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What's in a cigarette

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Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals including:

  • nicotine,
  • carbon monoxide,
  • hydrogen cyanide,
  • acetone,
  • ammonia,
  • arsenic,
  • phenol,
  • naphthalene,
  • cadmium and
  • vinyl chloride
 At least 43 of these chemicals are cancer-causing carcinogens that have a significant impact upon the health of cigarette smokers.
(U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1989).

Three specific components of cigarette smoke have the greatest effect: (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1981)

Tar is inhaled into your mouth airways and lungs in tiny particles contained in cigarette smoke. It is composed of various organic and inorganic chemicals including a number of cancer causing substances. Tar is the sticky brown substance that causes the yellow-brown staining on smokers' fingers and teeth, and lungs.

Nicotine is a drug contained in tobacco that causes people to be addicted to smoking. The effects of nicotine upon the body are immediate and include: increased heart rate and blood pressure. In the long term nicotine may contribute to coronary disease and the development of cancers. Nicotine replacement products used as an aid to quitting (NRT) also contain nicotine but in a safer form.

Carbon monoxide is a poisonous gas. Carbon monoxide reduces the body's red blood cells ability to deliver oxygen to tissues with the potential to cause the greatest damage to heart, brain and skeletal muscles. Smokers can have up to 10 times the amount of carbon monoxide in their blood than non-smokers.

The truth about ‘light’, ‘mild’ and ‘Low’ tar cigarettes

Despite these cigarettes having reduced levels of tar and nicotine, smokers need to satisfy their addiction for nicotine. This often leads to smokers of these cigarettes changing the way they smoke by taking bigger puffs, taking more puffs from one cigarette, smoking more cigarettes per day or blocking ventilation holes Any positive impact is therefore canceled out.

Reference: Quit Victoria, What’s in cigarettes


Further reading:

Quit Victoria’s fact sheets: