One time when I was a drunk dumb teen I ate half a cigarette and I didn’t die. Didn’t even feel anything. I hear that thing about a cig butt killing a child a lot, I wonder if anyone has a source?
This CDC article about a study from the 90s looked at 90 children who had ingested cigarette butts. Although some had to be hospitalized, all recovered fully within 12 hours.
My hypothesis: the clickbait factoid might be talking about the amount of nicotine that exists in a cigarette butt, which might be different from what a child would practically get in their bloodstream after eating said butt.
So I just did a bit of research on it and according to Wikipedia and several journals it seems to be definitely possible for someone to die from nicotine poisoning. The wiki article cites two child deaths. I also found at least one article where nicotine poisoning was deemed the cause of death. Warning, it does contain shots of ther person’s dissected esophagus and their stomach contents. There’s a NLM journal article that pops up on a child committing suicide by nicotine ingestion, but the article was missing. So I can say it definitely has happened. I just couldnt find any readily available mortality studies showing how often it happens.
As for anecdotal evidence, I had a client with Pica, who would eat cigarette butts among other things and be vomiting all night.
Not questioning that you can die of nicotine overdose! I mean, you can die from water overdose. More wondering what the LD50 was, and if the butt of one cigarette was enough to be lethal.
A whole typical cigarette contains around 10-12mg of nicotine. The wiki says 30-60mg is potentially fatal to an adult, but that it could potentially take as much as 500mg. So for an adult, unlikely. For a child, I see mixed things saying 1 cigarette could be fatal. This says 1-13mg per kg for an infant. So maybe, depending on the size of the butt and the child?
“Standard textbooks, databases, and safety sheets consistently state that the lethal dose of nicotine for adults is 60 mg or less (30–60 mg), but there is overwhelming data indicating that more than 500 mg of oral nicotine is required to kill an adult.[7]” – Source
"The average cigarette contains about 10 to 12 mg of nicotine. " – Source
I guess it depends on your definition of “cigarette butt”.
Only once. Tobacco is highly poisonous. The tobacco from a cigarette butt kan kill a child.
One time when I was a drunk dumb teen I ate half a cigarette and I didn’t die. Didn’t even feel anything. I hear that thing about a cig butt killing a child a lot, I wonder if anyone has a source?
Disclaimer: it’s not a good idea either way
This CDC article about a study from the 90s looked at 90 children who had ingested cigarette butts. Although some had to be hospitalized, all recovered fully within 12 hours.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00046181.htm
So, yeah, definitely not a good idea.
My hypothesis: the clickbait factoid might be talking about the amount of nicotine that exists in a cigarette butt, which might be different from what a child would practically get in their bloodstream after eating said butt.
So I just did a bit of research on it and according to Wikipedia and several journals it seems to be definitely possible for someone to die from nicotine poisoning. The wiki article cites two child deaths. I also found at least one article where nicotine poisoning was deemed the cause of death. Warning, it does contain shots of ther person’s dissected esophagus and their stomach contents. There’s a NLM journal article that pops up on a child committing suicide by nicotine ingestion, but the article was missing. So I can say it definitely has happened. I just couldnt find any readily available mortality studies showing how often it happens.
As for anecdotal evidence, I had a client with Pica, who would eat cigarette butts among other things and be vomiting all night.
Not questioning that you can die of nicotine overdose! I mean, you can die from water overdose. More wondering what the LD50 was, and if the butt of one cigarette was enough to be lethal.
A whole typical cigarette contains around 10-12mg of nicotine. The wiki says 30-60mg is potentially fatal to an adult, but that it could potentially take as much as 500mg. So for an adult, unlikely. For a child, I see mixed things saying 1 cigarette could be fatal. This says 1-13mg per kg for an infant. So maybe, depending on the size of the butt and the child?
“Standard textbooks, databases, and safety sheets consistently state that the lethal dose of nicotine for adults is 60 mg or less (30–60 mg), but there is overwhelming data indicating that more than 500 mg of oral nicotine is required to kill an adult.[7]” – Source
"The average cigarette contains about 10 to 12 mg of nicotine. " – Source
I guess it depends on your definition of “cigarette butt”.