Tobacco and Public Health - TCSC Indonesia

world tobacco burden (World Health Organization 1997). In the US, 4.2 pounds of
tobacco were consumed per person in 1999: 83% in cigarettes, 6% in cigars, 5% as
snuff, 5% as chewing tobacco, and 1% as smoking tobacco (Giovino 2002).
Commercial cigarettes
Tobacco
MIRJANA V. DJORDJEVIC 183
Unlike systematic monitoring and reporting of emissions of nicotine, tar, and carbon
monoxide in the mainstream smoke (MS) of cigarettes (e.g. U.S. Federal Trade
Commission 2000), there is no official requirement, in any country in the world, for
the reporting on nicotine content in the tobacco blend of commercial products. The
latter is especially puzzling since the chemical composition of cigarette smoke (both
qualitative and quantitative), as well as addictive and carcinogenic properties of any
given product, depend directly on the profile of preformed tobacco constituents.
The data in Table 9.1 show an international comparison of the levels of nicotine,
nitrate, and the two carcinogenic, nicotine-derived, N-nitrosamines in commercial
cigarette tobacco. The assays of a large number of brands from the US, Canada, the
United Kingdom (UK), Japan, and other countries have demonstrated that there is a
wide variation in concentrations of nicotine in the tobacco filler (from 7.2 to 23.5 mg/g
tobacco), as well as concentrations of nitrate (from 0.3 to 20.6 mg/cigarette), NNN
(from 45-58 000 ng/g tobacco), and NNK (from not detected to 10 745 ng/cigarette;
detection limit