Welcome to the Tobacco Smorgasbord

"Tobacco products are the only retail products not required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to list ingredients on its packaging."

American Lung Association

If more people realized what is in tobacco products, a lot more people would try harder to quit smoking or chewing or dipping. And if they knew who had approved the things that are in tobacco products, they'd really be ticked off.

While the list of additives in cigarettes - approved by the U.S. government - is nasty enough, the real problem with them has never been addressed.

All the substances are approved by the FDA as individual food additives but they were never tested by burning them. It is the burning of many of these substances that changes their properties, often for the worse.

Nor have these additives ever been tested for results when combined.

What is in There?

"A bottle of water requires the ingredients to be put on the back of the bottle. (Even though it's zeros right down the line!) - tobacco is not required."

Unidentified source

According to the American Lung Society, cigarette smoke contains over 4,800 chemicals, 69 of which are known carcinogens; hundreds more are known to be toxic.

Admittedly, not every additive is harmful. There's allspice extract, oleoresin and oil; apple juice concentrate, extract and skins; apricot extract and juice concentrate; ascorbic acid (think Vitamin C); basil oil; bay leaf, oil and sweet oil; even beet juice concentrate, to name a few.

But along with the bergamot oil, butter, caramel color and caraway oil is carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide and ammonia.

Hydrogen cyanide is used to make chemical weapons. Ammonia is a commode cleaner.

Mixed in with the beta-carotene (good for your eyes) is acetanisole (found in a glandular secretion of beavers that smells sweet and can taste like vanilla or cherry); plus butyric acid, which is found in rancid butter, vomit and Parmesan cheese.

While the celery seed extract, solid, oil and oleoresin; plus the chamomile flower oil and extract have been included, there's also capsicum oleoresin (an active ingredient in pepper spray); ethyl acetate (a solvent), and farnesol (an alcohol that is also a natural pesticide for mites and a pheromone for several insects (do you really want insects to find you 'attractive?').

Once you get past the cinnamon leaf oil, bark oil and extract; clover tops; cocoa shells, extract, distillate and power; or the coconut oil; coffee; corn oil; fig juice and honey, you get to the isobutyl acetate (a solvent used in lacquer); magnesium carbonate (a mineral used in flooring, fireproofing, cosmetics and toothpaste); and methoprene (a hormone used in drinking water cisterns to control mosquitoes that spread malaria).

A little jasmine, kola nut, lemongrass and nutmeg sweeten the pot, along with a soupçon of skatole (a compound generated in mammals' digestive tracts and in beets that has a strong fecal odor); thiazole (a flammable liquid used to make fungicides); urea (a chemical used in fertilizers and a component of urine); and acetone (the main ingredient in paint and nail polish remover).

 Finally some rose, rum and vanillin add a deeper note to the napthalenes (used in mothballs and explosives); cadmium (found in batteries and artists' oil paint); hydrazine (used in jet and rocket fuels); and butane (cigarette lighter fluid).

Then there's arsenic (used in rat poison); formaldehyde; lead; the addictive poison nicotine (for which there is no known antidote); and the insecticide DDT.

There's styrene (found in insulation materials, hence the name Styrofoam); benzene (in rubber cement and solvents); vinyl chloride (an ingredient found in garbage bags); acrolein (used to make chemical weapons); cyanide; and glycolic acid (used to process leather).

Add to that hexamine (a major ingredient in barbecue lighter fluid); methylamine (used to tan leather); PCDDs and PCDFs (ingredients of Agent Orange); and toluene (a known carcinogen and poisonous industrial solvent).

Shine Little Glowworm...

Then there's the radioactive polonium 210 and uranium 235.

One of the most lethal radioactive elements known to date, polonium 210 is absorbed into the tobacco plants from the high phosphate fertilizers tobacco growers use. It accumulates over time in the soil and in the plants, and also sticks to the tobacco leaves.

Uranium 235 is used for nuclear weapons and in shells fired from special military weapons to penetrate tanks and is almost as radioactive as polonium 210.

