There are actually over 599 additives to cigarettes! If that weren’t bad enough, because the cigarette is actually burned and burning changes the chemical compound of any substance, there are over 4,000 chemical compounds that are created by cigarette smoking.

Carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, hydrogen cyanide, formaldehyde, and ammonia are all present in cigarette smoke. Forty-three known carcinogens (cancer-causing agents) are in mainstream smoke, passive or secondhand smoke, or both.

Notice how many of the ingredients in cigarettes are used to make other common household objects:

Mothballs contain naphthalenes, also found in cigarettes. This proven poison causes reproductive and brain breakdown.

The cadmium in batteries is extremely poisonous when found in cigarettes and results in kidney damage.

Tar is an ingredient found in roads and tires as well as cigarettes. A two pack a day smoker inhales one gram of tar a day. That is a quart of thick, gooey tar inhaled a year.

The toluene in glue and cigarettes is a toxic substance that produces euphoria and irritation of the air ways and lungs. This is the same substance that people crave when they sniff glue to get an artificial high; it is just as damaging as other illegal narcotics.

The arsenic used to kill rats is also found in cigarettes. It causes irritated lungs, abnormal heart beat, and a score of other symptoms. Arsenic is often used as a slow poison; in small doses it will affect virtually every major part of your body’s system, and will eventually kill you over time.

Acetone is an ingredient found in nail polish remover as well as cigarettes. It is a harsh chemical which irritates your lungs and can lead to cancer. When persons work in a nail salon, they are instructed to wear surgical type masks to protect them from the fumes; smokers purposely ingest this substance!

The toxic phenol found in plastics and cigarettes can cause kidney and liver damage and reduced blood pressure, resulting in severe sickness and possibly death.

The ammonia in bleach speeds the delivery of nicotine to smokers and changes the reading of tar in cigarettes, making it seem lower. Ammonia is a highly toxic substance; even its fumes can irritate the skin, the eyes, the mucus membranes, the throat, and all parts of your respiratory system. Ammonia fumes can also render one blind if they are strong enough.

So ask yourself, do you care to inhale the same ingredients found in nail polish remover, melted plastic, rat poison, batteries, and mothballs? And yet those are the same ingredients in every cigarette, not to mention tar, ammonia, nicotine, and other poisons. If your child were ingesting these ingredients, would you not be outraged? Would you not call for a ban on this product, and want to sue someone immediately?

Most of the chemicals inhaled in cigarette smoke stay in the lungs. The more you inhale, the better it feels—and the greater the damage to your lungs.