Make Your Own Cigarette

General Description of Activity

This commotion is like Make Your Own Dip, only with cigarettes.

We all know there’s more than tobacco in spit, and there’s more than tobacco in cigarettes, too. Many of these chemicals can also be found around the house. You can expose what Big Tobacco doesn’t want everyone to know – by making your own cigarette.

Reserve a spot at a community event or schedule a presentation in class or at a school assembly to showcase your display (local festival, county fair, school health day, etc.)

Obviously we don't want you to use any of the "real" ingredients in your demonstration. While you know its dangers, there is always the chance that a small child may reach over and taste one of these poisonous ingredients when you aren't looking. You can take containers with nothing on them and label them with the ingredients or substitute safer things like water or water with different food colorings. Crayola (that’s right, the crayon people) makes little pellets that can be dropped into bath water and are non-toxic. Your audience will get the picture.

Present to your audience, or if you are at a health fair or similar event, set the products on a table with a list of other ingredients that can be found in cigarettes.

Many people don’t know this junk is in cigarettes.

Arsenic: used in rat poison
Acetic Acid: found in vinegar, hair dye, photo developing fluid
Acetone: main ingredient in paint thinner and fingernail polish remover
Ammonia: a typical household cleaning fluid
Benzene: found in rubber cement
Butane: cigarette lighter fluid
Cadmium: found in batteries and artist’s oil paints
Carbon Monoxide: a poisonous gas found in car exhaust, as well as from other sources
DDT/Dieldrin: Insecticides
Formaldehyde: used to embalm dead bodies. This embalming fluid is often used to preserve small animals in biology classes, so check with your science teacher to find this one.
Hexamine: in barbecue lighter fluid
Hydrazine: used in jet and rocket fuels
Hydrogen Cyanide: used as a poison in gas chambers
Lead: a highly poisonous metal that used to be found in some paints
Napthalenes: used in explosives, moth balls, and paint pigments
Nitrobenzene: a gasoline additive
Phenol: used in disinfectants and plastics
Polonium-210: a highly radioactive element
Stearic acid: found in candle wax
Toluene: found in embalmer's glue

Materials Needed

Some of the household materials listed in the ingredients section; a folding table if the site does not provide one.

Best Place to Perform Commotion

Anywhere with a crowd – a school activity, a town fair, any place you can spread the word about what’s in tobacco and what Raze is doing to fight Big Tobacco. This can also be performed as a class presentation.

Estimated Number of Teens Needed

1-3