Is Nicotine Really Any Different Than Caffeine?
All the big tobacco companies are selling e-cigarettes, proponents of which are quick to point out that we don’t regulate coffee.
A “poly-caffeine dilettante” is easy to imagine. People shift easily from morning coffees to mid-morning lattes to midday energy drinks to late-afternoon Frappuccinos. E-proponents want you to remember how readily you order another cup of coffee as you think about the health effects of vaping. Both caffeine and nicotine can raise the heart rate, cause nausea, and even kill, but only in extraordinarily high doses that are hard to come by. “Nicotine has similar qualities as caffeine,” says Ray Story, head of the Tobacco Vapor Electronic Cigarette Association, an industry group. “The nicotine itself is not a deadly product.… If this product is sold within the parameters of what we feel is a responsible product, this product is basically harmless.”
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Because of e-cigarettes’ connection to conventional smoking, they will grow up in a different, and almost certainly tougher, regulatory environment than caffeine, which is also getting a closer look from FDA. In April, the agency said it would investigate the safety of caffeine in food, and Michael Taylor, deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, wondered whether the agency should limit caffeine in certain products. Caffeine withdrawal, joining nicotine withdrawal, was added to the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders this spring.
