Knocking Back Your Nicotine

Cocktails infused with tobacco are becoming as trendy as they are risky:

South American shamans drank simplistic tobacco teas during rituals and for its supposedly magical qualities, according to Iain Gately’s Tobacco: The Story of How Tobacco Seduced the World. However, the author notes that overindulging in these teas could “induce vomiting, paralysis and, occasionally, death.” That may have been due to the nicotine, which can be lethal in high doses. … The problem with tobacco-infused drinks, according to Stan Glantz, a leading researcher on the health effects of tobacco at the University of California-San Francisco, is that you simply have no way of knowing how much nicotine you’re getting. “It’s impossible to know what the dosage is since these guys are making this stuff themselves,” Glantz tells The Salt. “Don’t forget that nicotine was used as insecticide. So this is like putting pesticides – hazardous substances — into drinks.”