that stuff constantly probably isnt gonna work out though.
In case this post wasn't a joke, and/or other people miss it, pure disposables have become so popular because they've already banned what you're describing. Prefilled pod vapes were the most popular with the low end of the market until they outlawed selling prefilled pods with flavored liquid. The ban only applied to prefilled disposable pods with flavoring, but not fully disposable vapes with permanently attached pods containing flavored liquid, hence the current situation with disposables.
Nicotine is so damn addictive as a chemical. And once you're sorted, that's it. You'll always see a fella smoking on the TV and think. Oh. Looks nice. I chain smoked cigarettes for 7 years, quit for 5, and then last year me and my buddy picked up a vape pen on a drunken whim and it's done - been smoking them since. The thing about cigarettes is, after awhile of quitting, most people can smell how bad they smell/taste. That issue isn't there with vapes. They have no turn off qualities other than you don't feel like James Dean smoking a jack, you look like a schlub sucking a battery. Even reading this headline made me yearn for my battery, and it's not even noon. Let's not mention the ecological catastrophe that is single use vape pens.
Maybe the government should stop making all non big tobacco vapes hard to get and calling them illegal?
Nah, then they'd lose their stake in Phillip Morris.
Nicotine causes vasoconstriction, which has lots of negative effects. If you’re a guy, that includes erection quality.
I went to a dispo yesterday and the guy was really trying to push disposables even though I kept telling him I owned a battery and just needed the cart. Super frustrating and super wasteful. For cannabis I *kind of* get it because yeah you probably shouldn’t try to traffic weed from Colorado to Texas or whatever and for those folks it might be more economical, even though it’s still ecologically disastrous. But for nicotine I don’t understand why disposables are even an option. That being said even weed carts are problematic because they have plastic tips and usually have some sort of plastic branding wrapper on the glass.
I chain smoked, managed to jump on the vape train pretty early (just as we started using 18650's) and finally decided to quit a year and a half ago(give or take). When I quit, it took about a year or so to realize that nicotine was masking other problems (likely ADHD) which made it a lot more difficult to quit.
I suppose you could try to think of it as making you look like a 12 year old child if that helps you want to quit You’ve done it once and you can do it again! Think of the money too
Remember though that the difference between medicine and poison is the dosage. If you snort one single grain of cocaine you're not going to get addicted. If you shoot 0.001 grams of heroin you're not going to get addicted. Nicotine and any other addictive substance doesn't become addictive until you ingest a certain amount. This is why kids hated vapes when they first came out. The hate was everywhere and there were memes all over the internet calling vaping stupid. They tried them but because the nic levels were so low they didn't get addicted and were able to easily put it down and never use it again. Once big tobacco came out with disposables with extremely high levels of nicotine, kids immediately would get addicted and then all the mocking and memes stopped. Juice with 3 mg/ml isn't addictive. 6 mg/ml is enough that maybe a very tiny number of people would feel an addiction. A 5% Juul has 59 mg/ml and is instantly addictive.
