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currious about chemicals in homegrown tobacco smoke

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jeapadrenaline

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Just currious, and since this forum has some very knowledgeable individuals plus chemists and scientists, i want to know:
Does the smoke from homegrown tobacco contain benzene? Hydrogen zyanide?????
reason for asking: i believe but am not sure, that most of those harmfull chemicals released in store bought tobacco exist due to the additives used by big tobacco. New labeling on canadian cigarettes read as follows:
Tobacco smoke contains hydrogen zyanide, a poisonous gas. Health Canada
Tobacco smoke contains benzene, a chemical that causes lung cancer. Health Canada

I will add more as i find them. Thanks for any info and help.
 
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SmokesAhoy

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Benzene is used to make extractions, would make sense to be in storebought, don't think the homegrown would have it though unless it's a byproduct of combustion too. Good line of questions man, be curious just how bad homegrown really is. If it can be quantified to be less dangerous than driving a car this movement would be on to something. Maybe American spirits would have a list of what's in theirs somewhere, and our leaf has got to be better if grown right.
 

Jitterbugdude

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There are something like 1000 chemicals that have been identified in the natural tobacco leaf. Some good, some bad. Chlorogenic acid for instance is in tobacco and it is the same chemical found in coffee that is responsible for coffee's ability to significantly reduce the risk of diabetes. I've often wondered about where researchers get their tobacco. If they just buy commercial off the shelf tobacco or some pesticide laden bulk leaf their results "might" be different than if they used an organic source.
 

deluxestogie

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I believe that hydrogen cyanide is a common byproduct formed during low-oxygen combustion of nitrogen-bearing carbon compounds. It's also generated in varying amounts by cherries, almonds, apricots and a number of other vegetable products. The cyanide radical poisons cytochrome-P450, which is essential for animal metabolism. If you are exposed to enough of it (not very much), then it causes death within seconds. Most common exposures are far below this level, and have no biologic impact or significant cumulative effect at low levels. Livestock that die from eating certain wild cherry leaves during specific seasons of the year die from cyanide exposure.

All that having been said, my impression is that the cyanide in burning tobacco is of little consequence, though it is likely present in the smoke produced by any burning plant matter, and makes good headlines.

Bob
 

SmokeStack

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Just currious, and since this forum has some very knowledgeable individuals plus chemists and scientists, i want to know:
Does the smoke from homegrown tobacco contain benzene? Hydrogen zyanide?????
reason for asking: i believe but am not sure, that most of those harmfull chemicals released in store bought tobacco exist due to the additives used by big tobacco. New labeling on canadian cigarettes read as follows:
Tobacco smoke contains hydrogen zyanide, a poisonous gas. Health Canada
Tobacco smoke contains benzene, a chemical that causes lung cancer. Health Canada

I will add more as i find them. Thanks for any info and help.

I think labels which state "tobacco smoke contains hydrogen cyanide" is more of a scare tactic than anything else. It's true that hydrogen cyanide is very poisonous, but not at levels found in tobacco smoke. It's possible that long term exposure to small amounts of hydrogen cyanide may be hazardous by a process mediated through a different mechanism, but I am not aware of any studies that has stated such a claim. For the most part, exposure to cyanide results in a black or white response; that is to say, either you die immediately or you live unscathed.

The sad thing about a government making these preposturous claims is that people will eventually begin to lose their trust.
 

jeapadrenaline

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That was pretty much how i felt about it. They use scare tactics, but these "facts" dont mean diddly squat in reality. Ita just that most people believe whatever the government tells them and never question any of what they are told. Thats how "big brother" likes it. Right from kindegarden on we are taught to believe what big brother tells us and to never question him. Its just so sad that people dont educate themselves more.
 

johnlee1933

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People thinking is a rarity. Governments approve. For a government a thinking populace is uncomfortable and dangerous.

i.e. : I cut myself a few times learning to sharpen knives. I learned and don't cut myself any more. Government position : Ban all knives.

John
 

SmokeStack

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People thinking is a rarity. Governments approve. For a government a thinking populace is uncomfortable and dangerous.

i.e. : I cut myself a few times learning to sharpen knives. I learned and don't cut myself any more. Government position : Ban all knives.

John

Before you know it, the packaging on knives will be labeled with "knives contain iron - a toxic substance known to cause metabolic acidosis"
 

wazzappenning

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i cant figure out how to read the data on that link, i just get the titles.

without seeing the list im guessing that some of the chemicals in natural/organic leaf may sound scary, but you also have to consider the quantities involved.

heres where it gets a little off topic. i have 2 dogs. they have eaten things i questioned were good or not for them. so i googled foods bad for dogs. and the results are a little scary.

tomatoes- in the tomato greens(stems etc) there is a compound poisonous for dogs. an unripe green tomato also has it but less. the kicker is its also poisonous(but less i think)to humans. now i dont know if this is a french canadian thing or what but they eat green ketchup all the time, made from green tomatoes, and i dont think anyone has ever keeled over from it.

apples/ grapes- seed is poison. for apples its a form of arsenic that dogs are great at converting to a poisonous form. not sure if we do as well, but im sure they dont remove the pits before crushing apples and grapes for juice.

basically just knowing its in there might scare you from eating that stuff ever again, but then you look around and see no one dies from it, so its really not an issue in the quantities naturally in there.

now adding more of those scary sounding chemicals (ie commercial baccy), you might start to see some ill effects.
 

deluxestogie

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The cited article is 44 years old.
ncbi said:
The chemical composition of tobacco and tobacco smoke.
Stedman RL.
Chem Rev. 1968 Apr;68(2):153-207. Review. No abstract available.

