Certain other lung disorders, like emphysema, are also linked to cigarettes smoking. Both smoking and second-hand cigarettes smoke during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage, underweight, and deformed infants. Smoking cigarettes also increases the chance of heart attacks and a variety of cancers. Long-term cigarettes smokers tend to look older than nonsmokers of the same age, because smoking cigarettes can increase wrinkling in the skin.

Nicotine, the stimulant and active ingredient in cigarettes, is highly addictive. Children and pets may be poisoned from eating cigarettes or cigarette butts.

Inhalation of toxic to carcinogenic components of tobacco smoke, like radon and radium-226, is understood to cause lung cancer. Much of the farmland used to grow tobacco in the United States is contaminated with radioactive material as a result of using phosphate-rich fertilizers. Studies by Winters et al., in the New England Journal of Medicine (1982), found that skeletons of cigarette smokers contained deposits of lead-210 and polonium-210, two isotopes formed by radioactive decay of radium found in the soil where tobacco plants are grown.

For many years the tobacco industry presented research of its own in an attempt to counter emerging medical research about the addictive nature and adverse health effects of cigarettes. According to a 1994 prosecution memo written by Congressman Martin Meehan to former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, many of these studies were found to be flawed due to their strong bias and poor methodology. A 2001 peer-reviewed article in the American Journal of Public Health correctly accuses tobacco companies of using front groups and biased studies to downplay the health risks of smoking and secondhand smoke.

Many countries and jurisdictions have instituted public cigarettes smoking bans. In New York City, smoking cigarettes is forbidden in almost all workplaces, although not enforced in some small neighborhood bars. In the USA, smoking cigarettes is being banned in restaurants and bars. States from California to Delaware have adopted such a ban, causing much controversy among smokers, non-smokers, workers, and owners. Such cigarettes smoking bans are least popular in Southern states of the USA, such as Virginia, Tennessee, and North Carolina, where tobacco continues to be a large part of the economy. In other states, these cigarettes smoking bans are extremely popular and seen as long overdue. Often cigarettes smoking is allowed on the street (though in Delaware you must be 250 feet away from any public building), but in many locations of Japan it is against the law. In 2004, smoking cigarettes was outlawed in all public buildings in the state of Maine. The 2004 ban on smoking cigarettes in bars and restaurants in New Zealand met with initial resentment from some bar owners, but was widely welcomed by the public at large. In many parts of the world tobacco advertising and even sponsorship of sporting events is not allowed. The ban on tobacco sponsorship in the EU in 2005 has prompted the Formula One Management to look for races in areas that allow the heavily tobacco sponsored teams to display their livery, and has also lead to some of the more popular races on the calendar being cancelled in favor of more tobacco friendly markets.