Cigarettes have lots of known terrible things in them. But at least, with regulated cigarettes, you know that’s limited to tobacco, ammonia, methanol, lead, formaldehyde and 17,000 other carcinogens.
But if you delve into the world of black market cigarettes, you could run into a lot of worse things. Like human feces and rat feces, in addition to what may or may not be tobacco (it could just be thin strips of ribbon paper dyed brown).
From Metro:
Cigarettes containing human poo and rat droppings are flooding the UK market.
People have reportedly bought the fake [cigs] in pubs, a betting shop, cab offices and car washes.
Ex-Met detective Will O’Reilly, who ran the probe in Medway, Kent, said: ‘All sort of chemicals and high levels of toxins are also found.’
Earlier this year the Local Government Association (LGA) warned people to think twice before purchasing cigarettes from the black market.
Yea. I don’t need to be reminded twice. I’ll buy lots of shit on the black market, but possibly shit-filled cigs is not one of them.
Heroin, however, that’s probably still safe.
[H/T Death and Taxes]