Comment by kersploosh@sh.itjust.works on "So many uses!" (Black Leaf 40 ad from Country Gentleman magazine 1939)

It is 40% nicotine concentrate.

It’s amazing humanity has survived. So many old products were like “Here’s some concentrated poison. Spread it in your house, on your food, and in the air you breathe. It also makes a great toothpaste and eyeliner!”

And the longer we’re alive we realise how much it affected us.

The next big one (assuming we survive climate change) will probably be the millions of ICE vehicles just driving around where we live and work.

I mean this isn’t really poison tho. It’s just nicotine which is a natural plant product specifically evolved as a pesticide.

product specifically evolved as a pesticide.

A.K.A., a poison.

“Natural” doesn’t mean “good” – lots of natural things are poisonous.

Natural, like hungry bears and cyanide.

I mean this isn’t really poison tho.

Go ahead and look into the toxicity of a single drop (30-60mg) of nicotine. Plenty of “natural plant products” that are poisons.

And this is a 1 oz/28gram bottle, at 40% concentrate.

One can only hope this “nicotine concentrate” is itself not pure nicotine.

Doesn’t really seem like you understood what I said or read any of what I linked. That’s still roughly 11 grams of nicotine, so still several hundred times more than it takes to kill an adult by my quick back of the envelope estimate.

Yes, that was indeed my point. It seems like you didn’t understand I was agreeing with you (not everyone on the internet is trying to attack you).

It’s lethally toxic in a few dozen milligrams, and this bottle contains (up to) tens of thousands milligrams.

I was pointing out it’s an absolute nightmare they sold this to random people in stores to “spray fruit”. The nightmare is only slightly tempered by my hope that “nicotine concentrate” might only be a small percentage pure nicotine.

Ah I see we actually agree. That’s my bad. I’m so used to getting shouted down around here by people that didn’t read very closely, I wrongly interpreted your comment. Ironic. I’m sorry.

If necessary, I would choose nicotine over many current commercial pesticides. Nicotine doesn’t help pests develop into superbugs with pesticide resistance.

Everything is poisonous at some dose. These are evolved neurotoxins for fighting insects but in the doses humans use them they are just stimulants and probably neuroprotective. They do have downsides like causing cardiovascular stress and creating chemical dependencies though, but people often don’t die directly from caffeine or nicotine consumption.

This exact product was used in a case of intentional poisoning in Michigan:
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5218a3.htm

For sharing images of vintage magazine ads, fliers, promos, etc.

We’re going to play it pretty loose with timeframe here so please don’t get offended anyone :)

"So many uses!" (Black Leaf 40 ad from Country Gentleman magazine 1939)(i.imgur.com)

Vintage and Retro Ads, Promos, Fliers, Etc.

!vintageads@sh.itjust.works

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