When you make the switch from smoking to vaping, choosing which type of vape you’re going to use is only one of the decisions you’ll have to make. You’ll also need to choose the nicotine strength of your device or e-liquid, and you can’t do that without a point of comparison. You need to know how much nicotine is in a cigarette.
Even if you’re not new to vaping, it’s still important to understand how much nicotine you’re consuming because some people enjoy the flavor so much that they end up vaping almost constantly without really pausing to think about how much nicotine they’re using. If you understand how much nicotine is in a cigarette, you can use that as a baseline to understand whether your nicotine usage is too much or just right.
In this guide, we’ll explain what you need to know.
Measuring How Much Nicotine Is in a Cigarette
If you’ve looked elsewhere for information about how much nicotine is in a cigarette before landing on this article, you’ve probably seen a fairly wide range of numbers. That’s because it’s not easy to put a concrete number on a cigarette’s nicotine content. Different brands have differing amounts of nicotine, and there are also three methods for measuring the milligrams of nicotine in a cigarette.
Let’s examine those three methods.
Measuring the Nicotine in the Tobacco
The tobacco in a cigarette contains between 6.17 and 28.86 mg of nicotine before it is smoked.
One way to determine a cigarette’s nicotine content is by measuring the nicotine in the tobacco using liquid chromatography. In 2012, the journal Addiction & Health published a study in which this was done. The researchers who compiled the study tested 25 different brands of cigarettes and found that their nicotine content ranged from 6.17 to 28.86 mg per cigarette.
Measuring the Nicotine in the Smoke
When they’re measured by automatic smoking machines, the most commonly sold cigarettes deliver between 0.61 and 3.00 mg of nicotine.
Another way of measuring how much nicotine is in a cigarette is by using an automatic smoking machine to calculate the amount of nicotine in the smoke. This is also known as the nicotine yield of the cigarette.
In 2020, the journal Preventing Chronic Disease published a review of the manufacturer-reported nicotine yields of cigarettes sold in the United States from 2013 to 2016 and found that their nicotine content as measured by smoking machines ranged from 0.10 to 3.00 mg per cigarette.
Over 70 percent of all cigarettes sold during that time, however, fell into two categories: low yield (0.61-0.80 mg per cigarette; 30.7 percent of cigarettes sold) and high yield (0.91-3.00 mg per cigarette; 41.5 percent of cigarettes sold).
The actual nicotine yield of a cigarette is typically lower than the nicotine content of the tobacco as measured by liquid chromatography for two reasons.
- A cigarette burns even when it isn’t being puffed on, so some of the nicotine simply burns away.
- One of the reasons why low-yield cigarettes contain low amounts of nicotine when measured by smoking machines is because they have perforations in their papers that introduce more air into the stream, reducing nicotine readings.
Measuring the Nicotine that Reaches the Bloodstream
The average smoker absorbs 1.04 mg of nicotine into their bloodstream when smoking a cigarette. That’s about 80-90 percent of the nicotine contained in the smoke.
The final way of measuring how much nicotine is in a cigarette is by calculating the amount of nicotine that actually reaches the smoker’s bloodstream. In 1984, the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics did this by sampling the blood and urine of 22 smokers. In this study, the average nicotine absorbed per cigarette was 1.04 mg.
The study concluded that that a smoker’s daily nicotine intake depends mainly on the number of cigarettes he or she smokes per day and not on the type of cigarette. In other words, whether you smoke a full-flavored or “light” cigarette brand, your daily nicotine intake is probably about the same. That’s for two reasons.
- The main reason why “light” cigarettes have low nicotine yields when measured by smoking machines is because they have perforated papers. People often cover the perforations with their fingers or mouths when smoking the cigarettes. They also tend to inhale more deeply than they would with full-flavored cigarettes.
- People who smoke “light” cigarettes also tend to smoke more cigarettes per day.
Also, not all of the nicotine that you inhale will actually reach your bloodstream. Some of it will be neutralized by your body and will essentially have no effect. The difference between the amount of a drug consumed and the amount absorbed into the bloodstream is its bioavailability. That’s going to become important when you try to compare the nicotine in a cigarette to a vape.
