BIG Surprise: Vaping is LESS addictive than cigarettes

A lot of you have probably read about the new study from Penn State’s College of Medicine that concluded that the addictiveness from e-cigarettes is lower that that of cigarettes. The study was released on the 9th, I think, and was commented quite a few places. Klaus Kneale from ecigadvanced.com has written a great comment that you can read here.

The fact that e-cigarettes seems to be less addictive than cigarettes isn't really shocking to most vapers. I can tell from my own experience that I don't get the nicotine cravings are not as strong as they used to be and I can go a lot longer without my e-cigs than I could without a cigarette when I was smoking. Coincidentally I actually had a go at this this Sunday, when I left was going to a meeting. I was about to put some vaping gear in my pocket as I usually do when I go out, but decided that since it was probably going to be a short meeting I didn't need it. The meeting ended up lasting for 3 hours. Back when I was smoking I would have been trembling anxiously within an hour... but now I didn't even think about it before I got home.

The researchers suggest that this reduced addictiveness may be related to the products’ inability to deliver nicotine as effectively. While this is almost certainly true, other researchers and preliminary evidence suggests that, in the absence of smoke (and many other constituents found in tobacco cigarettes), nicotine just isn’t as addictive when delivered via vapor.

My thoughts exactly, Klaus. When I first read about the study this was the first thing that came to my mind as well. I wrote a couple of posts (here and here) about the addictiveness of nicotine earlier as well, referring to the work of Professor Peter Killeen among others. Killeen has also commented on vaping on youtube, and I highly recommend you watch this and listen to what he has to say about it:


What I personally find quite interesting is this part:

"We know nicotine is a big player in the addiction to cigarette smoke. Inhaled cigarette smoke is very addictive, and it's very fatal to a large proportion of people who use cigarettes or other forms of inhaled tobacco. How about vaping? How about inhaling nicotine? A lot of the assumptions that the scientists have made over these decades about the addictive properties of nicotine are wrong. They are wrong because they are always looking at nicotine addiction in the context of cigarettes and other inhaled tobacco products. Nicotine by itself has never been shown to be addictive. Nicotine by itself has never been shown to be addictive in individuals who have not smoked cigarettes prior to using nicotine"

The reason I put the last part of the quote above in bold is that this is one of the reasons that the gateway theory is invalid. As Steve K's puts it, this is Another Hole in the Gateway.