Blue Boar Pipe 1.45
Weldon Slice 1.84
Hudson Bay Imperial 1.95
Gilbert’s Mixture 2.09
“Denicotinized”
Dormy Smoking 2.26
Sackett .98
O-Nic-O .97
In short, the average for all brands tested stood 1.77 percent
nicotine straight and 1.28 percent still in the “denicotinized”
products. Seventy-two percent of the nicotine remains behind. The
process is, like the process of removing caffeine from coffees, very
largely bunk but it is bunk that makes the American people spend
their money, as Barnum very well knew. A person can with considerable
ease select an ordinary tobacco which is so near the nicotine content
of the “denicotinized” varieties that he scarcely seems justified in
paying the higher prices for the treated product.
Was ever a nation so neurotic over its health as ours? European
observers are constantly amazed at the imbecile delight we show in
all sorts of products especially treated to make them less toxic,
more digestible, less harmful and more beneficial. Just tell an
American that you have vacuum treated your coffee and have thereby
removed some obscure organic compounds which normally tie his stomach
in knots and he will faithfully believe you and buy it. Tell him
you have taken the nicotine out of his cigarette and though 72
percent of it is still there he will buy. Tell him Grapenuts make
his teeth sound and he will buy. Tell him that he can improve his
health by standing on his head on a cake of ice in a blast furnace
while somebody shoots a stream of liquid platinum in his left ear and
you will find some fool to do it in America. Why are we such damned
fools? I am not going to tell you. I don’t know. But we are.