Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tex Stuff from stuff
Speaker 1: dot Com. There everybody, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm
Speaker 1: and today we have some listener mail to get through.
Speaker 1: This comes to us from Josh via Facebook, who says, greetings,
Speaker 1: I've recently quit smoking cigarettes after twelve years, but after
Speaker 1: abstaining for six months, my savior has come under fire.
Speaker 1: I'm speaking about the sig vaporisers. Of course, please do
Speaker 1: an episode on it. First of all, Josh, well done
Speaker 1: for the congratulation for the under fire pun as well. Well,
Speaker 1: I was talking about quitting smoking also, I mean it's
Speaker 1: as we're gonna discuss, that is not an easy thing
Speaker 1: to do. And before we get into this episode, we
Speaker 1: have a couple of articles I want to I want
Speaker 1: to mention at the top because how Stuff Works has
Speaker 1: got some great stuff on here. If you really want
Speaker 1: to dig down deep and read these articles, they're they're
Speaker 1: really well done, so check them both out. One is
Speaker 1: on how electronic cigarettes work by Susan Cassidy and another
Speaker 1: is how nicotine works by Maria Tremarchi and and Meager O'Connell.
Speaker 1: Both of those are going to be articles that will
Speaker 1: be referencing throughout this episode. And the reason for that
Speaker 1: is because we kind of need to talk about lots
Speaker 1: of different factors here, not just the technology involved. So first,
Speaker 1: electronic cigarettes siggs. Yes, they are electronic cigarettes or smokeless
Speaker 1: cigarettes or vapes which you vape while you are vaping. Yeah, vapes,
Speaker 1: vapes typ vaporizing. But although people will call call it vaping,
Speaker 1: vapes tend to be the name of usually the either
Speaker 1: the liquid which that's also a thing, which is essentially
Speaker 1: your your liquid, uh, nicotine liquid, smoke stuff. It's not
Speaker 1: really electronic liquid, nor does it always have nicotine in it.
Speaker 1: But we'll get to that as well. But some people
Speaker 1: refer to the actual devices of vepes. It's kind of
Speaker 1: a weird. It's this whole culture thing. Uh. There are
Speaker 1: people on the House of Works staff who have used
Speaker 1: these electronic devices in various ways. So, um, I have
Speaker 1: gotten to see ones that are shaped like a pipe,
Speaker 1: which I had never seen before. I had seen them
Speaker 1: that look kind of like electronic you know, cigarettes, like
Speaker 1: maybe even cigarettes in the long electric the long cigarette holder,
Speaker 1: so you can look like you are a caricature off
Speaker 1: the cover of the New Yorker, um, except that you
Speaker 1: have a little led light at the end instead of
Speaker 1: an actual ember. So you probably have seen these. They
Speaker 1: are these Usually they look like some form of cigarette
Speaker 1: or pen or something. Two people put in their mouths.
Speaker 1: They inhale and they puff out a little bit of
Speaker 1: what looks to be smoke. Usually. But how recent is
Speaker 1: this idea? I mean it only came out like a
Speaker 1: like like a year or two ago, right, uh yeah,
Speaker 1: Although they became popular recently, the idea goes back until
Speaker 1: ninete April seventeen specifically, is when a patent was filed
Speaker 1: for granted. I suppose it was filed filed. It wasn't
Speaker 1: until I think sixty six that it was granted, But
Speaker 1: it was for a smokeless, non tobacco cigarette, which is
Speaker 1: essentially the ancestor to the East SIGs we see today.
Speaker 1: Not not that I don't know of any that were
Speaker 1: produced based off this first design, but it had the
Speaker 1: same basic components. Um not not designed the same way
Speaker 1: as today's e cigarettes, but the same you know, elements
Speaker 1: that you would find in the ones of today. Right.
Speaker 1: This modern movement started as an industry in China. NPR
Speaker 1: credits the inventor is being one home Lick, Right, yeah,
Speaker 1: Han Lick He used a cartridge that had liquid nicotine
Speaker 1: mixed in a propolene glycol solution. We'll talk a little
Speaker 1: bit more about propoline glicoon the second fun stuff, and
Speaker 1: put that in an electronic device and called it essentially
Speaker 1: the equivalent of an electronic cigarette. The market, um, it
Speaker 1: was successful in China, you could say it was incredibly successful.
