A cigarette is not just 'tobacco rolled in paper'. It is a product engineered in a laboratory, optimised over 60 years to be as addictive as possible. If you wonder why you are hooked when you barely smoked at the start, this is part of the answer: the chemistry was designed for it.

A cigarette is not just tobacco

If you snap an industrial cigarette in two, you find ground tobacco — but not only that. According to data from the European Commission and the WHO, additives represent around 10 % of the weight of an industrial cigarette. More than 600 different substances have been identified in manufacturers' declarations.

Three main families:

Ammonia: the 'magic' of Marlboro

In the 1960s, Philip Morris saw an explosion in Marlboro sales. Its rivals, baffled, ran chemical reverse-engineering to find out why. They found it: the ammonia technology.

The mechanism is ingenious. Nicotine exists in tobacco in two forms: bound (poorly absorbable) and free-base (rapidly absorbed by the lungs and mucous membranes). By making the smoke more alkaline, ammonia converts bound nicotine into free-base nicotine. For the same amount of nicotine, you absorb more of it, faster.

The pharmacological effect is stronger. The cigarette becomes 'impact-boosted' — their internal phrase. And the faster the nicotine reaches the brain, the stronger the addiction.

Sugars: sweet for young people, hooking for everyone

Tobacco contains sugars naturally. But the industry adds more, systematically, for several reasons:

Marlboro popularised the use of prune juice concentrate as a sweetener and flavour enhancer. Others used honey, maple syrup, molasses, cocoa.

Cocoa: opens the bronchi

Less well known: cocoa (and its active compound, theobromine) has been used by the industry since the 1960s. Desired effect: dilate the bronchi (mild bronchodilator) to allow deeper absorption of the smoke into the alveoli. More contact area = more nicotine absorbed + more toxics.

This is one of the reasons 'cocoa cigarettes' are not at all 'nice chocolatey cigarettes': they are chemically more efficient at delivering nicotine.

Tobacco MAOIs: nicotine made even stronger

Cigarette smoke also contains monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), formed during combustion. MAOIs are molecules that block an enzyme in charge of breaking down certain neurotransmitters — including dopamine.

Result: dopamine released by nicotine lasts longer in the brain. Reward effect amplified, dependence reinforced. This partly explains why tobacco is more addictive than pure nicotine (in a patch or a tobacco-free vape).

Myth vs reality

The Tobacco Papers: definitive proof

In the 1990s, following landmark US lawsuits (notably the 1998 settlement between tobacco firms and US states), more than 80 million pages of internal documents were made public. They are accessible today on the Truth Tobacco Industry Documents Library (University of California San Francisco).

What was found in them:

• The industry knew as early as the 1950s that cigarettes caused cancer.

• It knew as early as the 1960s that nicotine was the main addictive substance.

• It designed and optimised ammonia, sugars and additives specifically to increase dependence.

• It internally funded counter-studies to sow doubt for 50 years.

What does today's regulation say?

The European Union has banned several additives since the 2014 Tobacco Directive:

• Menthol (since 2020) — masked the harshness for young people.

• Characterising flavours (fruits, sweets, chocolate) — apart from vanilla and menthol until their final ban.

• Added vitamins and stimulants.

But sugars, ammonia and several hundred additives are still allowed. The fight goes on.

In United Kingdom

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