Are tobacco extracts harmful?

Tobacco leaf, like all 'plant matrices', lends itself to being used to extract the molecules and organic fractions that distinguish it and constitute it. Tobacco leaves contain both the substances that characterise its aroma, or rather its taste, and nicotine.

ARE TOBACCO EXTRACTS HARMFUL?

I read this question in a post in which I see myself tagged, it's midnight, a bit tired to enter the discussion.... I will answer tomorrow I tell myself. But insomnia does the rest: it is 3:30 I read the 3D with great interest and thanks to my insomnia I decide to write this little article. I've been wanting to talk about it for a long time, I'd say a good cue to do it now.

The first answer that comes to me.... Is another question: why should they harm?

Joking aside, let us begin by analysing the subject.

What a banal statement, one might say! I will try to explain: tobacco and in particular its leaves are in principle plants, i.e. organisms distinguishable by being made up of cells covered by a cellulose wall. They are autotrophic and are therefore able to develop, or rather synthesise their organic molecules from inorganic substances using energy derived from the photosynthesis cycle... ALT that's enough: in these two lines there is an important first piece of information: in plants we can find inorganic substances such as metals and minerals present in the soil. But for example arsenic is everywhere, in water, in almost all other foods, starting with salad, no one that I know raised the question of how much arsenic there is in a salad leaf, or in a carrot spinach, and how much is at most advisable to consume in a day.

Having said that, we are only talking about tobacco leaves, nobody really cares about carrots here!

Tobacco leaf, like all 'plant matrices', lends itself to being used to extract the molecules and organic fractions that distinguish it and constitute it. Tobacco leaves contain both the substances that characterise its aroma, or rather its taste, and nicotine (a strange combination, the most common tobacco plant is callednicotiana tabacum which, as a joke of nature, belongs to the solanaceae genus, like the tomato and aubergine). The difference is that not all solanaceae contain alkaloids such as nicotine in significant quantities, nicotine that is available in tobacco leaves.

o I take a tobacco leaf, squeeze it, crush it and take the nicotine! It doesn't work like that, except if I burn it and inhale the products and by-products of combustion directly with a nice cigarette. Of course, the price you pay for taking nicotine by smoking is inhaling a staggering amount of toxic, carcinogenic substances that we vapers have been talking about for a long time, saying we don't!! NO, we don't!!!!.

I was saying... Nicotine is present but to extract it I have to work and use a specific method (infusions, acidifications, concentrations, distillations and purifications), otherwise it tends to stay where it is, preferring certain parts of the leaf over others.

The same does not happen with the aromatic fractions, which are instead more available and malleable. The result of these considerations is that the aromatic fractions can easily be extracted from tobacco leaves, but that it is more difficult to extract nicotine, metals or, on the contrary... Here we go again: if man were not involved, everything would be OK!

In fact, growers generally use pesticides, cigar and cigarette manufacturers carry out chemical treatments of the leaves to make them fit for use: for example, they use sweeteners and flavourings. But after all, I think it matters little what is absorbed in the leaf to those who market products that lead to death from cancer and other diseases. We liquid manufacturers have these raw materials at our disposal and we must immediately start selecting and discarding them. We must point out for the sake of accuracy that the availability of phytochemicals to our bodies is different if we are talking about inhaling a vapour or inhaling a combustion product, that is another matter.

Vaping values health, so I find it only a matter of common sense and logic to ask the question of whether vaping a liquid made from tobacco could potentially be as harmful as a cigarette to our health.

So to sum up: I don't find nicotine in extracts but can I find other junk? Certainly YES!

Extractions in glycol

The extraction process that we developed at Blendfeel for the preparation of the slowVape line, in early 2014 I came up with the idea and designed and built this small plant, uses propylene glycol as a carrier by working on osmotic pressure variations within the plant matrix. A PLC runs the plant and thanks to it we can decide how to make these variations happen to achieve maximum extraction efficiency.

