What Are You Smoking?

In addition to highly addictive nicotine, cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals. Here's what you're inhaling with each puff:

• Arsenic (rat poison)
• Ammonia (poisonous; present in many household cleaners)
• Acetone (fingernail-polish remover)
• Benzene (industrial solvent)
• Carbon monoxide (exhaust-pipe fumes)
• Cadmium (used in rechargeable batteries)
• Cyanide (poison used in gas chambers)
• DDT (insecticide)
• Formaldehyde (embalming fluid)
• Lead (a poison removed from nearly all paints)
• Mercury (highly poisonous; easily absorbed through respiration)
• Nickel (poisonous; a known cancer-causing agent)
• Hydrogen cyanide (deadly poison used in gas chambers)
• Hydrogen sulfide (sewer gas)
• Polonium-210 (radioactive substance)
• More than 50 cancer-causing agents (carcinogens)
• And, of course, nicotine, which isn't just addictive, it's a natural insecticide (it protects the tobacco plant from bugs) and in its pure form is a deadly poison -- one drop could kill a human in minutes.