What is Tobacco?

Tobacco is a plant (Nicotiana tabacum and Nicotiana rustica) that contains nicotine. Tobacco leaves are used in a variety of ways.

Traditional Tobacco: Cultivated and used as a sacred, healing herb by Indigenous people for thousands of years. It promotes physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental well-being when utilized in cultural practices, such as tobacco ties, smudges, and sacred offerings. 

Commercial Tobacco: Mass-manufactured by multi-billion-dollar companies solely for profit. These products are heavily engineered with chemical additives to maximize addiction, leading to severe illness and preventable death.  

Tobacco is used to make a variety of products that can be used in different ways:

• Smoked in cigarettes, cigars or pipes
• Smoked in loose form in hookahs (water pipes)  
• Chewed  
• Sniffed as dry snuff
• Held inside the lip or cheek as wet snuff
• Mixed with cannabis and smoked in “joints.” 

Tobacco is legally produced by three big companies in Canada. Federal, provincial and municipal laws control tobacco manufacturing, marketing, distribution and use.

Facts About Smoking 

Cigarettes are thin rolls of tobacco wrapped in paper. When ignited, cigarettes produce smoke that is then inhaled. This smoke doesn’t just contain nicotine – it also contains between 4,000 to 7,000 chemicals, many of which are known to cause cancer. Just a few of these chemicals are: carbon monoxide (found in car exhaust), arsenic (rat poison), lead, and butane (lighter fluid).