Cigarettes are Poisonous.

This is not the drone of someone trying to tell you what to do with your life, it is a fact. Just because they are sold in stores doesn't mean they're ok. And sure, they make you look bad when you smoke them, because it is bad to smoke them. Bad like a rotten, moldy sandwich in the bottom of the refrigerator, or like oven cleaner on your Frosted Flakes.

The only ones who are really bad are the corporation executives in their yachts, laughing at you while you get cancer, and make them rich.

Here is a partial list of the chemicals in Commercially manufactured cigarettes. The first part are chemicals known to cause cancer, called carcinogens. Here are chemicals in secondhand smoke

Dimethylnitrosamine

Ethylmethylnitrosamine

Nitrosopyrrolidine

Hydrazine

Vinyl Chloride

Urethane

Formaldehyde-preserves frogs

Other Toxic Agents:

Carbon Monoxide

Hydrogen Cyanide

Acrolein

Acetadehyde

Nitrogen oxides

Ammonia

Pyridine

Nitric acid

Mathylamine

Hydrogen cyanide - gas chamber poison

Indole

3-hydroxypyridine

3-vinylpyridine

Acetone

Acetonitrile

Acrolein

1,3-Butadiene, mg

Nitrous acid

isoquioline

Isoamylamine

3-Cyanopyridine

Propylene Glycol - antifreeze

Plutonium 210 - used to make nuclear bombs

Toulene - embalmers glue

Cadmium - artist's oil paints

Benzene - rubber cement

 

This is only a partial list. They put these chemicals in cigarettes to reduce tar while maintaining the level of nicotine necessary to keep them addictive. Keeping the tar down helps to calm people's fears about health risks. Since the companies are free of any supervision they are not compelled to reveal the chemicals they use. But recent breaks in the wall of secrecy have revealed that cigarettes are only about 40% tobacco, and 60% other junk.

(From: E. L. Wynder, M.D., and D. Hoffman, Ph.D., Tobacco and Health, The New England Journal of Medicine, April 19, 1979)

A new book by Richard Kluger called Ashes to Ashes: America's Hundred-year cigarette war, the public health, and the unabashed triumph of Philip Morris details dramatically how the cigarette industry consciously controls and strengthens the nicotine levels in cigarettes.

Kluger also shows that the industry knowingly focuses advertising on 10 to 16 year olds; knowing that that age group is the most easily hooked. He presents recent scientific evidence that adolescents are the most susceptible to nicotine.

He shows how their financial clout has bought them immunity from the laws binding the rest of society.

Secondhand Smoke

Smokers scorn nonsmokers' disgust for cigarette smoke, saying they're just "jumping on the bandwagon," or being PC, or being fussy wimps.
Here's the point: Cigarette fumes contain harmful chemicals.
That is why being trapped in cigarette smoke is not like being trapped in a portable toilet. It's not the smell, it's the instantaneous physical, somatic reactions. It's like the difference between the air in a barnyard and the air in an unventilated garage with an idling diesel bus. The first is merely unpleasant, the second is poisonous. The physical reaction (sweaty palms, nausea, headache) all warn of danger, and urge whoever to get into some fresh air immediately.
In days of old canaries were kept in coal mines, because if there was coal gas in the air, the canaries would die more quickly than the miners, alerting them to the danger. Coal gas and cigarette smoke are both inescapable when they permeate the local air.
And it didn't take government studies to come to this conclusion. Non-smokers have always sensed it, but had no corroborating evidence, until now. Here's the latest information from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

 

Component in cigarette

Known or probable carcinogens (Definitely or most likely a cause of cancer!!!)

 How much more is in side stream smoke?
Plutonium-210 1-4 times
Benzo[a]pyrene 2.5-3.5 times
Hydrazine 3 times
1,3 butadiene 3-6 times
Benzene 5-10 times
N-nitrosopyrrolidine 6-30 times
Cadmium 7.2 times
Nickel 13-30 times
N-nitrosodimenthylamine 20-100 times
Aniline 30 times
2-Naphthylamine 30 times
4-Aminobiphenyl 31 times
N-nitrodiethylamine up to 40 times

Smoking is so Glamorous

Cigarettes have created a culture of panhandlers and litterers. "Bumming a cigarette" is a new thing that began after WWII, when cigarettes first became everywhere. And it's obvious that smokers consider the world their personal ashtray, when you see butts everywhere on the ground where they gather.

There's an old story about people in a lifeboat. One guy is bored, and starts cutting a hole in the bottom of the boat. The others object, but the guy says "Why are you worried, the hole is under my seat!" This is the just like the inconsiderate smoker who lights up in a room full of people who aren't smoking.