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

Smoke is a carcinogen so if you’re lighting a cigarette on fire you will always be inhaling carcinogens.

And yes, if normal people farmed tobacco and made cigarettes themselves then they could go ahead and not add chemicals to their tobacco. But it’s illegal for normal people to ~~grow~~ sell their own tobacco, at least in the U.S., because tobacco companies lobbied to make it illegal. This way large corporations have control over the farming and chemicals, and they can add special chemicals to make cigarettes more addictive.