By Scott McKirahan
One of the most common questions I get about an electric cig relates to which e-liquid nicotine strength is equivalent to a particular kind of cigarette that a person smokes. There isn’t really a great deal of information regarding this on the Internet and you really have to hunt to find anything that is close to an answer.
I’ve put together all of the pieces I could find from other places into one place so hopefully people can have a better understanding of what they are vaping. It’s really not that complicated once you have all of the information, so here goes …
What Does The Label On The Bottle Really Mean?
The nicotine strength listed for e-liquid is the number of milligrams of nicotine per milliliter in a bottle. That means a 10ml bottle of 24mg nicotine e-juice would have 240mg of nicotine in it (24mg x 10ml). Likewise, a 30ml bottle of 24mg e-liquid would have 720mg of nicotine in it (24mg x 30ml).
Unless you have developed a serious vaping habit, you probably don’t take in a whole bottle in a sitting so this information is really only useful if you know exactly how many days it takes you to go through a bottle. This can get especially difficult to figure out if you vape multiple flavors during any given time period, though, so we need to put this in terms that everyone that uses an electric cig can understand. That is, how much nicotine there is in each drop …
How Much Nicotine Is There In Each Drop?
We all have an idea of how many drops of e-liquid we use each time we drip onto a cartridge or directly onto the atomizer. All we need to know then is how many drops of e-liquid are in a milliliter.
There are approximately 20 drops of e-liquid per milliliter. So, using our 24mg nicotine e-juice once again as an example, there would be 1.2mg of nicotine per drop (24mg ÷ 20 drops). So, if you put three drops of e-liquid onto a cartridge (or directly onto the atomizer for those of you that “direct-drip”), that means you will be taking in 3.6mg of nicotine from the time you start vaping until you “top off” again.
“Great information,” you’re probably thinking, ”but what does that really mean in terms of cigarettes?” Well, all we really need to know is the amount of nicotine in each cigarette …
How Much Nicotine Is In A Tobacco Cigarette?
Different brands of cigarettes vary ever so slightly in terms of their nicotine content and obviously a longer 100mm cigarette has more nicotine in it than a standard or “king” size 84mm cigarette. For the most part, though, here is the amount of nicotine that is in a typical 84ml tobacco cigarette:
If you smoke Regular cigarettes (like a Marlboro Red, for instance), there are approximately 1.2mg of nicotine in each cigarette, or 24mg of nicotine per pack (1.2mg x 20 cigarettes).
If you smoke Light cigarettes (like a Marlboro Light, for instance), there are approximately .7mg of nicotine in each cigarette, or 14mg of nicotine per pack (.7mg x 20 cigarettes).
If you smoke Ultra Light cigarettes (like a Marlboro Ultra Light, for instance), there are approximately .5mg of nicotine in each cigarette, or 10mg of nicotine per pack (.5mg x 20 cigarettes).
For those of you that absolutely need to know how much nicotine is in a “100” cigarette, take the above numbers and multiply by 1.19 (100mg ÷ 84ml) to get the amount of nicotine per cigarette or per pack.
Okay, so what’s all that mean?
Hopefully, with the following chart (and maybe just a little bit of math), you will finally be able to compare nicotine levels between regular tobacco cigarettes and an electric cig:
One Final Note:
We have rounded numbers slightly here to make them easier to work with. No scientific studies have actually been performed with regular users of e-cigarettes to determine how much of the liquid nicotine, if any, is burnt up or evaporates before it hits the lungs. Therefore, the numbers represented above indicate the maximum amount of nicotine intake assuming that 100% of it makes it into the lungs of the user of an electric cig.
It should also be noted that, although it is highly addictive, no studies have shown nicotine to be a carcinogen. It is simply “the fix” that cigarette smokers crave. It is recommended that those who have a demonstrated sensitivity to nicotine, are pregnant or breastfeeding or who have unstable heart conditions, should discuss the use of any nicotine delivery device with a doctor before using.
E-Cig Express Blog Quote of the Day: “Do not worry about your problems with mathematics; I assure you, mine are far greater.” – Albert Einstein
You forgot to factor in the efficiency of absorption to the bloodstream.
Dr Eissenberg reckons the nicotine doesn’t reach the blood at all or only slightly and Dr Laugesen says that 16mg liquid delivers about a tenth of the amount of nicotine as a cig.
http://vapersnetwork.org/node/49
Are you the famous Kate from e-cigarette-forum? If so, I feel honored that you would take the time to comment on this blog. [Incidentally, if you are not "famous Kate" but simply "ordinary, concerned citizen Kate" (not to be confused with Citizen Kane), I thank you for taking the time to comment, as well!]
