# Poisoned Tobacco **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 9, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140 "2014-11-09T13:12:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 1:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/1 "2014-11-09T13:12:29Z")
I’ve been looking for the answer to this one, and I figured that a good way to cast a broad net was to throw it into this nest of know-it-alls. I’ve been researching soime stuff, and keep coming across the idea of “poisoned tobacco” and “poisoned cigarettes”. Sis such a thing or does such a thing actually exist? As I say, I can find plenty of references to it. But these are virtually all in the form of rumors about the nefarious activities of enemies, or conspiracy theories about deaths. They’re all in Urban Legend form. Napoleon was killed by Poisoned Tobacco —_someone heard_ Yassir Arafat was killed by Polonium -laced cigarettes – _they heard_ The KGB used poisoned cigarettes –_people claim_ The CIA considered using poisoned cigarettes – _they say_ The Japanese distributed lots of poison-laced cigarettes in China – _they say_. Even when the reports about the KGB or CIA come from insiders, it’s never anyone directly connected with the programs. The concept shows up in detective novels and even highfalutin literature – they discuss it in Dostoyevski’s _Crime and Punishment_. It’s in S.S. VanDine mysteries. It’s used one time on _Columbo_ Novelists toss it out sas a hard-to-trace way of committing murder. Okay, but Ihave yet to find a report of any death traceable to poisoned cigarettes. You could argue that, well, of course I can’t – it’s supposed to be untraceable. That gets you into paranoid logic (“Of COURSE it’s happening – the fact that you can’t find any evidence PROVES it!”) Surely, if this was going on, someone would slip up, or break down and confess. Or fail, and leave a smoking…cigarette. Cigarettes are, of course, deadly enough on their own, and nicotine, in sufficient quantity, is a poison. But I’m not talking about the tobacco status quo. If you put anything into tobacco would it actually kill someone, instead of being burned up and converted into less harmful combustion products? If you laced tobacco with cyanide, couldn’t it be burned into carbon and nitrogen oxides, rather than being a lethal gas? Those complex plant alkaloids would probably not survive burning unaltered. I have yet to see evidence that poison applied to tobacco would even work. (On the flip side, in the late 19th and early 20th century people tried to treat their asthma with “medicated cigarettes”. The practice died out, and I suspect it’s because the cigarettes , once the compounds were burned, actually had no positive benefit.) On the other hand, I do recognize that cigarettes with menthol apparently retain that characteristic “coolness”, so some additives survive combustion, evidently. They reportedly throw a host of additives into cigarettes these days. I can more easily believe in poisoned snuff or chewing tobacco or e-cigarettes. In those cases the poison won’t get altered by burning. It’d be like poisoning someone’s drink. Although I haven’t encountered reports of any of _those_ either. I’d be interested in hearing of any. So, I throw it open to you Dopers. Have you encountered any cases of death-by-poisoned-tobacco? Killing someone by adulterating their cigarettes, their cigars, or their pipe tobacco? And I mean actual confirmed cases – not rumors or conspiracy theories or the reports of the nefarious doings of our enemies or intelligence agencies – unless by someone who actually did it. (And if you find such – _Did it actually work?_. It’s one thing to soak someone’s Kools in arsenic, it’s another to have them keel over as a result) And I’m not looking for fictional mysteries where someone kills someone with poisoned tobacco, unless they also cite confirming evidence. ---
**Author:** ![Fishtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed655f/32.png) [@Fishtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fishtar)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/2 "2014-11-09T14:23:35Z")
I am sure it could be done. The sneaky Russians with there highly radioactive substances? Potassium cyanide crystal in the tobacco? Tetrodotoxin on the filter? I thought I remembered a story about some guy painting a boat with something special getting a drop on his cigarette and dropping dead. Cannot verify though, and could have been a novel. Edit: They used Ricin in Breaking Bad. But hardly a credible source. (Dissolving people with acid…) ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/3 "2014-11-09T14:31:59Z")
> [@Fishtar](#): > > Edit: > They used Ricin in Breaking Bad. But hardly a credible source. (Dissolving people with acid…) In Breaking Bad the ONLY thing the cigarette was used for was hiding the ricin. Jesse emptied some of the tobacco out of his cigarette, put the ricin in, put the tobacco in and put it back in his pack and for some reason that really confused people. The entire time the point was that that’s how he would carry it around and when the time was right he could easily slip it into Gus’ food. It was never intended to be smoked. Not once, not ever. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/4 "2014-11-09T14:41:52Z")
I know it’s no help but when I read this: _“The KGB used poisoned cigarettes --people claim; The CIA considered using poisoned cigarettes – they say”_ I couldn’t help thinking that if the source was Russian, those claims would have been reversed. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/5 "2014-11-09T14:51:24Z")
