Some of the oldest of old timers claim that tomato leaves were smoked in handrolled cigarettes, or used as snuff) during hard times in years past. Presumably after being dried in either case. Since not too many folks old enough to smoke during the Great Depression are still alive, there are other people that claim their parents, grandparents, etc used to do this.

In theory it seems like it would work - tomato is a member of the same family as tobacco and the leaves do contain nicotine. In fact one of the big tobacco companies apparently even owns a patent to use tomato leaves as a filler.

The theory was, in times past, that even growing your own tobacco would take up land that you might need to grow a crop to feed the family. Thus in a real pinch (pardon the pun) tomato leaf snuff or cigarettes could still be had by using an otherwise wasted part of a food crop.

Anyone ever try it or hear the same story?

Nope, but would love to hear if anyone has. We grow tomatos every year.

Don't know about tomato leaves, but I remember a sheep herder that smoked dried tumble weed leaves. My Dad went to his camp with water and groceries. Found the sheep locked up in the corral, a jack rabbit tied to the wagon tongue, and the herder sittin on the bunk in his wagon. He was buck naked and told my Dad he had been expecting him.

He got a quick ride to town.

My Pappy had a rule about cowhands and sheep herders. "It's OK if they talk to themselves (hell they ain't nobody else to talk to ) but if they answer themselves, take them to town.

Sure, you can smoke the leaves but the darn things make you real, real hungry. Lucky there's 'maters on there. Wait..... that tomato plant looks different than this one.........whoaaaaaaooooo. Ahhhhh.
gotta grab me a beer,
gordon

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better have that checked

I also don't know about tomato leaves. But I know that here in the backwoods, many people have smoked corn silk in corn cob pipes. I doubt there is any nicotine in corn silk.

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Geoff. Since 1960.

I don't know about smoking them but if you eat them they will give you a stomach ache and the trots. My Dad used to talk about smoking corn silk. My uncles (Mom's brothers were a product of the 60's) used to smoke this green plant that smelled like burnt rope. It gave them the munchies and they did stupid stuff. Of course fresh air will do that to some people too.

I do remember frisking some high school kids and coming up with a baggy of oregano that they paid about twenty bucks for. They thought I was crazy because I was laughing when I told them to keep it, it would be great with tomatoes.

When picking tomatoes all day a rotten or ripe tomato is the only thing that will take the green from the leaves off of your hands. Just smash it up and rinse. I grew up with selling them from a roadside stand and would no more smoke the leaves than a tomato worm.

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Front sight and squeeze

Homer Simpson created "Tomacco", but I think that involved plutonium...

I have heard of drying and smoking banana peals, (smoked to get the same effect as pot, and I think its pretty much BS), but never heard of smoking tomato leaves.....

Honest officer, them's is dried tomato leafs!

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In dog years I'm dead.

If eaten, tomato foliage will cause illness because it is in the same family as the tobacco plant. Thus the effect of munching on the greens will be much like swallowing some chewing tobacco - unpleasant.

Dried and cut, the leaves do seem to resemble tobacco (rather than any other smokable substance legal or illegal) in terms of texture and smell. There's nothing in the chemical make up of the leaves that would have any mind altering effects - well no more than the tobacco plant.

I accidentally pulled up the large tomato plant that I had growing in the back yard. I put the foliage up to dry in the sun. I suppose that if the weather is good I might have suitably dried leaves within a week or so (actual tobacco growers would put tobacco up to dry much longer in special drying sheds). I suppose a week or so in the sun and it should at least suffice to see if it will taste at all like tobacco. (I've smoked some fairly strong tobaccos from Java, the Balkans, etc over the years. )

I smoked grapevines as a kid. Nasty!!!

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Have guns...will shoot'em.

Here in Colorado, that funny plant sure doesn't smell like burning rope!

You just haven't tried the right kind of rope!!! That nylon stuff won't work!

bob

IIRC tomato's are a part of the nightshade family and their leaves and stems are poisonous. I doubt that it will kill you but I wouldn't take the chance.

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Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

Gardeners that smoke can transmit tobacco mosaic virus to tomatoes.

That may be where that idea originated.

Years ago we had a neighbor that always put in a small garden on the back of his property near our property line. Most of it looked kind of neglected except the tomato plants, which were in cages. One day I noticed his tomato plants did not look like my plants. Then I noticed the “tomatoes” were actually red, round Christmas ornaments, which started small but were replaced with larger ones as the season wore on.

