Consider Additive Free Cigarettes When Quitting Smoking

If you're a smoker who's quitting, or even if you're a pack-a-day type (maybe especially if you are), consider switching to an additive free cigarette. American Spirit Tobacco is one such widely produced alternative to traditional cigarettes. Smoking causes cancer and there are no safe cigarretes, but why put more crap into your body than neccesary?

The tobacco industry has provided a list of the 409 additives in your cigarette. If the government allows them to be there, they should be safe, right? They should be, but the truth is most of the additives have not been approved for inhalation by burning, a process which changes their makeup. It's important to note that while the additives themselves may not be carcinogenic, upon being burned a cigarette produces over 4000 chemical compounds, of which 60 have been identified as being carcinogenic. It follows common sense that fewer chemicals being altered produce fewer potentially harmful compounds.

American Spirit is also available with organic tobacco, and in the usual filtered, unfiltered and light varieties. Stick to the filtered lights if you are quitting.

To be fair, a study came out in 2003 that said that additive free cigarettes were actually more damaging than conventional cigarettes. The numbers were sobering a little misleading. They compared an unfiltered American Spirit cigarette, two types of traditional Indian cigarettes called bindis, and a smoker's usual brand. The smoker's nicotine levels were tested an hour after smoking each. Not suprisingly, the unfiltered AMerican Spirit cigarete, which contains up to 25% more tobacco because of it's lack of additives, delivered a higher level of nicotine.

A study like this should be evaluated carefully. If they were only testing the effect of the cigarette being additive free then they should have used at least one filtered additive free cigarette. It still would have delivered more nicotine but would have yieled a more fair comparison. Additionally, no research was reported on the effect of the additive free smoke versus the additive laced smoke, but merely on the nocotine content. In any case, do your own research and draw your own conclusion.

Using organic or additive free cigarretes to aid in quitting smoking does not mean you're smoking a safer cigarette. Personally I think that putting less random crap into your body is a good thing and is probably safer than putting more. The FTC has sued makers of these kinds of cigarettes for promoting them as safer. According to the FTC, putting less additives in your body can't be construed as making the cigarette less damaging to your health. That's because those additives are approved for consumption, while ignoring the 4000 + compounds that are produced when a cigarette is burned. As with the study mentioned previously, I'm going to draw my own conclusions.

Additive free cigarettes could be more addictive because they deliver more nicotine from the higher tobacco content. I recommend them only for people who are concerned about additives and who are quitting by stepping down. Smoking the lights variety is a good idea but doesn't neccesarily mean you're getting less carcinogens. Lights work by having a thinner paper that allows more air to mix with each inhalation, and through small holes around the base of the filter for the same effect. Smokers often unconciously compensate by take deeper and more frequent drags, and by covering the holes in the filter with their fingers. Avoid these habits or else you could be getting just as much tar as in the full flavor variety.