Speaker 1: So in the early to mid two thousand's it got
Speaker 1: um well, it really made a name for itself, and
Speaker 1: then it started to expand beyond the Chinese market. Right.
Speaker 1: They were introduced in the US market in two thousands
Speaker 1: seven and have become really huge. The market is worth
Speaker 1: over two billion dollars per year according to some estimates. Yikes. Alright,
Speaker 1: So before we talk about the the technology, let's talk
Speaker 1: about nicotine itself and what it does. Share. What happens
Speaker 1: when you when you smoke a nicotine cigarette, when you
Speaker 1: inhale nicotine in one form or another? Good question. So
Speaker 1: with a with a classic cigarette, what you do is
Speaker 1: you've got tobacco, right, that's your basic plant, and the
Speaker 1: nicotine is released in the smoke generated by burning that tobacco.
Speaker 1: So by inhaling the smoke, you are transmitting that that
Speaker 1: nicotine into your system, transferring it, I guess I should
Speaker 1: say rather so it gets absorbed through the mucoastal linings
Speaker 1: and the nose, mouth, and lungs when you inhale this,
Speaker 1: and then the nicotine travels through the bloodstream to the brain.
Speaker 1: There it has a party time with your adrenal glands
Speaker 1: to produce epinephrin, also known as adrenaline. Any of you
Speaker 1: guys out there who are big fans of the stuff
Speaker 1: you should know podcast have heard those guys talk about
Speaker 1: adrenaline a lot. You know. This is the whole fighter
Speaker 1: flight reflex thing. That's that's the thing that really fuels that. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: same sort of stuff here. As a result, you have
Speaker 1: some other physiological effects take place, including an increase in
Speaker 1: your heart rate and blood pressure, and it stimulates dopamine production,
Speaker 1: dopamine being the neuro transmitter that controls the pleasure center
Speaker 1: in your brain. Yeah, this would be one of those
Speaker 1: reasons why people who crave a cigarette get that calming effect.
Speaker 1: They get that play as you're released when they are
Speaker 1: smoking a cigarettes. Not just that uh it feels like
Speaker 1: they're doing something familiar, although that may play a part two.
Speaker 1: It's that they're literally releasing a neurotransmitter that affects the
Speaker 1: pleasure center of the brain. Now, nicotine does not have
Speaker 1: to necessarily be inhaled. It can be absorbed through other means,
Speaker 1: like in the gastro intestinal tract or through the skin,
Speaker 1: which is why you have things like nicotine gum and
Speaker 1: nicotine skin patches for people who are trying to break
Speaker 1: themselves in the habit of smoking. Now, it's a stimulant,
Speaker 1: but like I said, smokers talk about the calming effect
Speaker 1: it has when they're craving a cigarette, which may partially
Speaker 1: be a ritual yeah, more than anything else, that whole
Speaker 1: routine of of whatever steps a smoker goes through before
Speaker 1: they light up, because this is a very ritualized. It's
Speaker 1: part of the habit. Absolutely. Yeah, So you know you
Speaker 1: might see people who are tapping their cigarettes in a
Speaker 1: certain number of times. All these sort of these things
Speaker 1: are comforting because they are ritualized. On top of that,
Speaker 1: you have that dopamine release that also has that calming effect.
Speaker 1: And when you get down to it, nicotine is an
Speaker 1: incredibly addictive drug, as addictive as like heroin and cocaine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you probably have heard that before in health class or
Speaker 1: or a science class is absolutely true. It is, and
Speaker 1: we're now we're not saying necessarily that it has the
Speaker 1: same uh effect on your system as those other drugs,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly as addictive. So once you have developed
Speaker 1: this physical and psychological addiction to a substance, when you
Speaker 1: get that substance, like if you're craving that substance and
Speaker 1: you get it, then you feel a relief, even if
Speaker 1: it's a stimulant, right, And nicotine by itself is not
Speaker 1: necessarily the worst thing for you, but getting it through
Speaker 1: tobacco smoke is pretty nasty, yeah, because you've got a
Speaker 1: lot of other things in cigarettes besides just the nicotine,
Speaker 1: And that's where you see things like toxins and carcinogens
Speaker 1: that will cause health problems down the road for a
Speaker 1: lot of people. So while nicotine itself may not necessarily
Speaker 1: have that toxicity or carcinogenic property, the stuff that goes
Speaker 1: along with regular cigarettes certainly does. So we all know
Speaker 1: smoking is bad for you. We're not going to spend
Speaker 1: a whole lot of time talking about that, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: especially because smokers themselves seem to know it. As according
Speaker 1: to a report that was put out by the U
Speaker 1: s Department of Health and Human Services. Almost se of
Speaker 1: adult smokers surveyed so that they wanted to quit, and
Speaker 1: some reported having attempted to quit in the previous year.