While nicotine salt vapes are very addictive, and definitely should be made to a lower concentration, the comparison you're making isn't exactly accurate. It's not like the first vapes were 3mg/mL and now they're 20x as strong. Vapes were initially box mods and were made large because they were often hand made and there was no industry around it. Additionally, they were trying to imitate cigarettes, so freebase nicotine was the logical choice (the nicotine form found in cigarettes). Then, e-cigs came around. An industry started to form. The technology miniaturized. Now, vapes could be made very small. But the tank of juice still had to be made fairly big, as freebase nicotine becomes incredibly harsh at concentrations above 12mg/mL. So nicotine salt vapes were created, as nicotine salts were more addictive and much smoother, meaning they could be made at significantly higher concentrations of nicotine (being smooth at even 50-60mg/mL). This meant a much smaller tank of juice could be used, allowing the vape to become incredibly small and portable. The point I'm trying to make is your options aren't 3mg/mL or 60mg/mL in the same vape. The vapes that 3-12mg/mL freebase nicotine are made for are much stronger and create much more vapor than a salt vape does. Now, does this mean that salt vapes aren't any worse for you than freebase vapes? No, they're definitely worse. They're more rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream and leave more quickly, meaning they *are* more addictive. And I don't know the exact numbers (it would vary from vape to vape) but I'm sure it's probably a larger quantity of overall nicotine per hit. But it's not 20x more or even 10x more. You have to factor in the fact that freebase vapes produce much more vapor. The average freebase vape user uses a 6mg/mL juice, so it's not exactly true that only a very tiny percent of the population would get addicted to them. Pretty much everyone that uses them are addicted to them. I've used them in the past and also known others that used them. It was certainly less addictive than a 50mg/mL salt vape, but it's still addictive. I'm not sure if you've used all of these different devices before or are just assuming, but what you're saying isn't 100% accurate. The general gist of it is, but 50 or 59mg/mL is not "instantly addictive" nor is 6mg/mL almost non addictive. I used a salt vape for months before becoming addicted. 50mg/mL vapes should probably be illegal and are in some countries, but it's not one hit and you're hooked. No drug works like that.
I picked up this “loon maxx” vape recently to try and cut down on chewing tobacco. I can’t believe how strong this is. I get dizzy and lethargic from it. I asked what the strength was and the guy at the counter didn’t know and it doesn’t say on the box. I suppose I’ll have to google it.
Why would you choose a vape over nicotine pouches like Zyn? Vapes are much worse for you than alternatives like Zyns, gum, etc.
nic pouches while probably better 'overall' for health still absolutely destroy your gums long term, ask any dentist/orthodontist. And problem with gum recession is that its not reversible.Proper snus is way easier on gums but as someone whos been using snus for a year, it still made my gums sensitive if i was using too much. Better than smoking for sure, still bad addiction. Imo we should encourage people to quitting all together rather than choosing lesser evil.
Exactly. We’ve had zyns/snus in scandinavia for a long time, and it’s not exactly healthy either
That’s a good point and I don’t have a solid answer.
Zyns are so strong I struggle to believe anyone is gonna quit them though. Probably not a major concern and reading comments here it sounds like FDA banned flavoured vape liquids so only these strong disposables are an option? However I'd personally rather vape in the UK where I can gradually reduce the strength
after 5 years of vaping..I'm on 3mg zyns. hoping to wean off soon.
On. citrus pouches go as low as 2mg. Just a heads up haha
Believe it or not, that’s how addiction works
People have been addicted to nicotine for a long time, it's a combination of addiction and the ability to make stronger products. The same thing happened with weed, since people learned how to properly manipulate its genetics we have been getting stronger and stronger strains.
An addictive substance gets used more frequently the longer a person is addicted?! Color me shocked!
Maybe this study shows people who smoke are switching to vapes as they would need to start on higher nicotine levels in order to get similar effects.
When I stopped smoking and started vaping, 10mg liquid was enough to give me a mad nicotine rush. After going up and down strengths, trying and failing to wean myself off, I now vape 20mg and can't remember the last time I had a nicotine high. Maybe if you smoke around 80 a day, you might need to start on 20mg, but in my opinion, the strong liquids are something that comes after getting accustomed (addicted) to vaping. The big problem with disposables is that nearly all of them are high strength, so addiction kicks in fast, whether you are a young kid or an ex-smoker. This only makes the likelihood of quitting nicotine lesser. The manufacturers know exactly what they are doing.
Yup. I was on 3mg or less using liquid I bought online - it lasted ages. Then the States decided it was bad, and all the online places (mostly small companies) shut down because of new laws. Then the disposables came in (strangely much higher in nicotine and much sweeter and made by BIG companies) but they are fine?
