r/science • u/informationtiger • Dec 18 '19

Chemistry Nicotine formula used by e-cigarette maker Juul is nearly identical to the flavor and addictive profile of Marlboro cigarettes

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-juul-ecigarettes-study-idUSKBN1YL26R
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u/NfamousCJ Dec 18 '19

Probably part of an anti vape campaign. "look, they're just like big tobacco!" I'm not a user of either but also dont care how people want to poison themselves just dont stand outside the restaurant door so I have to walk through a cloud of menthol smoke or passion fruit and mouth vapor.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

You should watch the vaping episode of Broken on Netflix if you’re interested, but Big Tobacco is swallowing up all of the vape companies that were actually innovative.

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u/PeabodyJFranklin Dec 18 '19

Big Tobacco is swallowing up all of the vape companies that were actually innovative.

Seems more likely to be a combination of of acquisitions, and government regulations pushing smaller players out of the market, that didn't factor in or can't afford the testing now being demanded. Certainly, accountability, transparency, and trust should factor into something that you're ingesting so intimately, as shown by the people dying from using THC vapes cut with vitamin-e acetate.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 19 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

I wouldn’t argue with that, but that’s not how the country does it at the moment. I’m 100% pro vape, I’m almost 2yrs dip free because of it. I’m not dumb enough to say that it’s harmless but I feel very safe saying that it’s better than dip and won’t give me mouth cancer.

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u/No_volvere Dec 18 '19

Maybe but it's insanely easy to NOT buy from the bigger vape companies.

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u/sa250039 Dec 18 '19

That's why everyone should make their own e-juice. You know what's in it and it's not going towards big tobacco (well maybe buying the nicotine is but its pretty cheap)

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u/xxLetheanxx Dec 18 '19

big tobacco accounts for very little juice sales. JUUL was only partially(like 45%) purchased by Altria around a year a go. Before then they were completely separate from big tobacco.

Most devices are made in china, and most juice is made by small labs who run their own juice lines. Most of the juice on the market when bought through a legit store is going to be safe and tested extensively by 3rd party labs for any chemical contaminants. There is enough competition in the space(for now) that any of the bad actors have either self-regulated or went out of business.

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u/weaslebubble Dec 18 '19

Just because you know what is in it doesn't mean you know its safe.

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u/PimpinNinja Dec 18 '19

Anecdotal, but I kicked a 20 year pack a day habit with vaping. I started 11 years ago, and have been making my own juice for the last 9 years. I had lung tests done about 2 years ago and I was told that I have the lung capacity and function of a non smoker. My personal observation is that vaping is orders of magnitude safer than smoking.

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u/SlitScan Dec 18 '19

It's exactly the same stuff that's in entertainment industry fog machines, people have been breathing that for 60 years.

E cigs where derived from the concept of premature infant inhalers that deliver medication.

It's pretty well understood.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

[deleted]

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u/weaslebubble Dec 18 '19

Well we all thought vaping was safe. Then it turned out cutting it with vitamin e was killing people. Most of the stuff used in vapes is theoretically safeish. But we can't be 100% sure because none of them have been vaporised and huffed by people in large amounts for years at a time.

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u/_plays_in_traffic_ Dec 18 '19

You don't "cut" vape juice with vitamin e. E liquid is vegetable glycerin, about 10% flavoring and most of the time some amount of propylene glycol. Forgive me if I spelled wrong. The only time vitamin e was introduced was in some black market thc cartridges where it was used as a thickening agent and the entire product wasn't legal for sale.

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u/KingKrmit Dec 18 '19

Its weird that you go out of your way to discuss things you don’t understand

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u/labowsky Dec 18 '19

This is a whole different subject though. That has nothing to do with vaping ejuice but with counterfeit thc carts but overall I don’t disagree with your point.

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u/weaslebubble Dec 18 '19

Well the previous poster was advocating for mixing your own ejuice because then "you know what's in it" implying that makes it safe. Pretty sure the people making those thc carts thought it was safe to cut it with vitamin e, its a vitamin after all, and no one wants to kill their customers.

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u/sa250039 Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 21 '19

I'm pretty sure the people cutting thc carts with vitamin e acitate had no idea what it would do. Just like people cut coke with anything white to make more money without caring what it will do to other people.

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u/earthsick Dec 18 '19

mouth vapor.

.... Air?

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u/NfamousCJ Dec 18 '19

Yes air. But you feel better breathing air you walked by someone and not knowing it specifically wasn't in their mouth. Same as knowing you smelling a fart isn't particles from someone's bum.

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u/Allidoischill420 Dec 18 '19

One day I dream of a world where people get over smelling farts

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

But that's the day farts stop being funny. I don't want to live in that world.

