Are low-tar cigarettes safe?

No. There is no such thing as a safe cigarette. Millions of Americans smoke "low-tar," "mild," or "light" brands because they believe those cigarettes are less harmful than regular cigarettes. However, the National Cancer Institute announced recently that people who smoke low-tar cigarettes are likely to inhale the same amount of cancer-causing substances as smokers of regular cigarettes, and they remain at high risk for developing smoking-related cancers and other diseases.

Studies in the late 1960s and 1970s suggested that smokers of low-tar cigarettes had somewhat lower lung cancer risks than smokers of other cigarettes. It was believed that as more smokers used low-tar cigarettes for longer periods of time, national lung cancer death rates would fall. Unfortunately, this did not happen.

Although low-tar cigarettes became very popular, lung cancer death rates continued to rise until the early 1990s. The rates declined among men during the 1990s because fewer men smoked, not because low-tar cigarettes reduced risk. Lung cancer death rates for women continued to increase during the 1990s, but at a slower pace.

Today, lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer death among both men and women in the United States. An estimated 157,400 people died from this disease in 2001. That's more than the number of deaths from cancers of the breast, colon, prostate, and pancreas combined. The only proven way to reduce the risk for lung cancer is to quit smoking.

The NCI findings are part of a comprehensive report called Risks Associated with Smoking Cigarettes with Low-Machine-Measured Yields of Tar and Nicotine. For more information about the report or to receive personalized smoking cessation counseling, call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

choose back button for more from this category, or below for CIS index