eli5: if cigarettes contain so many bad chemicals, then can’t we just take them out?

Question

my biology textbook says that there are over 60 carcinogens in cigarettes that cause cancer, but can’t we take them out? aren’t people just addicted to the nicotine? couldn’t we just put nicotine and some sort of smoke producing substance that isn’t a carcinogen and leave it at that

Edit: Thank you for the answers, everyone!

In: 43

Answer 1

Nicotine itself also goes through reactions that create carcinogens. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobacco-specific_nitrosamines