By Mashum Mollah
“Do cigarettes expire? No, they don’t. But the person smoking them definitely does.” This is the most common phrase that you might have come across on the internet while searching for the answer to this question. Whether a smoker or not, everyone in this world knows how harmful cigarettes are.
Even the packets have labels of cancer patients and state how injurious it is to health. But have you ever really given it a thought whether cigarettes expire or not? In this article, we will discuss every aspect of a cigarette which will help you know the same.
What Is A Cigarette?
Before you get to know when do cigarettes expire, first you need to know a bit of what it is all about. A cigarette is basically a cylinder-shaped consumable substance that has tobacco, which is a psychotropic drug, rolled inside it by a thin paper.
It is something that people smoke. The sheet or the reconstituted tobacco of commercial cigarettes comprises stalks, stems, scraps, dust, and floor sweepings of recycled tobacco. All these are then combined and glue, fillers, and chemicals are added to it. Nicotine that is extracted from tobacco scraps and rolled into curls is then sprayed over the product. It is generally lit at one end, the other being in between your lips causing it to smolder. Besides, there is also a cigarette known as stale cigarettes.
One has to inhale the smoke orally and leave out the excess smoke. The presence of nicotine in cigarettes is what makes them more addictive. Smoking is extremely injurious to health and is the reason behind several health problems.
What Are The Constituents Of A Cigarette?
Commercial cigarettes in today’s date are crafted in a very simple way. These cigarettes generally comprise tobacco blend, paper, polyvinyl acetate, or PVA glue, and often a filter based out of cellulose-acetate. Nowadays, a lot of concentration is driven towards producing the best of every component. Before we get into the matter ‘do cigarettes expire or not’ let us have a look at the constituents of a cigarette:
1. Paper
The rolling paper that binds the cigarette together should be porous enough to allow proper ventilation. It should be constituted of materials that can keep control of the cigarette’s burning rate the stability of the ash produced. The papers used around the filter should have the ability to stabilize saliva from the mouth as well as the smoke delivery.
2. Tobacco Blend
To provide an appealing and consistent taste as well as some changes in flavor, the process of blending to create the end product is very crucial. Modern-day cigarettes make use of a considerable amount of byproducts for tobacco processing in the blend. The leaves of oriental tobacco, flue-cured Brightleaf, and burley tobacco are used in the manufacturing of each cigarette’s tobacco.
3. Additives
The shredded tobacco mixtures are then combined with various additives such as glycerol for keeping it moist, tobacco extracts, various sugars known as casings, and flavoring substances such as licorice and cocoa solids. A particular amount of small laminate is used along with the shredded leaf tobacco, expanded tobacco, RL, BL, ES, and IS.
4. Tube
Prerolled cigarette papers with a paper or acetate filter are used for producing tubes at the end of a cigarette. It resembles a finished cigarette but does not include any smoking or tobacco materials inside. The Kingsize length varies from 84mm-100mm. In general, an injection is used to fill a cigarette tube.
5. Filter
The cigarette filter is also commonly known as the filter tip. It is one of the basic components of a cigarette. The basic constituent that is used in the production of these filters is cellulose acetate fiber. These filters can restrict some substances from going into your lungs but do not make them any less harmful. Most commercial cigarettes are fitted with filters.
6. Butt
A cigarette butt is a common name used to refer to the remains of a cigarette. It comprises a tissue tube with a filter and some remains of tobacco combined with ash. It is about 30 percent of the entire length of a cigarette. Cigarette butts are given the credit for loitering half of the places in the world.
Do Cigarettes Expire? Or, How long do cigarettes last?
Now here we are in the most awaited section of the article that will answer your question of ‘do cigarettes expire?’ Apart from containing statutory health concerns, cigarette packets also consist of manufacturing dates and best before durations.
How long do cigarettes last? Cigarettes do not have an expiry date. If kept unused for a period, they might become stale. This basically means that the cigarette has lost the moisture present in the tobacco and there is a change in the taste. Cigarettes that have been produced commercially usually do not become stale.
However, they might have a chance of becoming so, if the pack has been opened and is kept exposed for two days or more. The expiry date on the cigarette pack does not really matter. People try to look for the best before date on the packet to ensure that they are not consuming something that smells or tastes bad and can cause harm to their health. Do you want to know how many cigs in a pack are there?
Generally, the cigarette packets that we find in shops and markets are produced in two forms: the first type has ten cigarettes in a packet and the second type consists of twenty cigarettes in a packet. People should definitely not smoke cigarettes that have become damp and moldy. However, nowadays the production of cigarettes is much better controlled and precautions are taken to avoid the growth of fungus and other issues in the processing of tobacco.
Final Thoughts
Now that you know the actual answer to the fact ‘do cigarettes expire’, it must not convince you to start or increase smoking. Cigarettes are extremely harmful to your body and health and have led to major deaths in many parts of the world. It has been reported that a toxic mix of over seven thousand chemicals is inhaled by cigarette smokers. Even the people around you are affected by this. Gradually, it can damage every one of your organs.
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