Add to this list another 534 known additives, plus the over 4,800 chemicals that are formed when a cigarette is burned, and it's a menu that has something in it for everybody.

After reading the list of cigarette additives - and by the way, a similar list exists for cigars and smokeless tobacco - one might wonder three things: how these things could legally be allowed in a consumer product, why hasn't the American public been told of this all along, and why aren't these "ingredients" listed on every cigarette package?

The answer is, no one can adequately explain it.

"...a lot of 's'plaining to do!"

It seems that in 1984 Congress amended the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act to require cigarette manufacturers (tobacco companies) to give the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) an annual list of all the ingredients they added to their cigarettes.

This historic tidbit comes from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) website, which ironically states in its header "Protecting America's Consumers."

The key here is that only the Secretary of HHS gets the information, and he or she is required by law to keep the information confidential. Things were set up this way because the tobacco companies successfully argued that the list of additives was proprietary information, trade secrets. Congress agreed.

So the Secretary of HHS only reports to Congress information about any ingredient he or she believes poses a health risk to smokers.

In a paper published in Science News in 1994 by Janet Raloff, she wrote that Congress stipulated that "no federal official may disclose the identity of listed chemicals, regardless of how innocuous they may seem.

"This federal protection also prohibits anyone who views the lists from sharing the contents with outside toxicologists or others to confirm the claim of cigarette makers that these additives pose no risk to health," Raloff continued.

Her paper stated that Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) had signed the confidentiality agreement required to access the list and, while he could not disclose specific information to other members of the House Sub-Committee on Health and the Environment, of which he was a member, he could note that the lists cited heavy metals, active agents, pesticides and insecticides, with at least 13 of the ingredients listed not allowed in foods that Americans eat.

But, the paper continued, cigarettes were not food, so they were not restricted to food-grade additives. They were not considered drugs, so they were not under the safety and disclosure requirements of other consumer products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Raloff's paper indicated (remember, the year was 1994) that Wyden also reported to his committee that some of the additives on the list were so toxic they could not legally be dumped into a landfill, no matter how small the quantity.

Wyden also noted at that time a letter in which then director of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) David Satcher said no one knew what potentially harmful by-products might be produced when the additives were burned alone or in combination, as they are in cigarettes.

According to another study from the American Journal of Public Health (published in November 1994), National Public Radio reported on the list of cigarette additives, causing a public outcry. That same year the six major tobacco companies made the list public, along with information supporting the safety of their additives.

According to the study, this was the only time the list was made public and there is no updated public list of tobacco additives available.

NOTE: On June 11, 2009, the U.S. Senate passed a bill giving the FDA regulatory control of tobacco products.

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Family Smoking Prevention Tobacco Control Act on July 30, 2008, giving the FDA broad authority to regulate the production and marketing of tobacco products.

The bill then went to the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, where it passed and was sent to a vote by the full Senate.

The bill is now on a fast-track to President Obama, who has already indicated he will quickly sign it.

"Let's face the facts.

1. Cigarette smoke is biologically active.

A. Nicotine is a potent pharmacological agent. Every toxicologist, physiologist, medical doctor and most chemists know that. It's not a secret.

B. Cigarette smoke condensate applied to the backs of mice cause tumors.

C. Hydrogen cyanide is a potent inhibitor of cytochrome oxidase - a crucial enzyme in the energy metabolism of all cells.

D. Oxides of nitrogen are important in nitrosamine formation. Nitrosamines as a class are potent carcinogens.

Tobacco-specific nonvolatile nitrosamines are present in significant amounts in cigarette smoke.

F. Acrolein is a potent eye irritant and is very toxic to cells. Acrolein is in cigarette smoke.

G. Polonium-210 is present in cigarette smoke.

H. We know very little about the biological activity of sidestream smoke.

I. We do not know enough about the biological activity of additives which have been in use for a number of years."

February 23, 1982 Brown & Williamson memo, comments on "Future Strategies for the Changing Cigarette" from J.L. Charles, manager of the biochemistry group/vice president of research, to Thomas Osdene, director of research.