As far as nicotine absorbtion into the blood, again no studies have been done and I was operating under the assumption that no matter how it was delivered, absorbtion rates would be the same.
Dr. Eissenberg is a big question mark. His study was conducted using participants who had never used an e-cicarette before and, as we all know, it can take up to two months for an e-cig user to find a way to optimally use an e-cigarette that suits them. His studies have also been questioned since some of his funding comes from the pharmaceutical industry.
That being said, since Eissenberg’s initial study, he has been in constant contact with the e-cigarette-forum community and has tried the device himself. Here is what he said:
“I would also like to report some results from some personal experimentation. At the suggestion of some of you, I purchased a KR808D-1 with various strength cartridges (Cowboy flavor). I used it last night (18 mg cartomizer) and tested my urine with Nicalert strips this morning. Result? 5/6. Clearly, this result is consistent with recent nicotine exposure. The confusing thing is this: I used the device while hooked up to a heart rate monitor which an observer was watching and I was not. My heart rate showed negligible changes during my many puffs on the device (it was one with a manual switch, which I was pressing; I was using the USB pass through; yes I got vapor, and yes I inhaled – quite the throat hit, I can assure you). Obviously I am not going to write a paper about this single experience, and there is much to be learned, but I certainly agree with the many of you who suggested that these devices may very well behave differently than the ones that I tested.”
Dr. Laugesen seems to have the answer, however. He states that E-cigarette nicotine is apparently not absorbed from the lung, but from the upper airways. “The nicotine dose and particle size [of nicotine delivered via an e-cigarette] are too small to ensure deposition in the alveoli or bronchioles and rapid nicotine absorption as in cigarette smoking.”
Using 16mg strength e-liquid in clinical tests, Dr. Laugesen concluded “six puffs every 5 minutes would deliver the same dose of nicotine delivered by shallow inhaling from one tobacco cigarette every hour”. That means that 72 puffs of an electric cig will give a user the same amount of nicotine as they would get from shallow inhaling one cigarette.
While Laugesen states that this would not give smokers the immediate nicotine boost that they crave, the study seems to contradict this a bit. The participants in the study reported “significantly less craving” for a cigarette while using a 16mg nicotine e-cigarette.
Although it did not deliver nicotine as rapidly as a tobacco cigarette, the study did state that “the 16mg e-cigarette delivered nicotine more rapidly than the Nicorette® inhalator.”
Finally, Dr. Laugesen told the Dominion Post “on a puff-per-puff basis, the strongest [24mg] cartridge delivered about one-third the amount of nicotine delivered by a normal cigarette.”
So, it is clear from these very small studies done with people who were unfamiliar with how to use an e-cigarette properly (Dr. Laugesen’s was with only 40 people and for only one hour), that there may not be nearly as much nicotine in an e-cigarette as the math would indicate. What is not clear is how the studies would have turned out had the participants been experienced users.
Either way, the important thing here is that they appear to be effective in abating nicotine cravings and that they may have only negligible amounts of nicotine compared to a tobacco cigarette – not a bad thing! Furthermore, Dr. Eissenberg’s “self test” seems to indicate that not only is nicotine being absorbed into the blood system, but that something about the e-cigarette makes the nicotine in it less of a threat to the heart.
There are tens of thousands of us who have completely quit smoking tobacco cigarettes because of these devices and hundreds of thousands more who are well on their way. There still has not been a sudy showing any harm from the devices and those of us who are tobacco-free can testify to the fact that it is nice to be able to finally breath again!
Well How many hits Would i get out of 1 full E-cig cartridge.
And how many drops of E-Liquid are in one single E-cig cartridge
Answering how many “hits” are in an e-cig cartridge is a lot like asking how many drags are in a regular cigarette. The answer is different depending upon how big your drags are.
Also, every brand of e-cig is different. I may get 10-15 of my very large drags off of a Joye 510 or DSE901 before it starts to taste stale and I add a couple of more drops of e-liquid (other people who take little baby-sized drags may get two to three times as many as me). If I’m using a T-Rex, however, I’ll get 25 or so drags before I have to add drops.
The number of drops in a cartridge all depends on the e-cig, too. Usually, there is somewhere between 10 and 14 drops in a standard “mini” e-cig cartridge. A pen-style will hold as many as 30 drops, though.
