"We're not denying smokers their right to tobacco products. We're just choosing not to hire them."

[Mosby]

148. You're addicted to the free base nicotine in cigs

Last edited Fri Jan 6, 2012, 08:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Nicotine replacement therapies(NRTs) break that addiction by replacing the highly addictive nicotine in tobacco with non-addictive liquid nicotine. Once a smoker makes the transition its fairly easy to taper off the NRT.

I used the nicotrol inhaler to quit (almost 3 years ago), followed the European guidelines and I hate to say this but it was pretty easy. I used to smoke 40 cigs a day and could not even cut down to one pack until I tried the inhaler.

Phillip Morris figured out how to free base nicotine around 1965, their two main brands at the time, Marlboro and Kool shot to the top of the best selling brands very soon after. Interestingly tobacco is freebased the same way as with coke, heat and ammonia. There are also a lot of additives in cigs that makes the smoke "smoother" so one can inhale more for longer.

Edit - I should add that before the manufacturers started freebasing nicotine cigs still had a fair amount because the burning of tobacco results in some of the liquid nicotine converting into vaporous nicotine. Some researcher in Colorado has been testing the vapor nicotine and so far the worse one (by a mile) are the natural American Indian brand.