Well, from what i remember from Botony class back in my college years. Tomato plant leaves are toxic. It would probally make you sick. Or even worse, get an allergic reaction and swell up your airway. Not recommended. Besides, if it were true,everybody be smoking it.

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29,66,686, M&P.357sig,40c

Over 50 years ago I was at a lodge-bar and this weirdo was telling us boys that he could get a high by replaceing the middle of a ciggerett with ground up aspirn with tobbacco on each end and proceeded to demostraight. He also claimed he was or had been johnny rays bodyguard. That didnt stop clarance from throwing him out on his ear when he heard what was going on! Anyone ever hear about that before?

Looks like tomato leaves are usable as a tobacco substitute or snuff:

Tomato leaf snuff update - Snuffhouse.org

I guess there's an extra product to sell if things get bad enough...

I suspect you could smoke most anything you could get to burn.

Rather you'd smoke it again, is another question.

(BTW) When I was a teen, I worked on a tomato farm. I piced hundreds if not thousands of truckloads of tomatoes. I never heard of anyone smoking the plant. Corn silk...yes. "Rabbit tobacco" Yes. Tomato plants...never. Note: I "heard" of people smoking them. I never knew anyone who did.

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John 3:16 .

Back in the day when I smoked if I couldn't get my hands on a good cig I would have tried to light up anything that couldn't move! Never tried smoking tomatoes but grapevine will sure get your undivided attention! Glad I kicked that habit.

The toxins in tomato foliage are the same toxins in tobacco - primarily nicotine. The tobacco leaf is actually quite toxic if ingested - hence it makes a bad salad green etc. Most sources regarding "don't eat that!" regarding household plants actually rank the tobacco leaf as more toxic.

I'm starting to suspect that the reason that tomato isn't nomally smoked - aside from the taste issues and the hassle with curing - is simply that until recently tobacco products could still be obtained rather cheaply. Whereas during the Depression, when some folks had no money at all, there wasn't a handy means of information transmission like the Internet - thus much hobo/backwoods/etc lore was lost.

Today now that we can exchange information, people have in some cases forgotten how to do things or simply haven't had the same underlying conditions to cause them to.

With relatively high tobacco prices (owing to taxes) in the United States, Canada and Western Europe... maybe this is something who's time has come.

I don't know. I've never heard of it. My grandfather who was born in 1883, claimed that when he was a kid, people didn't eat tomatoes because they thought they were deadly poisonous. pretty to look at but not good to eat.Seriously. That's what he said. Maybe they got that idea after smoking the leaves and getting high. I dunno.

I doubt that smoking tomato leaves would be anything like smoking certain other "herbs". Gypsum weed for instance, which allegedly will make you think you are a wolf and cause you to howl at the moon

NKJnut, there must be something to that. My dad told me the same thing about my grandpa. He was born 1876 and dad said he refused to even try a tomato.

What exactly is "rabbit tobacco"...I remember that stuff from when I was a kid but never knew what kind of plant it was.

I was thinkin' the same thing..........

"Uh-huh. Watch your head."

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Regards,
Lee Jarrett

It's basically a weed found east of Texas and from Canada to Florida. When my cousin and I were about 9 or 10, my grandfather made working corncob pipes for us. Being the idiots that we were, we snuck off down in the woods and found some rabbit tobacco and smoked it. Talk about two sick boys. My mother wanted to take us to the doctor but my grandfather said we would be ok, just leave us alone. I think now he did it to teach us a lesson.

Talk about smoking things. I caught one guy I knew aboard ship with a block of hashish he bought in Izmir, Turkey. Since one of my parallel duties was squadron drug abuse petty officer, we had been warned about this. In the case of the guy I knew, I unlocked a fan room and let him in to smoke it. He came out with this disgusted expression and I wish you could have seen his face when I told him he had bought and smoked dried compressed horse manure. I told him if he ever brought anything real into my spaces, I would ask the skipper to put him under the brig.

CW

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μολὼν λαβέ

One of the reasons I never smoked as a adult was that when I was about 10 one of my 'friends' gave me a cigarette like the one he was smoking. It was filled with pencil sharpener shavings! That was enough to cure me of smoking.