Self-Made Cigarettes can Damage Your Health

Published on October 6, 2008 3:31 AM

The Ministry of Health reported that people who smoke hand-rolled cigarettes believe that they do less harm than people who smoke cheap cigarettes. In a study was shown that hand-rolled cigarettes generate a third more tar and also had higher nicotine levels than ordinary cigarettes.

Self-made cigarettes lack the chemicals in tailor-mades that keep the tobacco burning, hence the perception they are less harmful. Combined with the high tar and their low cost, hand-rolled cigarettes were not a safer alternative for smokers, the report said.

The scientists did note their findings could not be exact, as there was no way of knowing exactly how much tobacco each person put into their hand-rolled cigarettes. For the test, tobacco from 10 brands both normal and mild was put into a cigarette-rolling machine. Commercially available wrapping paper and filters were used.

Researchers found that there was no appreciable difference between some normal and "mild" brands of tobacco in terms of the dangerous chemicals they emitted. "We found that five top-selling brands of loose tobacco used in rolled tax free cigarettes are no safer than the most commonly sold tailor-mades, and some brands actually produce more cancer-causing substances," said Ashley Bloomfield, the Health Ministry's national director of tobacco control.

At the end of the study researchers said that anyone who thinks rolled cigarettes are safer is wrong. Of course there are a lot of myths about rolled cigarette, such as its tobacco is more natural, it has fewer additives, and it is less harmful.