Nicotine Insecticide

The historical use of tobacco was for smoking. The Native American culture considered it medicinal and used it as part of their ceremonies. But after immigrants came to the new world and technology started to blossom in the mid 1700s, new uses were discovered.

In the early to mid 1700s, people started to use tobacco extract on plants to keep pests away. After Posselt and Reimann, who were German chemists studying the tobacco plant, first isolated nicotine out of its leaves in 1828. They considered the substance a poison and indeed it was and is a very potent toxin. A mere 40 milligrams of this concentrated substance is enough to kill an adult.

A few years later nicotine sulfate, a form of extracted nicotine, was a popular pest control agent. Marketed as “Black Leaf 40,” named for nicotine sulfate’s ability to concentrate the active ingredient to a whopping 40 percent, it proved a formidable ally in the war against bugs. It was also used in things like rat poison as well.

In 1992 however, the EPA canceled the product registration of Black Leaf 40 due to the toxicity of the product. It may also be due to the misuse of the nicotine sulfate, some of the more adventurous of smokers used it on themselves instead of on the cabbage worm. One grocery store worker even misused the pesticide to poison beef, sickening over 90 people and sending two to the hospital.

The fact that someone would go to such lengths should prove nicotine’s addictive properties, but it was not until 1988 that the US Surgeon General declared nicotine was addictive, even as much as cocaine and other illegal drugs. As with many useful chemicals that government agencies have regulated out of existence, DDT, asbestos, lead and nicotine sulfate for example, there are many chemicals being developed to replace them. We’ll see how many of them will be better or worse for the public health in another 100 years.

Resources:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/05/dayintech_0516
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5218a3.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Leaf_40

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