What’s in a cigarette?

Ignorance is bliss. But only when what you don’t know can’t hurt you.

That’s not the case with cigarettes.

Cigarette smoke contains thousands of chemicals. When you compare some of those chemicals with their better-known uses, smoking starts to look a lot more disturbing.

Formaldehyde is used to preserve dead tissue. Arsenic is a poison. Carbon monoxide is the same toxic gas found in car exhaust.

These aren’t obscure laboratory chemicals. They’re substances most of us would go out of our way to avoid breathing.

Yet with every cigarette, they are carried directly into the lungs.