Keep in mind, however, that unless your e-cig battery is a high voltage one (usually a modified one), you won’t even begin to be able to vape half of the e-liquid in a cartridge because the atomizer does not get hot enough to vaporize the liquid that is further down in the cartridge filler.
All of this stuff is really quite insignificant, since there have been no extensive studies that show the precise amount of nicotine that is ingested after it has been vaporized in an e-cig. One study suggested that even the very highest nicotine level e-juice (they did not state if they were talking about 24mg/ml or 36mg/ml), had, at most, 1/3 the nicotine in a regular cigarette.
What folks need to keep in mind is that nicotine has NEVER been shown to cause cancer and that the only people who need to be careful with their use of nicotine, are ones with heart conditions (nicotine constricts the blood vessels) and women who are pregnant. Of course, those people should be avoiding nicotine altogether, be it in an e-cig, a regular cigarette or even in certain vegetables.
Hi Scott, sorry I haven’t replied sooner, I’ve just made it back to this page.
I’m Kate, teh Wholey Syster, probably the one you’ve come across on the forums :p
You’re right about the need to understand technique and to be able to vape effectively for satisfaction but unfortunately in discussions with people outside the community it will be the scientific reports that hold most weight (even if they don’t appear credible to us). I haven’t come across the study that shows absorption of one third, please could you link for me, ta?
The situation appears to be that we know vaping is effective for many of us but the measurements are not indicative of a straight link from mg of nicotine in vapour and mg in a cigarette.
Hi Kate!
The reference to 1/3 the nicotine in the highest nicotine level e-liquid was found in a Wellington, NZ Dominion Post interview with Dr. Laugesen. It is also referenced in a forum post on the vapetron forum (http://www.vapeatron.com/brief-interview-murray-laugesen-e-smoking-researcher-298/) but the link to the original article no longer appears to work. (In fact, the entire health.co.nz website no longer appears to be up and running … curious!)
Thanks for the reference, I’ll see if I can find anything. It may be possible that Dr L was misquoted because as far as I know all his research shows absorption of one tenth. I could easily be wrong though.
He very well could have been misquoted. I, like you, have only seen the results published from laboratory tests using e-liquid no higher than 16mg. The quote (or misquote) has him saying that even with the very highest strength (no actual mg/ml of nicotine figure given), the e-cig still came in at only 1/3 the nicotine in a traditional tobacco cigarette (also not mentioned is what type or brand of tobacco cigarette, here).
In the end, the important thing to take from this is that even if it is an accurate quote referencing a heretofore unpublished test of “the highest” nicotine strength e-liquid, folks need not worry about taking in more nicotine from an e-cig than from a traditional tobacco cigarette. Even the heaviest of vapers would have a tough time accomplishing that feat, I would think!
I definitely loved this site.
Thank you for taking the time to collect all of this information. I realise it takes time, and dedication to review the many different resources available out there. This has really helped with a concern of puffing on an e-cig vs. a normal cig that possibly I may be FURTHER addicting myself, considering I can puff on my e-cig anywhere, anytime.. Unlike a normal ciggarette. They claim nicotine is as addictive as cocaine. Dunno how true that is, but if thats truely the case, I didn’t want to be setting myself up for yet another disapointment. My hopes is to use this device to help me kick the habbit.
Hello i found your blog on AOL and i found it interesting to read. I bookmarked it for further reading. Thank you for sharing
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I love my e-cig and really want to get my mom into one. She smokes about 3-4 PACKS of Doral Ultra Light 100′s a day. I’m trying to find one without as much ‘throat hit’ as the ones I use. If she could replace at least 1 pack a day, I think it would be well worth it. She has shown some interest but doesn’t like how ‘harsh’ it feels. Any ideas?
There are two ways of cutting down the throat hit.
If you lower the nicotine content, the vapor will be far less harsh.
You could get e-liquid with vegetable glycerin (VG) in it. VG produes more vapor than standard PG (propylene glycol) e-liquid, but less throat hit. Please keep in mind that VG is also thicker than PG and can have a severely detrimental effect on the lifespan of an atomizer. The more the VG content, the more vapor and less throat hit there will be (and less time the atomizer will work).
Don’t recall where I read it, but I read that the joye 510 works well with VG– or was it that it better with it? I travel to too many sites to remember anything but the message I wanted. And since I use VG and have a Joye, I was happy to hear I had the right combo.
All e-cigarettes work esentially the same. Although all e-cigarettes may seem to work better with VG, there are some caveats there. VG produces more of what looks like vapor than PG, but produces far less throat hit. VG is also much thicker and can cut the life expectancy of an atomizer to one third of what they would normally last.