Speaker 1: But how how do you go about breaking such a
Speaker 1: strong psychological and physiological habit. Now, this is why we
Speaker 1: saw the rise of things like nicotine gum and nicotine
Speaker 1: skin patches, because that was all meant to kind of
Speaker 1: help people first get rid of cigarettes, right, but they
Speaker 1: still need to have that nicotine release or else they
Speaker 1: are having these terms. Yeah, and the more you go
Speaker 1: through withdrawal, the more likely you are to go back
Speaker 1: to a bad habit. So that was meant to try
Speaker 1: and help them trend position off to eventually wean themselves
Speaker 1: off of nicotine entirely. That was the idea. Unless your
Speaker 1: sherlock and you decide that you need like three or
Speaker 1: four of them on you at a time in order
Speaker 1: to really think clearly, by the way, do not do that.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible idea, not recommended. You can. By the way,
Speaker 1: this is a bit of a spoiler alert, but later
Speaker 1: in the podcast, you can suffer nicotine poisoning and it
Speaker 1: is serious stuff. Anyway, so the cigarettes are a little different,
Speaker 1: you know, because it all depends on how First of all,
Speaker 1: they were marketed for a really long time as a
Speaker 1: means for people who are smokers to wean themselves off
Speaker 1: of cigarettes and go to e cigarettes, which would be
Speaker 1: in theory safer, right. I believe in the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: they can only be sold and marketed furthermore, as a
Speaker 1: device for smoking cessation. Interesting, and we'll talk more about
Speaker 1: why that's interesting in a minute. But yeah, so some
Speaker 1: people are using this as a way of quitting smoking.
Speaker 1: Some people are using it as sort of just a transition,
Speaker 1: like a lateral move, like they're not gonna quit, they're
Speaker 1: just they're saying they're saying, well, i've heard that this
Speaker 1: is safer than real cigarettes, so I'm going to switch
Speaker 1: to this. And there's also some concern uh that this
Speaker 1: could be enticing people to start smoking because of the
Speaker 1: perceived safety benefit, right, the idea that oh I can
Speaker 1: do this cool thing and I don't have all those
Speaker 1: downsides of like lung cancer. That's awesome. Sign me up. Well,
Speaker 1: hold on, folks, because we've got to talk about everything here. Also,
Speaker 1: we should mention not all the cigarettes use nicotine. In
Speaker 1: their um in their cartridges. Some of it is more
Speaker 1: of a flavored liquid mixture, so you're breathing in flavored vapor,
Speaker 1: but there could be other issues with that as well.
Speaker 1: So anyway, now we've laid the groundwork, it's about time
Speaker 1: to talk about how these things work. All right, So
Speaker 1: these are electronic cigarettes. That means there's going to be
Speaker 1: certain components that you would expect right off the bat. Uh,
Speaker 1: some kind of electronics. Yeah, and electronics have to have power,
Speaker 1: so therefore there's got to be a power source, which
Speaker 1: means you're not going to see someone plug in a
Speaker 1: cigarette and stand next to an outlet all day, I
Speaker 1: would mention not all day. I mean, some of them
Speaker 1: are rechargeable, so you can technically sort of USB plugged
Speaker 1: them into an outlet. But at anyway, there's a battery
Speaker 1: involved in in this cigarette looking thing. Um, And you know,
Speaker 1: essentially they convert this liquid possibly liquid nicotine into a
Speaker 1: vapor which the user then inhales, right, And the way
Speaker 1: it converts liquid into a vapor, you know that we
Speaker 1: kind of just sort of gloss over it, but no,
Speaker 1: the way it's actually working is there's a heating element
Speaker 1: inside these devices Normally you've got some sort of wick
Speaker 1: that wicks in liquid and then wrapped around that wick
Speaker 1: is a heating element, like a coil of wire. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now we've talked about electric resistance a lot. Right. Resistance
Speaker 1: is when you are passing a current through something, it
Speaker 1: resists that and you lose some energy in the form
Speaker 1: of heat. Uh. And this case, something that's a heating
Speaker 1: element is designed to heat up. It's meant to have
Speaker 1: a high resistance so that it heats up very quickly
Speaker 1: with just a little bit of power running through it,
Speaker 1: a little bit electricity running through it. So this heating
Speaker 1: element heats up very quickly, converting that liquid into a gas,
Speaker 1: which then you can inhale. Uh. And it's supposed to
Speaker 1: warm it up. So it's a one it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a pleasant sensation, and two it's supposed to kind
Speaker 1: of mimic the feeling you would have your inhaling smoke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because fire has Yeah. Turns out I have to remind
Speaker 1: myself of that frequently at Yeah. Yeah. Anyone who has
Speaker 1: ever been burnt by something like this, you you remember it.
