Cigarette
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A cigarette is a tobacco product manufactured out of cured and finely cut tobacco leaves, which is rolled or stuffed into a paper-wrapped cylinder (generally less than 120 mm in length and 10 mm in diameter). The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder for the purpose of inhalation of its smoke from the other (usually filtered) end, which is inserted in the mouth. They are sometimes smoked with a cigarette holder. The term cigarette, as commonly used, typically refers to a tobacco cigarette, but can apply to similar devices containing other herbs, such as cannabis. Since most tobacco products have been medically proven to considerably shorten lifespans (Peto et al, 1996), most Western and several Eastern countries have large health warnings printed on the front and back of packets to warn of the effects of smoking, and have prohibited any advertising which encourages the sale of cigarettes.
A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its smaller size (hence the name), use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping; cigars are typically composed entirely of whole leaf tobacco. Cigarettes were largely unknown in the English-speaking world before the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades, who resorted to rolling their tobacco with newsprint.
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Manufacture and ingredients
Commercial cigarettes and cigarette tobaccos rarely contain pure tobacco. Manufacturers often use additives to maintain blend consistency, improve perceived blend quality, as preservatives and even in order to completely change the organoleptic qualities of the tobacco smoke. While this is true for many brands of cigarettes, in Canada the major cigarette brands all contain 100% natural Virginia Leaf - no additives. Some cigarettes (known as kreteks, clove cigarettes, or simply cloves) have cloves blended with the tobacco. This is done to enhance the smoker's pleasure by numbing the mouth and lungs and providing a mild euphoric effect. Lower-quality clove cigarettes simply have a clove essence added to the tobacco.
In addition to additives, cigarette tobaccos, especially lower-quality blends, are often highly physically processed. During the original processing of leaf for cigarettes, the leaves are deveined and the lamina is shredded or cut. Since the leaf is relatively dry at this point these processes result in a significant amount of tobacco dust. Manufacturing operations have developed procedures for collecting this dust and remaking it into usable material (known as reconstituted sheet tobacco). The removed leaf midveins, which are unsuitable for use in cigarettes in their natural state, were historically discarded or spread on fields because of their high nitrogen content. Procedures have been developed, however, to "expand" the stems and process them for inclusion in the cigarette blends. All these procedures allow cigarette manufacturers to produce as many cigarettes as possible using the least amount of raw materials as possible.
The most common usage of the cigarette is tobacco smoke delivery. The second most common usage of the cigarette is for marijuana smoke delivery. The hand-rolled cigarette is the most common form of marijuana cigarette. Marijuana users will usually twist the ends of the cigarette to prevent fine cut marijuana buds from falling out. Tobacco users who roll their own cigarettes, however, will usually not twist the cigarette at the ends; hand rolling tobacco is made in strands so it doesn't have a tendency to fall out.
Some cigarette smokers roll their own cigarettes by wrapping loose cured tobacco in paper; most, however, purchase machine-made commercially available brands, generally sold in small cardboard packages of 10 or 20 cigarettes in the United States and UK or 25 in Canada. Commercial cigarettes usually contain a cellulose acetate or cotton filter through which the smoker inhales the cigarette's smoke; the filter serves to cool and clean the smoke.
Recently cigarette rolling machines have become increasingly popular. Tobacco can be purchased in pouches or cans, usually at a fraction of the price that would be paid for the same amount pre-rolled. A rolling machine makes filterless, or "straight" cigarettes, or a machine can be purchased that packs the tobacco into a pre-rolled form with a filter. These filtered papers usually come in boxes of 200, while unfiltered papers will come in packs ranging from 12 to 64, and some contain even more. The following section refers to the US: There are many different types of cigarettes,
- Hand Rolled Cigarettes from rolling papers
- Unfiltered Cigarettes (no filter)
- Regular Filtered Cigarettes (regular size)
- Light Filtered Cigarettes (are not as strong)
- Ultra-Light Filtered Cigarettes (very weak)
- Regular Filtered 100s (longer)
- Light Filtered 100s (longer, are not as strong)
- Ultra-light Filtered 100s (longer, very weak)
- Regular Slim 120s (very long, skinny)
- Light Slim 120s (very long, skinny, are not as strong)
- Ultra-Light Slim 120s (very long, skinny, very weak)
Note: Regular size are known as King Size in the UK, and 100s are Superkings: they are also the same width as a normal cigarette.
