Across the
backyards and victory gardens of America this fall, many weekend
gardeners for the first time are harvesting a touch of poison amongst
the squash and potatoes.

The poison, albeit all-natural and organic, is tobacco, an otherwise
lovely plant with its elephantine green leaves and broad, five-petal
flowers of yellow, pink or white.

Ever ingenious American smokers
have turned to growing their own tobacco as the average price for
smokes has climbed to over $6 a pack, a price hike largely the result
of the $1.01-per-pack tax that went into effect on April 1,
conveniently around planting season. Seed sales reportedly were
through the roof this year.

Whether homegrown tobacco is cheaper is debatable. Growing tobacco
is difficult for even the experienced gardener, and curing the leaves
can be an art form.

But the parallel reasoning for growing your own - that homegrown
tobacco is healthier by virtue of having none of the additives found in
commercial cigarettes, as purported on various Internet sites -
unfortunately is not true. The stuff will still kill you.

Not even marginally less harmful

Terms such as "healthier" or "safer" - as in the elusive safer
cigarette that the tobacco industry is trying to create - should tell
you who is shaping this argument. The proper term is "less harmful,"
and even this is highly suspect. You're still breathing in myriad
cancer-causing agents; one or two fewer carcinogens, like one or two
fewer bullets from a machine gun, doesn't matter.

Commercial tobacco does contain a lot of junk. The industry has hundreds of additives in its arsenal to make cigarette smoking a more pleasant and addictive experience.
Some of these additives are carcinogenic. But good ol' natural
tobacco, particularly when burned, has upwards of 40 known or probable
carcinogens that trump any harm done by additives.

Also, homegrown tobacco still has those same wonderful
heart-stopping qualities causing higher blood pressure, higher
cholesterol levels, and higher risk of artery clotting and stroke.

Part of the blame for the confusion goes to the anti-smoking
movement. Its emphasis on tobacco additives has implied that natural
tobacco is somehow healthier.

Maybe worse

While gardening is therapeutic, there's irony in every puff of
organic, homegrown tobacco, because the nicotine you're absorbing is a
deadly pesticide.

First, be careful handling fresh tobacco leaves. Touching wet
leaves can cause green tobacco sickness, a type of nicotine poisoning.
The sickness frequently affects tobacco harvesters, usually migrant
workers lacking adequate protection.

Children exposed to high levels of nicotine from wet leaves often require hospitalization.

Next, should you succeed in growing your own, note that your
exposure to the most deadly carcinogens - polycyclic aromatic
hydrocarbons, such as benzene - might be greater than that from a
regular cigarette, depending on the type of tobacco, the nature of the
rolling, and the probable lack of filter. Thousands of chemicals are
created by lighting tobacco, and the quantity of poisons varies based
on airflow, temperature and other factors.

Of alchemy and cigarettes

Creating a less harmful cigarette is theoretically possible. One
problem is that this type of product could be used as an alternative to
tobacco cessation. Another problem is that it might encourage others
to smoke more.

The tobacco industry understands this, for it has been fudging or
hiding data for years. Low-tar and light cigarettes indeed encouraged smokers to switch to these so-called safer products, which offered not even a marginal health benefit.

Nevertheless, Philip Morris USA and other cigarette makers are
investing millions in the creation of the safer cigarette. One advance
is a curing process that reduces the presence of nitrosamine, one of
the more potent tobacco carcinogens.

Most public health experts have zero trust in the tobacco industry.
In 2001, the Institute of Medicine issued a report faintly welcoming
the creation of a safer cigarette as a feasible component of a
harm-reduction strategy. The National Cancer Institute, however,
remains adamantly against this.

Given the tobacco industry's history of duplicity, Alan Bluma of
University of Alabama Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society might
have summed it up the best in his 2008 review in the Lancet, stating,
"The search for a safer cigarette is akin to alchemists seeking to turn
lead into gold."

You might want to leave more room for squash.

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Christopher Wanjek is the author of the books "Bad Medicine" and "Food At Work." His column, Bad Medicine, appears each Tuesday on LiveScience.

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