ACADEMIA Letters
Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19
robert marty
“Smoking kills” is written in all countries on tobacco packaging. Nicotine’s image is firmly established in every conscience, including those of the smokers themselves. For several decades,
it has carried the idea of death. But recently, in the search for a cure for COVID-19, it appeared that it could perhaps play a positive role. In France, in Israel in particular, teams have
been mobilized. The media from all over the world have echoed this. A conflict of the images
has opened up, and it is not the first one because Tobacco has not always been the wrong thing
it is today. We analyze his comeback using Peirce’s semiotics in the advanced formalization
we have achieved ([1],[2]).
The first uses of Tobacco are ancient (6,000 BC). The Indigenous Americans used it in
religious ceremonies and for medicinal purposes. Brought back to Europe by Christopher
Columbus, its use spread worldwide. The French, Spanish, and Portuguese initially referred
to the plant as the “Sacred Herb” because of its valuable medicinal properties. Introduced by
Jean Nicot at the court of Catherine of Medici, it was called: “Herb of the Queen” (1560).
We begin by analyzing this initial status of Tobacco as a “sacred plant” in Peirce’s semiotics. The name “tobacco” by which the plant refer to as a “Rhematic Symbol”:
” A Rhematic Symbol or Symbolic Rheme [e.g. a common noun] is a sign connected with its Object by an association of general ideas in such a way that its
Replica calls up an image in the mind which image, owing to certain habits or
dispositions of that mind, tends to produce a general concept, and the Replica
is interpreted as a Sign of an Object that is an instance of that concept […] The
Interpretant of the Rhematic Symbol often represents it as a Rhematic Indexical
Legisign”. ([3], CP 2.261).
Suppose we refer to the modern definition of a concept’s intension (or understanding).
Academia Letters, April 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: robert marty, robert.marty98@gmail.com
Citation: Marty, R. (2021). Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19. Academia Letters, Article 403.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL403.
1
In that case, we find that Peirce states in phenomenological terms how the perception of an
element its extension (whatever its medium, verbal or non-verbal) produces the presence in
the mind of the corresponding intension. He calls it his Replica. He also uses “Type” for
the intention and “Token” for the reply. Our formalization -which is in full conformity with
Peirce’s text- shows that this Replica is a Rhematic Indexical Sinsign (a singular sign). However, it has the power to activate the presence in the mind of the concept, which also makes
it a replica of a Rhematic Indexical Legisign, a sign of law. It thus reactivates in each mind
a more or less exact equivalent of the scientific definition: “Nicotiana tabacum, tobacco or
cultivated tobacco, is a species of annual dicotyledonous plant”. All these signs are indexical; they direct attention, in a coordinated way, one to the individual plant, the other to the
concept. We see on our lattice that the three classes of signs relating to Tobacco that we have
just mentioned are encapsulated like Russian puppets.
We can say the same thing about the term “Nicotine”, a chemical substance defined as
follows: “Nicotine is an alkaloid with the chemical formula C10H14N2 present in tobacco”.
So, at one point, scientists identified the chemical formula of a substance considered to be
the active ingredient of Tobacco. Besides, the plant is named with Jean Nicot’s name, who
introduced Tobacco to France. It follows that the two concepts are intimately linked thanks
to this name and the definition of Nicotine as above. From a linguistic point of view, this
definition is an assertion concerning both concepts, i.e., a proposition. In Peircean theory,
it is a Dicent Symbol: a sign of law that points to two concepts and provides information
about the real connection between their Replicas, namely that “every tobacco plan contains
Nicotine.” As a result, the pair of three “Russian puppets” of each Rhematic Symbol are
encapsulated by a fourth, as below:
We can see in this example how semiotics can produce a refined analysis of the structure
of the meaning of a single term in the language. Not only is it a structural analysis, but it
is also a historical analysis. History has really produced “the successive encapsulation of
puppets” from the smallest to the largest. It is an analysis of the “progressive-regressive” kind
that combines material elements (singular) with historically dated intellections of the overall
scope.
1964, U.S. Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health [4] began to suggest the
relationship between smoking and cancer. Scientists confirm 20 years later, in the 1980s.
Nicotine is now identified as a new singular sign, another Rhematic Indexical Sinsign that
tends to replace the one in Figure 1, creating a possible confusing image in public. The actors
of the conflict are, on the one hand, the Public Health institutions and, on the other hand, the
tobacco manufacturers who make remarkable profits from the sale of Tobacco. The former’s
stake is to create the law according to which toxicity is an essential property of Nicotine. For
Academia Letters, April 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: robert marty, robert.marty98@gmail.com
Citation: Marty, R. (2021). Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19. Academia Letters, Article 403.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL403.