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u/Allidoischill420 Dec 18 '19

I disagree. It's not funny when someone is wallowing in your dirty asshole smell. It's the sound that makes it

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u/PanthaPlaya24 Dec 18 '19

According to the CDC the annual cost burden for COPD is over 36 billion and 75% of that is covered by Medicare/Medicaid. You should care about the method of poison if you do/plan to pay taxes.

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u/andypro77 Dec 18 '19

According to the CDC the annual cost burden for COPD is over 36 billion and 75% of that is covered by Medicare/Medicaid. You should care about the method of poison if you do/plan to pay taxes.

You have attempted to solve a math problem, for that I applaud you.

However, you have attempted to solve a math problem while leaving out a crucial variable, and for that I can not applaud.

I like the idea of assessing the costs to the taxpayer of anything, so your concern is legitimate. And yes, smokers do cost taxpayers money while they're alive. However, smokers die earlier than other folks, so they actually save the taxpayers money for end-of-life costs.

I've seen some European studies (where the govt pays for all the care) which suggest that due to their shorter life spans and the high costs of elder care, smokers are actually a net positive to the government coffers.

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u/Wuznotme Dec 18 '19

In Canada, the tobacco taxes are so high, there is a profit after healthcare costs.

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u/pyromnd Dec 18 '19

I remember buying a Cuban in canada. It cost me 50 dollars because of the luxury tax, holy crap, I feel bad for the guy running the shop , he was very nice but the taxes.

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u/buyongmafanle Dec 18 '19

The guy running the shop loves the taxes. Make a profit of 10% on a 5 dollar item or a profit of 5% on a 10 dollar item, it's the same. Move your prices up 1% and nobody really feels it on an already expensive product, but you can up your profits fast. It's why selling homes is so profitable for people making margins of 5-10%.

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u/Rambo6siezed Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19

But you don't sell as many 10 dollar priced items as 5 dollar ones. Especially if they are an identical product, with the only variable being taxes.

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u/soniclettuce Dec 18 '19

demand for tobacco products is extremely price inelastic

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u/PM_ur_Rump Dec 18 '19

I see you've never been an addict or a "connoisseur."

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u/Rambo6siezed Dec 18 '19

Both are still operating on fixed incomes. Even if they spend all of their money on buying the product, they will be able to buy less quantity, meaning less profit for the shop owner if he is making the same amount per cigar sold.

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u/PM_ur_Rump Dec 18 '19

I see you've never been an addict or a "connoisseur."

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u/buyongmafanle Dec 18 '19

And thus nicotine was born.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Dude you can just boat up lake koocanusa. They dont stop you for crossing unless you get close to land. I've never spent much more then an hour mulling about, but I've never tried to trade items with another craft either. Were canadian but we like to picnic across the border on the lake because it feels mischievous.

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u/timbreandsteel Dec 18 '19

Is that lake name a portmanteau of koo-something, can(ada), and usa?

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u/CadeSwag Dec 18 '19

Kootenay region of Canada and USA. Aka KooCanUsa. Nice eye.

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u/Buddybudster Dec 18 '19

"Lake Koocanusa was named in a contest won by Alice Beers. The name is made from the first three letters of the Kootenay (alternately, Kootenai) River, Canada, and USA."

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u/timbreandsteel Dec 18 '19

So yes. Yes it was.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

Yes. Kootenay mountains.

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u/Drouzen Dec 18 '19

Should see what it's like in Australia, prices are insane.

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u/Bakkster Dec 18 '19

I think the other side, specific to tobacco (and seemingly now all nicotine), is that the way in which is marketed matters. That's a big reason for the Master Settlement Agreement being as restrictive as it was on advertising.

It wasn't so much a case of individuals freely choosing to smoke despite the health risk, it was individuals (including children) being lied to in order to addict them to a drug the companies knew was dangerous.

At that point, the 'but they're saving the government money by lying to our citizens and killing them' argument doesn't hold nearly as much weight as it would for other unhealthy (but not physically addictive) products.

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u/andypro77 Dec 18 '19

'but they're saving the government money by lying to our citizens and killing them' argument

It's not an argument, it's a math problem. I'm not arguing a point, I'm merely adding up numbers.

People that try to make the case that smokers cost society money are not finishing the math problem if they don't also add the saved costs of elder care and end of life care that smokers don't have for about 10 years that everyone else has.

I don't really care what the numbers show in the end, I'm just advocating to use all the numbers.

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u/Bakkster Dec 18 '19

I get that, but think it needs to go the additional step of what the broader context behind the balance sheet is.

In short, don't stop at dollars and cents when we're talking about human life. It's hard to put a price tag on, but there's a big externality to someone's parent or grandparent dying decades early.

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u/TheLurkingMenace Dec 18 '19

That's a grim way of looking at it.

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u/Nickbou Dec 18 '19

It is, but if you’re going to make an economic argument then you have to look at all the figures.

