# Tobacco **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 13, 2000, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154 "2000-02-13T09:48:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![siva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7c8e57/32.png) [@siva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/siva)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2000, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/1 "2000-02-13T09:48:00Z")
I’ll assume we all know that tobacco doesn’t burn on it’s own. It needs fuel. I asked a friend abot this and she replied(jokingly) that they put chicken shit in it to fuel the fire. Just about every consumable product has ingredients. Why not tobacco–what do the cigarette companies put in these things to make them burn and why don’t they have to list active ingredients. “Les Montres Molles” ---
**Author:** ![whitetho](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whitetho/32/1059_2.png) [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2000, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/2 "2000-02-13T10:41:00Z")
**siva** began on the wrong foot with _I’ll assume we all know that tobacco doesn’t burn on it’s own._ Sorry, but the tobacco that people smoke is nothing more than dried leaves from the tobacco plant, which burn quite well on their own. Tobacco in the field isn’t a problem, because the green leaves wouldn’t burn. But once it’s harvested, the leaves are “cured” by being hung to dry out in a barn. The dried out leaves are what the famer sells–it is up to the tobacco companies to process the leaf tobacco into cigarettes. Farmers have to be careful to keep sparks and flames away from their harvested crop. More than one crop (plus curing barn) has been lost when it caught fire while being dried. ---
**Author:** ![fuzzy-wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/b38774/32.png) [@fuzzy-wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fuzzy-wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2000, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/3 "2000-02-13T11:01:00Z")
Right on Whitetho…and the paper the tobacco is packaged in also helps in the burning process. I grew up on a tobacco farm and we lost a couple of barns with tobacco in them to fire. * * * “Do or do not, there is no try” - Yoda - Senior Intern to El Presidente Self-Righteous Clique \* ---
**Author:** ![WillGolfForFood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/82dd89/32.png) [@WillGolfForFood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WillGolfForFood)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2000, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/4 "2000-02-13T13:29:00Z")
In Siva’s defense, I’ve also heard that cigarette tobacco contains additives that help it burn - supposedly that’s why a cigarette will continue to burn if left in an ashtray, while a cigar will go out under the same circumstances. IE, it’s not that tobacco by itself won’t burn, it’s that cigarettes contain additives beyond tobacco. (I have no idea whether any of this is true - it’s just stuff I remember hearing.) ---
**Author:** ![tbea925](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dc4da7/32.png) [@tbea925](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tbea925)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2000, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/5 "2000-02-13T15:15:00Z")
Cigarettes do indeed have additional ingredients…one brand (Winston?) brags that their brand doesn’t have additives - with a logo that says “No Bull” on the ads. The implication is that other brands add "Bull **something** to their tobacco. Cigars (well, some of them anyway) contain wrapped tobacco leaves; cigarettes contain somewhat loosely packed wrinkle-cut and shredded tobacco (tobacco companies don’t make a profit by packing TOO much tobacco into their product). While I don’t know for sure, I would suspect that it’s more a matter of oxygen availability than additives that makes cigarettes burn unattended. There has been a lot of discussion lately about tobacco companies manipulating nicotine levels in their products. Without stirring up that argument and getting the thread shipped over to GD, it’s possible that the additives in cigarettes are much like the additives in beer…something to keep the product at a reasonably consistent level of pollutants. * * * This sig not Y2K compliant. Happy 1900. ---
**Author:** ![TBone2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6a8cbe/32.png) [@TBone2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TBone2)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2000, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/6 "2000-02-14T00:16:00Z")
If we’re talking about cigarettes, it’s true that the paper has a lot to do with the way tobacco burns. The loose, shredded tobacco used to make cigarettes WILL burn, but slowly and rather unevenly. The paper serves not only to contain the tobacco, but also to promote or ‘carry’ the combustion aggressively and evenly. ## I’ve read on several occasions about the contents of the typical cigarette paper, and one ingredient that is often mentioned is saltpeter, a component of black powder. Any chemists care to take a stab at this? _I don’t know why fortune smiles on some and lets the rest go free…_ T ---
**Author:** ![siva](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7c8e57/32.png) [@siva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/siva)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2000, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/7 "2000-02-14T00:25:00Z")
“siva began on the wrong foot with I’ll assume we all know that tobacco doesn’t burn on it’s own.” well im no expert on tobacco or else i wouldn’t be asking the question. If tobacco burns on its own why do cigars go out when unattended. possibly beccause cigars do not have the additives that cigarettes have. But leave a cigarette unattended and you’ll be left with a half burned filter. I’ve heard that ammonia among other things is added to help the tobacco burn. a tidbit. I was watching t.v (i know you cant believe everything on t.v.)and they were talking about Ligget&Meyers, the tobacco company in Durham, NC that got every other tobacco company in trouble–stated that they add additives to cigarettes, because tobacco doesnt burn on its own. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2000, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/8 "2000-02-14T00:45:00Z")
[Here](http://www.cctc.ca/bcreports/Additives&Ingredients.htm) is a report from the British Columbia Ministry of Health on cigarette ingredients and additive. If you look at a cigarette closely, you’ll notice rings in the paper; I had been under the impression, but don’t definitely know, that these rings contained some kind of agent to facilitate burning. I can’t find anything on that either. ---
**Author:** ![Melatonin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b3f665/32.png) [@Melatonin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melatonin)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2000, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/9 "2000-02-14T01:01:00Z")
Most cigarettes do not go out on their own when left unattended. ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [February 14, 2000, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/tobacco/7154/10 "2000-02-14T05:05:00Z")
I heard that the smokes you get in other countries are of poor quality, and they do NOT stay lit on their own. Why would this be? Less tobacco? Cheap paper? * * * Yer pal, Satan