In message , Michael
Berridge writes

Nick Maclaren wrote in message ...

In article ,
(Steve Harris) writes:
| In article ,
| (Alan Gould) wrote:
|
| A few fag ends infused in water overnight would make a very
| effective insecticide, but it caused a lot of health and safety
| problems.
|
| But surely this insecticide is pretty organic? :-)

Organic, biodegradable and generally ecologically good. Not so
safe for humans, though ....


Nicotine in itself is not that harmful, otherwise you wouldn't get
nicotine patches to help you kick the smoking habit. It is the by
products of setting light to it, and all the other chemicals that have
been added, that cause the problems.

Nicotine is a remarkably deadly poison! You can just about extract LD50
for humans from a couple of cigarettes using the right solvents. What
protects smokers is that burning is a very inefficient way to absorb it.
And addict patches contain only tiny amounts of the active ingredient.

As an insecticide it also had the annoying problem of frequently being
contaminated with tobacco mosaic virus. And despite it's name the TMV is
rather promiscuous about the plants it will infect. In the days when
nicotine was still licenced for greenhouse use it caused serious
operator casualties. Mistakes with nicotine extract could be severely
punished because of its high mammalian toxicity and skin penetration.

Regards,
--
Martin Brown