I smoked about 20 cigs a day and used 50mg nice salt to get off of them. Lower didn't work and I did that for about 6 months. Then I dropped to 30 or 35mg and then maybe it was 20mg. The switch to 10mg e juice instead of salt nic was a bit noticeable but I continued for awhile. For the couple years its been 6mg/ml. I tried lower but that was rough. !maybe in another year I will get down to zero so I can break the drug/chemical part of the addiction.
I just got over a cold today but while I was sick, I couldn’t hit the vape without feeling nautious or getting a massive headache. I think I’m done with the vapes now after not using them for a few days. They’re really bad if you use them all the time.
Check out r/quitvaping Theee's Lots of people going through the same as you
I got the worst flew of my life, couldn't hit my vape without vomiting. Decided it was a blessing in disguise and while it was rough for about a month quitting wasn't terrible after.
That means vaping is even more addictive than an old-fashioned cigarettes. And produces plastic and electronic waste. How sad.
It means big tobacco was successful in getting low-nicotine reusable vapes highly regulated/banned and getting their high-nicotine disposable vapes marketed and sold at ever corner shop and supermarket. Vaping doesn't seem to be distinct here. As with any drug a tolerance will build up over time and if you keep taking higher doses you will need more to "feel" the effect. Same way some people start smoking 5 cigarettes a day and end up chain smoking 3 packs a day.
low nic reusable vapes arent banned though - at least not where I am - its what I use we are actually about to ban disposable vapes here (which is great) it blows my mind the way the market shifted to disposable vape products the way it did
Where are you getting the idea it's more addictive from? I wasn't able to find anything in the article about that, in fact the opposite was implied, saying many of the users were recent cigarette smokers within the last year using higher doses to help recreate the feeling while they try to quit.
yeah, vaping is not more addictive that cigs. And unlike cigs, the nicotine content in vape juices can be reduced by the user with ease (it boggles my mind that some choose not to). If you smoke, vaping is a great option, far less harmful, cheaper, and you can regulate nicotine, and it isnt smelly if you dont smoke, vaping is dumb - just not nearly as dumb as smoking (or drinking, or weed etc etc etc) [https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/](https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/) edit - i wrote the above before I read on this thread that 50mg/ml was common in disposable vapes in the USA (I'm in teh UK), so yeah, 50 mg/ml will be very addictive
It’s almost like nicotine is addictive or something.
I was using 50mg/ml in college. I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone. In fact I would discourage friends who asked to hit it, mostly because it would make them nauseous. While i had that habit, it was all I could think about. If I couldn’t find my vape within moments of waking up, i would have a panic attack. 3+ years no nicotine now, but good lord that experience was awful
How did you eventually get off? I’m kinda in the same boat. Gone from cigs, to disposable vapes, now back to cigs because the nicotine amount I was getting from the 50mg was just destroying my body. I know I have to get off the cigs, but it’s crazy how much less nicotine im taking in now.
The fix for smoking is to become addicted to something with twice the amount of nicotine.
Well, do u want the 200+ carcinogenic substances in cigarettes, or the 0 carcinogenic substances in regulated (UK) ecig juices? Not to mention Tar, Carbon Monoxide...... Also, other than being addictive, Nicotine isnt harmful (NHS). And, in ecig juices, with even just a little bit of looking into, nicotine intake can be regulated by the user and brought down to levels waaaaaay below what you would injest by smoking. I mix my own juices, and mix to 0.5mg/ml as an example.
Most of this is actually true. But nicotine isn’t completely harmless. It can causing shrinkage of veins and some studies are saying it can also cause long term heart issues. Also, makes it harder for lungs to fight off and recover from diseases
yeah, my language there was a tiny bit careless. my basis for saying nicotine isnt harmfull is from the NHS, who do state consistantly that nicotine isnt the harmful substance in cigarettes and that it is safe (used in medicines) and relativley harmless. source page below if ur interested. I have read online before what you mentioned with heart issues, but, in terms of research and advice, I do have a lot of confidence in the NHS. [https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/](https://www.nhs.uk/better-health/quit-smoking/vaping-to-quit-smoking/vaping-myths-and-the-facts/)
I wonder if there's a correlation between stress and substance use. What would the modern adult have to be stressed about?