Speaker 1: So that that little element, that heating element that turns
Speaker 1: the liquid into a vapor is usually called an atomizer. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is something that you often will hear used in
Speaker 1: in lots of different products, not just a heating element.
Speaker 1: Atomizer doesn't have to have heat, turning something from a
Speaker 1: liquid into a vapor, yeah, into some sort of vapor
Speaker 1: or missed usually by making a liquid into very very
Speaker 1: very very tiny droplets. So you like like an ald
Speaker 1: like a perfume bottle as an atomizer in it so
Speaker 1: that it can convert the liquid perfume into a missed
Speaker 1: spray and uh, and so similar sort of thing here,
Speaker 1: we also have the heating element. Now, generally speaking, this
Speaker 1: whole process is usually triggered by a change in pressure,
Speaker 1: meaning that when you're sucking on this electronic cigarette, that's
Speaker 1: when it generates the vapor. It's it's the key. So
Speaker 1: you've got a sensor in there that's more or less
Speaker 1: detecting a drop in pressure which indicates someone's taking a puff,
Speaker 1: and that's when it's doing it. You could have electronic
Speaker 1: cigarettes where it doesn't do it based upon when you puff.
Speaker 1: It could have a button on it and then you inhale.
Speaker 1: But in general, the most the ones I've seen are
Speaker 1: responsive to that that yeah, because it's because it's like
Speaker 1: in trying to mimic what an actual cigarette is like.
Speaker 1: So now in smoke tobacco, that nicotine it's found in
Speaker 1: the smoke itself. But the SIGs don't actually create smoke.
Speaker 1: You're not burning anything. So since you're not burning anything,
Speaker 1: then you can't have smoke. Now, anyone who's seen or
Speaker 1: used an e sig has seen that kind of cloud
Speaker 1: that looks like smoke come out, and you might be thinking,
Speaker 1: what's up with that. If it's not creating smoke, where's
Speaker 1: this stuff coming from. Well, we've already talked about it
Speaker 1: a little bit. It's it's a vapor and not vapors.
Speaker 1: And I've got the vapors. No I can explain to
Speaker 1: anyone who's not from the South what the vapors are,
Speaker 1: but it is. It is a polite way of saying
Speaker 1: that you're having some you're having some issues. So this
Speaker 1: is a vapor that is made from propylene glycol, which
Speaker 1: is the stuff in fog machine. Wait a minute, I've
Speaker 1: been told more times than I care to admit not
Speaker 1: to breathe in the fog generated by these fog machines.
