INTRODUCTION

Cigarettes, which had been around in crude form since the early 1600s, didn't become widely popular in the United States until after the Civil War, with the spread of "Bright" tobacco, a uniquely cured yellow leaf grown in Virginia and North Carolina.  The negative health effects of tobacco were not initially known; in fact, most early European physicians subscribed to the Native American belief that tobacco can be an effective medicine. By the early 20th century, with the growth in cigarette smoking, articles addressing the health effects of smoking began to appear in scientific and medical journals. By 1944, the American Cancer Society began to warn about possible ill effects of smoking, although it admitted that "no definite evidence exists" linking smoking and lung cancer.   In the early 1960s, the formation of the Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health convened in response to political pressures and a growing body of scientific evidence suggesting a causal relationship between smoking and cancer, the committee released a 387-page report in 1964 entitled "Smoking and Health." In unequivocal terms, it concluded that "cigarette smoking is causally related to lung cancer in men." The report noted that the average smoker is nine to 10 times more likely to get lung cancer than the average non-smoker and cited specific carcinogens in cigarette smoke, including cadmium, DDT, and arsenic. The tobacco industry has been on the run -- albeit profitably -- ever since¹⁴.

Cigarettes contain at least 63 distinct cancer-causing chemicals and this site is providing information on the effects of these chemicals on women’s health.  Just to familiarize yourself with a few of the chemicals, here are the names and what they are commonly used for:

      Nicotine: a deadly poison. Is as addictive as heroin and cocaine³⁶

      Arsenic: used to kill rats in poison³⁶

      Ammonia: found in cleaning products³⁶

      Cadmium: used to make batteries³⁶

      Methane: a component of rocket fuel³⁶

      Butane: the same thing as lighter fluid³⁶

      Carbon Monoxide: found in car exhaust³⁶