- Menthols (have smoke that induces a cooling sensation)
- Slims (Cigarette is of smaller diameter)
- Wides (Cigarette is of larger diameter)
Color Coding on Commercial Cigarette Packs
- Red packs usually means Full Flavor
- Gold packs usually means Lights
- Light Blue, or Silver usually means Ultra-Lights
- Green usually means Menthols
- Very Dark Red usually means Unfiltered
Sale
Before the Second World War many manufacturers gave away collectible cards, one in each packet of cigarettes. This practice was discontinued to save paper during the war and was never generally reintroduced. During the Second World War they gave out free cigarettes to the soldiers and citizens. On April 1, 1970 President Richard Nixon signed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act into law, banning cigarette advertisements on television in the United States starting on January 2, 1971. However some tobacco companies attempted to circumvent the ban by marketing new brands of cigarettes as "little cigars"; examples included Tijuana Smalls, which came out almost immediately after the ban took effect, and Backwoods Smokes, which reached the market in the winter of 1973-1974 and whose ads used the slogan, "How can anything that looks so wild taste so mild".
The sale of cigarettes and other tobacco products to minors under 18 is now prohibited by law in all fifty states of the United States. In Alabama, Alaska, New Jersey, Suffolk County, New York, Nassau County, New York, and Utah the statutory age is 19, and legislation was pending as of 2004 in some other states, including California, to raise the age to 19, or even 21 in some cases. In Massachusetts, parents and guardians are allowed to give cigarettes to minors, but sales to minors are prohibited.
Similar laws exist in many other countries. In Canada most of the provinces require smokers to be 19 years of age to purchase cigarettes (except for Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, where the age is 18). However the minimum age only concerns the purchase of tobacco, not use. Alberta, however, does have a law which prohibits the possession or use of tobacco products by all persons under 18, punishable by a $100 fine. Australia has a nation-wide ban on the selling of all tobacco products to people under 18.
In the UK, cigarettes can legally be sold only to people aged 16 and over. However it is not illegal for people under this age to buy (or attempt to buy) cigarettes, so only the retailer is breaking the law by selling to under 16s.
Most countries in the world have a legal smoking age of 18. One exception is Switzerland, where the age is 16 whereas a country such as Turkey, which has one of the highest percentage of smokers in its population, has a legal age of 18. In other countries, such as Egypt, however, there is no legal smoking age at all.
However, while bans stand in most countries for sales to minors, it is still common for merchants to disregard such laws because they are tough to enforce. Often the profits from selling cigarettes to minors illegally are much greater than the fines paid out in very infrequent times when they are caught. Some police departments in the United States occasionally send a clearly underage child into a store where cigarettes are sold, and have the child attempt to purchase cigarettes. If the vendor sells them to the minor, the store is issued a fine. This is by far the most common way in which cigarette vendors are caught when they sell cigarettes to minors.
Online cigarette stores
Online stores have recently appeared that offer foreign cigarettes to internet buyers. As many jurisdictions place high taxes on tobacco sales, these could be seen as an effort to avoid paying duty or taxes.
Some online cigarette stores exist to sell tax-free cigarettes inside their own country as well. The legality of these stores is being questioned currently in the United States. Federal lawmakers contend that these stores are clear tax evasions. Recently in Michigan, several online stores have been subpoenaed by the state for the names and addresses of customers. The state has reportedly been sending out fines for each package purchased, contending tax evasion over Michigan's $2-a-pack law.
This same action has also taken place in Wisconsin after the Wisconsin Department of Revenue received a list of several thousand buyers in that state from an online cigarette merchant. However, the effort to collect on the taxes from the listed residents was stopped by order of Governor Jim Doyle a few days later.
MasterCard, and American Express have all refused to allow online cigarette stores to accept payment by credit-card.
Health effects
Smoking has been linked to lung cancer by medical research institutions throughout the world (through the use of observational studies). Recent findings by the World Health Organization suggest that U.S. white male smokers have an 8% chance of acquiring lung cancer at some point in their lives, as opposed to the 2% chance of acquiring lung cancer among U.S. white male non-smokers. Second-hand smoke also increases the risk of various diseases and cancers.
Certain other lung disorders, like emphysema, are also linked to cigarette smoking. Both smoking and second-hand smoke during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage, underweight, and deformed infants. Smoking also increases the chance of heart attacks and a variety of cancers. Long-term smokers tend to look older than nonsmokers of the same age, because smoking can increase wrinkling in the skin.
Nicotine, the stimulant and active ingredient in cigarettes, is highly addictive. Children and pets may be poisoned from eating cigarettes or cigarette butts.
Inhalation of toxic to carcinogenic components of tobacco smoke, like radon and radium-226, is understood to cause lung cancer. Much of the farmland used to grow tobacco in the United States is contaminated with radioactive material as a result of using phosphate-rich fertilizers. Studies by Winters et al., in the New England Journal of Medicine (1982), found that skeletons of cigarette smokers contained deposits of lead-210 and polonium-210, two isotopes formed by radioactive decay of radium found in the soil where tobacco plants are grown.
For many years the tobacco industry presented research of its own in an attempt to counter emerging medical research about the addictive nature and adverse health effects of cigarettes. According to a 1994 prosecution memo written by Congressman Martin Meehan to former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, many of these studies were found to be flawed due to their strong bias and poor methodology. A 2001 peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health correctly accuses tobacco companies of using front groups and biased studies to downplay the health risks of smoking and secondhand smoke.