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u/SpinozaTheDamned Dec 18 '19

Yeah, that being said, do you really want to live until your kids are wiping your ass and having to tell you what you think is real really isn't?

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u/avl0 Dec 18 '19

Vascular dementia is related to smoking too so...

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

I've seen some European studies (where the govt pays for all the care) which suggest that due to their shorter life spans and the high costs of elder care, smokers are actually a net positive to the government coffers.

Yep that seems to be the position we are in here in the UK. No one ever seems to applaud my civic service in paying higher taxes and dying younger though :P

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u/ShAnkZALLMighty Dec 18 '19

That's why I started vaping. Don't wanna be a burden to our government when I'm older 🤗

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u/Roccnsuccmetosleep Dec 18 '19

Dumb statement

https://tobaccocontrol.bmj.com/content/27/1/58

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u/andypro77 Dec 18 '19

Dumb statement

No, what's dumb is that you obviously didn't read it and did the exact same thing - tried to solve a math problem while omitting a variable.

I could find nothing in your link that considers the end of life savings cost.

Do better.

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u/Roccnsuccmetosleep Dec 18 '19

Kk sick baseless statement and empty rebuttal

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u/andypro77 Dec 18 '19

empty rebuttal

The point was assessing the overall cost of smoking. You literally linked to an article that omits part of that cost. It's entirely relevant to the discussion.

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u/Roccnsuccmetosleep Dec 18 '19

Lost work hours = lost revenue

Tough concept I know

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u/andypro77 Dec 18 '19

Tough concept I know

Apparently it's tough for you, so I'll go slower.

You see, when assessing the costs of something, you have to account for all the pluses AND minuses to get the actual overall cost (tough concept, I know).

Your link only took into account the costs that are associated with health care, the lost revenue (a dubious guess, at best), etc.

What it failed to take into account was that in a society where the government pays for things like health care for it's citizens, that government usually pays more money as it's citizens get older and older. The money paid for 70-85 year olds is usually much higher than the money needed for 20-35 year olds.

When it comes to smokers, they do tend to suck more money from govt care while they are alive, because of the health risks associated with smoking. However, smokers on average die 10 years sooner than non-smokers, and for those last 10 years (because they are dead) they are not requiring that expensive elder and end of life care.

Unless you factor this into the equation, you are, as I said, trying to do a math problem while omitting this very important and relevant variable.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19 edited Jun 01 '20

[deleted]

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u/cocoagiant Dec 18 '19

First longitudinal study on e-cigarette usage just came out a few days ago. E-cigarette usage is linked with increased chronic lung diseases.

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u/HornyHindu Dec 18 '19 edited Dec 18 '19

Researchers tracked e-cigarette users for three years, and found that they had a 1.3-times higher risk of developing respiratory disease than people who did not use any tobacco product. Meanwhile, cigarette smokers had a 2.5-times higher risk, and those who both smoked and vaped had a 3.3-times higher risk.

Can't access the full article but from the abstract and several sources detailing and reporting on it (a couple that interview the principal author Glantz), there seems to be a few key flaws in its findings--resulting from lack of pertinent data collection / qualitative analysis of the surveyed participants. Moreso the conclusions claimed by the principal author based on that contradict numerous other recent studies, such as this 5,400 participant cohort study.

The study control for tobacco use and categorize participants into four group: smokers, vapers, dual (both smoking and vaping at some point) and non-smokers. However, they either don't gather or at least utilize data on the frequency or amount of smoking and/or vaping. Also while they did collect if the participant is a former smoker it doesn't seem they assess the impact of that into their conclusions -- i.e. they don't factor in that ex-smokers who now vape will still have increased risk of COPD compared to non-smokers. Because far more current e-cig users are former smokers compared to current non-smokers, and as they note current smokers have a 250% higher risk of developing COPD, much of (possibly even all) of that increased 30% risk of COPD among its e-cig users could simply be the result of their past smoking. It's been long established former smokers are still at an increased risk for the rest of their lives.

Even if they did somehow accurately factor that in (I can't imagine how they could accurately) and just chose to ignore addressing it, Glantz's self-assured claims are not what I expect from an sincere, unbiased academic researcher, when it's clearly by far a consensus among fellow researchers:

"Switching from conventional cigarettes to e-cigarettes exclusively could reduce the risk of lung disease, but very few people do it," notes Prof. Glantz.

"For most smokers, they simply add e-cigarettes and become dual users, significantly increasing their risk of developing lung disease above just smoking," he stresses.

Since they didn't track / sort participants based on usage frequency and amount... why couldn't this increase to 330% COPD for 'dual' users be explained by the likelihood that daily and most heavy / frequent smokers are naturally more likely to have also tried e-cigs at some point during the three years this study took place? Which then would only serve to confirm the long-established findings that heavier smokers are at greater risk for COPD among other adverse effects on health.

