Manufacture and ingredients

A cigarette is a small paper-wrapped cylinder (generally less than 120mm in length and 10mm in diameter) of cured and shredded or cut tobacco leaves. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder for the purpose of inhalation of its smoke from the filtered end, inserted in the mouth. The term, as commonly used, typically refers to a tobacco cigarette, but can apply to similar devices containing other herbs, such as cannabis.
A cigarette is distinguished from a cigar by its smaller size, use of processed leaf, and paper wrapping; cigars are typically composed entirely of whole leaf tobacco. Cigarettes were largely unknown in the English-speaking world before the Crimean War, when British soldiers began emulating their Ottoman Turkish comrades, who resorted to rolling their tobacco with newsprint.

Manufacture and ingredients

In practice, commercial cigarettes and cigarette tobaccos rarely contain pure tobacco. Producers often use a tremendous diversity of additives for a number of purposes, including maintaining blend consistency, improving perceived blend quality, as preservatives and even completely altering the organoleptic qualities of the tobacco smoke. While this is true for many brands of cigarettes, in Canada, the major cigarette brands all contain 100% natural virginia leaf - No Additives. Some cigarettes (known as kreteks, clove cigarettes, or simply cloves) have cloves blended with the tobacco. This is done to enhance the smokers pleasure by numbing the mouth and lungs and providing a mild euphoric effect. Lower-quality clove cigarettes simply have a clove essence added to the tobacco.
In addition to additives, cigarette tobaccos, especially lower-quality blends, are often highly physically processed. For the period of the novel processing of leaf for cigarettes, the leaves are deveined, and the lamina is shredded or cut. Since the leaf is relatively dry at this point, these processes result in a significant amount of tobacco dust. Industrialized operations have developed procedures for collecting this dust and remaking it into usable material (known as reconstituted sheet tobacco).
The removed leaf midveins, which are unsuitable for use in cigarettes in their normal state, were historically discarded or spread on fields, because of their high nitrogen content. Procedures have been developed, however, to expand the stems, and process them for inclusion in the cigarette blends. All these procedures allow cigarette manufacturers to create as many cigarettes as probable using the least amount of raw substances as possible.
The most universal usage of the cigarette is tobacco smoke delivery. The second most common usage of the cigarette is for marijuana smoke delivery. The hand rolled cigarette is the most common form of marijuana cigarette. Marijuana users will usually twist the ends of the cigarette to prevent fine cut marijuana buds from falling out. Tobacco users who roll their own cigarettes, however, will usually not twist the cigarette at the ends; hand rolling tobacco is made in strands so it doesn’t have a propensity to fall out.
Some cigarette smokers roll their own cigarettes by wrapping loose cured tobacco in paper; most, however, purchase machine-made commercially available brands, generally sold in small cardboard packages of 10 or 20 cigarettes in the United States and UK or 25 in Canada. Commercial cigarettes usually contain a cellulose acetate or cotton filter through which the smoker inhales the cigarettes smoke; the filter serves to cool and somewhat clean the smoke.
Recently, cigarette rolling machines are also becoming popular. One can purchase tobacco in pouches or cans, usually at half the price of what one would pay for the same amount pre-rolled. One can get a rolling machine that makes filterless, or straight cigarettes, or one can purchase a machine that packs the tobacco into a pre-rolled form with a filter. These filtered papers usually come in boxes of 200, while unfiltered papers will come in packs ranging from 12 to 64, and some contain even more.

Online cigarette stores

Online stores have recently appeared that offer foreign cigarettes to internet buyers. As many jurisdictions place high taxes on tobacco sales, these could be seen as an effort to avoid paying duty or taxes.
Some online cigarette stores exist to sell tax-free cigarettes inside ones own country of residence as well. The legality of these stores is being questioned currently in the United States. Federal lawmakers contend that these stores are clear tax evasions. Recently in Michigan, several online stores have been subpoenaed by the state for the names and addresses of customers. The state has reportedly been sending out fines for each package purchased, contending tax evasion over Michigans $2-a-pack law.
This same action has also taken place in Wisconsin after the Wisconsin Department of Revenue received a list of several thousand buyers in that state from an online cigarette merchant. However, the effort to collect on the taxes from the listed residents was stopped by order of Governor Jim Doyle a few days later.