What's Really in Your Cigarette?

[Tab]

(Wall Street Journal)

A 1992 document drawn up by Covington & Burling, a leading tobacco law firm, lists 614 different additives in cigarettes. Here are some of the choicer items...

Glycerol
Propylene glycol
Diammonium phosphate
Urea
Menthol
Prune juice and concentrate
Levulinic acid

...Gone, apparently, are some that appear in earlier lists: "civet absolute," for example, which turns out to be a secretion from the anal gland of the civet cat, and castoreum, a comparable secretion from the Siberian beaver.
(OP note: How did they get this stuff?)

Nicotine per se isn't typically added, apart from what is already found in precision-bred and blended tobacco leaf, but ammonia is used in abundance—millions of pounds per year in fact—to push the nicotine molecule from a "bound" into a "free base" state, creating a kind of crack nicotine. Levulinic acid is similarly added to increase the efficiency of nicotine binding in the brain. Cocoa is added for aroma but also for its impact as a bronchodilator: Cocoa contains the alkaloid theobromine, which helps open up the lungs to "receive" smoke.
[link:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444914904577619413844991748.html|

[Systematic Chaos]

1. Anyone up for a puff of cat ass?

[Inspired]

2. I can't believe I used to smoke. nt

[tech3149]

3. I find it odd that the article doesn't distinguish between processed and unprocessed

I've rolled my own for years and there is a noticeable difference between the two. A roll your own will extinguish within 20 to 30 seconds. A processed smoke will pretty much burn itself out. That tends to make me think that unprocessed tobacco doesn't get all those additives thrown in.

[PD Turk]

7. Me too

I use a Top O Matic injector and make my own with all natural tobacco. Huge difference .

[tridim]

4. Don't tell anyone, but today is my day 1.

So far, so good.

This is really the first time I can definitively say that I hate cigarettes, and hate smoking.

[left on green only]

6. Good luck to you!

You are going to feel so good, after some time has passed.

[nobodyspecial]

5. Who is still smoking these days?

Stop it! RIGHT FUCKING NOW!

[KharmaTrain]

8. A Nicad Battery...

I "smoke" an E-Cig with a little drip of nicotine but none of the other chemicals (and not to mention the ever-rising expenses) of smoking cigarettes. It's been 18 months since I had a cig and not missing them one bit...

[TheManInTheMac]

9. Prune juice?! That's it, I'm quitting.

[abolugi]

10. When I smoked

I looked at the ingredients of my "smooth" cigarette and it had CHOCOLATE in it! No wonder it was smooth. I was inhaling melted chocolate!!
That is when I made the conscious effort to quit. Who knew what else they were sneaking in!!

[Tab]

12. I didn't quote everything

and they still gave an excerpt list, but it also included (in addition to the prune juice):

Cocoa and cocoa shells
Licorice
St. John's Bread
Chocolate
Angelica Root
Nutmeg powder and oil
Dandelion root solid extract

These, and others, are for flavor/taste (or smell). I mean, I guess you can add whatever the hell you want. I'd be less concerned about things like chocolate and more concerned about things like ammonia that change the molecular structure of the inhalants into something that binds more strongly to your body and crap like that.

[Drahthaardogs]

11. Harm Reduction

If you are truly addicted and cannot quit, most doctors will not tell you, but modern dip tobacco (BUT NOT DRY SN
UFF) is indeed a safer alternative to cigarettes. The simple fact of inhaling particulates day after day, year after year, is in and of of itself, inherently dangerous. Black Lung, White Lung, and Miller's Lung .. all caused by breathing fine particulate.

Modern snus and dip tobacco (since about 1995) is a safer alternative but most physicians will not tell you the truth.