Chemistry of Smoking

Smoking is claimed to be the number one preventable cause of disease. Yet, despite dire warnings, millions continue to puff away. Smoking advocates claim it is pleasing the senses, enjoyable and fun. They claim it is relaxing, restful and refreshing. Some even insist that smoking is harmless!

Chemistry of Smoking

Some 4000 different chemical compounds have been identified in tobacco smoke. Do you know that one puff of cigarette smoke contains 15 billions particles of matter? Among them are many of the most noxious substances known to man! Here is a partial list : Nicotine, pyridine, methyl alcohol, ammonia, carbon monoxide, furfural, formaldehyde, cancerogenic benzopyrene, phenols, acetone, arsenic, acids such as formic, oxalic, citric, acetic, coffeic, hydrocyanic.

Nicotine is one of the quickest, most fatal poisons known. A fatal dose is about 100 miligrams - about one cigar contains. If 500 miligrams of nicotine were directly injected into the bloodstream, the person would be killed instantly!

Tobacco "tars" of course, have been linked with cancer. They are carcinogenic. Tars are formed during the heating of the tobacco leaf. If a mouthful of smoke is blown through a handkerchief, a brown, malodorous stain can be seen ( evidence of the tars ).

A smoker who uses about a pack and a half of cigarettes a day inhales into his mouth, pharynx, larynx and lungs about a QUART of tobacco tar in a year!!

Benzopyrene is one of the most powerful known cancer causing agents in animals. Arsenic is another cancer causing chemical found in cigarettes. A man who smokes a pack a day may take as much as 36 miligrams of arsenic into his body every year from smoking alone. The arsenic comes from lead arsenate, used as a pesticide on tobacco plants.

Every time a smoker smokes, these chemicals invade his system. One of the chemicals called "collidine" is used for killing experimental animals. It causes paralysis and death. Another on called "prussic acid" can kill within minutes. Methyl alcohol causes first blindness, then death. Formaldehyde is used by morticians for embalming dead bodies. Tobacco has an arsenic content 50 times the amount legally permitted in food.