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How efficient are filters in removing harmful substances from cigarette smoke? Putting a filter on the cigarette certainly reduces the tar and nicotine levels your body absorbs, In addition, there is evidence that people who smoke filter-tipped cigarettes are at less risk of getting lung cancer. So there certainly is some advantage. However, the benefit is certainly not so great that it is safe to smoke filter cigarettes. Probably the best that can be said for them is that if you cannot give up smoking altogether, they are a little less dangerous than non-filter brands. Why do doctors tell you that if you must smoke, smoke only the first half of the cigarette? Read the rest of this entry »

Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Professor A. Bradford Hill and Dr (now Sir) Richard Doll published the first of a series of papers leading to the in- escapable conclusion that cigarette smoking was the major factor in the rising incidence of lung cancer. They began with a retrospective study; that is, they investigated a large number of patients with cancer of the lung and compared them with a carefully matched control group who did not have this form of cancer. After comparing a number of factors that might have a bearing on the cause of this disease, the only great Read the rest of this entry »

In the recent past, cigarette advertisers freely promoted the image of smoking as being sophisticated. Now that there is cast- iron proof of the risks smokers run—and stringent curbs have been placed on cigarette advertising—things are not so simple for the tobacco companies. They now have to advertise their products more obliquely. Sponsorship of sport—however ironic it may be — is one of the principal means they employ, although there is widespread criticism of the practice. And of course we are all familiar with those advertisements which tell us more about the creative flair of the advertising agencies who make the ads, than about the cigarettes themselves. Not a pretty sight—and not a pretty smell. Read the rest of this entry »