When I initially heard about e-cigarettes, I doubted that they were safe
alternatives to tobacco because of omitting components of tobacco that
cause lung cancer and other maladies. Nicotine is a powerful endogenous
substance, and overloding the system with exogenous nicotine might have
adverse side effects, such as disrupting the balance between nicotinic and
muscarinic stimulation.
The new information about toxic and even lethal effects of liquid nicotine
indicates a very severe peril. I am reminded now about reports, many years
ago, that swallowing a few cigarettes might be lethal because of overdose
of nicotine. The effect is greatly diluted when nicotine is in a smoked
cigarette.
An analogy is the dangerous and even lethal effects of overdose and
chronic ue of morphine, heroin, ad other opiates. An important advance of
our knowedge a few decades ago was the discovery of endorphins, which are
endogenous sources of analgesia, miimicke by opiates.
--- Herb Barry
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