What's In Your Tobacco

WHATS’ IN YOUR TOBACCO?©
By Albert Sun Butler, 06/22/06

Health concerns about smoking raise questions of exactly what goes into cigarettes. Cancer rates began to rise precipitously after WWII as a whole new generation of potent pesticides and herbicides were marketed to farmers by chemical companies and county extension agents. At the same time, tobacco companies began to experiment with synthetic flavoring and processing agents so they could utilize low quality cheaply produced tobacco. This treatise is a short primer for the concerned smoker and non-smoker alike. Chemicals in our environment, applied to our farmland and in the food supply are everybody’s business.

PESTICIDE & HERBICIDE RESIDUES IN TOBACCO
Conventional tobacco growers are forced to rely heavily on chemicals to produce cheap tobacco. Many tobacco growers apply Aldicarb to their land to control tobacco nematodes (soil organism). Aldicarb is a serious contaminant of drinking water and can cause permanent neurological effects. Farmers often suffer nerve damage from applying this chemical. Young tobacco plants are dipped in Imidicloprid, a systemic insecticide before transplant. 14 weeks later, when aphids (a tobacco pest) feed on that tobacco they ingest the poison from inside the plant and die. Both Aldicarb and Imidicloprid are regularly detected in conventional tobacco samples.

The 2003 GAO report “Pesticides in Tobacco”[1] identifies among others ethylene di-bromide and the herbicide 2,4-D as extremely toxic residues found in cured tobacco. In 2005 the USDA Domestic Tobacco Pesticide Testing was discontinued with the end of the government regulated Tobacco Quota Program. Such testing is now left to the tobacco companies which are under “voluntary compliance” with maximum permissible residues for EDB 2,4-D and other pesticide residue levels. These permitted residue levels in tobacco are considered “safe” by the EPA.

20,000 patients are treated in US hospitals every year for pesticide poisoning, mostly farmers and farm workers. If you have any doubts about the dangers of pesticides in our food or tobacco read the document “How Toxic are Pesticides” at the website footnoted below[2]

FUMIGANTS AND CHEMICAL ADDITIVES IN TOBACCO
Processed tobacco for RYO and cigarettes can have over to 496 different additives and flavorings applied to the tobacco after it leaves the field. Fumigants such as Phosphine gas[3]may be used during storage. Ethylene glycol prevents mold. Many synthetic additives have never been approved by the FDA. Other additives such as ammonia actually increase nicotine absorption into your bloodstream. This allows tobacco companies to sell “Low Nic” cigarettes that have the same kick as higher nicotine tobacco.

Reconstituted tobacco[4] is made from tobacco waste that is processed with ammonia and DAP (a fire retardant) and pressed into a paper-like sheet. “Recon” as it is referred to in the industry is sprayed with a soup of chemical additives to make it taste like tobacco again. When cut and mixed with natural leaf, reconstituted tobacco increases the “filling capacity”(less tobacco in your cigarette) of tobacco. All commercial brands of cigarettes and RYO tobacco are made with “reconstituted” tobacco unless their advertising states “100% Natural tobacco”.

FOREIGN MATERIAL IN TOBACCO
According to the University of Georgia’s Cooperative Extension service, raw tobacco may contain “materials such as stalks, suckers, grass, excessive amounts of dirt, rubber gloves, foil wrappers, string, paper, etc. Barn insulating foam and rubber gloves present a special problem because their color and weight is similar to cured tobacco and may not be detected before processing”[5]. All of these contribute to off-flavors and potentially unhealthy by-products in the smoke. Tobacco growers and manufacturers go to great lengths to keep tobacco clean and to remove foreign materials. Yet industrial tobacco processors that stem and pack thousands of tons of tobacco at time can never remove 100% of the foreign material in tobacco. Some of the materials listed above inevitably wind up in your cigarette.

It is a well kept secret in the industry that a visual inspection of the final product stream from any commercial tobacco stemmery will yield some foreign materials. Only a return to traditional methods of hand inspecting every leaf could guarantee no foreign material in tobacco. This would increase the cost of tobacco stemming and manufacturing.

CERTIFIED ORGANIC TOBACCO
A small group of tobacco growers have had their farms certified organic and produced organic tobacco without pesticides for the last ten years. These growers are paid double the market price for their organically grown tobacco. Yet organic cigarettes are sold for virtually the same price as conventional premium brands. What does this tell you?

US tobacco companies could eliminate pesticide use on every tobacco farm in the country by the next growing season and still make a profit. They could pay the grower a fair price to produce organic tobacco and even a little extra to hand inspect the tobacco for foreign material. But the US consumer’s love affair with cheap discount tobacco products makes this un-likely. For a the same price of most premium conventional brands you could be smoking clean certified organic tobacco grown on family farms where growers still take pride in their tobacco. Instead, you are smoking cheap mass produced pesticide-laden tobacco that in the near future will be produced entirely in third world countries where there is little or no government regulation of pesticides. You make the choice. Write to your favorite tobacco brand and demand that they begin producing an organic alternative. When organic tobacco and other farm products become available in your area, patronize them. Don’t shortchange your health and the health of our US farming population and crop-land, for the price of a cheap smoke.
[1] http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03485.pdf
[2] http://www2.mcdaniel.edu/Biology/eh01/pesticides/pestiscide_health_effects.html
[3] Residue Formations of Phosphorus Hydride Polymers and Phosphorus Oxyacids during Phosphine Gas Fumigations of Stored Products; J. Agric. Food Chem., 54 (1), http://pubs.acs.org/cgi-bin/sample.cgi/jafcau/2006/54/i01/html/jf052315+.html
[4] Marlboro Blend, Data and Interpretation; Casey and Perfetti, 1980
http://tobaccodocuments.org/ahf/511242134-2215.html
[5] http://www.griffin.peachnet.edu/caes/tobacco/handbook/barnfoam98.html