Research has shown that your plants can become passive smokers and suffer from nicotine poisoning.  According to the journal Agronomy for Sustainable Development, this passive form of smoking, along with contaminated soil, could be the reason for high levels of nicotine found in various herbal teas, medicinal plants, and spices.  The carelessly-tossed butts are having a bad effect too. Researchers analyzed plants that had been mulched and fumigated with tobacco smoke for over nine days, and they also tested soil contaminated with nicotine as a result of discarded cigarette butts.

“Our results suggest that the widespread occurrence of nicotine in medicinal, spice and food plants may, at least in part, be due to other nicotine sources apart from the illegal use of insecticides.”

Read the full story here.