Cigarette fillers

Pectins are best known for their ability to form gels (6), a property which often involves intermolecular binding mediated by calcium cations (7). The principal commercial use of pectin is in the preparation of jelly and jam products (8). Pectins provide firmness in fresh fruits and vegetables (9-11). Historically, natural tobacco pectins also have been used as binders to prepare reconstituted sheets from tobacco by-products that are then incorporated into cigarette filler or cigar wrappers (12-14). 

Table XXV-21 illustrates precursor relationships, either demonstrated or proposed, between 7V-containing components such as the amino acids and proteins and tobacco smoke components. The tabulation of possible flavorants for tobacco smoking products by Lefhngwell et al. (2341) included contributions to tobacco smoke taste and aroma of twenty-three amino acids added individually to the cigarette filler.

The effect of cellulose added to cigarette filler on cigarette MSS composition and properties in a mouse skin-painting bioassay was examined in the mid-1970s in the NCI study of the first set of cigarettes (1329, 2683). The results are poorly defined because the cellulose was added (as wood pulp) at a 7.5% level to fillers made from the Standard Experimental Blend (SEB I) reconstituted into sheet material at three different densities. 

Castano, J.I., L.A. Cabezas, and F.J. Palacio Determination of vanillin, ethylvanillin, and coumarin in cigarette filler An SPE-HPLC approach 44th Tobacco Chemists Research Conference, Program Booklet and Abstracts, Vol. 44, Paper No. 54,1990, p. 39. 

Joza, R, W.S. Rickert, and M.J. Kaiserman Changes in the TSNA content of Canadian cigarette filler, and mainstream tobacco smoke 1970-1999 54th Tobacco Science Research Conference, Program Booklet and Abstracts, Vol. 54, Paper No. 12, 2000, pp. 23-24. 

Table 3 Content of nicotine in tobacco filler of cigarettes with different smoke yields as determined by standard FTC/ISO machine-smoking method (Kozlowski et al. 1998)...

Cigarette characteristics that influence nicotine delivery to the smoker (including nicotine and ammonium content in tobacco filler) as well as human smoking behavior, deserve special consideration, because nicotine causes and maintains addiction that leads to chronic exposure to a chemical toxicant with known harmful health effects, including cancer (UDHHS 2004 lARC 2004 2007). 

The manufacturers of tobacco products add fillers, flavor enhancers, preservatives, and other additives to make the product more desirable to consumers, especially low-tar brands. Each company s list of additives was a closely guarded trade secret until 1984, when the lists were submitted to the government. The public was barred from seeing the lists until 1994. The initial list contained 700 potential additives, of which 13 are not allowed in food. One additive, ammonia, may be included to boost the absorption of nicotine and enhance the addictive kick. Sweeteners and chocolate may help make cigarettes more attractive to children and first-time users. 

Tablets of medication intended for oral use contain inert filler materials such as talc (magnesium silicate), corn starch, cotton fibers, and other refractile and nonrefractile substances. Long-term drug abusers are known to prepare a suspension of medication for injection by dissolving the crushed tablet of cocaine, heroin, methylphenidate, or other narcotic in water. They then boil the solution and filter it through a crude cigarette or cotton filter before injecting the solution intravenously, subcutaneously, or intramuscularly. The talc particles eventually embolize to the retinal circulation and produce a characteristic form of retinopathy.

While many investigators considered many individual compounds added to cigarette tobacco filler to be tobacco and/or tobacco smoke components, it seemed worthwhile to catalog the extent to which this was true. Obviously, if... 

Despite their criticism of the possible increased use of flavorants in the filler of low- tar, low-nicotine cigarettes, the authors admitted that prior to 1980, the U.S. cigarette manufacturers had, apparently achieved a reduction of toxic and tumorigenic effects in the smoke of low- tar, low-nicotine cigarettes. ... 

The assertion of the equivalence of the fate of a compound on pyrolysis vs. its fate in a cigarette tobacco filler during smoking persisted for over twenty years after the mid-1950s. As proponents of this equivalence, Wynder and Hoffmann [see pp. 346-347 in (4332)] wrote ... 

The 1963 Hoffmann-Wynder findings were not confirmed either at RJRT or in the NCI-TWG study on die first set of experimental cigarettes [Gori (1329)]. In the latter study, the B[a]P and B[a]A yield for the normal filler cut (32 cpi) were less dian diose for the coarse (20 cpi) and fine (60 cpi) cuts. 

Graham, B., K. Wagner, and D. Champaneri Analysis of ammonia and cyanide in cigarette smoke, total alkaloids, ammonia, nitrates, and reducing sugars in tobacco filler with an automated spectrophotometer ... 

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