And lastly Glantz's controversial claims regarding e-cigarettes use as a net negative and of little value to smoking cessation, directly contradict the findings from numerous recent comprehensive large-scale studies, yet we don't see this addressed in the study synopsis, conclusion or his interviews. In fact as Time, NYTimes, and many other respected publications and journalists note, studies have been increasingly showing e-cigs as the most significant aid for smokers in both successfully quitting and also remaining off cigarettes such as from Time.com July, 2019: Daily E-Cigarette Use Can Help Smokers Quit, According to One of the Most Comprehensive Studies Yet.

It found that adult cigarette smokers who also used e-cigarettes every day were 77% more likely than non-users to have quit and stayed off cigarettes after two years.

What's especially concerning is how Glantz uses the incomplete and (IMO) likely faulty data/analysis to contradict findings of studies with larger cohort numbers of e-cig users and with a greater degree pertinent data collection (like usage rate of each), with extremely bold and matter-of-fact claims such as:

"This study contributes to the growing case that e-cigarettes have long-term adverse effects on health and are making the tobacco epidemic worse," says Prof. Glantz.

Ignoring / ignorant to studies like ones referenced in the Time article above that actually control for usage rate such as daily e-cig use vs sporadic use, and whose findings are nearly the opposite:

At the start of the study, only 3.6% of smokers reported daily e-cigarette use, while 18% reported more sporadic use. But people in that small group of daily vapers, the researchers found, were more likely than either periodic e-cigarette users or non-vapers to report abstaining from traditional cigarettes by the end of the study. Eleven percent of the original daily vapers reported being cigarette-free during both of the follow-up surveys, the researchers found—a relatively small portion overall, but a significant improvement over the 6% of non-vapers who had kicked the habit. ... Nonetheless, the latest research offers some of the strongest evidence yet that e-cigarettes can play an important part in further reducing cigarette-smoking rates in the U.S.

This all leaves me suspicious of the authors bias and/or competence... Also a three year duration for a study of typically very long-term effects from complex multivariate factors is exceptionally short; the timing of its publication is conveniently amid e-cigs' highest point of controversy and debate after the blackmarket THC oil health crisis. Hmm.

TLDR: this study on e-cig / COPD risk was poorly designed. It either fails to collect or properly analyze pertinent data... e.g.: grouping smokers, e-cig users, and 'dual users' as homogeneous cohorts regardless of frequency and duration of use; additionally, neglecting to assess the inherently higher COPD incident rate for current e-cig users who are former smokers. That alone may account for the risk increase associated w/ e-cig use (not saying it does). The principal author uses his results to make authoritative declarations on e-cigs as ineffective in aiding smoking cessation, ultimately 'making the tobacco epidemic worse'. Yet he never addresses the numerous other recent large-scale cohort studies whose findings contradict his own on that specific issue. This study and its principal author are suspect.

*edit: link formatting / grammar

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

[deleted]

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u/NA_Breaku Dec 18 '19

Depends on how you look at it.

I'm not interested in quitting nicotine. Having the half-as-deadly option is amazing for me.

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

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u/ElGosso Dec 18 '19

This study used ex-smokers as 99% of its non-smoking vaper data. Guess what demographic has increased risk of chronic lung disease? It takes 15 years for your body to get back to normal after regular tobacco use.

If anything this study only proves how much healthier vaping is that smoking.

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u/avl0 Dec 18 '19

I think that was their point

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u/[deleted] Dec 18 '19

I mean I’m honestly not bothered by this. Do and will continue to pay taxes. Everybody chips into the system so that we can all have a couple vices. I thought that was how this was all supposed to work.

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u/LordWheezel Dec 18 '19

You mean, like, live in a society?

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u/moonie223 Dec 18 '19

Only if we actually start doing something about the massive amount of colossal fatasses we have. They are for sure more of a drain on society at large than smokers ever were.

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u/half3clipse Dec 18 '19

They are littrealy big tobacco.

Juul is owned by Philip Morris. Vype and Blu are owned by Imperial Tobacco. Vuse by Reynolds American. 73% of the e-cig market is controlled by brands owned by big tobacco companies.

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u/busterbluthOT Dec 18 '19

It is. The media has never clarified that all of these "vape" deaths were due to adulterated products that had nothing to do with brand-name vapes.

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u/jedadkins Dec 18 '19

I actually prefer smelling fruty vape vapor than cigarettes

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u/Escalator2Nowhere Dec 23 '19

Philip Morris's parent company are 30% owners of Juul. They literally are Big Tobacco.

Tinfoil hat time: Philip Morris pushing pods and salt nic is a way to make vaping more addictive and more accessible to teenagers and generate public outrage. The goal is legislation that ends up driving the mom and pop vape shops out of business, while Juul and companies like them can just pay the regulatory fees and scale back on their most expensive products.