In the end, though, no matter how much more often you are buying atomizers, it still can’t be as expensive (or unhealthy) as smoking regular cigarettes.
I vap with a Blackjack mini, 16mg and seems like I can’t put this thing down. I either have it in my mouth or in my hand. I bought mine through 21st Century Smoking and they can never answer any of my questions. I started out using 24mg Vegas and weaned myself down to 16mg but puff and puff and puff on this thing. I don’t wanna puff on this thing forever because eventually I wanna kick the nicotine habit completely. I have seen the people at the mall that sold this too me and doesn’t seem like the inhale the vapor because of how much vapor is released after they hit it. I was also told that nicotine is absorbed through your mouth and not the lungs??? I go crazy if I’m almost out of liquid and have to make sure that I have it..I don’t know if its because I know I don’t want to pick up another cigarette or this thing is more addicting than a real cigg?? Any idea’s?
I vape way differant than I smoked real ciggs. I was smoking about 1 1/2 to 2 packs of Ciggs a day. Now that I’ve gone to vaping (2 months now) an average cartomizer at 18mg lasts me about 3 days. I also see a differance in the way I smoke. When I was smoking ciggs I would hurry to get as much out of the cigg as I could and craved another less than 30 minutes later. With vaping i’ll do about 4 or 5 hits and put it down. I vape more often but less at a time. I don’t worry about the time between ciggs. It seems I always have my e-cig in my hand usually rolling it around between my fingers lol. Can’t burn me. I’m assuming i’m normal.
I like this article as it gives me an idea of what is in my cartomizer and why it lasts as long as it does. Thanks. Laura
I was a 2 pack a day non-filtered cigarette smoker. I smoke 24mg juice and can quite easily get a noticeable nic buzz after 4 or 5 heavy puffs (which I rarely got from cigarettes) so I can honestly say that I believe absorption to be at LEAST 50%. In addition to that, after vaping for a few minutes, if I smoke a cigarette it does almost nothing to me so something must be working here. I’ve smoked cigarettes after having gone without nicotine for hours and the buzz will almost paralyze me, that doesn’t happen after vaping.
I just got an e-cig last night, it was ~$60 at a local tobacco store. I bought a 10ml bottle of “Cowboy Classic” 24mg juice with it. What I’m trying to figure out is a brand or something, so I can figure out what kind of atomizers to buy. It’s black with a blue indicator light at the end, has a gold ring around where the atomizer screws onto the battery but there are no markings anywhere telling me who made it, if it’s a 510 or whatever. The barcode on the side of the box says “E-Cig Duel Kit” over the barcode and “4065″ under the barcode. I do seem to be smoking more with it although I haven’t touched a real cigarette, nor had the urge to in the 24 hours or so I’ve been using it. The tips that came with it only seem to hold 5-7 drops of liquid, so I’m refilling relatively often. It didn’t come with instructions or anything. it’s in a black and gold box with a magnetic flap on the side, came with two batteries, two atomizers, a USB charger with a cord about 6″ long, a wall plug with a USB port in it, and ten tips (cartridges). I open the box, and the tray on the top holds the two batteries and two atomizers, and everything else is neatly separated into their own boxes if I take out this top tray. “USB Battery Charger”, “CHARGER”, and “Atomized Cartridge 10PCS” on the three individual boxes. The “USB Battery Charger” box is the length of the case, and has about a thumb-sized hole in one end, I guess to facilitate removing it from the case easily. The only other markings on the box are the CE marking, the little three-arrow-circle I think means recyclable, and the ROHS badge with a checkmark. I’d like to figure out the brand and the threading so that I can know what kind of cartomizers to buy, as they hold more liquid, and I’ll need to replace the atomizers eventually anyway. Any ideas?
I sure wish I could help you here. There are probably, at most, 40 different e-cigarettes being manufactured. There are, however, more than 400 different ones that have been manufactured under a private label even though they are really one of those 40 or less.
There is absolutely no way to know what a private label renamed e-cigarette really is. If it had a standard wall charger, there is usually a label on the bottom that tells you what it is. The combo USB style is generally a generic charger. There is a slight chance that the USB cord that the battery screws into might have the real e-cig model stamped on it, but I wouldn’t count on it.
Finally, after you add your five or six drops of e-liquid to the cartridge, try this … put it back onto your e-cig, hold it by the battery end and shake it downward toward the floor, forcing the e-liquid further down into the cartridge (sort of like shaking the mercury down in a thermometer). You should be able to fit another five or six drops, repeat the shake down process and do it one more time. I can usually fit 15 drops in a cartridge utilizing this method and it will last longer before the next “topping off” session.
