This Company Makes Hemp-Based Cigarette Filters

Originally created in 1936 by Hungarian inventor Boris Aivaz, the cigarette filter was initially designed as a marketing tactic to make smoking more appealing to women.

Veering from the traditional cigarettes that used no filter at all — which often led to specks of Tobacco being inhaled — the crepe-paper based cigarette filter was said to keep a woman’s lips “soft” and “alluring.”

By the 1950s, cigarette companies were all focused upon the “filter problem,” which involved finding a filter that would offer significant health protection and could also be mass manufactured.

Though what began as a genuine effort to find a solution to the harmful effects of smoking, quickly became the realisation that removing the negative effects of smoke inhalation wasn’t possible without also removing the positive feeling given by the tobacco.

In short, the good couldn’t be separated from the bad.

In fact, in trying to remove the harmful effects of smoking, some companies were using filters with asbestos, which turned out to do even more damage than an unfiltered cigarette.