Noxious Nicotine

Abstract

Abstract Many horticulturists in the 1950s used nicotine-based products both for personal consumption and for pesticidal application. Growers in postwar Norwegian horticulture were sometimes poisoned by nicotine sulfate, but many also smoked tobacco, and this was widely considered a way to ameliorate the negative effects. This might have made them ambivalent about the risks, even though they knew it could be hazardous in certain dosages. This article explores the ambiguity of the meaning of nicotine in Norwegian horticulture in the 1950s as well as how growers understood the risks tied to chemical components that potentially had other more mundane and culturally endorsed uses.