Hi Warez, sounds like you got the same e-cig as mine, a 510.
I just want to say thank you guys so much for asking and answering all of the questions above. The article was right on time.
I have only been using mine for 3 days and I am so glad I finally broke down and bought one.
Thank you again for writing this blog!!
Well, I have been using a 808 PCC mini kit for several days now, and like Mike mentioned above, that the nicotine intake must be higher than those studies suggest. I have not had the craving to pick up a real cigarette again since I started vaping. I’ve noticed a nic buzz after vaping puffs about the same amount of puffs to that of a regular cigarette. I would only get a nic buzz from real cigarettes if I went a long time without one(like sick in bed for a few days with the flu) or sometimes from first cigarette in the morning. But I’ve noticed a nic buzz more often with vaping. I’m using 24mg juice. However I’m sure the higher strength is what is helping me quit and preventing the cravings of an analogue cigarette. Btw when I first started vaping, it didn’t taste like much at all, and had a huge TH and was a bit harsh for the first 2-3 days, but after that, it started to taste much better(actually really good) and I’m assuming that’s my taste buds healing from years of tobacco use, but I also noticed the harshness decreased considerably. So to the person who wants their friend to quit smoking 3-4 packs, explain to her, that vaping will become less harsh and taste better over a short time, and the TH can be reduced by the nic level in the juice. So far a wonderful invention that has me quit smoking tar and 4000 other chemicals for the last 20 years.
Great post! I have a question, which worries me. I currently upgraded to a joye ego-t, and find it amazing. However, I feel I am blowing through e-juice. I bought a 10 ml bottle at 18mg, and and used about 35% of it in just 4 days.
I find it can hold 25-30 drops (I’ll calculate it again when it gets near empty), so this makes me feel like I smoke 2 packs a day, as I tend to refill it once half way through the day.
I used to smoke 1 pack of camel filters a day, and I would be devastated if I’ve only strengthened my addiction to nicotine by smoking (read vaping) 2 packs a day!
Thank you for any insight you might be able to provide me.
Something seems a bit off in your numbers. If we use the lower figure presented (25 drops) and you refill once per day, that would mean you are using 50 drops in a day, which is approximately 2 1/2 ml. That would mean a 10 ml bottle would be half way gone in just two days and completely gone in four days. It sounds like you have a 30 ml bottle of e-liquid to me.
So, we’ll take the numbers that we do know – you are using 2.5 ml per day. If the amount of nicotine that made it into your bloodstream was the amount listed on the bottle, you would be ingesting the equivalent of 1.75 packs per day of regular cigarettes (2.5 x .7). We’ll round that up to 2 packs per day to make the numbers easier.
According to Eisenberg, only 10% of the nicotine that is marked on the bottle actually makes it into your body. If that is true, it means you are vaping the equivalent of .2 packs per day. There are 20 cigarettes per pack which means you are vaping the equivalent of four regular cigarettes worth of nicotine per day.
Excellent information. As a prospective newbie to e-cigs, the most nagging question I had was about the nicotine delivery. The bottle says “24mg,” and the sales person told me that was the TOTAL nicotine in the bottle… so I couldn’t figure out the “math” part of it… how a bottle could last weeks versus days.
Your explanation of mg/ml finally made sense!!
One note… in the “How Much Nicotine Is In A Tobacco Cigarette?” section, you refer to 100 ml or 84 ml cigarettes. That should be milimeters, not mililiters…. 100mm or 84mm.
Minor point, but it’s still something you might consider updating when you have a minute (smile).
Thanks for the great information. I will print this and show my sales person!
- Scott
Thanks for pointing that out Scott Taylor. I think it is now updated in all of the right places!
The amount of nicotine in a cigarette and how much survives the heat that boils it off (and escapes combustion) are definitely not the same thing. Nicotine is a fragile molecule and has a flash point below it’s boiling point,. So the question is how much is delivered. I don’t know the answer.
Well, Sternhead, according to the study done by Dr. Essenberg, one thing we seem to know for sure is that a regular cigarette delivers ten times more nicotine to the blood as a “high” nicotine strength e-liquid.
This is the perfect site for all the information I needed. I have been thinking of using an e-cig for over a week now, and I’m definitely gonna get one this Friday when I get paid!
Thank u soooo much for the knowledge and insight into this matter. I look forward o a relatively healthier lifestyle and hope it will help me to eventually give up completely!