This book serves as a reference volume for anyone interested in nicotine and tobacco. An international team of authors contribute to this comprehensive review of current knowledge on the pharmacokinetics and metabolism of nicotine. A broad range of material on the action and uptake of nicotine and the consequences of exposure to it has been drawn together for the first time in this volume.

Nicotine is an alkaloid which is present, together with a number of minor alkaloids, in tobacco and a wide variety of other plants. The introduction of tobacco as a therapeutic agent against diverse pathologi cal and physiological conditions resulted in the widespread exposure of people to nicotine, and the subsequent recognition of the pleasurable effects of tobacco consumption. Tobacco may be used for pleasure by smoking it in pipes, cigars or cigarettes or by taking it in unsmoked form as oral and nasal tobacco snuff. Nonsmokers are exposed to nico tine through plant material and...