Many countries and jurisdictions have instituted public smoking bans. In New York City, smoking is forbidden in almost all workplaces, although not enforced in some small neighborhood bars. In the USA, smoking is being banned in restaurants and bars. States from California to Delaware have adopted such a ban. Such bans are least popular in Southern states of the USA, such as Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, where tobacco continues to be a large part of the economy. In other states, these bans are extremely popular and seen as long overdue. Often smoking is allowed on the street (though in Delaware you must be 250 feet away from any public building), but in many locations of Japan it is against the law.
In 2004, smoking was outlawed in all public buildings in the state of Maine. The 2004 ban on smoking in bars and resturaunts in New Zealand met with initial resentment from some bar owners, but was widely welcomed by the public at large. In 2005 in the state of Washington, smoking was banned in all business establishments, including bars and bowling alleys, and any place outdoors within 25 feet of a window, door, or ventilation intake. In many parts of the world tobacco advertising and even sponsorship of sporting events is not allowed. The ban on tobacco sponsorship in the EU in 2005 has prompted the Formula One Management to look for races in areas that allow the heavily tobacco sponsored teams to display their livery, and has also lead to some of the more popular races on the calendar being cancelled in favour of more tobacco friendly markets.
Contents of a cigarette
The leaves of the tobacco plant are first dried to make cigarettes. Certain brands are then treated with a variety of chemicals, and many additional ingredients may be added. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemicals, many of which are toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic.
- Acetone
- Aluminium
- Ammonia
- Arsenic
- Benzene
- Butane
- Cadmium
- Caffeine
- Carbon monoxide
- Carbon dioxide
- Chloroform
- Copper
- Cyanide/Hydrogen cyanide
- DDT/Dieldrin
- Ethenol
- Formaldehyde
- Lead
- Magnesium
- Methane
- Methanol
- Mercury
- Nicotine
- Polonium
- Tar
- Vinyl Chloride
- Potassium nitrate
The amounts of these ingredients vary from one brand or type of cigarette to the next. This is especially true of the tar and nicotine content, the range of which is so extreme that an entire carton of some brands of cigarettes might contain less tar and/or nicotine than a single cigarette of a "full flavor" brand.
Major tobacco companies pack their cigarettes using the longer more potent section of the tobacco leaf in the end, and moving the short cut pieces in the front (also known as "shake"). The hybrid tobacco leaves a more potent addiction effect this way. Some cigarette companies offer "no additive" cigarettes that are viewed by some as marginally healthier.
Consumption
Approximately 5.5 trillion cigarettes are produced globally each year by the tobacco industry, smoked by over 1.1 billion people.
| Smoking Prevalence by Gender | ||
|---|---|---|
| PERCENT SMOKING | ||
| REGION | MEN | WOMEN |
| Africa | 29 | 4 |
| Americas | 35 | 22 |
| Eastern Mediterranean | 35 | 4 |
| Europe | 46 | 26 |
| Southeast Asia | 44 | 4 |
| Western Pacific | 60 | 8 |
| (2000, World Health Organization estimates) | ||
History
The cigarette was born some time in the 18th century: beggars in Seville began to pick from the ground the cigar ends left by the señoritos (rich young men), wrapped the tobacco remains with paper and smoked them. The first attested use of this habit can be seen in three 18th century paintings by Francisco de Goya: La cometa (The kit), La merienda en el Manzanares (Picnic by the river Manzanares) and El juego de la pelota a pala (The ball and paddle game).
The use of tobacco in cigarette form became increasingly popular after the Crimean War. This was helped by the development of tobaccos that are suitable for cigarette use. During World War I and World War II, cigarettes were rationed to soldiers. During the second half of the 20th century, the adverse health effects of cigarettes started to become widely known and severe health warnings became commonplace on cigarette packets.
Slang terms for cigarettes
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Sources
- Robert Sobel They Satisfy: the Cigarette in American Life (1978)
See also
External links
- A website dedicated to helping people quit smoking
- UK's National Health Service Website to help quit smoking
- Action on Smoking and Health
- US Center for Disease Control - Smoking and Health Database
- GLOBALink
- INGCAT - International Non Governmental Coalition Against Tobacco
- National Clearinghouse on Tobacco and Health - Canada
- Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco
- Tobacco.org - Tobacco News & Information
- TOBACCOpedia
- CIGARETTESpedia - Encyclopedia of cigarettescs:Cigareta
da:Cigaret de:Zigarette es:Cigarrillo fa:سیگار fr:Cigarette id:Rokok it:Sigaretta he:סיגריה nl:Sigaret pl:Papieros pt:Cigarro ru:Сигарета simple:Cigarette sv:Cigarett th:บุหรี่ tr:Sigara uk:Сигарети zh:香煙
| This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Cigarette. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with the MarijuanaWiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License. |
