Cigarette beetles measure only 2-3 mm and thrive in the warm, humid conditions in which cigarettes are stored.
As an agricultural product, tobacco is fairly unclean and can be full of surprises. You can wash fruits and vegetables before you eat them, but you can’t wash off your cigarettes before you smoke them. Smokers have blissfully little information about the weird things that can find their way into cigarettes, at least until some of them come crawling out.
If you want to do something fun, go to the the Legacy Tobacco Documents Library and search on the words “worms complaints” and “bugs complaints.” The search on “worms complaints” alone returns over 1,300 documents. The results of these searches are always interesting. For example, one customer wrote to the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company (RJR) complaining that “These cigarettes are full of worms.” An RJR internal memo says worms and bugs in cigarettes was the #3 complaint to RJR in 1983. In another, rather calm handwritten letter, a smoker tells RJR that he “noticed a parade of bugs” streaming out of his newly-purchased pack of Doral full-flavored cigarettes. The customer wrote,
“…as the pack lay on my table, I suddenly noticed a parade of bugs exiting the pack. They resembled an ant with pincer claws…What was up with that?”
An alarmed smoker wrote to RJR in 1996 to say she found find live bugs crawling out of her cigarette filters. She wrote,
“I am very concerned and devistated [sic] over the fact that I smoked these bugs. I am also afraid and sickened that these bugs are crawling out of the filters and I may have ingested them.”
The customer then told RJR that she fumigated her home after finding bugs crawling out of her cigarette pack, and expressed her displeasure at the cavalier manner in which she believes the company handled her complaint. The customer was actually upset to find that R.J. Reynolds was so unconcerned about her health:
“I am very concerned if there are any dangers from smoking or injesting [sic] these bugs… I am very upset on how this issue was handled through your so called supervisors. They showed no concern when I explained that these bugs could be in my house and in my body. You would think that they would put a rush on this situation but I was told it would take 2 weeks to receive the mailer [to return the cigarettes to the factory] and 5 weeks to examine the cigarettes. There were no concerns that this could be a health risk to me and my family.”
These are among the many letters that appear in the tobacco industry’s document files from smokers complaining that they found worms, bugs and bug larvae in their cigarettes and expressing concern about ingesting them.
me and my brother have noticed a lot of these bugs lately especially from the cheap cigs imported from different countries we have been attacked by them they bite us and are living in our respiratory system i.e ears nose mouth throat but the worms have some out imbedded there selves in our skin mainly round nails but face also they are panful and hard to get out
I just bought a pack of Non-Filter Cigarettes (Camel), and noticed after I smoked two or three cigarettes, that my next cigarette was not letting me inhale like it was broken. That’s when I noticed black dots on my cigarettes and thought that was weird and my friend said he wanted to look at one of the cigarettes and he opened one and noticed a bug moving in the tobacco. He took my phone to video tape the bug moving inside the tobacco. That truly concerns me considering I smoked a few of them and there is no filter on the ciggs. I had to inhale them so now I dont know if I could have a health issue due to this. So I’m asking if I could and who should I talk to if it could cause me health problems and who do I contact? TY any suggestions?
People have tried to do that before after they found out they had smoked worms and bugs, but to no avail. Cigarette companies are not sympathetic, and they will do nothing. It’s pretty well known now that you take your chances smoking at all. That’s what they figure, too. The only alternative would be smoking tobacco that’s been sprayed with bug killer, and that’s not very good for you, either.
there defiantly in fags and bite us and live on us and under our skin