Speaker 1: It's actually been a p as a food additive by
Speaker 1: the FDA because it's a it's a nice stable solvent
Speaker 1: for stuff like food coloring and flavoring, and one of
Speaker 1: its physical properties is that it vaporizes into a fog
Speaker 1: when it's heated or briskly shaken. It Also it also
Speaker 1: absorbs water, so it's used to maintain moisture levels and
Speaker 1: some medications and foods and cosmetics. UM. It's furthermore f
Speaker 1: y i uh component of anti freeze and some de
Speaker 1: icing solutions. It's a solvent in some paints and plastics,
Speaker 1: and it's used to make polyesters. But that doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that your e cigarette is filled with anti freeze. They
Speaker 1: just share a common component, right, Which is interesting because
Speaker 1: we have a study we'll be talking about where one
Speaker 1: of the things they found as a study by the
Speaker 1: FDA was saying that there was a chemical in there
Speaker 1: that was found in anti freeze, and I wonder if
Speaker 1: it was this one, because if it were, that's not
Speaker 1: that's a little misleading. Yes, it's kind of like saying
Speaker 1: that a derivative of formaldehyde has all the properties of
Speaker 1: formaldehyde and it doesn't and it doesn't, or like saying like, well,
Speaker 1: this carbon based thing is made with carbon, which which
Speaker 1: is bad. That's it's far too simple. The answer to
Speaker 1: this question is always looked deeper, all right, So these
Speaker 1: cartridges can contain the nicotine or be nicotine free. And
Speaker 1: the thing is that manufacturers can actually tweak exactly how
Speaker 1: much nicotine is in a cartridge. So theoretically they could
Speaker 1: make a line of different cartridges with different amounts of
Speaker 1: nicotine in each different version. And they certainly do sell
Speaker 1: cartridges with that are marketed as having different amounts of
Speaker 1: nicotine in them. Which so that you can step down exactly, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can, you can start to step Yeah, the intent
Speaker 1: is to step down, but you know, we've got some
Speaker 1: people out there who are real go getters. But the
Speaker 1: idea is to step down so that you can wean
Speaker 1: yourself off of cigarettes entirely, uh, mostly to wean yourself
Speaker 1: off nicotine entirely. We should be more specific, honestly. So, um,
Speaker 1: you can also just make it flavored. So some of
Speaker 1: the flavors, and there are things like you can get
Speaker 1: caramel or coffee or apple or Earl Gray tea or
Speaker 1: I mean there's there's lots of different ones. Yeah, when
Speaker 1: you go into a vape shop, they will often have
Speaker 1: an entire wall dedicated to different flavors. This, by the way,
Speaker 1: has created some uh some questions recently in in legal circles.
Speaker 1: Will get to that about how how these flavors may
Speaker 1: or may not be a good idea. So one about
Speaker 1: health concerns. We know the health concerns with cigarettes. We've
Speaker 1: got decades and decades of research. Yes, I think it
Speaker 1: goes back to the nineteen thirties. So and since this
Speaker 1: is a relatively new product on the mass market, Unfortunately
Speaker 1: the answers that we don't know what the health effects
Speaker 1: maybe yeah, in fact there are We're not saying there
Speaker 1: are no studies out there were has Most of the
Speaker 1: studies that are out there are either inconclusive or they
Speaker 1: conflict with each other, so inclusion is hard to to
Speaker 1: come to. And at any rate this these have only
Speaker 1: been running since at best the mid two thousands. So first,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot we don't know. The World Health
Speaker 1: Organization w h O, part of the u N has
Speaker 1: been looking into it, but no conclusive findings. Um, there's there.
Speaker 1: And then there's the issue. The FDA has done some
Speaker 1: studies on various cartridges. This is the one I was
Speaker 1: talking about earlier that showed that ingredients that were listed
Speaker 1: were not always what you got in the actual cartridge.
Speaker 1: They would test the chemicals within the cartridge and then
Speaker 1: see if it matches up with what was essentially on
Speaker 1: the list of ingredients, and they said that the concentrations
Speaker 1: didn't match up all the time, So sometimes you've got
Speaker 1: more or less nicotine than what was being advertised, or
Speaker 1: that you were even getting other chemicals that were not
Speaker 1: listed on the ingredients at all, including some toxins. In
Speaker 1: this case, the one of the ones they mentioned was
Speaker 1: it's one that's found an anti freeze, and that made
Speaker 1: me wonder if it was the the the fog stuff. Uh.
Speaker 1: At any rate, I mean, it's interesting to me that
Speaker 1: the FDA put out the study because the FDA does
Speaker 1: not regulate yeah, this liquid. There's still a lot of
Speaker 1: debate on whether or not the FDA will. Uh. It
Speaker 1: confuses me. I mean, granted, there's not necessarily nicotine in everything,
Speaker 1: but they did find that even some of the ones
Speaker 1: that said there was no nicotine in it, there was
Speaker 1: totally nicotine in it. Um. So again, this is a
Speaker 1: case by case basis. It's not like you know, you
Speaker 1: can't point to the entire industry and say this is
Speaker 1: a problem. It may just be something that a couple
Speaker 1: of different manufacturers have issues. Oh sure, I mean, but
Speaker 1: but part of the problem is that there are tons
Speaker 1: of manufacturers out there. Yeah. Yeah, there's no standardization here. Uh,
Speaker 1: there can be lots of different types of cartridges and atomizers.
