It Ain’t Just For Smoking: Known But Beneficial Uses For Tobacco

Over the course of centuries, tobacco was hailed for it’s medicinal uses and cures.  But in today’s world, the tobacco plant has a really bad reputation.  Despite this plants reputation for causing long term ailments, many preppers see this as a great bartering item for a long term emergency.  But it has more uses than just for smoking and chewing.  In fact, any person who is planning for a long term emergency situation should have a stock of tobacco, not only for it’s bartering potential, but also for it’s assistance in gardens, as well as for it’s medicinal purposes.

How Indians Grew and Dried Tobacco

Tobacco originated in North America where Indians were growing it as a multi-purpose crop.  The Karok Indians planted the N. Bigelovii variety of tobacco in selected spots around their village site and next to near by streams.  Since the ground was not cultivated before planting, logs and brush were burned where the garden would be.  The seed was then scattered over the cleared area and brush was dragged over the ground the “sweep it.”  No irrigation was done, but the plots were carefully weeded.  As the plants matured, the leaves were gathered during intervals, packed, and wrapped in bracken fronds and Douglas fir twigs so they would not dry out while being carried back to the village to be dried.

Often the leaves were dried in sweat houses, but one record shows that the tobacco was dried by placing it in the morning dew and then taking the leaves in and drying them, repeating this over several weeks.  Stems and leaves were harvested separately, and the different parts of the plant made separate qualities of tobacco.

When the Indians would gather seeds for the next year’s crop the seeds were cut from the tops of the stems while still green, tied in small bunches, and gung in the house all winter, blackened with the smoke from fires, and taken down onl when the planting time came.  Then the capsules were crushed and the seeds were scattered directly onto the ground prepared for them.   (Source)

Beneficial Uses For Tobacco

Gardening 

Tobacco is a great insect repellent for the kitchen garden.  By simply soaking as little as a cigarette amount of tobacco in a quart of water and allowing it to soak overnight, the nicotine released in the water will create an all purpose insect repellent.

Aphid Control – Aphids are a real nuisance if allowed to thrive on garden plants.  Here’s a handy tip to rid your garden of them for good! 

•  Prepare a mixture of 1 cup. powdered garlic
• 1 c. compost
• 1 c. tobacco (organic preferably)

Blend this mixture into the soil around the base of your aphid infested plants.

Peach Tree Borers – Sprinkling tobacco dust around peach trees will deter the dreaded peach tree borer from infesting your tree.

Leaf Roller – These greenish larvae make a home out of perfectly good leaves.  They can destroy plants of all kinds in a matter of weeks!  I have created an offering plate for birds every morning of these caterpillars.  But to easily rid your garden of them:

Use a mixture of tobacco dust, pyrethrum powder(dried pyrethrum flowers crumbled into a powder) and make a solution to spray on the leaf roller.

Garden Centipede – These litter guys will eat your young plants up in no time, so get rid of them with this simple solution:

Drench the soil with a mixture of water, garlic and tobacco. Caution: This is a very foul smelling, but potent combination.

Gophers and Moles - Did you know that gophers and moles hate tobacco?

Shred a package of non-filtered cigarettes and drop it down in the hole.  They cannot stand it!

Spiders - Although garden spiders are always welcome in my garden, it’s cousins are not allowed!  To rid your yard of spiders:

 Boil 1 gallon of water and drop a package of chewing tobacco into the water and allow to cool. 

Once cooled, strain the solution and use it as a spray around the yard and in the cracks of your home.

Medicinal Use

Indians used tobacco as a pain reliever for ear aches, toothaches and as a poultice.  The leaves of  N. attenuata variety were mainly used for  the medical purposes.  In fact, currently there are test studies being performed to find a way to extract the pain relieving components of tobacco and remove the addictive ones to use for medical purposes.  (Source)  *No one in the medical profession will allow nicotine to be a treatment for medical issues or mental illnesses because of the health risks.  But they are studying the benefits of tobacco nonetheless.

To make a poultice, crush the leaves to place on the affected area to relieve medical issues.

Skin Rashes, Eczema and rheumatism - Indians used a poultice of tobacco leaves to put on skin inflammations to help soothe and relieve pain.  Although there is documented accounts that tobacco has pain relieving qualities, this author could not find any information on how tobacco soothed skin inflammation.

Toothaches – This poultice could also be placed in the mouth to alleviate pain from toothaches. 

Rattlesnake and Insect Bites - Indians believed that the nicotine in the tobacco would help relieve pain as well as help draw out the poison and heal the snake wound.  After the poison had been sucked out, chewed leaves could be applied to cuts or bound on the bite with a bandage.  This method can also be used when stung by an insect.

 Colds - Indians would mix tobacco and leaves from the Desert Sage plant, or the root of Indian Balsam (or cough root), Leptotaenia Multifida.  They believed this would also help with asthma and tuberculosis.  They typically smoked the leaves to clear out nasal passages.

Toothpaste - In India, powdered tobacco is rubbed on the teeth for cleaning.  This method is still used in India and marketed in stores around the country.

Mental Illness

Although people with mental illness are twice as likely to smoke, there may be some benefits to their habit.  That being said, the medical profession does see some benefit to mentally ill patients using nicotine. 

According to the Journal of the American Medical Association, those that suffer from mental disorders such as ADHD/ADD, schizophrenia and other disorders may experience positive effects from smoking.  Apparently, doses of nicotine have a short term normalization effect on the EEG (electrical activity in the brain).

Alzheimer and Dementia- Those that suffer from Alzheimer’s can also benefit from doses of nicotine.  According to studies, patients cognitive abilities slightly improved. 

This article is for information purposes only.  Cigarette smoking is the largest preventable cause of death according to the Center for Disease Control and can cause many long term health problems.

Sources For This Article:

Evil Weed May Benefit Rare Disorders

Early Uses of Indian Tobacco in California

Author: Tess Pennington
Web Site: http://www.ReadyNutrition.com/
Date: August 27th, 2010

Related Categories: Micro Farming, Natural Alternatives, Reserve Supplies