25 Interesting Facts About Nicotine, Tobacco and Cigarettes

Here are 25 Interesting Facts About Nicotine, Tobacco and Cigarettes.

1-5 Interesting Facts About Cigarettes

1. Chinese smoke around 2.2 trillion cigarettes a year, of which 400 billion are fake, made mostly in illegal cigarette factories in caves below a city in China, often containing 80 percent more nicotine, 130 percent more carbon monoxide and occasionally insect eggs and human feces. – Source

2. 20lbs of Eggplant contains as much nicotine as a cigarette. – Source

3. Nicotine withdrawals have a negative impact on time perception, which causes one to feel as if time passes very slowly when quitting the use of tobacco. – Source

4. Tobacco companies pay for most, if not all, of the anti-tobacco commercials you see. – Source

5. As recently as 2009, China had elementary schools wholly sponsored by big tobacco. One in Sichuan had a message at the front gate that said “Tobacco can help you become an achiever” – Source

6-10 Interesting Facts About Cigarettes

6. The Geneva Convention requires POWs to have access to tobacco. – Source

7. A “safer cigarette” (The XA Project) was developed in the 70s, but tobacco companies pressured the inventor to bury it because it implied their cigarettes were unsafe. – Source

8. The composition of both marijuana and tobacco smoke is nearly identical. “Toxic substances, such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, and nitrosamines occur in similar concentrations in tobacco and marijuana smoke; so do the amounts of particulate material known collectively as ‘tars’.” – Source

9. It is now legal in 21 states for employers to refuse to hire persons who smoke or use tobacco products. – Source

10. The man responsible for introducing tobacco to Europe was imprisoned by the Spanish Inquisition because “only Devil could give a man the power to exhale smoke from his mouth.” – Source

11-15 Interesting Facts About Cigarettes

11. When smoking tobacco, taking short quick puffs has a stimulating effect, while deep puffs induce sedation. – Source

12. In 2001, tobacco Company Phillip Morris advised the Czech government to encourage smoking cigarettes, because the increased mortality rate would save the government money on healthcare, pensions, and housing for the elderly. The backlash was so strong that employees are no longer allowed to talk about it. – Source

13. More Colombians die every year from American tobacco than Americans die from Colombian cocaine. – Source

14. Eleven well reported medical studies showed that cigarette smoking actually lowers Alzheimer’s risk. However, 10 years later, it came to light every study was done by scientists with undeclared connections to the tobacco industry. – Source

15. Over 40 years ago, tobacco companies discovered tobacco and its smoke to contain Polonium-210 (radioactive isotope) and suppressed the findings to avoid public attention. – Source

16-20 Interesting Facts About Cigarettes

16. All Perique tobacco, a pipe tobacco used in American Spirit Black cigarettes, is farmed on less than 16 acres of land in Louisiana, mostly by one man. – Source

17. Nicotine is the tobacco plant’s evolutionary defense mechanism, which makes insects sick when they eat the plant, thus saving the plant from being eaten. – Source

18. Also, a group of German scientists studying a wild tobacco plant noticed that when the plant was being eaten by caterpillars, the plant would release a scent that would attract predatory bugs who would then eat the caterpillars – Source

19. In 2013, a doctor in Vancouver tested a disposal program for cigarette butts, offering one penny for each butt returned to its booth. It was a huge success and within a few hours over 60,000 butts had been collected. – Source

20. The reason airplane bathrooms still have ashtrays is because of an FAA decision that some people will still smoke on an airplane even though it’s not allowed, and when they do there needs to be a safe place to put their cigarette butt. – Source

21-25 Interesting Facts About Cigarettes

21. The Flintstones was originally sponsored by Winston cigarettes, and was intended for adults. – Source

22. About 60% of cigarettes in New York are black market cigarettes that are being smuggled into New York illegally. – Source

23. During the siege of Jerusalem in 1917, the British started to airdrop cigarettes filled with large doses of Opium, hoping that the Ottomans would be too stoned to fight and it worked. – Source

24. The Indonesian toddler Aldi Rizal known for his habit of smoking 40 cigarettes a day has quit smoking, but is now addicted to junk food. He started smoking when he was just 18 months old. – Source

25. Kent cigarettes, a popular brand from the 50s through the 70s, had filters made of asbestos fibers. – Source