Origin of nic ejuice

[Bullette the Cowdog]

Ok. I've got a question for you guys. We know that our nic is extracted from tobacco in a lab, right? Well where does the lab buy the tobacco? Is Big Tobacco growing the tobacco it sells to the nicotine extraction lab that sells the liquid to make our ejuice? Or is a small or large independent farm growing the tobacco? Just how much tobacco is needed to create our liquid nic?
I guess what I'm wondering here is:
Does Big Tobacco profit from selling the tobacco that is used to make ejuice? If so, they are gonna make a profit whether we smoke or vape. Then maybe Big Tobacco doesn't care if we smoke or vape.
Then again, I don't know if Big Tobacco owns farms, or contracts with independent farmers.
-Bullette the Cowdog, eagerly awaiting replies from my ECF buddies.

 

[Levitas]

Good questions!

Work your way up the food chain. If you DIY, ask your vendor where they get their supply. Then ask up higher, and higher, until an answer can be provided.

 

[martinc]

Me think you thinking too much

Want to start a crusade against nic?

 

[Bullette the Cowdog]

No crusades here. Just an ex-entrepreneur & investor who likes business. (and vapes too)
So who profits??? Can I be one who profits???

 

[YKruss]

Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco each own or lease tobacco manufacturing facilities in at least 50 countries and buy crude tobacco leaf from at least 12 more countries.

Source - Cultivation of tobacco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BTW - the biggest tobacco grower is China.

 

[zuzette]

i would guess to tobacco is like any AG product. depending on the crop the grower can be large or small . the crop is sold to market and purchased by whatever company can profit. remember. its not the tobacco that matters. its the ability to profit off the end result.
for all of that nicotine can probably be created in a lab.

 

[tidegirl]

No crusades, and not an entrepreneur, but inquiring minds want to know!

It seems like it would be a pretty complicated job to extract the nic to its purest form, for the lab rats to blend down to a safe workable level for us. I guess that first step never occurred to me.

 

[tidegirl]

for all of that nicotine can probably be created in a lab.

I was wondering that, too.

 

[Bullette the Cowdog]

Source - Cultivation of tobacco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

BTW - the biggest tobacco grower is China.

CHINA??? Not North Carolina???
OMG...OMG

 

[tidegirl]

CHINA??? Not North Carolina???
OMG...OMG

Why not? They are taking over everything else, aren't they?

 

[Bullette the Cowdog]

According to the linked wikipedia article above
"the profits from tobacco production go to large tobacco companies rather than local tobacco farmers"
Cultivation of tobacco - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
So the question is
Where does the lab buy its tobacco?
From the farmer or from Big Tobacco?
If I owned the lab, I would buy my tobacco direct from the farmer.

 

[recidivus]

Why not? They are taking over everything else, aren't they?

It's not taking over when we willingly hand it all over...

 

[luvflowers]

My comment would be, whomever is behind the source in whatever state that has started legislation (if that is the case) to ban e-cigs.....why would the big cigarette companies, if they are the source of supplying tobacco for nicotene, would they care about e-cigs and their use....they would be getting the best from both worlds...just wondering

 

[rolygate]

Most pure nic used in e-liquid comes from Chinese wholesalers, and they would logically use Chinese tobacco since it would be a fraction of the price of US or EU tobacco.

Some US e-liquid makers may buy from US pure nic suppliers. These suppliers would probably sell a mix of Chinese-sourced and US-sourced pure nic. US sourced pure nic would use a mix of tobaccos from all sources, whatever was cheapest and easiest to get hold of at the time.

As a result of all that, you might estimate that more than 95% of nic in e-liquid is derived from Chinese tobacco. In addition, anyone selling US-sourced nic made from US-sourced tobacco would be able to use that as a marketing tool, due to the rarity, the local sourcing advantage and the perception of quality. That isn't too visible just now.

 

[Levitas]

That's interesting, Roly.

I wonder how much crop it would take to make 'x' amount of nic-fluid?

 

[rolygate]

I don't know. There are people here who do but they are low-volume specialty vendors doing things like WTA extraction, I doubt they will give you the figures.

Normally you find that these processes take a lot of raw plant material to produce a small amount of the target ingredient. Seems to be the same with oils or whatever. So let's guess at 100 pounds of tobacco to produce 1 pint of nic. Plus some heavy-duty processing using hexane or whatever as the solvent, then ensuring that stuff has all gone from the end result. Then some testing to see if what you've got is what you hoped for. There would need to be a reasonable amount of testing to show no contaminants such as solvent, pesticides, heavy metals etc. Testing is expensive. You would never do any of this if it is possible to buy the stuff, it doesn't make any sense. And you can always buy it.

If you wanted to get nic plus all the other active alkaloids, that is a different matter. It might be worth setting up to do that as you can't buy full tobacco alkaloid extract anywhere (nicotine plus nornicotine, anabasine, anabatine and myosmine). But the testing for contaminants would cost thousands; if you ran a wide-spectrum extraction like that there's no telling what might be pulled out into the end product, without extensive testing. How do you test for some of the exotic carcinogens in tobacco that are removed in Snus by steam processing?

No idea - but it would cost plenty $$. You'd have to find a lab with chemists who are really experienced at detecting and identifying complex organic compounds. That would be a small percentage of the labs who advertise GC-MS testing, and there aren't all that many of those. A fair bet is that a wide-spectrum extraction would also pull out some nasties. How to get rid of those, if they are in the mix?

 

[zoiDman]

I don’t know that much about the Tobacco Pipeline from Grower to Consumer. But I believe that Majority of the Major Crops in the USA are sold by a Grower to a Broker who then sells it to a Highest Bidder Processor/Producer.

 

[Bullette the Cowdog]

My BIL says they use a nicotine powder in the pharmaceutical testing labs for testing purposes. I've never heard of nicotine powder.

 

[Orobas]

CHINA??? Not North Carolina???
OMG...OMG

It was so hot last year that the plants freaking disintegrated before they could be harvested.

Never mind what happened to the poor corn.

Haven't had occasion to drive out on pony farm road lately so i couldn't tell you if it's fared any better this year.

 

[chaos-7]

What no farmers here? L.O.L.
I am vary into agricultural business, and I can tell you that almost all tobacco in the U.S. is grown on family farms. Like most crops, tobacco is sold at auctions.