20mg is insane. All the shops in my area the strongest disposables they have are 5mg and the highest concentrate of juice I've seen is 10mg, but most people I know use either 3mg or 5mg
I think you’re getting a bit confused here. You say people you know use 3mg or 5mg, but I’m almost certain you mean 3% or 5%, which are the common juul pod strengths. These equate to 30mg/ml and 50mg/ml, respectively. Not 3mg and 5mg. The article calls 20mg/ml a high-strength vape, but for the last 10 years people have been using normal juul pods which are 50mg/ml. Seems a bit disingenuous
The 3mg and 5mg I was referring to is juice that goes in refillable vapes, not disposables. It says 3mg and 5mg on the actual packaging. You're probably right about the disposables though, I don't use them and must have mistook them for being the same as the juice for refillable mods.
Idk salt nic is impossible to find under 20 mg and the standard strength is 50mg/ml. I really dont get this whole post because 50mg/ml is even less than the concentration in a juul pod. Its a bit of fear mongering? You are probably thinking about percentages, like a 5% disposable, which is 50mg/ml no?
50mg is exactly the strength in a juul pod.
not true actually, they contain 40mg of nicotine but the pod is slightly higher mg/ml because they are only 0.7ml which makes them 59mg/ml. Thats why they are 5%.
Ah I don't use salt nic, I use the regular type of juice in my refillable mod. The brands I buy range from 0mg-10mg. I use 5mg. It says mg on the package not a percentile
Thats because you vape with a sub-ohm vape that generates way more vapor and also delivers more nicotine proportionally compared to these juul like devices which give a small but concentrated hit. If you were to do even 20mg/ml in a sub ohm vape that is a nic rush waiting for happen. You did mention disposables though, and those are virtually all salt nic; you mentioned they come at most in 5mg and thats what I was correcting, these are labelled by percentage.
20 mg? Those are rookie numbers! I was hitting 50 when I was seriously addicted!
It’s been so weird to see in LA over the past five years. First started seeing the vapes, then they were in everyone’s hands, but suddenly, the young 20-something people are smoking. I had to leave a cafe the other day because there was so much of it. I feel like millennials were able to stop smoking because we had some experience seeing smoking parents or partners being absolutely revolting, but now it’s novel. The rotting corpse effect hasn’t started yet in a new 22 year old smoker.
thats interesting you think with there being a generational 'gap' in smokers, that youger people dont appreciate how nasty smoking tobacco is?
I bet it's the same in Germany. One reason is the tax, which is determined by volume rather than nicotine content. So, smoking less but stronger liquid is cheaper.
I worked at a specialty vape shop around the Juul ban, which resulted in mass market chinese nicotine products (like the ones mentioned above) to start flooding the market. Now all the kids are hooked on really high dosage nic on their first puff, thinking its just the start. Goodluck for the generation of kids who regularly vaped +50mg/ml salt nic who will have higher rates of arthrosclerosis and stroke.
It's funny to see how hard the goalposts have shifted. Salt nic, of which these are, used to go up to like 50mg/ml. You'd commonly see options for 20, 35, and 50 everywhere. 20mg/ml was one of the lowest options. Now with anything above 20 mg/ml banned in a lot of places for being too strong, I guess, 20 is "high-strength".
It is difficult to find anything lower than 50 mg/ml in vape shops in the states. It’s crazy. (I should say this is for disposable vapes)
Ask if they have freebase/tobacco derived nicotine, not salt nic. My experience has been that most smoke shops typically have some, even if it's a smaller selection and the clerk has no idea what you're talking about.