2
Figure 1: Diagram of the Nicotine as an active ingredient in a “Beneficial Sacred Plant.”
the manufacturers, the stake is to preserve the status quo by organizing addiction through the
addition of various substances, by planning misinformation (minimizing the effects, financing of studies encouraging scientific doubt), by creating pseudo protections (multiple filters),
by multiplying advertising seduction strategies (in particular with the figure of the Marlboro
cowboy, bearer of virile values and initiator of rites of entry into the life of successive generations of teenagers and following teenage girls). It was later discovered that Robert Norris,
the model who incarnated him, died at the age of 90; he was not a smoker at all and “He gave
up his role in the popular tobacco advertising campaign after 14 years, saying he was setting
a bad example for his children” revealed the New York Times in 2019 [5].
It took several decades to reach the sign of the law established in the minds of everyone,
smoker or non-smoker, that Nicotine inhaled while smoking was a toxic substance (main
thanks to the multiplication of mandatory warnings on tobacco packages). The rearguard
battles over cancer statistics are won. A Rhematic Indexical Legisign is established, and the
argued connections with cancer appear indisputable. After a short period of coexistence, the
image battle is won. But the manufacturers do not give up. In 2016, for example, spending
on nicotine marketing was in the tens of billions a year; in the U.S. alone, spending was over
US$1 million per hour! Despite this, smokers themselves have internalized the danger: the
beneficial and sacred are now part of the concept’s history. Manufacturers also invested in the
Academia Letters, April 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: robert marty, robert.marty98@gmail.com
Citation: Marty, R. (2021). Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19. Academia Letters, Article 403.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL403.
3
e-cigarette recognizing the development of a potential new market sector that could render
traditional tobacco products obsolete. They began to produce and market their brands of ecigarettes and acquire existing e-cigarette companies. But despite their relentless resistance,
“Toxical” replaced “Beneficial” in the diagram of the Dicent Symbol “Nicotine”:
Figure 2: Diagram of the Nicotine as an active ingredient in a “Toxic Plant.”
Very recently, however, the search for drugs to combat the COVID-19 virus has reintroduced the idea that Nicotine may provide benefits. Observations made by physicians on
patient admissions to hospitals reveal an under-representation of smokers about their importance in the overall population. Statistical studies quickly verify this. The world press reports
on this fact ([6], [7], [8], [9]). Public health agencies are even obliged to warn the public, as
Nicotine patches intended to facilitate smoking cessation are misused without medical control. Smokers find some comfort in their addiction. It takes very little time for the sign of law
to take hold.
Moreover, the stakes are not the same. The conflict with the existing Dicent Symbol no
longer concerns magical thinking but another scientific approach. This fact puts government
institutions in an awkward position. Their communication, based on “Smoking kills,” becomes contradictory with new scientific facts. Moreover, it is even pointed out (2010) that the
Academia Letters, April 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: robert marty, robert.marty98@gmail.com
Citation: Marty, R. (2021). Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19. Academia Letters, Article 403.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL403.
4
tobacco plant, the other component of the Dicent Symbol, plays a significant role in virology
and could even generate therapeutic substances:
”Tobacco, an experimental model, could succeed in its conversion from a serial
killer and, thanks to transgenesis, become a culture adapted to the production
of molecules with a pharmaceutical role and to treat patients. Tobacco also has
benefited” [10].
A new diagram with two “Beneficial” co-exists with the “Toxical” diagram of figure 2 :
Figure 3: Diagram of the Nicotine as an active ingredient in an “anti-Covid Plant.”
The existing diagram still has a certain “image semiotic advantage,” visible on this diagram, pending the results of studies conducted worldwide that could put it on a par with its
new competitor as Dicent Symbol.
Plant and Substance, Good and Evil, Life and Death…Nicotine threatens to become a
semiotic entity with two contradictory sides that will continue to make headlines.
Academia Letters, April 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: robert marty, robert.marty98@gmail.com
Citation: Marty, R. (2021). Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19. Academia Letters, Article 403.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL403.
5
References
1. Marty, Robert (2020), The simplest model for the ten classes of signs,https://www.academia.edu/
44347570/The_simplest_model_for_the_ten_classes_of_signs
2. Marty, Robert (2019). The trichotomic machine, Semiotica, vol. 2019, no 228, 173192.
3. Peirce, Charles Sanders (1931–35 & 1958). Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce,
vols. 1–6 ed. by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss, vols. 7–8 ed. by Arthur Burks
(Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 4th ed.1978). References are
by C.P. and volume, period, and paragraph number.
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surgeon_General_of_the_United_States
5. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/09/us/robert-norris-dead.html
6. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/nicotine-replacement-therapy/
7. https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04583410
8. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/17/plan-study-nicotine-patches-potentialcoronavirus-treatment-covid-19
9. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8380289/More-evidence-smokers-risk-Covid19-Adults-half-likely-test-positive.html
10. RICROCH, Agnés. (2010). Les bienfaits du tabac, La lettre du Collège de France [En
ligne], Hors-série 3, mis en ligne le 24 juin 2010, consulté le 15 février 2021. URL :
http://journals.openedition.org/lettre-cdf/279 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/let
Academia Letters, April 2021
©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0
Corresponding Author: robert marty, robert.marty98@gmail.com
Citation: Marty, R. (2021). Nicotine as Sign: a Comeback with the COVID-19. Academia Letters, Article 403.
https://doi.org/10.20935/AL403.
6