How much nicotine is in a JUUL®? We explore this from a few angles and explain why you should watch your nicotine consumption with JUUL®.
In the history of the vaping industry to date, the JUUL® is completely unique. Though the industry is now more than a decade old, no other vaping device has ever enjoyed the level of popularity that the JUUL® has. In the United States alone, about three out of four vaping devices sold in traditional retail outlets is a JUUL® – so it’s definitely a product you’ve heard of, whether you vape or not.
If you’ve heard of the JUUL®, you’ve definitely heard about its greatest selling point: its high-strength nicotine salt e-liquid that delivers nicotine almost as efficiently as a cigarette. The JUUL® might be the first vaping device, in fact, that you actually need to use with some care because it really is possible to consume too much nicotine with the JUUL® if you use multiple pods per day.
So, how much nicotine is in a JUUL®? In this article, we’re going to explore that question from a few different angles and explain why you should watch your nicotine consumption with the JUUL®.
What Is JUUL®’s Nicotine Strength?
JUUL® pods are available in most of the world’s major vaping markets, and the nicotine strengths of the pods vary according to the needs and the laws of the markets in which they’re sold. Here at Premium Vape, we source our JUUL® pods from licensed distributors around the world and carry pods made for the US, UK and Canadian markets. That puts us in the unique position of being able to provide JUUL® pods to our customers in three nicotine strengths of 1.6%, 3% and 5%. Here’s how those nicotine percentages equate to the standard milligram strengths that you see on bottled e-liquids.
- 1.6%: 16 mg/ml
- 3%: 30 mg/ml
- 5%: 50 mg/ml
How Much Nicotine Is In a JUUL® Pod?
Each JUUL® pod contains about 0.7 ml of e-liquid. Knowing that, you can calculate the approximate amount of total nicotine in each pod.
- 1.6%: 11.2 mg
- 3%: 21 mg
- 5%: 35 mg
With this information in mind, it’s easy to see why using multiple JUUL® pods per day could be a potential health concern. If you’re using two pods per day at the 5% nicotine strength, you’re inhaling 70 mg of nicotine per day. Is that a lot of nicotine? Let’s examine how JUUL® compares to the amount of nicotine that you get from smoking.
How Many Cigarettes are in a JUUL® Pod?
According to the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a single cigarette contains about 1-2 mg of bioavailable nicotine. Bioavailability refers to the amount of nicotine that enters your bloodstream, regardless of the amount of nicotine in the cigarette itself. That means you’ll get approximately 20-40 mg of nicotine from a pack of 20 cigarettes.
When you consume any drug, only a portion of the active ingredient will actually reach your bloodstream. That’s the bioavailable portion of the drug. Just as with a cigarette, an e-liquid has a portion that’s bioavailable and a portion that’s wasted. We don’t know exactly how much of the nicotine in a JUUL® pod is bioavailable, but as you’ve seen from the information above, two JUUL® pods may contain as much nicotine as roughly three packs of cigarettes. We recommend using no more than one JUUL® pod per day unless you’re certain that you need more.
How Many Puffs are in a JUUL® Pod?
Officially, JUUL® pods are good for about 200 puffs each – but some people have reported getting up to 300 puffs from their pods. The actual number of puffs that you get will depend on how long your puffs are. Companies in the vaping industry usually measure the capacities of their pods or cartridges using machines that puff for 2-3 seconds at a time.
If you’re a pack-a-day smoker and vape at about the same pace and frequency that you would use when smoking cigarettes, you’ll probably find that a JUUL® pod lasts through a full day of vaping.
Can I Use JUUL® to Reduce or Quit Nicotine?
Yes. With the selection of JUUL® pods that we offer here at Premium Vape, it’s easy to use the JUUL® to reduce your nicotine intake if you like. With refillable JUUL® pods, you can even drop below the lowest JUUL® pod strength of 1.6% and ease your nicotine intake all the way down to zero if you like. Although nicotine salt e-liquid generally isn’t available in strengths below about 20 mg, you can find freebase nicotine e-liquid in lower strengths such as 18, 16, 11, 9, 6 and 3 mg. Fill your JUUL® pods with lower-strength e-liquids until you work your way down to nicotine-free e-liquid.
JUUL® pods have small wicks that may not work well with very thick e-liquids. When you begin using freebase nicotine e-liquid, we recommend avoiding “High-VG” or “Max-VG” e-liquids due to the thickness of those juices.
What’s Special About JUUL®’s Nicotine Salt?
The JUUL® brand earned instant fame upon its release in 2015 because the brand’s maker – PAX Labs – patented the product’s nicotine salt e-liquid formulation. When the JUUL® e-cigarette was released, PAX Labs distributed charts showing that the JUUL® could produce nearly the same blood-nicotine levels that one would get from smoking a cigarette. That was more than enough to sell smokers on the JUUL®, and the device took off immediately.
JUUL®’s nicotine salt e-liquid is special because it uses benzoic acid to neutralize the pH of the nicotine, which is very alkaline in freebase nicotine e-liquids. The high alkalinity of freebase nicotine e-liquid makes it harsh at high nicotine strengths. The presence of benzoic acid in JUUL® pods smooths out that harshness, making it possible to create an e-liquid with a high nicotine strength of 5% that’s still completely pleasurable to use.
Today, nicotine salt e-liquid is no longer rare; virtually every pod system that we sell here at Premium Vape uses nicotine salt. JUUL® was the first brand out of the gate with a nicotine salt e-liquid formulation, though, and that has helped to make JUUL® the world’s most popular vaping product.
