Technically speaking, he is correct. It's not the nicotine that kills you. It's the nicotine that gets you ADDICTED, so when they purposefully add more it gets harder to quit. And that eventually it kills you.

So how does explain the fact that chewing tobacco also causes cancer? I don't know that anyone has ever gotten throat cancer from eating salads.

Oh dang! Another Republican from Indiana making an attempt at establishing weapons of mass detruction in…lettuce?!
omigod. All I can do is apologize to everyone, as I'm from Indiana, too. And a Republican, though I haven't seen but only three republicans WORTH voting for EVER.
(sorry…dump the politics, I guess, huh?)
Buyer already has a track record of stupidity going for him…he thinks there were never gays IN the military before Clinton's “don't ask/don't tell” regime, he thinks Senator Lugar is all about getting dangerous weapons off the Earth (although our Newport facility is still full to the brim with VX and other toxics)(well, every time they try to move it, barrels leak and break) and, last but not least, he backs Cheney's, Robertson's and Limbaugh's views religiously. We'll try to keep him in his pen, next time.
“Here, stevie stevie stevie. Here, boy….c'mon home now and let the nice lettuce farmers work….”

He's right. Nicotine doesn't cause cancer. I don't know if lettuce smoke has the same amount of tar, ammonia or formaldehyde, etc., but he's not as crazy as he sounds.  He probably should have picked a better example though because most people don't know that nicotine is not carcinogenic.

“Oh he's a Republican? Then he is instantly dumb, wrong and retarded.” Come on guys, forgive the silly-seeming analogy he uses and see that he does have a point; I think Mr. Bear Beorning (below) makes the point more concisely. And he's right. For those truly addicted, they'll smoke a whole pack just to get one buzz if they have to.

what a maroon

So by that logic, smoking pot is no more harmful than smoking cigarettes. Hooray! The republican congressman from Indiana supports legalization of marijuana! Who would have thought!

perhaps it is the smoke that kills…. but its the nicotine that gets us hooked on the smoke! i'd still place the blame on nicotine, since i can manage smoking other things without needing more all the time.

I'd rather get it from congressional authority whether smoking banana peels is the same as smoking pot.

A representative from Maine would never say something that idiotic. Just sayin'

I don't know what point this guy was trying to make, but the essence of what he said was true. It's why the tobacco control bill that just passed is 100% certain to result in a higher death toll among smokers—it mandates that that nicotine levels in cigarettes be reduced. And when smokers get cigarettes with less nicotine than they are used to, they smoke more cigarettes, inhale more smoke more deeply, and hold it in their lungs for a longer period of time. So the “less nicotine” provision won't mean less addiction—it'll mean more smoking. And no, I don't smoke.