{"id":688,"date":"2013-11-28T01:31:44","date_gmt":"2013-11-27T23:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/?p=688"},"modified":"2015-02-22T21:31:40","modified_gmt":"2015-02-22T20:31:40","slug":"nicotine-considered-harmful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/2013\/11\/28\/nicotine-considered-harmful\/","title":{"rendered":"Nicotine considered harmful"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The debate over e-cigarettes continues to rage, with statements that are often so extreme as to be laughable. I particularly enjoyed the latest from the European Commission&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/nicotinepolicy.net\/documents\/policy\/Article%2018%20-%20Electronic%20cigarettes%20-%20Commission%20proposal%2022%20Nov%202013.pdf\">proposal for Article 18<\/a> which states<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Electronic cigarettes are a tobacco related product.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>This makes as much sense as saying<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Caffeine is a cocaine-related product<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>because they have similar-sounding names. Nicotine can be <a href=\"http:\/\/www.chm.bris.ac.uk\/motm\/nicotine\/E-synthese.html\">synthesised in a laboratory<\/a>. The fact that it is cheaper to extract it from tobacco demonstrates convenience, not necessary relation.<\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s look at some facts about nicotine&#8217;s properties, in relation to other common drugs (I add the adverb &#8216;quickly&#8217; as a reminder of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Haber%27s_Law\">Haber&#8217;s Law<\/a>):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Caffeine is a widely-used addictive drug that is perfectly acceptable. The lethal dose of caffeine for rats is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/LD50\">192 mg\/kg<\/a>. A cup of coffee contains <a href=\"http:\/\/ndb.nal.usda.gov\/ndb\/foods\/show\/4290?qlookup=14209&amp;max=25&amp;man=&amp;lfacet=&amp;new=1\">40mg<\/a> of caffeine. A 70Kg human will thus die on drinking 192*70\/40=336 cups of coffee quickly.<\/li>\n<li>Nicotine is widely portrayed as an addictive poison which should be avoided at all costs. The lethal dose of nicotine for rats is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/LD50\">50mg\/Kg<\/a>. A cigarette or equivalent use of an e-cigarette delivers about 1mg to its user. A 70Kg human will thus die on smoking (or equally vaping) 50*70=3&#8217;500 cigarettes quickly.<\/li>\n<li>Alcohol is a widely-used addictive drug that is perfectly acceptable. The lethal dose of ethanol for rats is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/LD50\">7&#8217;060 mg\/kg<\/a>. A 70Kg human will thus die on drinking 7&#8217;060*70=~494g (about 1.2 liters of vodka) quickly.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ll be accused of bias, but it seems much easier to drink a couple of bottles of vodka than it is to to drink 33 liters of coffee. Smoking a few thousand cigarettes (or vaping the equivalent) is simply impossible, in a relatively short space of time. The point here is that abusing anything quickly enough will kill you.<\/p>\n<p>Long-term use presents a different picture.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Caffeine has no known dangers.<\/li>\n<li>Cigarettes are a health risk. &#8220;In 2000\u20132004, cigarette smoking cost more than <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/tobacco\/data_statistics\/fact_sheets\/fast_facts\/\">$193 billion<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Alcohol is too. &#8220;The economic costs of excessive alcohol consumption in 2006 were estimated at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/alcohol\/fact-sheets\/alcohol-use.htm\">$223.5 billion<\/a>&#8220;.<\/li>\n<li>Vaping is recent, so there are no long-term studies, but nicotine alone has never been associated with a health risk and propyl glycol is innocuous.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The medical profession seems to agree with me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cNicotine itself is not a particularly hazardous drug, says <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nottingham.ac.uk\/news\/expertiseguide\/experts\/b\/professorjohnbritton.aspx\">Professor John Britton<\/a>, who leads the Tobacco Advisory Group for the Royal College of Physicians. It&#8217;s something on a par with the effects you get from caffeine.<br \/>\nIf all the smokers in Britain stopped smoking cigarettes and started smoking e-cigarettes we would save five million deaths in people who are alive today. It\u2019s a massive potential public health prize.\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>How is it that policy makers ignore this? The answer is obvious, unless you fall under <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hanlon%27s_razor\">Hanlon&#8217;s Razor<\/a>; the truth is this:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Governments collect some <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pmi.com\/eng\/tobacco_regulation\/tobacco_taxation\/pages\/tobacco_taxation.aspx\">400 billion $<\/a> in cigarette taxes yearly<\/li>\n<li>The tobacco industry profits were <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldlungfoundation.org\/ht\/display\/ReleaseDetails\/i\/20439\/pid\/6858\">~$35 billion<\/a> in 2012. They have both the clout and a strong incentive to eradicate vaping by promoting regulation to restrict e-cigarettes.<\/li>\n<li>The pharmaceutical industry sells <a href=\"http:\/\/tobaccocontrol.bmj.com\/content\/9\/suppl_2\/ii60.full\">close to a billion $<\/a> in Nicotine Replacement Therapy products. They will logically lobby to maintain this profitable business.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>My advice to vapers: Buy a 20-year stock of 100mg\/mL e-liquid (a few liters) whilst you can and hide it in your cellar; the 600% nicotine tax is just around the corner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The debate over e-cigarettes continues to rage, with statements that are often so extreme as to be laughable. I particularly enjoyed the latest from the European Commission&#8217;s proposal for Article 18 which states Electronic cigarettes are a tobacco related product. <a href='https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/2013\/11\/28\/nicotine-considered-harmful\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-society","tag-vaping","category-10-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=688"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":811,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/688\/revisions\/811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calvert.ch\/maurice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}