Is nicotine itself carcinogenic?

[The.Ghost]

I ask because I have been taking stupid high amounts (~100 mg / day) for a few years now.

 

[PotatoMan]

the chemicals that come along with the nicotine are said to be carcinogenic, be it through cancerous ingredients in the gum, vapour or the smoke from tobacco

 

[zephyr]

Its mainly the chemicals in tailor made cigarettes that cause small cell cancers of the lung. These cancers dont respond to chemotherapy.

 

[spacejunk]

^ all tobacco is carcinogenic though
i was under the impression that all tobacco - no matter how it is prepared - was carcinogenic. not nicotine, but chemicals in tobacco.
surely if tobacco could be used in a way that had no cancer risk, the companies that sell it would have done so 50+ years ago??
tailor-made ciggies might have more chemicals than other forms of tobacco, but all of it can cause cancer.

like, even if you chew it, it causes mouth cancer. there's not enough known about vaping yet for anyone to say conclusively that it is safe. i'm assuming you're asking about vaping it, given the dosage you mentioned, ghost?

 

[zephyr]

Theres a whole lot of extremely nasty shit you can avoid by smoking rollies. Tobacco does cause a lot of cancers but the death rate from tailor mades is higher due to the type of cancers they are linked to.

 

[spacejunk]

yeah, ok.
i'm glad tobacco doesn't really do much for me. it's one vice i'm not pulled to at all, which i'm thankful for. lung cancer is fucking brutal

 

[The.Ghost]

I'd like to clarify a few things. First, my nicotine is pure. According to the manufacturer, the nicotine they use (to make e-liquid, which I later extract) is "99.86% Pure, Meets EU6.0 Medical Grade Standards". I quit tobacco years ago, now I exclusively use this stuff. My question is not about some form of tobacco, it's about the pure active ingredient itself. I don't vape, I take the freebase liquid bucally (hits hard and fast). I started a thread around it here, if anyone is interested in reading more.

 

[Keif' Richards]

There seems to be a substantial amount of conjecture regarding this question. Things like Vapes/E-Cigs have only recently proliferated and the science is trying to catch up. It could be possible that Nicotine itself is not carcinogenic per se, but that other "ingredients" in tobacco products are actually the primary insults.