Death by nicotine patch - how?

August 17, 2007 7:33 AM

In the movie "Thank You For Smoking", there is a scene of kidnapping and attempted murder by nicotine patch. Could this really happen, and if so, has it actually been used as "murder weapon" before?

The only info I was able to find regarding this method was an interview on Screentalk where the author of the book that the movie was based on mentions it would only take four to kill a person.

So my questions are:

1. Does that "four" number sound correct? It seems so low.

2. Would it kill the person more quickly to have dozens of patches applied, like in the movie? How quickly?

3. Has this ever been used as a "murder weapon" before?

Yes, my fiance and I get into weird discussions. Thought we'd query the hive mind to help fill in the gaps in our knowledge. ;) Thanks in advance!

posted by twiki to Health & Fitness (15 answers total)

Not a precise answer, but interesting: Green Tobacco Sickness
posted by Leon at 7:41 AM on August 17, 2007

I can tell you that when I was quitting smoking I used the patch but would occasionally sneak a cigarette or two. The result was sometimes nicotine poisoning, which feels sort of like the flu -- nausea, achy muscles, dizziness--but also with a racing heartbeat. That was with only one patch and a couple of cigarettes-so I imagine that adding a few more patches might really do the trick.
posted by Mid at 7:43 AM on August 17, 2007

Seems almost reasonable. Based on this page, 2, the LD50 of nicotine is 40-60mg. Based on this page, the heavy duty patches have 21mg of nicotine in them. So 4 would put you above the lethal dose.

So yeah, you could kill someone with this I guess, probably quicker to use other poisons if that's your goal...
posted by cschneid at 7:44 AM on August 17, 2007

Well, but the patches are time-release; you don't get 21mg at once.
posted by Mid at 7:44 AM on August 17, 2007

I have heard that one cigarette contains a lethal dose of nicotine if ingested (soaked in a cup of warm water or coffee), but that your system would most likely reject it before it killed you (you would throw up).
posted by mds35 at 7:47 AM on August 17, 2007

Nicotine is a deadly neurotoxin. The mean lethal dose in humans is estimated to be 0.5–1.0 mg/kg of body mass. You can get nicotine patches that release up to 21 mg/day. Certainly the nictotine in four of those could kill someone. I'm not sure how many you would need to use to counteract the time-delayed release.

On preview, what cschneid and Mid said.
posted by grouse at 7:47 AM on August 17, 2007

Tried google?

Nicotine poisoning murder
posted by mikeh at 8:18 AM on August 17, 2007

Nicotine is really, really poisonous stuff. People have been known to chew Fentanyl pain patches to get a big dose, which is incredibly stupid considering how low the lethal dose of Fentanyl is. There have been deaths. Try this with nicotine patch and you get to find out very quickly whether there is an afterlife.
posted by caddis at 8:26 AM on August 17, 2007

The fatal dose of pure nicotine is about 40 mg. One drop. The quantity contained in two cigarettes. Tobacco is less poisonous than this would indicate because most of the nicotine is burned, and if tobacco is ingested, the nicotine is poorly absorbed.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 8:42 AM on August 17, 2007

There was the ridiculous episode of CSI where a woman killed her lover (or john?) by putting nicotine extract inside the condom. And of course, everything on CSI is true.
posted by randomstriker at 9:04 AM on August 17, 2007

Tangentially related: nicotine is also sufficiently toxic to insects that it was once used as an insecticide, trade named Black Leaf 40.
posted by TedW at 9:30 AM on August 17, 2007

I'm not going to link to it, but if you google around for the Al Qaeda Poisons Manual (the version helpfully translated by the CIA) it contains a recipe for a nicotine-based poison derived from a few cigarettes, extracted using alcohol.

No idea if it would work -- the whole thing reads like a bad version of The Anarchists Cookbook -- but apparently somebody thinks it would.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:57 AM on August 17, 2007

Incidentally, the nicotine patch was invented after Dr. Frank Etscorn (a former teacher of mine) accidentally spilled pure nicotine on himself while working in his lab. He got very, very sick and as he recovered came up with the scheme to control the transdermal release of the stuff.

Now he (and New Mexico Tech, my alma mater) are very, very rich.
posted by ewagoner at 2:04 PM on August 17, 2007 [1 favorite]

Here is an account of a homicide in the 1850's where nicotine was implicated. So its been used to murder people for quite a while.
posted by arha at 7:04 PM on August 17, 2007

Purely anecdotal, of course..
Back in high school, my friend and I used to steal his parents' nicotine patches and then drop acid. He went 6 patches and 3 gel tabs - I pussied out with 2 patches, a pack of smokes and 2 gel tabs.

I wouldn't say he's the most sane person I ever met - but I didn't notice any adverse mental/physical effects on myself, and he didn't seem any worse for the wear (he was already kinda nuts, so I doubt I'd notice).
posted by revmitcz at 7:14 PM on August 17, 2007