Within 10 seconds of your first puff, more than 4000 chemicals hit your brain, heart and other organs. Tobacco smoke is a mix of all these chemicals, including cancer-causing ones. When a cigarette burns, the main chemicals released are:

• carbon monoxide, which robs the heart of oxygen
• tar, which clogs the lungs and causes or stimulates cancer
• phenols, which paralyse and eventually kill the hair-like cells lining airways
• fine particles, which irritate the throat and lungs, cause smoker’s cough and damage lung tissue
• cadmium, lead, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide, toxins affecting all organs in the body.

About tar
Tar is released when a cigarette burns. It is the main cause of lung and throat cancer.

A smoker who smokes one packet a day inhales more than half a cup of tar from cigarettes each year.