Speaker 1: The atomizer can affect how much of a given chemical
Speaker 1: you inhale per puff versus just the cartridge itself. So
Speaker 1: it could be that there's just a component inside the
Speaker 1: e cigarette that is causing people to get either more
Speaker 1: or less of a particular chemical per puff than what
Speaker 1: was intended. Uh. So there's a lot of a lot
Speaker 1: of variable is here, and that's part of what makes
Speaker 1: doing a study so difficult, because it's not just the
Speaker 1: the chemical that you have to look at, it's the
Speaker 1: entire picture, and because there's so many different variations on it,
Speaker 1: it's hard to draw any hard conclusions, especially this early on. So, uh,
Speaker 1: we don't know what kind of health hazards there could
Speaker 1: be using the cigarettes, And we don't even technically know
Speaker 1: whether or not, I mean, you know, medically conclusively. Research wise,
Speaker 1: we don't know whether e cigarettes actually help people quit smoking. Yes,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of conflicting reports out there. There are,
Speaker 1: i should say, a lot of conflicting reports out there
Speaker 1: that that state whether or not they are helpful for
Speaker 1: people who are trying to quit. Some of them say absolutely,
Speaker 1: some of them say absolutely not, and they should not
Speaker 1: ever be marketed that way. So it's it's lots of
Speaker 1: conflicting information. Yeah, there's also been some research indicating that
Speaker 1: these things aren't necessarily as safe as they're being marketed as. Um.
Speaker 1: Some studies have shown diminished lung function, airway resistance, and
Speaker 1: cellular changes that may lead to lung cancer in people
Speaker 1: who use e cigarettes. And it may even be that
Speaker 1: those devices are releasing stuff into our lungs that that
Speaker 1: normal cigarettes wouldn't, like metals. Yeah, that's that's not good
Speaker 1: stuff or other or other byproducts. Yeah, exactly. And also,
Speaker 1: when you get down to it, even if even if
Speaker 1: we say that maybe these health hazards, maybe studies will
Speaker 1: bear out over time that it's it's not as big
Speaker 1: a concern and that they are in fact safer than cigarettes,
Speaker 1: and maybe even that they help you in the long
Speaker 1: run get rid of that addiction. Here's the thing, if
Speaker 1: you're using those nicotine cartridges, you're still delivering a dose
Speaker 1: of a highly addictive substance to your your bloodstream, and
Speaker 1: that addiction creates that physical and psychological craving that you
Speaker 1: feel necessary to to uh appease on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: So people who would think, oh, I want to try
Speaker 1: this out because it's safer and it looks like it's
Speaker 1: kind of kind of an interesting, uh cool like blade
Speaker 1: it's a blade runner way of smoking. Um, it turns
Speaker 1: out that you know, you're you're subjecting yourself to a
Speaker 1: very addictive substance that you could then you know, develop
Speaker 1: a habit, and that can get pretty expensive, uh, even
Speaker 1: if the health hazards are not that that great in
Speaker 1: the long run. Uh. Also, you can develop a tolerance
Speaker 1: to drugs, which means you need to have more of
Speaker 1: whatever the drug is in order for it to have
Speaker 1: the same sort of effect both physically and psychologically. And
Speaker 1: it is possible to overdose on nicotine. So this case,
Speaker 1: if you were to get too much nicotine in your
Speaker 1: system too quickly, that stimulating effect of the drug quickly
Speaker 1: shifts into a depressant and you become a victim of
Speaker 1: nicotine poisoning. Now, the most common symptom of nicotine poisoning
Speaker 1: is vomiting, so that's not pleasant, but there are more
Speaker 1: or serious symptoms that can also follow, including seizures, abnormal
Speaker 1: heart rhythms, and fluctuating blood pressure. Regular cigarettes might actually
Speaker 1: have the benefit over over e cigarettes here because liquid nicotine,
Speaker 1: like we said earlier, can be you know, ingested or
Speaker 1: absorbed through the skin, and as little as a tablespoon
Speaker 1: of the liquid sold for e cigarettes can could possibly
Speaker 1: kill an adult human person. Uh. Calls to poison control
Speaker 1: centers regarding this kind of thing are on the rise
Speaker 1: from one per month in to as many as two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifteen per month here in the United States. Yikes. Now,
Speaker 1: and the interest of full disclosure, there are some possible
Speaker 1: benefits to nicotine as well. Yeah, now, those benefits are
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. They may play a part in helping reduce
Speaker 1: the risk of developing things like Parkinson's disease in Alzheimer's.
