# 4000 chemicals in tobacco smoke. And? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 4, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187 "2003-07-04T05:17:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Standup\_Karmic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Standup\_Karmic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standup_Karmic)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/1 "2003-07-04T05:17:58Z")
It is frequently claimed that tobacco smoke contains 4000 chemicals. The problem is, they haven’t given me any frame of reference. Is that more or less chemicals than one might find in an apple? Some questions, if someone has the power to answer them: 1. How many chemicals are in “air”? (I know that this will vary from city to city and season to season and whatnot, but is there a ballpark that will help to understand the “4000” number?) 2. It is frequently asserted that among the harmful chemicals, there are anywhere between 20 and 50 known carcinogens and anywhere between 150 and 400 “poisons”. What does this really mean? Are any of the chemicals that are in tobacco smoke in food we eat or the air we breathe? Some of the chemicals mentioned: ammonia, arsenic, benzene, cadmium, formaldehyde, hydrogen cyanide. 3. The fact that smoking is harmful is supported by the claims mentioned above. Is there any basis in fact or simply a standard marketing ploy of telling someone that something is very important but not really supporting it (way too many people believe anything they are told by an “authority”). For example, is the level of cadmium in cigarette smoke significantly larger than one might encounter elsewhere in their environment? If the cadmium in cigarette smoke is 1 ppm but the air around us contains 4 ppm, it is hardly relevant. Please note that this is not a question of whether or not smoking is harmful or causes cancer. That is really quite irrelevent to the topic at hand. What I’m hoping to find out is whether the “facts” offered by anti-smoking campaigns are really significant, or merely marketing. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/2 "2003-07-04T09:27:31Z")
Well, if you want to find out the implications of someone taking an action, ask an insurance company, which has enormous financial incentive to find out what doing that thing will do for your mortality. Smokers get pay about 40% more for life insurance. ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 10:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/3 "2003-07-04T10:07:52Z")
Smokers have to pay about 40% more. ---
**Author:** ![Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@Speaker\_for\_the\_Dead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Speaker_for_the_Dead)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/4 "2003-07-04T13:15:02Z")
Just FTR, along with the chemicals you mentioned, I’ve also heard uranium. I always loved the idea of them putting uranium (238, according to the poster) into cigarettes - just for that extra kick. ---
**Author:** ![Standup\_Karmic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Standup\_Karmic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standup_Karmic)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/5 "2003-07-04T13:51:30Z")
Again, **Cardinal** , it’s not the implications of smoking that are being questioned here. If the harm caused by smoking is the result of one single “chemical”, then the “4,000” number is nothing more than marketing. It sounds scarier that “one really bad chemical”. “4000 chemicals” would also not really be a relevant fact if your Corn Flakes contain 4,500 chemicals. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/6 "2003-07-04T14:42:17Z")
**Morkfromork** , I wish you the best of luck with this thread, I really do. I’d like an answer too. Great, great question by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Standup\_Karmic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@Standup\_Karmic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Standup_Karmic)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/7 "2003-07-04T14:51:19Z")
Thanks. It was a toss-up between this and “How can I get Cameron Diaz to love me and ride me like the stud-pony I am?” ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/8 "2003-07-04T15:27:04Z")
I’ll have a crack at this… I do have a masters degree in chemistry after all (for all the good it’s done me). Firstly, the word “chemical” is meaningless. Everything that makes up the physical world, everything you eat, drink, inhale and excrete is a chemical, or a mixture of chemicals. (OK, some things are elements, but you can regard those as chemicals too.) So yes, it’s equally meaningless to say that cigarette smoke contains 4,000 chemicals. I haven’t been able to dig up any figures, but I can guarantee that during the course of the day you consume many many more than 4,000 individual substances. However, many of the chemicals in cigarette smoke _are_ very bad news. Benzene is one. Hydrogen cyanide is another. Benzo[a]pyrene is a particularly potent carcinogen. As for whether the levels of these nasties are significantly higher in cigarette smoke than in the ambient environment – yes they are. Let’s look at some figures: ```auto Chemical Quantity in smoke Safe Limit acetaldehyde 3,200 ppm 200.0 ppm acrolein 150 ppm 0.5 ppm ammonia 300 ppm 150.0 ppm carbon monoxide 42,000 ppm 100.0 ppm formaldehyde 30 ppm 5.0 ppm hydrogen cyanide 1,600 ppm 10.0 ppm hydrogen sulfide 40 ppm 20.0 ppm methyl chloride 1,200 ppm 100.0 ppm nitrogen dioxide 250 ppm 5.0 ppm ``` These figures are from [here](http://medicolegal.tripod.com/toxicchemicals.htm) (about half way down). The “safe limit” is the the maximum threshold, which is considered safe, or at least these were the figures in 1964. The site notes that many of these safe limits have been revised _downwards_ since then. The official OSHA term for this maximum is “threshold limit value” (TLV). (OSHA is the Occupational Safety and Health Administration of the U.S. Department of Labor.) ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/9 "2003-07-04T15:39:36Z")
And regarding your example of cadmium: > [@](#): > > Ambient air cadmium concentrations have generally been estimated to range from 0.1 to 5 ng/m³ in rural areas, from 2 to 15 ng/m³ in urban areas, and from 15 to 150 ng/m³ in industrialised areas > > Tobacco leaves naturally accumulate and concentrate relatively high levels of cadmium, and therefore smoking of tobacco is an important source of air cadmium exposure for smokers. It has been reported that one cigarette contains about 0.5 - 2 µg of cadmium and that about 10% of the cadmium content is inhaled when the cigarette is smoked (Elinder 1985, WHO 1992). Smokers generally exhibit significantly higher cadmium body burdens than non-smokers. ([Cite](http://www.cadmium.org/env_lev.html)) ---
**Author:** ![Cardinal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardinal/32/4000_2.png) [@Cardinal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardinal)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2003, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/4000-chemicals-in-tobacco-smoke-and/186187/10 "2003-07-04T20:30:20Z")
**r\_k** , you are my new chemistry-geek hero.