Have any of you bothered to read the patents? Anatabine is hard to make. Johnny patented 2 different ways to make it. You are only infringing if you use one of those ways to make it.
The stuff the chemical companies were selling wasn't food grade and had too many impurities in it for human use.
Pure anatabine isn't chemically stable for longer term storage, ie sitting in a pill bottle on the shelf so is made into a salt such as citrate.
Here's right out of one of the patents.
[23] Unless otherwise clear from context, the term "anatabine" as used herein refers collectively to anatabine, either as a racemic mixture or an enantiomer, and pharmaceutically acceptable salts of either of them. In general, salts may provide improved chemical purity, stability, solubility, and/or bioavailability relative to anatabine in its native form. Non-limiting examples of possible anatabine salts are described in P. H. Stahl et al., Handbook of Pharmaceutical Salts: Properties, Selection and Use, Weinheim/Zurich:Wiley-VCH/VHCA, 2002
