||Is nicotine only in cigarettes or is it in other types of tobacco products (like cigar or pipe tobacco) too?|
||Though cigarettes are the predominant tobacco-delivery device today, pipe tobacco, cigarillos, cigars, tobacco snuff and chewing tobacco are all produced with dried leaves of the tobacco plant, which contains nicotine.|
Nicotiana tabacum is the most prevalent species in modern tobacco production. Nicotiana rustica is a more potent plant, containing a higher percentage of nicotine. It is used to produce pesticides. Other species, such as Nicotiana attenuata, Nicotiana bigelovii, or Nicotiana palmeri, are examples of wild species that have been used ritually for centuries in a wide variety of ways by American Indians. Nicotine was first isolated from tobacco plants in 1828.
Before the 20th century, tobacco was predominantly smoked in pipes or cigars, or used as snuff. With the invention of the cigarette rolling-machine in 1881, the production of cigarettes experienced an immense growth. In 1900 about 2.5 billion cigarettes were sold in the United States, climbing up to 118.6 billion in 1929. The maximum was reached in 1980 with 631.5 billion.
For more of this sort of basic information about psychoactive plants and drugs, see:
From Chocolate to Morphine: Everything You Need to Know about Mind-Altering Drugs by Andrew Weil and Winifred Rosen
Uppers, Downers, All Arounders: Physical and Mental Effects of Psychoactive Drugs by Darryl Inaba, William Cohen and Michael Holstein
...and of course, the Tobacco Vault has relevant links.
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