A vape is definitely not a less addictive form, I can attest to that. But especially with the patch, and to a lesser extend with gum, it’s not that addictive to (most) people who that never had a cigarette/vaping/dipping/pouching addiction. Gum is probably still more addictive than coffee but I would guess it’s at least closer to that of coffee than inhaling it.
In the past, when I've heard the 'less additive form', it was in contrast to nicotine from tobacco, where there are other chemicals and compounds at play. While it's true ROA can be a big part of habit formation, I'd argue it's a stretch to call it different form when it's the same chemical in either case.
tbf tho, I am somewhat contradicting another comment I made about bioavailability on this very gp thread so suffice to say, I do understand your point.
I mean they quite literally come in completely different forms of products, but I get your point. I thought nicotine vs tobacco was mostly important for health risk, with the exception of cigarettes which IIRC have all sorts of nasty stuff added or in trace amounts.
That's also my understanding, and nicotine has some other strange health benefits - for instance, it's a better schizophrenia treatment (for symptom relief) than the actual medications for it, which is why almost all schizophrenics smoke.
On the other hand, I just looked at Twitter and saw two different people get ~$3000 payments from a class action lawsuit against Juul, which is by far the biggest payment I've ever heard of from a class action signup, so I suspect they're about to die.