Tomato stalks and leaves contain substantial levels of solanine, a poison. Green tomatoes contain lesser amounts of solanine, and cause no symptoms when consumed in small amounts. (I pickle small green tomatoes and eat them on a regular basis, as a salad garnish.) Ripe tomatoes contain nearly no solanine.

Apple seeds contain cyanogenic compounds, which, when exposed to stomach acid [hydrochloric acid], liberate cyanide. Most of us have eaten an apple seed or two.

There is one documented case study (from 1942) of a man who saved all his apple seeds in a cup, until he had a cupful. He sat down and ate them all, as a delicacy. He promptly died of cyanide poisoning. Livestock experience symptoms after breaking into orchards and eating large quantities of whole apples.

So far as I'm aware, tannins are the only "toxin" in grape seeds. Grape seed is crushed for grape seed oil. Grape leaves are edible (dolmas, yaprak, stuffed grape leaves), and are usually pickled in citric acid or lemon juice before using. Fresh grape leaves contain tannins, which can be used to advantage in pickling other vegetables, to maintain crispness. You just add one fresh grape leaf to a jar of cukes or other veggies when you begin the pickling process. It has no effect on the final flavor of the pickles. (You can do the same thing with a fresh oak leaf.)

All bets are off when you add chemicals to the ground, and spray chemicals on the growing plants. We can get an idea of chemicals in commercial tobacco today, by just reading any extension service recommendations for pest and sucker control, and the composition of the chemical fertilizers commonly used.

I trust that spraying aphids on my tobacco with diluted Dawn dish detergent is safe. But I have no data to support that happy assumption. I have swallowed a fingertip quantity of Dawn in order to test the backpacker myth that any residue of dish detergent causes diarrhea. It does not.

In the absence of solid data on short and longterm effects of many agricultural chemicals, I lean heavily on arithmetic. The lower the count of added chemicals, the safer I feel about it.

While the term "organically grown" is mostly fluff, its general principles make the arithmetic nicer.

Bob
 

oldsouth

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As One who has eaten much more than my body weight in fried green tomatoes and pickled green tomatoes, I can attest that they are safe! I also eat the whole apple, core and all, and have never suffered ill effects.

Also, there is arsenic in just about everything. If memory serves there is more than twice the amount of arsenic naturally occurring in one stalk of broccoli than allowed by EPA standards in one glass of water.

I think it was Lewis Grizzard who pointed out that when we were kids, playing baseball and we would get a scrape, the coach would tell us to rub some dirt in it. I did that. I think all kids did. Now, that coach would be arrested for child abuse.!
 

leverhead

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I trust that spraying aphids on my tobacco with diluted Dawn dish detergent is safe. But I have no data to support that happy assumption. I have swallowed a fingertip quantity of Dawn in order to test the backpacker myth that any residue of dish detergent causes diarrhea. It does not.

You're a brave man!
 

wazzappenning

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thank you for breaking the compounds down. i knew i had read it somewhere but could not remember where.

old south... that would explain why broccoli is also toxic to dogs. i knew it was but didnt know why.

anyway, just in case anyone misunderstood, my point was even if it has small amounts of things we know are deadly, doesnt mean its necessarily harmful to you.(and at least theyre organic instead of the synthetic versions)

the full cup of apple seeds is a good example. while natural tobacco contains compound x, see what happens if you add a cup more of it.
 

johnlee1933

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I don't know a lot about this toxic/deadly/lethal subject. I do know that almost anything can be deadly if you get enough of it. Obviously this includes alcohol. I wasn't aware until a few years ago this also includes oxygen. During WW II the Brits tried using pure oxygen for their underwater dive teams to reduce their air consumption. It turns out the water pressure (increases with depth) pushed the partial pressure of oxygen to a lethal concentration. (FYI 30 ft is lethal.) They switched back to air. If you go a lot deeper Nitrogen is also toxic. Force a man to drink too much water he will die due to fluid imbalance.

Trace amounts of really deadly stuff doesn't really bother you. In old Rome they used to take Arsenic to make their hair shiny and yet it is the toxic stuff in rat poison.

My point is that too much of anything is not good for you and can be fatal.

John
 

Randy

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What abt menthol grown tobacco?? first you soak the the seed in menthol based soultion..then you grow it in menthol soaked soil..you fertilzer it with menthol based solution..then you spray leaves when drying with menthol based mix..the end result "MENTHOL" tobacco????? just thinking here Ive heard reid'or sh@t than this lol

Randy
 
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