In America, the smoking of cigarettes is considered to be epidemiologically harmful to the body of the person that is smoking, and for some organizations, the very smoke that is exhaled from smokers (second hand smoke) is considered to be harmful as well as a pollutant. The thing about cigarettes in America and especially those from "big tobacco," is that cigarettes consist of not just tobacco, in conjunction with the natural amount of nicotine contained within tobacco leaves, but also the chemicals and additives added to cigarettes for taste, smoothness, consistency, and anesthetics.
That is to say, tobacco has been grown and harvested for millenniums, of which tobacco naturally has nicotine contained within it, which acts as a stimulant as well as indirectly releasing dopamine to the brain. While most people today think of tobacco as solely being smoked, in fact, as a leafy product, it can also be chewed, sucked, as well as being burned and then being inhaled through the nostril passages, in addition to its most common form of consumption which is being smoked through the mouth. While medical science, as we know it, is a fairly modern construct, it would be surprising to most people that as reported by cnn.com, "In Egypt, out of hundreds of mummies, only one case of cancer has been confirmed." This, doesn't mean definitively that there wasn't any cancer in ancient times, but it does serve to augment the theory that history as well as epidemiological research does not support that the smoking of tobacco always has lead to a very high incidence of lung cancer. For instance, only in very recent times has it been discovered that in the United States that "… lung cancer in male smokers vs. non-smokers was 40.1," as reported by verywellhealth.com, and quite obviously a ratio of such a staggering size means that to presume that smoking does not cause or contribute greatly to lung cancer would be a grave fallacy.
However, within that same report by verywellhealth.com, they state that, "in Korea were 4.0 to 4.6 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers. The relative risk in Japan in this study was 3.7 to 5.1, and that in China was 2.4 to 6.5." While, racists might jump to the conclusion that the significantly lower rates of cancer in Korea, Japan, and China, must be because Asian people have an inborn immunity to such at a much higher level than Americans of all types; the fact of the matter is that the best selling cigarette in these countries, in order, are as reported by chartsbin.com: Esse, Mild Seven, and Chunghwa, whereas in America it is Marlboro.
The fact is that chemicals of all sorts are typically added to cigarettes, of which, some of these chemicals as reported by lung.org are: acetone, ammonia, arsenic, benzene, formaldehyde, and tar, to name just a few. Further, lung.org states that: "When burned, cigarettes create more than 7,000 chemicals. At least 69 of these chemicals are known to cause cancer, and many are toxic." This thus signifies that in all likelihood, those that deliberately smoke substances that contain toxic chemicals, are going to place themselves into the position of probably having a significantly higher amount of cancer risk, of which, those that smoke cigarettes in America are at risk of getting lung cancer 40 times higher than those that do not smoke. On the other hand, it is implicit within worldwide studies of smoking, and in particular, involving different brands being so smoked, that smoking cigarettes could impact the risk of lung cancer to as low as just 2.4 times higher than the non-smoker, and perhaps even less depending upon the chemicals and additives added to those cigarettes.
America has a strong tendency to simplify things that should not be so simplified, so that the smoking of cigarettes is one of those things which have mandated a health warning that states, "Smoking causes lung cancer…"In point of fact, the smoking of tobacco leaves, and in particular the smoking of tobacco leaves containing nicotine, without any chemical or additive additions, in all probability, does not cause lung cancer and never has.On the other hand, the smoking of chemicals, and in particular those chemicals that are added to and are part of the actual cigarette packs so sold, especially those chemicals which are known to be cancer agents, in and of themselves, implicitly must and do cause lung cancer.