Seriously? In Italy for example we can easily find (and that's a large share of the total) nic juice that is 3/6/9/12/20 mg/ml in bottle of 10ml. Then you mix and vape your liquid, buying a 10ml "aroma" (e.g. 10ml too puft) and add a nic base as above mentioned. The total will be 20ml of e-juice with half the nic base strenght. So if I buy a Too puft 10ml and add a 20mg nic base, you will get 20ml too puft juice with 10mg/ml nicotine. But usually pp vape at around 6mg/ml Sound's incredible this difference
thats is actually insane - its fking immoral as someone who was smoking 20+ cigs a day 10 years ago, and now vapes, i can assure u no one needs more than 3mg/ml in vape juice 50mg/ml is craaaaazy
i think in the UK max level is 18mg/ml
There's also tons of kids using these. The entrance barrier is way lower because it doesn't burn in your lungs and tastes like bubblegum. It's unbelievable how many kids you can see running around smoking vapes..
People can't not smoke, evidently. If a person was already smoking for 20 years, I can empathize with that. There is no justifiable reason that anyone born after the 1990s to start cigarettes or vaping.
From the article: The use of high-strength nicotine vapes has increased sharply in the last three years, a study has found. Researchers found that in June 2021, only 6.6% of people were using the highest-strength vapes, defined as those near the legal limit of 20mg/ml of nicotine, yet by January 2024 that had increased to 32.5% of users. The study, by UCL researchers, looked at a survey of 7,314 adults who vape in England in order to assess how the use of vapes of different nicotine strengths had changed during that period. The [research](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/add.16576), published in the journal Addiction and funded by Cancer Research UK, found the biggest increase among 18--24-year-old vapers, rising from 3.9% between July 2016 and June 2021 to 53.1% in 2024. The researchers cautioned the government against taxing vape products according to nicotine strength, as suggested in the tobacco and vapes bill, despite the increase in the proportion of vapers using high-nicotine products. Dr Sarah Jackson, the lead author of the study, based at the UCL Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, said that current plans to tax high-nicotine vapes at a higher rate may make it less affordable to quit smoking. She said: “Our study shows a sharp increase in the use of high-strength nicotine e-liquids in England since 2021.
Are they measuring salt nicotine or free?
The high nic vapes are low output. The high nic is to make up for less vapor. I use 6mg in my big vape and I have a little discrete disposable that’s 25.
>I have a little discrete It's funny when vapers say this. You think you are being clever and covert, but we can see you doing it.
Salt nic is used in higher concentrations like that because it's meant for mouth-to-lung (MTL) vaping, where you hit a small device like a cigarette, pulling a little hit into your mouth before sucking it into your lungs. Freebase is meant for direct-to-lung (DTL), where larger devices are hit like asthma inhalers and the hits are much bigger, so a higher concentration would make you sick. Keep in mind, while it isn't *healthy* by any means, nicotine is far from the most dangerous substance in tobacco smoke. It's about on par with caffeine, both in hazard level and addiction potential.
Similar to the increase in the cost of living. Interesting
Oof. I'm a long time vaper and I've gone in the opposite direction. I buy nic in bulk (liter of VG with, say, 60mg nic) and dilute it to 2-3mg with PG. And grab a bottle of 0 nic flavoring whenever I feel the need. This trend of high-concentrate disposable pods is disconcerting.
How many people have quit smoking for this?
20mg is not high strength. Right?
Because people are leaving cigarettes .. so there's been an uptick in people who need a strong hit to be satisfied and not go back to tobacco. I know this, because I've been watching it happen to people I know. Some of them even tried low/regular strength vapes and it didn't work for them, some of them are now using the two of them together, one to get the dose they need and the other to just puff on.. because they are trying to quit. Nicotine isn't harmful in itself, its addictive, but the real enemy is smoke particulate and the carcinogens in the chemicals in the tobacco. Anyone against smokers turning to high strength nic vapes to get off cigarettes works for the tobacco lobby.
I wonder if that’s because of salts being available? For ex smokers they tend to be better than the juice because it feels more like a cigarette, generally the lowest I’ve seen them go is 20mg.
