Fascinating Cigarette Smoking Facts

During the last century, cigarettes have gone from being the darling playmate bunny that everyone wanted to shag to the drunken stepfather that you’d wouldn’t leave alone with your children. At one time, sportsmen, actors, and celebrities promoted the coolness of cigarettes on television, but now smoking is considered an nasty, socially-unacceptable habit that could endanger you and the people around you.

Here are some interesting cigarette smoking facts you, or president-elect Barack Obama, may or may not have known.

• Cigarettes are the single-most traded item on the planet, with approximately 1 trillion being sold from country to country each year.
• U.S. cigarette manufacturers now make more money selling cigarettes to countries around the globe than they do selling to Americans.
• Urea, a chemical compound that is a major component in urine, is used to add “flavor” to cigarettes.
• The ‘Cork Tip’ filter was originally invented in 1925 by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz, who patented the process of making the cigarette filter from crepe paper. All kinds of filters were tested, although ‘cork’ is unlikely to have been one of them.
• Contrary to popular social belief, it is NOT illegal to smoke tobacco products at any age. Parents are within the law to allow minors to smoke, and minors are within the law to smoke tobacco products freely. However, the SALE of tobacco products is highly regulated with legal legislation.
• Scientists claim the average smoker will lose 14 years of their life due to smoking. This however does not necessarily mean that a smoker will die young – and they may still live out a ‘normal’ lifespan.
• The United States is the only major cigarette market in the world in which the percentage of women smoking cigarettes (22%) comes close to the number of men who smoke (35%).
• Sugar approximates to roughly 20% of a cigarette, and many diabetics are unaware of this secret sugar intake. Also, the effect of burning sugar is unknown.
• Smokers draw on ‘lite’ and menthol cigarettes harder (on average) than regular cigarettes; causing the same overall levels of tar and nicotine to be consumed.
• Smokers often smoke after meals to ‘allow food to digest easier’. In fact, this works because the bodies priority moves away from the digestion of food in favor of protecting the blood cells and flushing toxins from the brain.
• According to the World Health Organization, approximately 25% of cigarettes sold around the world are smuggled.
• Nicotine reaches the brain within 10 seconds after smoke is inhaled. It has been found in every part of the body and in breast milk.
• ‘Toppings’ are added to the blended tobacco mix to add flavor and a taste unique to the manufacturer. Some of these toppings have included; clove, licorice, orange oil, apricot stone, lime oil, lavender oil, dill seed oil, cocoa, carrot oil, mace oil, myrrh, beet juice, bay leaf, oak, rum, vanilla, and vinegar.

See more facts at The List Verse.