Speaker 1: It might be an effective treatment for depression, anxiety, and schizophrenia.
Speaker 1: But self medicating is not a good idea, right. This
Speaker 1: is the kind of thing that a professional would be Yeah,
Speaker 1: you would want to have a doctor overseeing the sort
Speaker 1: of thing so that you make sure you have the
Speaker 1: right amount of the active ingredient. So that's one of
Speaker 1: those things again getting up on a little bit of
Speaker 1: a tangent here, but the idea that you know you're
Speaker 1: going through a very specific prescribed amount that is geared
Speaker 1: to helping you, as opposed to taking something that may
Speaker 1: or may not have that right amount. You could be
Speaker 1: over medicating or under medicating. That's neither of those options
Speaker 1: are good, and the chances of you hitting exactly what
Speaker 1: you need when you need it are low. So see
Speaker 1: a doctor's what we're saying before you start trying to
Speaker 1: do that sort of thing. Now as we're recording this
Speaker 1: podcast right now, there are actual debates going on in
Speaker 1: the Senate about whether the stig manufacturers are aiming at
Speaker 1: younger customer basis. And this is similar to a controversy
Speaker 1: that has happened in the past about cigarette companies traditional
Speaker 1: cigarettes using cartoon characters with their next as part of
Speaker 1: advertising campaign. Right, and I wanted to talk a little
Speaker 1: bit about the history of tobacco and legislation at this
Speaker 1: point because it's really interesting and and it comes back
Speaker 1: into eat cigarettes in just a moment here. So okay,
Speaker 1: medical research linking negative health effects to tobacco use goes
Speaker 1: all the way back to nineteen thirty nine, and that's
Speaker 1: when the first studies started being published about it. UM.
Speaker 1: Tobacco products had to have warning labels on them starting
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixties six and as as part of this
Speaker 1: general push that was happening here in the US at
Speaker 1: the time. We're talking all about the U S in
Speaker 1: this in this section because we're from the United States.
Speaker 1: Other countries have perhaps a similar timeline with vaguely different
Speaker 1: results here and there, But at any rate, UM in one,
Speaker 1: cigarette television and radio commercials were outlawed here when Nixon
Speaker 1: signed the Cigarette Smoking Act into law. At the time,
Speaker 1: tobacco was the leading product category that was featured in
Speaker 1: television commercials, and I remember hearing radio commercials for cigarettes,
Speaker 1: like if you ever listened to any old radio programming
Speaker 1: where they incorporate yeah, it was almost always it was
Speaker 1: it was a soap or a cigarette, or some form
Speaker 1: of hair product. Um. The use of cartoon characters to
Speaker 1: market tobacco products wasn't banned until the nineteen nineties or
Speaker 1: early two thousand's, but that was that wasn't legislation as
Speaker 1: much as it was part of this multi hundred billion
Speaker 1: dollars settlement that the entire tobacco industry came to in
Speaker 1: a series of lawsuits that were levied at it by
Speaker 1: state governments looking for reparation for healthcare costs. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was one of those things where they said, well, we're
Speaker 1: already going to have to pay all this money. We
Speaker 1: don't want to fight this battle about whether or not
Speaker 1: we're marketing to kids. And when we're talking about the
Speaker 1: SIGs marketing to kids, remember when I mentioned all those flavors.
Speaker 1: There are senators who are saying things like you should
Speaker 1: not be marketing certain types of flavors because they are
Speaker 1: flavors that are appealing specifically to children, things like candy
Speaker 1: flavor cherry and cotton candy and etcetera, etcetera. And Uh,
Speaker 1: part of part of the reason that all of my
Speaker 1: goth friends were really upset in the early two thousands
Speaker 1: was that stuff like clove cigarettes were outlawed. You know,
Speaker 1: that was part of that legislation, part of that settlement
Speaker 1: that prevented that was hoping to prevent youth from picking
Speaker 1: up this habit or tobacco companies from marketing to youth
Speaker 1: and and the cigarettes right are not under the same restriction,
Speaker 1: and there's a growing number of commercials for them on
Speaker 1: the air. So a lot of detractors are suggesting the
Speaker 1: tobacco companies are going to start using this market to
Speaker 1: get younger generations addicted to their products. Um And indeed,
Speaker 1: the tobacco industry is officially getting into the east cigarette market.
