[hummingbird]

Hello.  I am no chemist.  I am an enthusiast of gardening, mainly nicotiana (ornamental tobacco) and medicinal uses of plants. I am not an expert and seek knowledge only as a hobby.

Recently I have learned that uncured tobacco contains compounds called cembranoids and that these may have significant medical uses.

http://www.ulm.edu/universityrelations/news/july11/anticancer.html
http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/pdf/1990/pdf/6207x1353.pdf

What I am curious about is how to isolate these compounds, in as practical way as possible, without extracting nicotine.  I have heard that most of the nicotine is contained in the leaf especially the upper leaves, but the flower calyxes are the most resinous parts of the plant (and thus more desired for extraction).  Since nicotine is water soluble I imagine that soaking the material in water for a time to remove nicotine and then doing an alcohol extraction would work.  I don't think that would be enough though and I know full well the dangers of nicotine. 

I have seen some health shops online that sell denicotinized tobacco essences.  Does anyone know if these might contain the compounds I'm curious about?  In the articles I linked above it is stated that the cembranoids are lost in the curing process and I'd imagine that the extracts sold online would be of cured tobacco (since uncured tobacco doesn't smell at all pleasant like cured does, and that's kind of the point of the extract).  If no one here can help.  I guess I'll go ask an herbalist or something. If it involves a lot of big chemistry and lab equipment then I'll leave it to the professionals (actually I'm not really going to do it at all  ). I would appreciate any input.  Thanks.

Please note that I'm not a "drugee"  I don't intend to consume anything.  I just want to know if it's possible for us laypeople to do it at home.

[CrimpJiggler]

Its a matter of what these cembranoids are soluble in. This is the first time I've heard of cembranoids, heres a structure I found:

looking at that structure, I highly suspect that compound is soluble in very non polar solvents such as hexane. Nicotine is easy to get rid of. In free base form its not highly water soluble but all you have to do is convert it to a salt which will be highly water soluble. A nicotine salt won't dissolve in hexane (or other non polar solvents). Do you have any lab equipment? Since you're a gardening enthusiast, I strongly recommend you get yourself a Soxhlet extractor. Its a piece of glassware that you can use to extract all kinds of compounds from plant matter. For example you could extract pure menthol from mint or the pungent smelling compounds from lavender etc. You need a few things to go with the Soxhlet which are a boiling flask, a condenser and a heat source (I'd go for a heating mantle if Soxhlet extractions are the only chemistry procedures you intend on doing). I actually got into chemistry cuz I was so interested in the various alkaloids present in plants.

As for you not being a drugee, what you do with the compounds you produce is your business. Nobody elses. These compounds aren't even psychoactive so there should be nothing illegal about synthesizing and ingesting them. If I'm not mistaken, pure nicotine is legal to possess and ingest. I wouldn't sell it though. Of course its possible for laypeople to extract compounds at home. You need equipment though. If you don't mind investing a bit of money into your hobbies, this will become a great hobby for you. You can get all the equipment you need cheaply on ebay. As for chemicals, if you're going to be doing extractions you need solvents. As wide a range of them as possible. Its cheapest to order these from chemical supply houses. Then again you have to pay for postage and packaging which is no simple matter when it comes to large volumes of flammable solvents so you might be better off picking up hardware store solvents and distilling them. For that you'll need a few more pieces of glassware. The condenser for your Soxhlet will do fine but you need some extra pieces of jointware for a distillation apparatus.

[hummingbird]

Thank you.  That was very helpful.