Why is there no nicotine free tobacco on the market?

[Israel_B]

@JessicaHBlue

but I imagine a lot of people would still purchase a non-addictive (or at least less-addictive) alternative.

Who exactly is this imagined demographic?

[LutherBlisset]

Free of nicotine? I strongly assume that would only be possible with selective breeding or biotech, and would not be at all economically viable due to biological reasons. Nicotine is the main defence of Nicotiana tabacum against bugs and diseases. It is a very poisonous thing, after all.

The fermentation and further processing of tobacco is a fiddly thing, so I assume without a big financial incentive a search for a substitute which has a favourable flavour and a mild mouth-feel will not even commence. And, as others pointed out: it’s still toxic to inhale smoke.

There are plenty of herbs you could smoke without nicotine, but it will raise a lot of eyebrows. I used to have fun with that. But I wouldn’t have cigarettes made with completely legal herbal filling on me nowadays when travelling.

[Beanolini]

@Brainspore

Ben & Jerry never tried to bring “Totally Tobacco!” to market

You can get tobacco liquer, though…

[Snowlark]

@Donald_Petersen

when I was 40 I decided to smoke a cigarette just to find out why anyone would do it twice. It was a filtered Camel, and I smoked it down almost to the filter, and other than mild lightheadedness at the end, I could discern no noticeable effect whatsoever. I still don’t get it.

Me neither. I have a lot of coworkers who dip and/or smoke (yes, some do both, God help their gums) and I cannot for the life of me understand what they’re getting out of it that a good cup of coffee can’t provide.

And yes, I’ve smoked a cigarette on occasion (in my twenties).

[anon26940528]

@JessicaHBlue

I know the obvious reason would be that companies want to hook their customers to the addictive element of the product, but I imagine a lot of people would still purchase a non-addictive (or at least less-addictive) alternative.

The technical and engineering answer to your question is there is no reason. We can extract all kinds of things and re-add anything we please from a chemistry perspective. The process would have to be invented and refined, since the process of extracting nicotine for pharmaceuticals and e-cigarettes is likely to be unsuited to the kinds of characteristics you would be seeking, so it would have to be adapted.

But cigarette tobacco is already of exceedingly low quality, with many popular brands containing up to 70% reconstituted tobacco, which is not tobacco at all, but a sprayed tobacco paper product, so even a crappy nicotine-less product can likely be made into something that gives the same flavor.

As for whether it’s economically viable or wise, that’s a completely different issue. Now, they’d have to compete with e-cigs and smoking cessation products. But is it altogether economically unsound? It might help people satisfy an oral fixation while using nicotine patches, very similar to tobacco-less chew products on the market like Smokey Mountain, so I don’t think it’s ridiculous. Cigarettes are already very cheap to make, and much of the cost of a pack comes from taxation and markup. The additional cost of the removal process is probably minimal if you already have a lot of the infrastructure for making reconstituted tobacco, and it can likely be sold with no tobacco tax after nudging the authorities. So there is a market, it’s just a question of how big, and whether it’s worth it to go in that direction when you can go the e-cig route.