Like poisoning the Tylenol it would have been hit or miss type of thing. Poison one cigarette and the target may not smoke it, or give it to someone else. Poison a whole pack and you could have a bunch of people dropping dead. [Poisoned cigars have been mentioned as a CIA plot to kill Castro](http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/castro.htm). There’s no clear evidence this was actually attempted or even approved by the CIA that I can find. ---
**Author:** ![Fishtar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ed655f/32.png) [@Fishtar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fishtar)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/6 "2014-11-09T15:04:48Z")
Here is a likely one. This guy in Australia dropped dead while walking with a half smoked cigarette in his mouth. Coroners were sure he was poisoned but were sure how and with what. And some of the cigarettes in his pack had been switched out with another, more expensive, brand. > **[Somerton Man](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case)** > > The Somerton Man was an unidentified man whose body was found on 1 December 1948 on the beach at Somerton Park, a suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The case is also known after the Persian phrase tamám shud (Persian: تمام شد),\[note 1\] meaning "is over" or "is finished", which was printed on a scrap of paper found months later in the fob pocket of the man's trousers. The scrap had been torn from the final page of a copy of Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám, authored by 12th-century poet Omar Khayyám.... ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/7 "2014-11-09T15:10:34Z")
Napoleon did not smoke. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/8 "2014-11-09T15:17:27Z")
> [@Fishtar](#): > > Here is a likely one. This guy in Australia dropped dead while walking with a half smoked cigarette in his mouth. Coroners were sure he was poisoned but were sure how and with what. And some of the cigarettes in his pack had been switched out with another, more expensive, brand. > > [Somerton Man - Wikipedia](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case) Based on this[plaster cast of the deceased](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case#/image/File:SomertonMan.jpg)he was clearly an elf or a Vulcan. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/9 "2014-11-09T18:28:03Z")
> [@Claverhouse](#): > > Napoleon did not smoke. Nevertheless while researching this I came across several suggestions that Napoleon was poisoned by poisoned tobacco. Go figure. I didn’t stop to examine them in any detail. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/10 "2014-11-09T18:35:52Z")
> [@Fishtar](#): > > Here is a likely one. This guy in Australia dropped dead while walking with a half smoked cigarette in his mouth. Coroners were sure he was poisoned but were sure how and with what. And some of the cigarettes in his pack had been switched out with another, more expensive, brand. > > [Somerton Man - Wikipedia](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taman_Shud_Case) The Wikipedia page cited says: > [@](#): > > However, a check of government gazettes of the day indicated that Kensitas were actually the expensive brand, which opens the possibility ( **never investigated** ) that the source of the poison may have been in the cigarettes that were possibly substituted for the victim’s own without his knowledge Bolding mine. As I’ve said, I’m starting to wonder if such poisoning is even as real possibility. Just because some investigators raise it as a possibility still doesn’t mean that it could work. I’m looking for evidence that it can. I also couldn’t help noticing the similasrities between this casde and the one Stephen King gives in \*\*The Colorado Kid[/b} (the story that’s the basis for the Syfy series **Haven**. Sorta.), even before I got to the end, where the Wiki page suggests it. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/11 "2014-11-09T18:37:08Z")
> [@TriPolar](#): > > Like poisoning the Tylenol it would have been hit or miss type of thing. Poison one cigarette and the target may not smoke it, or give it to someone else. Poison a whole pack and you could have a bunch of people dropping dead. > > [Poisoned cigars have been mentioned as a CIA plot to kill Castro](http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/archived/castro.htm). There’s no clear evidence this was actually attempted or even approved by the CIA that I can find. Or – which is what I’m looking for – evidence that it would actually work. ---
**Author:** ![GusNSpot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gusnspot/32/436_2.png) [@GusNSpot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GusNSpot)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2014, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/12 "2014-11-09T19:07:49Z")
Well, this one thug I used to run into claimed he killed someone with a cigarette load. ( the “bang in your face” kind. ) Died of fright? The guy did die of unknown causes, if the thug did it or not I can’t prove either way. It was the kind of thing he would do. Not poison but a tampered with cig was the cause… I was a serious Kool Filter Kings smoker and one time driving a truck in the hinterlands, the only place to get smoke for miles & miles had only one menthol brand. Unfiltered menthol Phillip Morris. In desperation I got 3 drags down. Threw the pack out the window. If I had smoked them, I would have died before getting them all smoked. They were 10X worse than KSC ration Cigarettes. ---
