Comment by theGeatZhopa

16 hours ago

Evolution:

The next will be nicotine free tobacco. .. the leafs will be watered for a undisclosed amount of time to remove the nicotine as it's water soluble. It's like decaffeinated coffee - it's when you need this tastes but your heart can't take it anymore :)

That has already been a thing that has existed.

I once successfully quit smoking by buying a pack of cigarettes made with tobacco that had been cleansed of its nicotine. I bought them one evening on the way home from work.

That first night was rough because nicotine withdraw be like that. The second day was still not great, but it was easier. By the third day, I'd had enough. On about the fourth day, I threw the rest away because they were just tiresome.

They were lousy. They tasted terrible compared to my usual brand. And smoking them did nothing to quench my addiction-driven craving for nicotine -- the reward for my brain and my body simply wasn't being delivered.

And it worked.

---

My theory for the method of operation goes something like this:

My brain was used to pushing the button and receiving candy, and it needed that candy (or at least it thought that it did).

But this was disruptive of that: The button was still there and I could push it freely. But no matter how many times I pushed it, no candy was received. This went on just long enough that I no longer felt compelled to need candy (because nicotine addiction had enough time to fade out).

This has effectively been a product for many years, 22nd Century Group sells very low nicotine tobacco smoking cessation products.

If you can also keep the usual tobacco-processing chemicals and other additives out, is the bare leaf, nicotine-free, arguably no worse than other common vices ?

  • Generally I would say that burning(flame/smoldering) anything is bad for you. Even simplest hydrocarbons (methane, propane, butane) with imperfect combustion have negative effects. You can make it slightly better, but smoke is most likely always carcinogenic.