Additives can make cigarettes more attractive by suppressing several of the undesired effects that arise when inhaling tobacco smoke. Some are used to cover the bitter and harsh smell and taste of inhaled smoke. Others reduce the irritating effect of tobacco smoke on the respiratory tract so that the body’s warning signal of its harmfulness is silenced. Yet others give a white color to ash and smoke or make the cigarette look nicer.
The newly launched websites now offer easily understandable, objective information about the mechanisms of fourteen selected cigarette additives and their impact on health. The additives covered include sugar, liquorice, cocoa, menthol, vanilla, cellulose, and glycerol – substances which cigarette manufacturers deliberately add to tobacco to make cigarettes more attractive.
Vanilla, for example, is added to tobacco, cigarette paper, or filters to cover the harsh taste of tobacco smoke. “Tobacco additives make it easier to take up smoking and they make it harder to quit because product properties are more pleasant," warns Dr. Martina Pötschke-Langer, head of the Division of Cancer Prevention at the German Cancer Research Center. “This makes hazardous products even more hazardous." Moreover, burning of many of these additives produces a host of chemicals including substances which have been classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon.
To sum up, tobacco additives have a substantial impact on public health by making health-hazardous products more attractive. Smoking is a major cause in the development of cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases. In Europe, nearly 700,000 people die each year from the consequences of smoking; in Germany alone it is 110,000 people.
The countries involved in the PITOC project:
The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Malta, Austria, Denmark, the United Kingdom, Norway, France, Finland, Turkey and Switzerland.
Please find the English websites on the PITOC project at:
http://www.dkfz.de/de/tabakkontrolle/PITOC_Additives_in_Tobacco_Products.html