**Author:** ![picunurse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@picunurse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/picunurse)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/13 "2014-11-10T01:38:45Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Nevertheless while researching this I came across several suggestions that Napoleon was poisoned by poisoned tobacco. Go figure. I didn’t stop to examine them in any detail. Are you sure it was poisoned tobacco and not tobacco poisoning? High doses of nicotine cause heart-attack like symptoms. It can, and probably has, been over looked more than once. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/14 "2014-11-10T12:20:35Z")
> [@picunurse](#): > > Are you sure it was poisoned tobacco and not tobacco poisoning? High doses of nicotine cause heart-attack like symptoms. It can, and probably has, been over looked more than once. I’m aware of that (it comes up quite a bit when you type “tobacco poisoning” into a search engine. I didn’t look closely at the Napoleon items, as they were not what I was interested in, but they didn’t seem to be referring to the use of nicotine as a poison. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2014, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/15 "2014-11-10T12:31:52Z")
Here you go – _Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon_, vol. I, Chapter III, p. 67 in this edition – it’s alleged that someone left a container of poisoned snuff with which they hoped to kill the First Consul. : > **[Recollections of the Private Life of Napoleon](https://books.google.com/books?id=KYgfAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA62&dq=Recollections%2Bof%2Bthe%2BPrivate%2BLife%2Bof%2BNapoleon%2Bpoisoned%2Btobacco&hl=en&sa=X&ei=j65gVIn0I6LIsAS8g4HYCw&ved=0CB8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Recollections%20of%20the%20Private%20Life%20of%20Napoleon%20poisoned%20tobacco&f=false)** I don’t know if Napoleon used snuff, or if they were, like Rick, misinformed. I don’t know if poisoned snuff would be effective (probably, if in sufficient quantity), but, as I’ve said, I’m curious about whether poisoned smoking tobacco has ever been successfully used for murder. (And not merely rumored to have been, or hopefully tried, but failed.) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/16 "2014-11-14T14:28:06Z")
Since people are asking about Poisoned Shampoo and Conditioner, and I still haven’t gotten a good answer to this one, I’d like to give it a BUMP! ---
**Author:** ![Gray\_Ghost](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c0e974/32.png) [@Gray\_Ghost](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gray_Ghost)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/17 "2014-11-14T15:23:22Z")
There is a, of all things, [Dr. Phil episode](http://www.drphil.com/shows/show/2190) where a woman accuses her son’s girlfriend of poisoning her son via hemlock mixed into a homemade marijuana cigarette. The autopsy report had excerpts read on the show, and it noted that death was caused by > [@](#): > > […pulmonary edema and congestion due to asphyxial event. The underlying cause of the asphyxial event is uncertain such that the manner of death is undetermined.](http://www.nerdles.com/2014/03/12/dr-phil-no-evidence-son-died-from-poison-31214/) I’m guessing the police (and Dr. Phil) thought the theory was bullshit, but entertaining. There isn’t much literature I could quickly find on the concept of poisoning via cigarette. Most of the hits you’ll get are for (presumably) accidental poisonings from consumption/contact with the concentrated nicotine solution used in e-cigarettes. Google Books’ version of, _The Elements of Murder : A History of Poison_, by John Emsley, lists tobacco contamination by lead arsenate, such that cigarettes were found with up to 40 mg of arsenic. PubMed lists [an article](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1759888) (in German), “Smoking trials with mercury contaminated cigarettes. Studies of attempted poisoning.” from the Sept-Oct 1991 issue of the journal, _Archiv für Kriminologie_. From the Abstract: > [@](#): > > In the context with an attempted poisoning it was investigated, to which extent an intoxication can be caused by smoking cigarettes, which contain elementary mercury…By comparison with **cases described in literature** [Emphasis Added] it is shown, that a poisoning by such cigarettes is possible only after frequent smoking or by passive smoking via the sidestream smoke in small and badly aerated rooms. The cases described in the article’s references would be interesting reading. OTOH, [a 1977 article](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/907371), “Potential exposure from smoking parathion-contaminated cigarettes,” in the journal, _Archives of environmental contamination and toxicology._ [1977;6(1):103-10.] mentions that, > [@](#): > > The amount of parathion passing through cigarettes as a potential for inhalation exposure ranged up to 28% of dosing levels. No paraoxon or S-ethyl parathion was detected. So maybe it’s viable, depending on the toxin? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 14, 2014, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/poisoned-tobacco/704140/18 "2014-11-14T15:28:43Z")
Thank you! I’ve got Emsley’s book, but it’s buried away somewhere. The other refs are useful ones. It looks as if it’s _possible_, perhaps, but not confirmed, and it’s still not clear to me that it’s ever been shown to have happened.