Abdul Wajid, Doctoral Student, Department of Physics, AMU.

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   It's well known that smoking cigarettes can cause lung cancer. But do we know what exactly is in the cigarette that causes cancer? Lots of research has been carried out on it, and the factor behind it was found to be polonium-210, which is a highly radioactive element that releases alpha particles. It is chemically toxic too. People smoke almost six trillion cigarettes worldwide a year, and each cigarette delivers a small amount of polonium-210 to the lungs. Puff by puff, the poison builds up to the equivalent radiation dosage of 300 chest x-rays (160000 micro Sievert) a year for a person who smokes one and a half packs a day. It will shock the readers what ingredients in cigarettes are, and how they come in it? The list includes 599 additives. Since burning alters chemical compositions, more than 4 thousand are created when cigarettes are burned.

Among the most hazardous ingredients in cigarettes are the following:
Ammonia: Household cleaner.
Arsenic: Used in rat poisons.
Benzene: Used in making dyes
Butane: Gas, used in lighter fluid
Carbon monoxide: Poisonous gas
Cadmium: Used in batteries
Cyanide: Lethal poison
DDT: A banned insecticide
Ethyl Furoate: Causes liver damage in animals.
Lead: Poisonous in high doses.
Formaldehyde: Used to preserve dead specimens.
Methoprene: Insecticide.
Maltitol: Sweetener for diabetics.
Napthalene: Ingredient in mothballs.
Methyl isocyanate: It was accidentally released in Bhopal gas tragedy which killed 2000 people.
Polonium: Cancer-causing radioactive element and
Synthetic rubber.

   For the whole list of 599 additives used in cigarettes, see the BBC World Service page ‘What's in a Cigarette’. The tobacco industry is also well familiar about polonium in cigarettes. According to a 2011 report published in the journal ‘Nicotine and Tobacco Research’, secret internal documents obtained from the major tobacco industries in 1998 reveal that the industry was well aware of the presence of this radioactive element in cigarettes as early as 1959. But big tobacco companies consciously decided to do nothing and to keep the research a secret. The tobacco leaves become radioactive due to the fertilizers. The big tobacco companies all use chemical phosphate fertilizer, which contains radioactive metals. These metals mix up in the soil and attach themselves to tobacco leaves. Also, tobacco is especially effective at absorbing radioactive elements from phosphate fertilizers, and also from naturally occurring radiation in soil, air, and water. Acid wash was highly effective in removing polonium-210 from the tobacco leaves discovered in 1980, something which has been actively avoided by the tobacco industry

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