According to a paper published by the United Kingdom Committee on Toxicity in 2022, the nicotine bioavailability of a cigarette is about 80-90 percent.
How Does the Nicotine in a Vape Compare to Cigarettes?
If you’re using a vape with a nicotine strength of 50+ mg/ml, you will need to puff on it about 130-300 times per day to equal one pack of cigarettes. That’s about 6-15 puffs to equal one cigarette, depending on the length of your puffs.
Reading this article, you’ve learned that you absorb a little over 1 mg of nicotine into your system when you smoke an average cigarette, although that’s not exactly the same as the nicotine content of a cigarette due to bioavailability factors. Bioavailability is also a factor when you vape. You can’t assume that every mg of nicotine in your e-liquid or vaping device equals one cigarette because not all of the nicotine that you inhale when you vape will actually reach your bloodstream.
So, how many puffs of a vape equal one cigarette? In 2022, the journal Tobacco Control published a study comparing the nicotine delivery of a pre-filled pod system with a nicotine strength of 59 mg/ml to cigarettes. The pod system used nicotine salt e-liquid. The study found that:
- The nicotine in the tested product had a bioavailability of about 68 percent. This is markedly lower than the bioavailability of the nicotine in a cigarette.
- Puffing on the product 200 times per day would provide the equivalent of 13-30 cigarettes, depending on the length of each puff.
- As people gain vaping experience, their blood-nicotine levels begin to approach those of a smoker. This suggests that people are able to increase their satisfaction levels as they learn how to vape. It also corroborates other studies showing that experienced vapers automatically adjust how often they puff until they achieve their desired satisfaction level.
What Nicotine Strength Should You Use to Equal a Cigarette?
Based on everything you’ve learned from this guide, it’s appropriate to conclude that if you’re using a small vaping device such as a pod system or disposable vape, you should generally use the highest nicotine strength available in your region if you want your vape to come close to equaling a cigarette on a puff-for-puff basis.
This assertion is supported by a study published in the journal Scientific Reports in 2014. The study states that a small vape needs to have a nicotine strength of about 50 mg/ml in order to provide nicotine delivery close to that of a cigarette.
With that having been said, you shouldn’t be surprised if you find yourself puffing on your vape more times per day than you would have puffed on cigarettes because of the difference in bioavailability. While the nicotine in cigarette smoke has a bioavailability of 80-90 percent, studies suggest that only about 68 percent of the nicotine in e-cigarette vapor is absorbed into the bloodstream.
If you live in Europe, the United Kingdom or Canada, vapes are limited in your region to a maximum nicotine strength of 20 mg/ml – so in that case, you’ll probably need to take significantly more than 130-300 puffs per day to equal a pack of cigarettes. If you use disposable vapes and find that they don’t seem to last very long, now you know why. Consider the Innokin Endura S1 as an alternative. It offers the convenience of a disposable, but it lasts much longer since you can refill it.
It's also important to note that using an e-liquid with a high nicotine strength isn’t recommended if you’re using a more powerful vaping device designed for RDL or DTL inhaling. The more vapor your device produces, the lower the nicotine concentration of your e-liquid should be.
Final Thoughts
Reading this article, you’ve learned that there are many different answers to the question of how much nicotine is in a cigarette because of the variability between cigarette brands and measuring standards. The key takeaways that you should remember are:
- A typical cigarette contains around 1 mg of bioavailable nicotine.
- However, a mg of nicotine in a vape equal a cigarette because the nicotine in cigarette smoke is more bioavailable than e-cigarette vapor.
- If you’re using a vape with a nicotine strength of around 50 mg/ml, you’ll need to take somewhere between about 130 long puffs and 300 short puffs per day to equal a pack of cigarettes.
- If you’re in a region where vapes have a maximum nicotine strength of 20 mg/ml, you may need to take more than 300 puffs per day to equal a pack of cigarettes.
At Innokin, we pride ourselves on making the best vapes on the market for new vapers. Browse our products now or find out where you can buy Innokin vapes near you.
