What would be a cheap and easy way of extracting the nicotine from a
pound of tobacco? High school chemistry level.

Hello Jimbaen.

It seems like this one is the most likely solution for you:
http://pub169.ezboard.com/fhomegrowntobaccofrm2.showMessage?topicID=29.topic
(about half way down the page)

Just to be comprehensive though, here are a few others that I found:

This one says you can extract Nicotine simply by soaking tobacco
leaves for 12 hours!:
http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

A very easy extraction method although they call it a 'tobacco
extract' so I'm not sure if you'll get pure nicotine:
http://www.ipmthailand.org/en/Components/tobacco_extract.htm

Two complex extraction methods and other info:
http://www.people.vcu.edu/~asneden/Nicotine%20experiment.pdf

Found this interesting quote at
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread13308.shtml:
"alternatively, one could use solvents to extract nicotine from raw
tobacco; then the nicotine, to whatever purity you desire, could be
taken orally. nicotine in a ready and pure form will not be made
available to the public because it has a low fatal dose and people
would be using it as a poison and for suicide, or so goes the theory;
maybe so. extraction instructions specific to nicotine can be found in
old chemistry books, but not in newer ones;"

And finally, all kinds of info on tobacco can be found at:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/tobacco/tobacco.shtml

Hope this helps!
-shiva777

Search Terms Used:
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This was a good and useful answer.I would have liked a more
cut-and-dried recipe, but I will surely find the requisite definitions
elsewhere. Thanks!