What Makes Cigarettes so Appealing?

Deep into the pockets of his jeans he grabs for that last dime to purchase his number one habit. As he walks out of the store he searches for his lighter to calm his craving. It 's time to light up. But if he only knew what was going into his body, would he really want to calm this craving? One might say that he smokes "light" cigarettes because they aren 't as bad as the "regular" cigarettes. In all cases this is not true. All cigarettes have the same effects on the body whether one smokes lights, ultra lights, filters, or non-filtered cigarettes. Despite all of the negative health effects cigarettes cause and the pricy four-dollars per pack, people aren 't scared away. "With about 24.2 billion packs of cigarettes sold that year [1996], the total operating profits of the domestic tobacco-producing subsidiaries of U.S. manufactures came to about $7.2 billion dollars" (Harris). But what is it that makes these cigarettes so good? The first that comes to mind would be nicotine. Naturally occurring in tobacco plants, nicotine might not seem so bad being all natural, but it is responsible for the harm of the cardiovascular and endocrine systems. Nicotine is the ingredient in cigarettes that is to blame for the harmful addiction millions of people have today (Toxic Emissions, CHN). Maybe one is looking for a deep clean of the lungs when he lights up. Cigarettes contain many chemicals that are found in disinfectants and cleaners, but maybe this isn 't the best choice to do so. Ammonia, formaldehyde, and phenol, found in many household and industrial cleaners, are put into cigarettes and cause breathing problems and damage to the eyes, throat, and nose (Toxic Emissions, CHN). Next to cleaning, ammonia enhances the impact of nicotine on the smoker, making the buzz more intense but for a shorter period of time (What are, CHN). Along with the nicotine and household cleaners comes carbon dioxide. Carbon dioxide, also found in engine exhaust, "reduces

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