In the past 30 years filters have reduced the average tar content of a cigarette from 38 mg to less than 12 mg. The average nicotine content has been reduced from 2.3 mg to 1.2 mg. Nicotine is the most abundant of the 12 volatile alkaloids found in the tobacco leaf. Toward a Smoke-Free Society by the Year 2000 . The nicotine in cigarette smoke is quickly absorbed from the lung, almost with the efficiency of intravenous administration.
Enough nicotine is found in breast milk to affect nursing infants.
College women are more likely to be smokers than college men. The life expectancy of women is 7.5 years longer than men. A recent study reported in the New England Journal of Medicine presents data indicating that as compared with nonsmokers, cigarette smokers had 2-3 times the risk of thromboembolic or hemorrhagic stroke. Subjects who continued to smoke had 4-6 times greater risk of a stroke than those who never smoked. Incidence of lung cancer is now increasing faster among American women than men.