Comment by gwern

> The market responds to informed consumers by providing nicotine without the tobacco.

Well, once tobacco has been socially stigmatized and huge taxes placed on it, anyway. I'm not sure nicotine gum/patches/e-cigs existed before the War on Smoking. I expect you could buy purified nicotine oil from chemical suppliers, but it'd be up to you to figure out how to use it (and do so without killing yourself).