Health: The harmful additives in tobacco

European countries on Thursday launched websites informing the public about additives used by the tobacco industry to make cigarettes more attractive. These substances are harmful to health. After all, the more cigarettes they smoke, the more smokers are exposed to toxic substances, the Department of Information said. The initiative is the brainchild of the RIVM and the German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) and the aim is to provide European citizens with objective information about additives, such as how they work and their impact on health.

The sites in each of these European countries provide details of 14 specific additives that tobacco companies add to cigarettes. They include glycerine, sugars, cellulose, liquorice, cocoa, menthol and vanilla. The additives are intentionally mixed with tobacco to make the cigarettes more attractive. These added substances make cigarettes more attractive to smokers who have only recently taken up the habit, so they encourage people to smoke more. As a result, these additives have a substantial impact on public health.

This is because smoking is a major factor in the development of lung cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and respiratory diseases. In Europe, nearly 700,000 people die each year from the effects of smoking. Vanilla, one of the most commonly used additives in cigarettes, is also one of the most popular flavours in the world. This is no coincidence. Tobacco manufacturers deliberately add vanilla flavouring to tobacco, cigarette paper, or filters. Burning vanilla is known to release a range of different chemicals, including substances which have been classified as carcinogenic by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Vanilla also inflicts damage indirectly, because by masking the sharp taste of cigarette smoke it makes smoking more attractive. Most people do not realize that vanilla and dozens of other substances are added to cigarettes to improve their taste. The countries involved in the partnership are The Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Bulgaria, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Malta, Austria, the United Kingdom, Norway, France, Finland, Turkey and Switzerland.