Does anyone know the health effects of this species of tobacco. I know that south American shamans use it as a hallucinogen and medicine. I also know commercial cigarettes and additive tobacco is cancerous. I'm just wondering what rusticas health effects are?

..it has alkaloids not found in Nicotiana tabacum.
Walter Raleigh took N. tabacum back to England becuase he thought N. rustica (the true tobacco) might be too strong for europeans..
..i have smoked and grown N. rustica..it's effects are more like cannabis (but clearer) than ordinary tobacco..in other words more 'trance inducing'..the taste is 'deep'..
and less is required to achieve 'effects'..

as always Do Not Orally ingest!

N. rustica has lovely yellow flowers (whereas N. tabacum are pink)

I have ingested it orally..I have drunk many ayahuasca brews with pinches of mapacho added..I would not reccomend it though. It's dangerous. I was adding like micro ammounts..just enough to maybe do something..help the purge come but not enough to be getting nicotenine spins and toxic effects..not even psychoactive effects on a noticable level..just enough to push the brew a little bit I guess.

I have overdone mapacho on it's own though wanting to be some sort of jungle shaman..lol you learn real fast why thats not fun..not at all! I regret it now but last year in a panic I threw out a large log of mapacho someone had brought back from equador that a currandero gave them that they were drinking with..it was strong stuff and tasted really good..jungle cured..thought it killing me one day though man and after hurling and laying on the floor feeling like I was really dying for a couple minutes I got myself together and threw the whole log into the compost swearing off tobacco lol.

For real though be careful. Mapcho is a deadly poison if you take too much.

I have some mapcho seed to grow out this summer.

I've been trying to trace down studies on natural tobacco and Its health effects but its hard to find anything that is conclusive. I'm considering making snuff and chew out of my rustica and I'm wanting to figure out if there is still a high cancer rate. I've found that nicotine itself doesn't cause cancer. My logic as of now is that the cancer causing agents is the additive chemicals and combustion itself, which u can get cancer from smoking any material not specific to tobacco. I just need some well versed nexians to help me out!

I know this is an old thread but want to make a clarification for posterity.

Burning any organic material generates carcinogenic chemicals, among other toxic chemicals. Carcinogenic chemicals (known or suspected) include petrogenic hydrocarbons with one or more benzene rings. These can form in various isomers as a result of burning plant matter or other material.

Nicotine itself, if I'm remembering correctly, may also be a carcinogen.

BUT - here's the most important thing - carcinogenic chemicals won't give you cancer from single or even infrequent exposure. Carcinogens cause cancer when they are repeatedly ingested on a regular basis.

So you can smoke tobacco without getting cancer, so long as you avoid becoming addicted and smoke infrequently. The true risk of developing cancer comes with developing an addiction, resulting in exposure many times per day over decades.

Also, there maybe pesticides in mainstream tobacco that are carcinogens. However, the additive people speak of is typically ammonia NH3) which reacts with nicotine in the same way the OH in NaOH (lye) reacts with the H in DMT, causing said molecule to lose its H, converting it from a salt to a free base. Freebase substances have a much lower and greater window at which they will vaporize, compared to the salt form. Thus, you get a bigger dose per drag/hit.

I would guess it is more accurate to consider it in terms of probability. I'd like to know if I'm wrong though.


I don't know if nicotine itself is carcinogenic, but during the curing process tobacco-specific nitrosamines (TSNAs) are inevitably formed from nicotine, even in pasteurized snus.

There are other potential health problems from smoking tobacco in particular, as well as from using tobacco products in general.