Factsheets – Tobacco

More than 37,000 people will die this year in Canada due to smoking. Of those, more than 300 non-smokers will die of lung cancer and at least 700 non-smokers will die of coronary heart disease caused by exposure to second-hand smoke.

Tobacco smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including at least 70 that cause, initiate or promote cancer such as tar, ammonia, carbon monoxide, oxides of nitrogen and benzopyrene.

Although the amount of chemicals in each cigarette is small, it is cumulative -- the amount stored in the body increases with each puff of a cigarette. There is a little bit of chemical in each cigarette puff, and there are over 10 puffs per cigarette. Over a year, at one pack of cigarettes a day, a smoker will inhale 73,000 puffs of dangerous chemicals.

Read more about what's in tobacco smoke... and testing procedures, or consult our factsheets developed for the media.

Factsheets

• Aromatic Amines: Contribution to the Mutagenic Activity of Tobacco Smoke
• Carcinogens in Tobacco Smoke
• Children See, Children Do
• Cigarette Ignition Propensity Regulations
• Contraband Cigarettes: Tobacco Smoke Analysis
• Discount Cigarettes
• Little Cigars... Big Concerns
• Mini Size Cigarettes: Smoke Emissions and Toxicity Analyses
• Second-hand Smoke
• Smokeless Tobacco Products: A Chemical and Toxicity Analysis
• Smoking & Your Body
• Stronger health warning messages on cigarette and little cigar packages
• Tobacco Industry
• Tobacco Science
• Trends in Tobacco Use (CTUMS)