Unfortunately, extraction is not selective, so just as it is true that nicotine is extracted in insignificant concentrations, it is also true that I can find different substances in undesirable concentrations. If the farmer has used plant protection products and has not respected the deficiency times (i.e. the times with which the plant protection product is safe for human use, even if we are talking about tobacco to be burnt) I can find these unwanted and potentially more harmful substances than nicotine in my liquid.

Upstream of everything is therefore the selection of raw materials, and downstream the mass spectrometry and other checks (e.g. verification of bacterial loads and metals) of the extraction to ensure that it is 'clean'.

Perhaps this is why there has been talk several times of harmful tobacco extracts, which some people believed (even some colleagues to be precise) that we 'of macerate' 'liquidaires' were some kind of glycol-soaked phytochemical killers; unfortunately, sometimes not knowing makes all the difference.

t is also true that I too, when I have had the opportunity, have advised against doing these activities at home because it is not possible to do post-production quality control, but above all because by buying non-agricultural tobacco, you are buying tobacco treated in who knows what way by the 'tobacconist'. But then again, the farmer's wine is the best, too bad if it gives you a sour stomach, but it is made from real grapes and pressed by foot :-)

But then let's talk about aromas

Exactly! Even with tobacco extracts we are talking about aromas. Do we want to call them analogical? In my opinion, it fits: precisely because extractions are not selective, the range of molecules that can be extracted is wide and difficult to reconstruct synthetically.

An MP3 is a compressed copy of an analogic record in which all frequencies are reproduced as opposed to a file that has sampled only those most significant to our ear. The nuances of a vinyl record are priceless to an audiophile, which is why those who like extract tobaccos in general are disinclined to vape synthetically produced (?) tobaccos, as exactly the opposite is true. It happens that a liquid produced with natural or synthetic flavourings is strangely described as tobaccous, but tobacco cannot even be seen with binoculars. Therein lies the beauty of vaping, in the end everyone finds what suits their tastes and opinions.

A synthetic product is inherently safer, I have chosen exactly which molecules to use and only those (I wish!). But there is a practical problem, flavourings contain molecules that need to be classified in order to check their limit concentration, otherwise we risk doing worse.

You can say it:

- Phew... How boring you are!

-Thank you ! I know!

Natural tobacco extracts are therefore no different, if produced with quality control behind them, from other flavourings. There are so many varieties of tobacco, I would say that the quantity is embarrassing and therefore extractions with completely different characteristics can be made. However, we must first understand what it means to go from a lush tobacco leaf to one that is treated, dried and ready for chopping. In short, we need to understand what is the best time and what type of tobacco to use.

One thing is certain, once tobacco extracts have been prepared, their use requires a specific use in terms of solubilisation time and concentration. On this subject, rivers of words have been spent, many technically correct things have been said, but sometimes spreading urban legends and some even talking like Haitian holy men dedicated to Voodoo rites.

But macerated tobaccos destroy resistances and therefore hurt

It's not really on topic but I would talk a little about that too. Once the extraction has been produced, which I don't like at all and find it improper to speak of 'macerated', it is necessary to filter it, and also to think about diluting it if that is the case. When the latakia comes out of our system it resembles (only in appearance, of course) the exhausted oil from a farm tractor, the subsequent filtration treatments bring it to its so-called shiny state gradually eliminating the coarser fractions of the residual vegetable matrix and allowing it to be used for longer without the need to regenerate. It is necessary in this case to optimise aromatic yield with respect to durability and the consequent need to maintain the system.

Let us therefore clarify that if a tobacco of this type requires regeneration after 15/20 ml, it does not mean that it is harmful, but only that the residue deposited on the coil due to the typical characteristic of the product has reduced the efficiency of the system, which in the end produces heat with the resistive wire insulated by this sleeve of organic material: the temperature rises in the wire, the sleeve insulates, vaporisation is lower and in the end the sleeve carbonises releasing an unpleasant taste..

I would say then that using a remanufacturable atomiser is the best solution, as it seems as a rule that those who use these products prefer the so-called 'cheek shot'. Another good topic to which I want to return ... there are many things to say!

By the way, the reference image for this article I took with our microscope with these parameters:

-Kentucky extract

-1000x magnification

-Camera 16Mp