Phil and Morris talk about freebase nicotine

Phil was swaggering across the campus of a giant tobacco company when he heard the huff-huff of his friend and business partner, Morris, behind him. He planted his feet and waited for Morris to catch up.

“Phil,” Morris panted. “We’ve got a breakthrough on our hands!”

“Indeed?” said Phil, always the skeptic. “What is it this time?”

“Phil, we don’t need to sell cigarettes at all. It’s the nicotine that works!” He began leaping into the air and landing first on one foot and then the other, apparently to demonstrate how active this revelation was.

Phil put one hand on Morris’s shoulder and held it there until Morris stopped jumping up and down. “Morris, we’ve been on that kick for years. Do you have something new to tell me about serving the tobacco market?”

“It’s the nicotine market,” Morris sputtered. “Phil, wake up. We don’t have to sell tobacco, just nicotine. That’s the addictive part of smoking. So skip smoking altogether and sell nicotine in candy or chewing gum or something.”

“Let me remind you,” Phil said. “There are already several products that have nicotine in them but not tobacco.”

“Like what?”

“Like nicotine gum. Like a nicotine patch. There are even nasal sprays that deliver nicotine to the system.”

“Well, then?”

“Well, then what? Morris, you’d better come up with something fast.”

“Okay. How’s this for fast? We’re going to hype our nicotine a little more to make it more compelling to use…”

“…You mean, more addictive?”

“That’ll work. Then we’ll package and flavor it so it’s delicious, and it will be a best seller.”

“Morris, you need to go back to Tobacco University and take that class on marketing cigarettes. If you’ll think real hard you’ll remember two things about nicotine without tobacco.”

“Two things, eh? Okay.”

“The first is that we use just enough nicotine to trigger the addiction. Too much nicotine can cause all sorts of horrible health problems like revving up  the body’s flight-or-fight system.  Plus it boosts the heart rate, raises blood pressure, and makes blood vessels smaller while causing the heart to put out more blood.”

“So?”

“On that route you’re headed for heart disease and all kinds of problems.”

“Says who?”

“Says plenty of people. LIke Dr. Robert Millman at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, for one.”

“But no lung cancer.”

“You’re right, there, Morris. If we drown ‘em in nicotine they’ll die from heart disease instead of lung cancer. But there’s another big reason why it won’t work.”

“I’m listening.”

“We lucky people in the tobacco industry are using one of the most incredible delivery systems in the universe. The nicotine in the cigarettes we sell is fast acting because it’s goes straight to the lungs and the blood vessels that form there. That means the smoker gets a high real fast. The feelings go away fast, the the smoker comes back for more.”

“Are you saying that taking nicotine in chewing gum gets to the user slower than the nicotine from smoking tobacco leaves mixed with nicotine in our cigarettes?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Morris. There’s no comparison. Nicotine that is swallowed doesn’t have the same punch.”

“Well, I’ll be smoked.”

“I  do think it would be a good move to start marketing nicotine inhalers. They’ve been on the market for some time. But smoking is such a habit to so many, we have to work with marketing conditions the way they are.”

“With our freebase nicotine, Phil, we can get people hooked with one drag on their first cigarette.”

“Yes, we can. And it’s a whole lot less expensive for us than to start selling pocket-sized nicotine inhalers or nicotine suckers.”

“Good thing we figured out that freebase stuff. Wish I knew how it works.”

“Another time, Morris, another time.”