Combustion of Tobacco Through Smoking
smoking cigarettes involves the process of combustion of the tobacco plant. Combustion of complex organic matter (basically anything that isn’t pure short-chain hydrocarbons) is a very, very dirty process. There are numerous reactions going on and a plethora of new compounds being formed. Because of the high temperatures of combustion, many of these new compounds are highly unstable and reactive. Things like reactive oxygen species. You inhale these and they go and react with anything and everything in your body. Including your DNA, leading to damage and mutations that can lead to cancer.
The Process of Vaping
On the other hand, ‘vaping’ was invented exactly to eliminate these very dangerous and unwanted heat processes and chemicals Tobacco contains. The high destructive temperatures are not necessary at all. In fact, some of the first e-cigarettes just use ultrasonic vibrators to shake liquid into vapor. Only a temperature of around 420°F (optimal for some styles of devices and juice mixes, but even lower temps for other smaller vapes) is enough to cause the liquid juice mix of PG/VG, low amounts of flavoring and nicotine to “aerosolize” into a cloud of tiny droplets like a mist; which doesn’t even change the state of the liquid into a gas, so the ‘boiling point’ (where liquids turn into a gas) is never reached and thus the thermal breakdown of molecular structures can’t happen
For vaping, there (theoretically) isn’t combustion. You are vaporizing PG and VG. Theoretically, no reactions and no new highly reactive chemicals. In practice, the process of vaporization isn’t perfect and a small amount of degradation and combustion occurs. But, it’s a drop in the bucket compared to smoking. But all in all, what is in the liquid juice mix stays completely the same for you to inhale
Components of Vaping
In order to get just the nicotine from tobacco leaf for vape juice, it has to be very refined, which also removes any natural impurities, additives, and any chemicals that are used to grow it. PG and VG are used as the carrier in the vaping mist cloud (it is not water vapor) and flavor development. PG has long been used in asthma inhalers, and VG is what they use in theatrical fog machines. Both of these substances are used by cosmetic and food manufacturing industries in a variety of products. Inhaling flavorings is not much different than inhaling scents or smelling foods. The flavorings used are mostly organic and have the same flavoring that goes in a variety of food products.
What Can Be Achieved Through Vaping
With vaping, nicotine doses can be adjusted depending on the power and airflow of the device and the inhaling method you use. Whereas with combustible tobacco the heat might or might not destroy some of it and you really never know how much was in the raw plant leaf, to begin with. This makes the act of vaping very controllable and adjustable as a drug delivery system, as you could use the same device and method of use and lower the nicotine concentration of your juice to even get down to vaping no nicotine at all. Moreover, with vaping, you hardly ever notice any withdrawals; whereas with smoking cigarettes your only option is to just stop ‘cold turkey’ to quit, as you would have to because with smoking the worst part about it (and many say the most addictive) is the habit of how it makes you psychologically dependent on it, despite the toxins, smell, and fire.
Bottom Line
Vaping and smoking both give you what you want, the nicotine; and the process or habit of how you take it, it is just that the known deadly smoking process sickens and kills as many people as COVID-19 just did yearly, but smoking has done it for a 100 years in a row – vaping in more than its 15years so far as never killed anyone, even though some people inhale much larger vapor clouds and/or do it more often than they could have smoked. Nicotine has long been demonized because of its connection to toxic smoking, only recently has it been studied in the safer ways to use it like vaping.
