Surely things can be removed from cigarettes that will make them healthier.
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There are technically healthier forms of cigarettes made for people to smoke in film, like props. There are also clove cigarettes, which people think are healthier but it’s debatable.
Because the burning of tobacco for the inhalation of smoke is the very nature of smoking. Whether it be in a cigarette or a pipe or various other means of delivery, the inhalation of smoke is detrimental to one’s lungs. The smoke and heat damage soft organic tissue.
No matter what, there’s a point at which you’re still inhaling smoke, which is not healthy. Removing the chemical additives that increase addiction, removing or filtering the natural compounds that cause health problems, all of that could be done, but as soon as you light whatever is left, you’re harming your body.
Burning any carbon compound inevitably creates the dreaded “polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons” that are the primary cancer causing agents.
You can’t remove them from a cigarette without removing *everything*.
Intentionally inhaling smoke is harmful.
You could remove the nicotine to make it non-habit forming, but that sort of defeats the purpose.
I guess, electric cigarettes have been the first step in that direction .. but I’d not call them “healthy” by any stretch of the imagination.
One of the biggest problems with oldschool cigarettes, is incomplete combustion.
That creates a lot of carcinogens and other unhealthy stuff, that can cause cancer and other respiratory problems/illnesses.
That’s the problem, that e-cigarettes have tried to tackle .. but it’s still far from perfect.
There are already cigarettes without additives, which is the “healthiest” version of a tobacco cigarette. However, the burning of tobacco is what causes the cigarette to be unhealthy, as many harmful compounds are created.
Replacing the tobacco with some other material might result in fewer harmful substances being inhaled, but smoke of any type is bad for the body. Additionally, without the nicotine present in tobacco, such alternative cigarettes would be less pleasurable to smoke, so it is unlikely consumers would switch.
There are less harmuful alternatives, like iqos which is device that heats up tobacco instead of burning it, but they are still less healthy than not smoking at all.
Problem is that the key ingredient in cigarettes, nicotine, is on itself harmful and toxic. So even if you remove tar, carbon monoxide etc., there is still nicotine present. If you remove nicotine, then why even smoke at all?
The process of curing Tobacco produces chemical compounds known as Nitrosamines that cause cancer and they are the biggest part of what makes all tobacco products dangerous.
This happens because tobacco plants contain nicotine and the process of curing means that the alkaloids combine with nitrates and form nitrosamines. The amount of Nitrosamines can be manipulated depending on the method of curing, but there currently is no way to eliminate them.
Burning tobacco to smoke it just makes things worse, but chewing and sniffing tobacco can still cause cancer.
Could we switch to perhaps another plant instead of tobacco? Maybe, but inhaling smoke from any source isn’t great for one’s health, either.
To add to what everyone else is telling you Tobacco plants are also very good at absorbing **radiation**, notably in the form of Radon/Radium. Radium (which decays into Radon gas) is present in fertilizers and can further decay into polonium-210 which is particularly dangerous. While the amount of Radon is not high enough the get tobacco banned it is believed to have a synergistic effect with the other carcinogenic effects of smoking boosting the likelihood of lung cancer forming.
What? You’re missing the point: they’re SUPPOSED to kill you.
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