ABSTRACT
Nicotine is the major alkaloid in tobacco and is a minor alkaloid in a number of other plants of the Solanaceae family. Nicotine is a potent insecticide and has been marketed extensively for that purpose. Nicotine is well known to produce human intoxication and even death. Nicotine intoxication consequent to intensive tobacco smoking has been used by South American shamans to induce a state of simulated death from which a miraculous rebirth would occur, establishing the shaman's power over life and death. 1 Nicotine has also been a fatal poison involved in suicides, homicides, and accidental deaths.2 Thus, nicotine at high doses is poisonous and is widely viewed as one of the major toxins that contribute to tobacco-related disease.
