Vaping – How Much Is Too Much?

I check popular keywords on my website analytics very often and there is one searched group of words that I’ve seen numerous of times. The question many of you have asked is “Am I vaping too much?” or “How much is too much?”.

It’s understandable for you as someone who has just recently started vaping to be interested in these answers and to be honest, I’m quite interested as well. Back when we used to smoke analogs, we knew when to set it down because we got a light headed sensation from the nicotine intake. Truth about it is, the uneasy feeling was due to other factors aside from just the nicotine. The numerous other chemicals in analogs contributed to the light headed feeling as well as a deprivation of oxygen. Using electronic cigarettes, there is no cut off for when you stop, so everyone has just went by what they’ve felt. If you’re craving nicotine, you just vape a bit until you feel like you’ve reached a level of satisfaction.

I’ve obviously come in contact with many different vapers, ranging from people that just started vaping today to people who have been vaping for 4 years. Many of these people I’ve met vape different amounts of e-liquid and some vape outrageous amounts that would surprise you. I’ve talked to some that vape through less than 1 milliliter in a 24 hour period, to someone that even vapes as much as 10 milliliters in a 24 hour period. I really couldn’t imagine myself going through that much liquid within a day’s time, but on a second thought… I don’t even know how much I vape in 1 days time so I’ve decided to find out

I took a 30ml bottle of my favorite e-liquid and filled a 3ml bottle. The next morning I woke up, grabbed that 3ml bottle that I filled with e-liquid and used only that bottle throughout the day. The bottle is 3ml’s, so if it takes me all day to vape the juice inside the 3ml, then I of course vape 3ml’s per day. That day I vaped the 3ml bottle, plus another 5ml’s. I vaped a total of 8ml’s that day.I decided to do a bit of research on the net and I found that a single cigarette has a lot more nicotine than I originally thought. This is what I found…

The average American cigarettes contain yields about 1.8 mg of nicotine. With this in mind, consider that an average smoker takes approximately 20 drags from a single cigarette smoking cession so the average amount of nicotine content per drag is estimated to be between .05 and .12 milligrams depending heavily on the smoker and the specific brand of cigarette.

Judging by the results I’ve found and displayed here, if you were a 1 pack a day smoker, you had an approximate nicotine intake of 36 milligrams of nicotine. With these figures in mind, let’s take a step forward and compare the nicotine content of e-liquid.

Nicotine is measured in milligrams per milliliter in the majority of the e-liquids found on the market today. For short, we will abbreviate this to mg/ml where mg means milligrams and ml means milliliters. The typical ranges for the nicotine density in e-liquids are between 0mg/ml to 24mg/ml. There are some vendors that will mix in higher densities than that but most stay within that range. If you have a 3ml bottle of e-liquid that is 20mg/ml strength, the total amount of nicotine in the bottle is 60mg because 20mg’s are in each milliliter and you have 3 of them. The same principle applies to a 10ml bottle, if the 10ml bottle is rated at 20mg/ml, your total amount of nicotine in the bottle is 200mg.

Now if you vape 3ml’s of e-liquid per day and your e-liquid is 20mg of nicotine, you’ve vaped a total of 60mg of nicotine. Whether you choose to purchase in small quantities or in larger quantities, the density of nicotine per milliliter will always be reflected as mg/ml. You will receive no more nicotine per hit with the larger bottle than that of the smaller bottle (*unless you ordered the liquid at a higher density than the smaller bottle). Even though the principle of total nicotine per bottle will change, the nicotine is suspended evenly within the e-liquid mixture.

So how much e-liquid is equal to a pack of cigarettes, we can only speculate because the answer is dependent on which device(s) you use and your atomizer/cartomizer. The approximate answer to this question though would be that a 3ml bottle with a nicotine density of 12mg/ml would be equivalent to smoking a pack of cigarettes if you were only to consume the 3ml bottle of e-liquid per day. Again, this answer cannot truly be given because of the many variables with your hardware so this is simply approximate.

We’ve got that part cleared up but we’re still left with a question of “How much nicotine is too much?” – I searched around and these are the results I’ve found…

40–60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans.

With this information, we begin to worry that we might be taking in nicotine in levels high enough to be lethal but this is not the case with vaping. Even if you vape your entire 3ml 20mg/ml bottle of e-liquid and the total amount of nicotine in that bottle was 60mg, you’re still not taking it in at levels as high as what has been rated at lethal because your intake is spread throughout the day. The 40-60mg lethal intake level means that the toxic level is reached at 40mg when taken acutely (all at once).

By reading this information I’ve displayed on this post / article, you understand that this information and the calculations that follow were used to provide knowledge only. If you are using e-liquid or nicotine, you are using it and this information at your own risk. GuideToVaping.com or any of the staff affiliated with GuideToVaping.com take no responsibility for your actions. If you are using nicotine e-liquid, please be safe. You should also consult your physician prior to using any form of nicotine to make sure you are healthy enough to consume nicotine, as it can be toxic in very small amounts.