Descent Into Madness: Natural, Organic, Additive-Free Cigarettes

After seven years at this job that there can't possibly be any surprises left, right? We've seen it all: Raw water, raw milk, coffee enemas, vaginal steam cleaning, female Viagra, gluten-free gluten, placenta eating, killer cash register receipts, penis bleaching, mind-control fluoride, studies of pee in pools, and inorganic pesticides used in organic farming. 

You name it, we've seen it. But let's not forget what I was reminded of, one of the grand-daddies of them all, when I saw this in the window of a carwash (soap-free?).

These "natural" things have been around since 1982, which could be interpreted as a surrogate measure of how often I wash my car (1).

"Natural American Spirit offers the best in organic & menthol tobacco cigarettes"

 Americanspirit.com website

When we wrote about them in 2015, after FDA warned them about being aggressive in their "organic" claims, we noted that it used to be that a shady company masking its harm would be taking tactics 'right out of the Big Tobacco playbook', but today cigarette makers use tactics 'right out of the Big Organic playbook.'

Though it's wrong to think natural means healthier (see my book on natural versus artificial flavors, colors, etc.) people do just that.

So, I could not help but wonder what other fine products could also adopt tactics right out of the Big Organic playbook.

Maybe these?

A sampling of other fine products, real or imagined. But, as of yet, these are not being sold at the Yonkers Central Park Car Wash ($9.99 plus tax).

No additives, natural or organic - there is is no such thing as a healthy cigarette

Now, having dispensed with this silliness (idiocy if you prefer) I figured it would be amusingly instructive to look at some of the chemicals that are added to cigarettes and compare them to some that are formed when you inhale the combustion products of tobacco. Let's start with the additives (Table 1). (599 have been documented. I selected a few that you may have heard of.)

Table 1. Selected tobacco additives. Source: Am J Public Health. 2007 November; 97(11): 1981–1991.

Now let's look at a handful of chemical that are formed when tobacco burns.

Table 2. Selected tobacco combustion products. Source: American Cancer Society

You are witnessing pure madness. The sleazebags at Natural American Spirit are suggesting that their product is better or safer because they have not added chemicals to their stupid cigarettes. Now compare Tables 1 and 2 and it becomes very obvious very quickly that the chemicals that are not added to Natural Spirit cigarettes are more or less harmless (2).

But the handful of the thousands of chemicals that are the combustion products of tobacco? Rather different, no? Which may make you wonder what good it does to buy your coffin nails that don't have a bunch of mostly harmless additives when it is the tobacco itself that is gonna kill you. That's a very good question. So unless you're a real

you won't fall for this stupid nonsense. That is unless you belong to the genus imbecilus maximus and are willing to spend $38.49 for this...

Raw water from Live Water. $38.49 for a gallon. Phallic-looking tropical plants not included. Gasoline costs one-tenth that. And is probably better to drink. Photo: Live Water

...then hopefully you'll see Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. for what they really are. (Insert expletive here).

Gotta go. I do my laundry about as often as I wash my car. Perhaps this explains my sub-abysmal social life. 

NOTES:

(1) In order to be a good citizen of the planet and minimize my "detergent footprint," I have cut back on washing my car from once per year to... less than that. Consequently, it looks a little like this. (As if you're so perfect?)

Josh's low-detergent footprint wheels. The babes love it. 

(2) It is impossible to include toxicity or carcinogenicity data on 599 chemicals or to draw an accurate conclusion of the group. Some of the chemical additives have their own toxicity, but as a group, it does not compare to the chemicals in tobacco smoke.