Speaker 1: Camel maker Reynolds American is taking its views brand East
Speaker 1: cigarette to the national market starting June tween. We're recording
Speaker 1: this podcast, by the way, on June nineteen, and Marlboro
Speaker 1: maker Newmark will have its own called Mark ten, out
Speaker 1: by the end of the year. Now, the FDA is
Speaker 1: still debating about whether or not it will start to
Speaker 1: impose regulations and oversee things like the cigarettes. I thought
Speaker 1: that was kind of weird that that debate still going on,
Speaker 1: because ultimately, again you're talking mainly about the delivery system
Speaker 1: for nicotine, which is a known drug, So I would
Speaker 1: think that would be a uh, something that would easily
Speaker 1: fall under the purview of the FDA, But what do
Speaker 1: I know. Lots of states, though, have already started imposing
Speaker 1: regulations on East cigarettes. As of June thirty eight states
Speaker 1: have restricted the sale of the cigarettes by by age
Speaker 1: you know, kids can buy. I'm like a five year
Speaker 1: old couldn't walk up to the counter, But what age
Speaker 1: that is depends from state to state. UM A few
Speaker 1: states have banned the use of the cigarettes anywhere that
Speaker 1: regular cigarettes are banned, and some states have even started
Speaker 1: taxing e cigarettes, although I think Minnesota is currently the
Speaker 1: only state that's doing so at a comparable rate to
Speaker 1: that of regular cigarettes. Right. So, again, the other thing
Speaker 1: we're ending here is that using the SIGs to to
Speaker 1: get yourself off of smoking regular cigarettes may or may
Speaker 1: not work. We don't know. The studies are inconclusive and
Speaker 1: it and we just don't know. So it may sound
Speaker 1: like a lot of the stuff we've been saying have
Speaker 1: all been negatives about the cigarettes, but really what we're
Speaker 1: saying is that we don't have enough information to draw
Speaker 1: any conclusions one way or the other. It would be
Speaker 1: it would be premature for us to say the cigarettes
Speaker 1: are purely bad and no one should use them. It
Speaker 1: would also be equally premature for us to say the
Speaker 1: cigarettes are a much safer alternative to any other type
Speaker 1: of smoking. And if you're trying to get off smoking,
Speaker 1: it's a great way of doing that. We just can't
Speaker 1: say those things and and science can't say those things yet.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're an adult and you're smoker and
Speaker 1: you are trying to stop smoking, then, because we love
Speaker 1: you and we want you to continue listening to this
Speaker 1: show for years and years and years to come, we
Speaker 1: congratulate you, yes, um. And if you're trying to use
Speaker 1: the cigrettes to do that, then we If that is
Speaker 1: your method, then we wish you the absolute best, and
Speaker 1: it may very well work for you. We just can't
Speaker 1: say one way or the other. Yea. Yeah, But just
Speaker 1: as a consumer, you know, always always try to be
Speaker 1: intelligent about your decisions and listen to science when you can.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm hoping very much that that science will
Speaker 1: get on it. Yeah, me too, and and have a
Speaker 1: really more definitive answer for these questions so that people
Speaker 1: can make responsible choices. That's that's ultimately what we want.
Speaker 1: So thank you so much for writing in and asking
Speaker 1: us the question. Remember, if you guys have any suggestions
Speaker 1: for future episodes, maybe there's some other technology and you've
Speaker 1: always wondered what the heck is the story behind that.
Speaker 1: Let us know, send us a message on Facebook, Twitter
Speaker 1: or Tumbler or handle it. All three is tech stuff
Speaker 1: hs w our mythical email address should be tech stuff
Speaker 1: at our stuff works dot com. That that should be
Speaker 1: kicking in any now. The more frequently I bring it
Speaker 1: up like that, the more likely someone will be motivated
Speaker 1: to make sure it happens. Um, but yes, we are going.
Speaker 1: We are still working on that. Uh Dan, who knows?
Speaker 1: Maybe now it's working. Give it a shot, Send an
Speaker 1: emails tex stuff at how stuff works dot com. Why
Speaker 1: not what happens? Let's know on Twitter you don't hear
Speaker 1: response and we will talk to you again really soon
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics because
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