From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Subject: Re: Nicotine toxicology
Date: 19 May 1997
Newsgroups: sci.med,bionet.toxicology,sci.med.pathology

In <337FDD73.331D@primenet.com> Dan Cole <dancole@primenet.com> writes:

>The killer made two mistakes in the "Columbo" plot:  1) Nicotine sulfate
>is supposedly not present in cigarette smoke, but the medical examiner
>found it in extraordinary amounts in the victim's tissues, concluding
>that the cause of death was respiratory arrest due to poisoning;


   Obviously you want to free-base that nicotene sulfate (a white
powder), in order to get something more volitile (nicotene free base,
which is a liquid).  Cigarette companies do this, you know-- they treat
tobacco leaves with varying amounts of ammonia to free-base more of the
nicotene alkaloid, which occurs in varying concentrations of
quarternary salt in leaves.  This gives them more volitile nicotene,
and a bigger charge.  Silly Columbo plot there, as by the time you
vaporized nicotene salts and got them into tissues by inhalation, it
would be quite impossible to tell what salt form the nicotene had
originally been in.  An anion is an anion, after all, and once nicotene
salt hits tissue, you have all the tissue anions to cover things.  It's
not like the sulfate is bonded to the molecule or anything.  It's a
SALT.  A solution of it probably wouldn't make a cigarette dangerous,
unless you smoked it with a blowtorch, crack-style.

                                       Steve Harris, M.D.

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Smoking was Re: Mathematician Jokes
Date: 10 Nov 1999 12:12:09 GMT

In <8096bt$bh4$10@autumn.news.rcn.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:
>
>In article <806lbl$foq$2@miranda.gmrc.gecm.com>,
>   rnh@gmrc.gecm.com (Richard Herring) wrote:
>>In article <803p6h$qse$1@autumn.news.rcn.net>, jmfbahciv@aol.com wrote:
>>
>>> It just happens that smoking also alleviates pain.  So I do enjoy
>>> it.
>>
>>Er, smoking *what*, precisely?
>
>Camels.  Nicotine is a marvelous pain drug...but so addictive
>that doctors say they won't prescribe it.


   I prescribe it all the time.  But not with smoke.  That would be
dumb.

   Besides nicotene, various other ways of getting cholinergic tone up
in the brain are under study as pain relievers.  There a trial going on
now using Tacrine as an augmentation for for dental procedure
analgesics (Tacrin is the more or less defunct Cognex, an Alzheimer's
treatment drug replaced by Aricept-- which BTW, should also be good for
pain, perhaps even long term chronic pain).

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Re: Smoking was Re: Mathematician Jokes
Date: 11 Nov 1999 05:23:10 GMT

In <80bqgt$r29$4@autumn.news.rcn.net> jmfbahciv@aol.com writes:

>>>Camels.  Nicotine is a marvelous pain drug...but so addictive
>>>that doctors say they won't prescribe it.
>>
>>   I prescribe it all the time.  But not with smoke.  That would be
>>dumb.
>
>Another advantage is that I don't have to sit in the
>doctor's office in order to get the drug.  I don't have
>to get involved with the medical insurance mess.


   You don't if you buy it as patchs or gum, either, both of which are
now available, over the counter without a prescription.

   Which reminds me a party I once attended when a resident doctor, in
1985, in which I sat and wrote PRN prescriptions, no questions acked,
for nicotene gum for any smoker who wanted it.  My colleages were
aghast at such malpractice.  I knew nothing about these people?  What
about the doctor-patient relationship?  The very idea that people could
have access to this stuff so easily.  I'd be lucky if they didn't take
away my licence....

   Well, they didn't.  I wonder what the same guys think of over the
counter nicorette gum now?  And patches?  Not to mention over the
counter cimetidine/Tagamet and ranitidine/Zantac, both of which were
hot Rx drugs when I was an intern?  And OTC Motrin and Naprosyn, both
of which are just as dangerous as when they were Rx only, killing aroud
15,000 people a year (the Rx NSAIDS like Celebrex being far safer, go
figure).   And what are today's orthodox folks going to think of over
the counter Prozac and Zoloft, both of which are surely coming in the
next 5 years?  Why, the very idea!  They are going to have coronaries
at the idea of people treating their own depression.