[pandaman]

Why do you think that? A cigarette contains 10-20 mg of nicotine depending on the tobacco blend used. The strongest e-liquid is 50-60 g/l so to get 10x nicotine of a mild cigarette you'd need to atomize 2ml of the strongest e-liquid. Coincidently, 2ml is the legal limit of disposable vapes in EU. So, to get nicotine of one pack (20) light cigarettes you'd need to empty two European vapes (provided they are filled with the strongest liquid and at the capacity cap). To get 10x nicotine of a pack-a-day smoker you need to vape 20 disposables a day, which seems like quite a feat to me both physically and financially.

[cogman10]

A cigarette contains 10-20mg, but it's not readily available. On average, of those 10-20mg, you absorb only 1mg. [1]

My assumption, which could be faulty, is a lot more of the nicotine in the vape gets absorbed vs a cigarette.

[1] https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/how-much-nicotine-...

[pandaman]

Yes, neither is nicotine from a vape is all absorbed. Seeing they both have the same delivery mechanism (aerosol into lungs) it's quite a leap to assume one of these delivers an order of magnitude more nicotine, IMHO.

[cogman10]

Here's my reasoning.

The nicotine in smoke is bound to plant matter which you are likely to exhale. The dose you get is basically entirely from whatever gets stuck on the lungs, but even then it's still bound to the plant matter, so there will be some that just even if attached to the lung won't cross over.

Contrast that to the vape juice, which is water, glycol, nicotine (and flavors). In that case, the nicotine isn't bound to anything and as the water/glycol evaporates you are left with just the nicotine on the lung.

It's true that a large portion of the vape smoke doesn't attach to the lung at all. But my presumption is that a hit from a vape carries more nicotine and that nicotine also more readily gets absorbed by the lungs.

I don't know if it's exactly 10x. I presume it's higher.

[pandaman]

Vape juice is nicotine, glycol (PG) and glycerin (VG), the "V" in "VG" stands for "vegetable", which is a type of plant so if having a plant matter is a decisive factor in absorption then both delivery methods have it. It, however, depends on what you mean by "bound", from my limited knowledge nicotine is not bound chemically to anything in tobacco leaf either but perhaps water from plant cells has some properties which makes it very different from water from atomizing glycol and glycerin. And the concentration of nicotine in vape smoke is lower as I already shown with the numbers.