Liquid nicotine: Just a teaspoon could kill

FOX News ^ | March 24, 2014 | Kate Seamons

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It can be bought on the Internet in flavors like chocolate and bubble gum—and just a teaspoon could kill a child: The New York Times takes a look at liquid nicotine, the e-liquid used in e-cigarettes, which it describes as a "powerful neurotoxin ... far more dangerous than tobacco." And with good reason: Reports of accidental liquid nicotine poisonings rose 300% from 2012 to 1,351 cases last year, with 2014's figure expected to be double that.

The victims, many children under the age of four, can experience vomiting and seizures after being exposed to even a modest amount orally or through the skin.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune notes that the bottles often convey their flavors with potentially enticing photos of fruits or chocolate, which could attract youngsters; teens, on the flip side, may be combining it with energy drinks to get high, per Fox News Insider.

"It's not a matter of if a child will be seriously poisoned or killed. It's a matter of when," says a director with California's Poison Control System.

[jjsheridan5]

Nicotine's toxicity has been greatly exagerrated over the years. A professor at Graz university exposed this a few years ago. This is just one of his editorials: How much nicotine kills a human? Tracing back the generally accepted lethal dose to dubious self-experiments in the nineteenth century

Most attempts to commit suicide (it may be all, I don't know) via nicotine ingestion have generally resulted in embarrassment, since it only led to nausea and vomitting, despite ingesting far more than the "fatal" dose. Like all chemicals, nicotine has a level at which it becomes toxic. But the "advertised" toxicity level is at least off by a factor of 10, and probably much more than that.

[Brooklyn Attitude]

The left hates smoking and anything to do with it. If you like e-cigs, you are likely a former smoker trying to get around the left’s effort to get you to quit. E-cigs allow you to continue to enjoy smoking without the make believe downside of second hand smoke. They HATE being thwarted and even though ecigs are not dangerous you cannot be allowed to enjoy something that LOOKS like smoking. Trust me they will find an excuse to ban ecigs.

[DannyTN]

"Well if the Drug War has taught us anything, it’s that if something is dangerous for children, it should be illegal for adults."

I'm not sure the drug war taught us that, but it's generally true.

I think e-cigs could be the perfect weaning medium though.

• Switching from tobacco to e-cigs should be encouraged.
• Iron out safety issues such as those listed by this article.
• Make traditional tobacco harder and harder to get relative to e-cigs.
• Once most smokers have switched, start slowing reducing the amount of nicotine in the e-cig vapors.

[pepsi_junkie]

Used to be news organizations asked “what happened in the world today”. Then the activists took over and it became “how can we use this story to make a point?”. Now it’s “how can we scare people today?”

[Sacajaweau]

I’m not happy about it. Far from it. They’re so worried about what we eat and this stuff gets into the market place.

[my small voice]

Yeah, wasn’t it water that crushed that Malaysian jet and drowned all the people aboard?

[DannyTN]

"E-cigs allow you to continue to enjoy smoking without the make believe downside of second hand smoke."

That's not true. E-cigs still release a nicotine loaded vapor into the air that other people breathe. It's not as dangerous as smoke but it still should not be used indoors.

I don't think anyone is against smokers switching to e-cigs. But we still don't want to breath second hand nicotine in any form.

[Durus]

There isn’t a known toxic amount of THC while nicotine is a neurotoxin (besides being a mild stimulant)?

[KevinB]

We need to outlaw water. No telling how many deaths.

You betcha!

[Sacajaweau]

That’s what I started thinking about, too.

[catnipman]

“IIRC, Liquid nicotine was once an ingredient in insecticide”

Nicotine sulfate was used.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

BLACK LEAF 40. Also good for putting down injured horses in six seconds with an injection in the jugular.

Should work well on prisoners when they run out of regular execution drugs.

[RayChuang88]

People forget that nicotine is used as an ingredient in insecticide (until very recently). As such, it is quite harmful to humans in higher doses.

[tomkat]

They release vapor into the air so they should be banned from public places ..
That will cost a little money but small in the big scheme of things ..

You'll make an excellent People's Commissar !

[Red Badger]

Well, tomato plants do produce nicotine.....................

[MinstrelBoy]

Ban the sun first for causing skin cancer!

[dfwgator]

Alles Klar, Herr Kommissar!

[Sacajaweau]

Maybe go back to the skull and crossbones on the bottle.

Iodine was the big thing...and I could never figure out why mom would put "poison" on my boo boo.

[DannyTN]

Smokers brought it on themselves. They were rude to smoke in public places in the first place. Then when people had enough and supported bans, they cry “foul”, “Commissar”, “nanny state”.

Well we wouldn’t need a nanny state if you hadn’t of acted like babies to begin with.

[jjsheridan5]

They contain nicotine and are therefore addictive

The overwhelming anecdotal evidence is that this is not true. There have been no clinical studies which have ever been taken to establish this. The few clinical studies involving people who never smoked being given nicotine in a manner other than via tobacco, all showed zero side effects of cessation, with no evidence of any addictiveness at all (despite nicotine being as addictive as heroin /s). These studies (6, I believe) were done, by the way, to study therapeutic effects of nicotine, and involved elevating nicotine levels to levels commensurate with a smoker, for months at a time. And no withdrawal, no cravings, and none of the subjects became smokers or continued nicotine use in any way.

Cigarette addiction is much more complex than we have been led to believe. Nicotine plays a role in that addiction, but nicotine, in and of itself, is at most mildly addictive, and probably not addictive at all.