Cigarettes Contain Over 4000 Different Chemicals and Addictives

Cigarettes are bad for you. That statement is known by just about everyone or at least it should be, but do you really know why cigarettes are bad for you? The answer can be found in the ingredients and chemicals that fill each one cigarette stick.

There are over 4,000 different addictives in cigarettes and that is not counting the tobacco. A lot of these cigarette addictives can be found in other products such as food and while they were tested for other uses, these addictives in your cigarettes were never actually tested to see what would happen when they were burned.

Cigarette Addictives

Below I will list just a few of the addictives that are inhaled with each puff of a cigarette.

DDT - An insecticide that was eventually banned

Acetone - This is usually found in nail polish remover

Butane - You can find this in your lighter fluid

Cyanide - By now we should all know that cyanide is a very deadly poison

Ammonia - Used to clean your home and the smell is awful and overpowering to the senses

Benzene - This product can be found in synthetic rubber and also used to make dye products

Arsenic - Another deadly poison that is often used to kill rats

Formaldehyde - An embalming fluid and teens often use it to get high

Naphthalene - Mothball ingredient

Nicotine - Nicotine was a poison that was once and may still be used to kill roaches

A few other key ingredients include Carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxides,

Looking at these ingredients, I don't know anyone who would willingly put these ingredients into their bodies daily or even hourly the way a smoker does with each cigarette that is smoked. One big issue is that most smokers are completely unaware of what each stick of cigarette contains.

From the list of over 4,000 substances found in cigarettes only 599 of them were approved in the making of cigarettes. So I have to wonder why all of these other products are in cigarettes. It may be that they are a little less dangerous than the arsenic and cyanide at least in theory. Because once they are burned they create more chemicals themselves. Some of the more innocent sounding ingredients can be found in everything from fruits and vegetables to common snack food items.

At the end of the day, we all know cigarettes are bad for us. Maybe now people will begin to understand why. Too many people are seriously ignorant of the fact that chemicals that will make them leave a room coughing because of the fumes can be found in the next cigarette that they light up.