Replies

People forget that nicotine is used as an ingredient in insecticide (until very recently). As such, it is quite harmful to humans in higher doses.

Poor logic. Plants are engaged in a timeless chemical war with insects. How many of the thousands of chemicals within a typical salad would, if concentrated, make a potent insecticide? Your conclusion is valid, since everything is harmful to humans in a high enough dosage. But it has nothing to do with the use of nicotine as an insecticide. Mammals and insects are very different, and we have a much more powerful and complex digestive system to deal with the multitude of "insecticides" we consume daily. Therefore, we can eat nicotine laden vegetables (most of us do daily, since nicotine is found in many common garden vegetables), and we can also consume tobacco itself (not the kind produced today), since it was essentially a salad vegetable. Some trendy restaurants are now even using tobacco as an ingredient.