Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jan 1:266:112508.
doi: 10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2024.112508. Epub 2024 Nov 28.

Dose by design: How limits on nicotine flux and puff duration affect the abuse liability of electronic nicotine delivery systems

Rose S Bono  1 , Augustus M White  1 , Rabia Imran  2 , Gabrielle T Maldonado  2 , Thokozeni Lipato  3 , Andrew J Barnes  4 , Caroline O Cobb  2
Affiliations

Dose by design: How limits on nicotine flux and puff duration affect the abuse liability of electronic nicotine delivery systems

Rose S Bono et al. Drug Alcohol Depend. .

Abstract

Introduction: Electronic nicotine delivery system (ENDS) product standards for nicotine flux (nicotine emitted/second), combined with limiting puff duration, could control nicotine dose and support ENDS regulations. We assessed behavioral and subjective abuse liability indices for ENDS varying in nicotine flux with fixed puff duration among people who smoke.

Methods: This within-subjects study included 32 adults who smoked cigarettes. Own-brand cigarettes (OB) and four unflavored ENDS were evaluated: no-flux (0μg/s), low-flux (36.01μg/s), cigarette-like-flux (90.03μg/s), and high-flux (180.06μg/s), with ENDS puff duration limited to 2s. Outcomes from behavioral economic choice tasks included demand intensity (drug purchase task [DPT]), cross-price elasticity (cross-product DPT), puffs earned (progressive ratio task [PRT]), and breakpoint (cross-product PRT). Subjective effects were nicotine abstinence symptoms (NAS), aversive effects, product liking, and sensation. Condition differences were analyzed using linear mixed models.

Results: All ENDS were associated with significantly lower demand intensity, puffs earned, NAS suppression, and liking compared to OB, yet would serve as OB substitutes. Low-flux ENDS were a significantly stronger OB substitute than cigarette-like-flux ENDS, and were associated with more puffs earned than no and high-flux ENDS. Compared with other ENDS, high-flux ENDS generally reduced NAS more, were less pleasant, tasted worse and produced more intense harshness/irritancy and throat hit.

Conclusions: ENDS abuse liability and substitution potential varies by nicotine dose, which could be controlled via product standards integrating nicotine flux and puff duration. ENDS that exceed a cigarette nicotine dose may not be necessary to encourage transition from cigarettes to ENDS.

Keywords: Abuse liability; Clinical laboratory; Electronic nicotine delivery systems; Nicotine flux; Subjective effects.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Soule EK, Mayne S, Snipes W, Do EK, Theall T, Hochsmann C, Talih S, Martin CK, Eissenberg T, Fuemmeler BF. Electronic cigarette nicotine flux, nicotine yield, and particulate matter emissions: Impact of device and liquid heterogeneity. Nicotine Tob Res 2023;25(3):412–420. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Kennedy RD, Awopegba A, De Leon E, Cohen JE. Global approaches to regulating electronic cigarettes. Tob Control 2017;26:440–445. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Girvalaki C, Vardavas A, Tzatzarakis M, Kyriakos CN, Nikitara K, Tsatsakis AM, Vardavas CI. Compliance of e-cigarette refill liquids with regulations on labelling, packaging and technical design characteristics in nine European member states. Tob Control 2020;29(5):531–536. doi: 10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2019-055061. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Bębenek PK, Gholap V, Halquist M, Sobczak A, Kośmider L. E-liquids from seven European countries-warnings analysis and freebase nicotine content. Toxics 2022;10(2):51. doi: 10.3390/toxics10020051. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Moore G, Hallingberg B, Brown R, McKell J, Van Godwin J, Bauld L, Gray L, Maynard O, Mackintosh AM, Munafò M, Blackwell A, Lowthian E, Page N. Impacts of EU Tobacco Products Directive regulations on use of e-cigarettes in adolescents in Great Britain: a natural experiment evaluation. Public Health Res (Southampt) 2023;11(5):1–102. doi: 10.3310/WTMH3198. - DOI - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources