Vaping was originally invented by a Chinese pharmacist and entrepreneur who saw great potential – both for profit and for public health – in an alternative to tobacco cigarettes that supplied nicotine via inhalation but didn’t produce smoke. When the first vaping products began to make their way to markets around the world, they were immediately successful. Smokers who made the switch to vaping felt better, smelled better and saved a lot of money. Since those early days, vaping has continued to grow rapidly – and with the expanding user base, the product selection has grown as well.
Although it was originally envisioned as a way to replace the nicotine in cigarettes, one of the most interesting developments in vaping is that many people vape without actually using nicotine at all. That’s right! It might surprise you since vaping is marketed as an alternative to smoking – but there are actually many vaping products on the market that are entirely nicotine free. You don’t have to use nicotine to vape, and the truth is that many people actually prefer it that way.
If you’re curious about why anyone would ever want to vape without using nicotine, this is the article for you. If you’re a smoker – or you’re a former smoker who has already switched to vaping – the reasons why people vape without nicotine might open your eyes and introduce you to an entirely new way of doing things.
These are the reasons why you might want to use a nicotine-free vape.
E-Liquids with Nicotine Aren’t Allowed in Some Regions
One of the most common reasons why some people vape without nicotine is because in certain regions of the world, it isn’t a matter of choice. In Japan and Norway, for instance, vaping is legal – but e-liquids with nicotine aren’t. Because of legal restrictions, all of the e-liquids, vape pods and disposable vapes sold in those regions contain no nicotine whatsoever.
That might seem problematic to you if you’re a vaper who uses nicotine, but the truth is that many thousands of people in those nations have been able to switch from smoking to vaping without any major issues. Some of them use nicotine-free vapes in conjunction with traditional nicotine replacement products, and others have found the flavor, sensation and hand-to-mouth ritual of vaping sufficient to help them stop smoking even without the nicotine. If you vape and think that you can’t stop using nicotine, you might want to evaluate whether that’s really the case because many people have switched successfully from cigarettes to nicotine-free vapes.
Did you know that an electronic cigarette is called an “elektroniske sigaretter” in Norway?
Nicotine-Free Vape Juice Is Useful as a Mixer
Some of the people who buy nicotine-free vape juice don’t actually buy it to use directly – they buy it to mix it with other e-liquids and create their own custom nicotine strengths. There’s a good chance that your favorite vape juice isn’t available in strengths below 3 mg/ml. That’s been the lowest nicotine strength offered by most e-liquid companies for a long time, but vaping hardware has continued to become more and more powerful over the years.
Today’s vape mods produce significantly larger vapor clouds than the devices that were available just a few years ago, but the lowest nicotine strength available from most e-liquid brands has remained the same. If you’re using one of today’s high-powered mods, in fact, there’s a good chance that you could cut the nicotine strength of your e-liquid in half and hardly notice the difference. If you buy nicotine-free e-liquid, that’s actually quite easy to do. If you mix a bottle of 3 mg/ml e-liquid and a bottle of nicotine-free e-liquid together, the mixture will have a final strength of 1.5 mg/ml. Give it a try and see how you feel. You’ll cut your nicotine intake in half, and you’ll probably still feel completely satisfied.
Nicotine-Free Vapes May Help You Stop Using Nicotine
If you reduce your nicotine strength from 3 mg/ml to 1.5 mg/ml and feel happy with the change, why stop there? By using nicotine-free e-liquid as a mixer, you can create any nicotine strength you want. If you mix two parts nicotine-free vape juice with one part 3 mg/ml, for instance, you’ll end up with a strength of 1 mg/ml. You can continue adjusting the nicotine strength from there – at whatever pace you like – and potentially reach a point where you no longer need to use nicotine at all.
When you use nicotine-free e-liquid to make your own custom nicotine strengths, you can lower your strength as slowly as you want – even if you’re only lowering the nicotine content by a few drops each time you mix a new batch. One of the greatest things about vaping is that no other form of nicotine replacement gives you such fine control over your nicotine intake. Once you’ve switched completely to nicotine-free e-liquid, you can just vape for the enjoyment of the flavor. You can also quit vaping entirely if you want to.
Nicotine-Free Vapes May Help You Fall Asleep at Night
So far in this article, we’ve discussed scenarios that involve using nicotine-free e-liquid on a full-time basis – even if you’re just using it as a mixer. There are also valid reasons, however, for only using nicotine-free vapes part of the time. Do you ever find it difficult to fall asleep at night? That’s not rare for smokers and vapers because nicotine is a powerful stimulant. That’s one of the reasons why it’s so addictive. If you’re a long-term nicotine user, you probably don’t think that you can feel the stimulant effects anymore – but your body is still affected by it. In fact, poor sleep quality is one of the most common unwanted side effects reported by nicotine users.
Nicotine has a half-life in the bloodstream of about two hours. That’s a fairly long time. It means that if you vape or smoke a cigarette right before going to bed, most of the nicotine will still be in your bloodstream when you’re trying to fall asleep. If you switch to nicotine-free vapes two hours before going to bed, the nicotine in your bloodstream will be reduced by half. It’s likely that you can greatly improve your sleep quality by making this one simple change.
Interesting Related Article: “Vaping and Anxiety: Does Vaping Help with Anxiety?“
