Updated on March 1, 2024.
In addition to highly addictive nicotine, cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals. Here's what you're inhaling with each puff:
- Arsenic (also found in rat poison)
- Ammonia (a poison; present in many household cleaners)
- Acetone (also found in fingernail-polish remover)
- Benzene (also used as an industrial solvent and found in car exhaust)
- Carbon monoxide (also found in car exhaust-pipe fumes)
- Cadmium (used in rechargeable batteries)
- Cyanide (a poison used in gas chambers)
- DDT (an insecticide)
- Formaldehyde (also found in embalming fluid)
- Lead (a poison that's been removed from nearly all paints)
- Mercury (a highly poisonous substance; easily absorbed through respiration)
- Nickel (also poisonous; a known cancer-causing agent)
- Hydrogen cyanide (a deadly poison used in gas chambers)
- Hydrogen sulfide (sewer gas)
- Polonium-210 (a radioactive substance)
- More than 50 cancer-causing agents (carcinogens)
And, of course, nicotine, which isn't just addictive, it's a natural insecticide (it protects the tobacco plant from bugs). In its pure form, nicotine is a deadly poison. One drop could kill a human in minutes.
