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Cigarette Filters

When smokers pull on their cigarettes, they inhale more than just nicotine. Tobacco contains a series of chemicals such as benzene, formaldehyde, styrene and carbon monoxide, each of which is toxic and with recognized effects. Nicotine itself is broken down into small and addictive substances including cotinine.

While carbon monoxide attaches itself to the red blood cells and is more a part of their blood than oxygen, nicotine stimulates the body to produce adrenaline that forces the heart to beat faster, and raises blood pressure. Cigarette smoke also damages the lining of the coronary arteries and causes fatty material to build up in the arteries.

Cigarette filters, however, are one of the four components of cigarettes, the others being tobacco, additives and cigarette wrappers. They are made from cellulose acetate, and smokers usually ingest these fibers. This usually happens when small bits of cellulose acetate separate from the filter at the lit end. This really means that when you smoke, bits of plastic-like material enter your lungs.

Filters are made specifically to absorb vapors and amass particulate smoke components. While they prevent a smoker from taking in tobacco orally, they also provide him with a mouthpiece that won’t collapse as the smokers draws on his cigarette.

Filters comprise cellulose acetate, a synthetic plastic-like substance that is usually used for photographic films, which are thinner than a reel of thread, white and tightly packed to create a filter. Each cigarette filter contains over 12,000 white Y-shaped fibers that contain the delustrant titanium dioxide. They vary according to their filtering capacity, depending on whether they are going to be used for light or regular cigarettes.

Besides, cellulose acetate, filters also comprise an inner paper wrapper and glue. This paper wrapper wraps the cellulose plug and is air-resistant in regular cigarettes, but is ventilated and very porous in light cigarettes, so that more air can enter the smoke mixture. For glue, a polyvinyl acetate emulsion is used that attaches the plug to the wrapper, and seams the wrapper.

Lastly, the tipping paper or outer paper that resembles cork wraps the filter plug and fits the filter to the tobacco column. This paper is specially designed not to stick to smokers’ lips.

In addition, filters also contain charcoal and crocidolite, tar or an additive found in tobacco. It contains compounds of organic and inorganic chemicals, including carcinogens.

However, filters pose a problem of not producing the effect of less nicotine. According to researchers, the built-in filters on filter-tipped cigarettes, whose role is to trap soot particles and absorb tar and other poisonous chemicals, pose dangerous health hazards to smokers. While they do trap soot particles and absorb tar, carcinogens and toxic chemicals, the built in filters usually send a burst of loose fibers and carbon particles down into the lungs of smokers. Unfortunately, the body cannot break these fibers down, which are really tumour promoters, though coated, carcinogens and many toxins that resist biodegradation.

Do you really want to smoke when there’s so much going against smoking and filter-tipped cigarettes? Think about it.