eli5: If tobacco is a leaf, why does it have so many substances known to cause cancer?

Question

* Source is the packaging I’ve just read for a pack of tobacco in the UK which says it has 70 cancer causing substances

In: 2

Answer 1

I like campfires. I love the smell of wood smoke. (Not so much when it blows straight in my face.)

Wood smoke is loaded with cancer-causing stuff, but I don’t breath in too much. With tobacco, you are pulling smoke into your lungs, several times a day, every day, for years.