ELi5: Why do cigarettes have so many toxic substances in them? Surely you don’t need rat poison to get high?

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Not just rat poison, but so many of the ingredients just sound straight up unnecessary and also harmful. Why is there tar in cigarettes? Or arsenic? Formaldehyde? I get the tobacco and nicotine part but do you really need 1001 poisons in it???

EDIT: Thanks for answering! I was also curious on why cocaine needs cement powder and gasoline added in production. Snorting cement powder does not sound like a good idea. Then again, snorting cocaine is generally not considered a good idea… but still, why is there cement and gasoline in cocaine??

In: Biology

15 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Smoking tobacco is so dangerous! I think I will stick to drinking poison instead. Not enough to kill me but just enough to have a good time. Because the bottled poison companies really care about us and they make sure that the poison that they sell is not poisonous enough to make me go blind or kill me right away. And the great thing with drinking poison is that you can mix it with fruit juice and put an umbrella in it so I look really cool while I drink the poison. But at least I’m not smoking those dangerous cancer causing cigarettes.

Most substances, if burnt, will show quantifiable amounts of dangerous chemicals. These substances are not added in the manufacturing process and are naturally present in the product.

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