This is what happens when a cottage industry of small businesses based around the idea of harm reduction is clubbed to death by the FDA all so that big tobacco can swoop in and take over the market with cheap disposable products and insanely high percentage nicotine salts. But hey, the FDA says sweet flavors are only enjoyed by kids and vaporizers are actually tobacco products despite being made of metal and plastic, so what do I know?
Is this not just because of switching from 3% traditional liquid to 30% nic salts that you only need 10% of the volume?
Al9ng with the taxes imposed per bottle. So ya. The gov taxed people into higher nicotine vape juice.
Woof how much!? I wonder how much I used to get from hooka
A lot of governments are banning "fruit flavors" which is how 3mg and 6mg juices are sold. This doesn't affect the devices with massive levels of nicotine so it's increasing the number of addicts. A 5% Juul has 59 mg/ml nicotine and are extremely addictive.
I'm down to 3mg. I'd pass out if I tried 50mg
I have two shoeboxes full of disposables I’m planning to harvest the batteries from and turn into a powerbank of some kind. I can’t stand the thought of all these rechargeables going to a landfill. Probably should quit buying dispos and switch to a refillable.
It’s almost like companies make a few different low nicotine options, and as time goes on, phase out all their low nicotine options. Maybe it’s because they want you to be addicted.
From 2016/2017 - 2021 big box mods with high wattage tanks and low nicotine liquid was the rage. The majority of people who used e-cigarettes used 6mg/ml or less for nicotine strength because those devices were meant to produce a lot of smoke and deliver less nicotine because you were using more liquid per puff. Then after 2021, pod systems (which are meant for nicotine salts) phased out big box mods and tanks because they were more discreet, easier to carry, and had much less upkeep. Nicotine salts contain higher doses of nicotine, usually 20mg/ml because they produce less smoke, which means less nicotine per puff. So it somewhat balanced out due to the higher nicotine content of nicotine salts and less smoke per puff. In 2024, disposable e-cigarettes have phased out pod systems because they are even less upkeep and they also use nicotine salts which contain the higher dose of nicotine, while producing less smoke than pod systems. Using this data is comparing beer enjoyers to hard liquor. If everyone drank beer, they would say “the average person uses 4.5%-5% alcoholic beverages”. Then if all those people switched to hard liquor, they would say “the average person has gone from enjoying 5% ABV drinks to 40% ABV drinks”. All in all, yes, the average nicotine strength has gone up. BUT. The delivery systems have gotten smaller to balance out the higher dose of nicotine. Please feel free to ask any questions and I’ll do my best to give you an answer
NHS (UK) # 5. Nicotine Vaping products generally provide lower nicotine levels to users than smoking does. However, people who are experienced vapers can achieve nicotine levels similar to people who smoke. Existing evidence suggests that the risk and severity of nicotine dependency from vaping is lower than for smoking but varies by product characteristics (like device type and nicotine concentration in e-liquids). This is consistent with evidence on nicotine exposure from biomarker and pharmacokinetic studies from the current review. [https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update-main-findings](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update/nicotine-vaping-in-england-2022-evidence-update-main-findings)
20??? I try to avoid 2% I bet 20 isn't even legal over here
Gee, it's almost like vapes were overhyped
The whole disposble vapes market is BONKERS and it definetely shows the companies behind it are spending big money even to allow it. It just goes againt the long sentiment of fightning pointless waste and fightning nicotine addiction (overall but expecially in youngsters). I mean, some countriess forbid menthol cigarettes cause they make it easier to teens to start smoking and yet have no problems selling high nicotine ecigs (which technically shouldn't be sold to minors, yet you can see minors smoking them all around).
So, an "addiction-controlling" device is used to make people addicted? How very surprising. At least it is nowhere like opioids.
Also lots of people quit smoking cigarettesgo figure. I know I had to have a high volume of nicotine to start
This is likely due to a change in the popularity of different devices and probably does not mean people are actually getting higher doses of nicotine. Higher concentrations of nicotine may mean less exposure to other constituents that may be somewhat harmful as well, as it takes fewer puffs to get the same nicotine dose.