One of my friends, who has smoked little Colts Mild cigars for about ten years, has just switched back to cigarettes. I asked him why, and he said that he read in a magazine, (I believe it was Men’s Health) that one cigar has seventeen times the tar and nicotine that a cigarette has. Since cigars don’t have to say their tar and nicotine content,(why is that, I wonder?) we couldn’t determine if this was true. Does anyone know anything about this?
Is it based on gram per gram of unfiltered tabacco? Or are they comparing a big cigar to a little cig?
As far as I know, they were comparing cigars to cigarettes, probably normal stogies, rather than the small Colts my friend was smoking. I was just skeptical that one cigar = seventeen cigarettes, but, could be right I guess.
Yeah, but who inhales cigars?
IIRC, cigarettes are inhaled, whereas cigars are not. If you don’t inhale the smoke, doesn’t this negate most of the health risk?
To your lungs, yes. To your mouth and throat, no.
But mouth and throat cancer is a small percentage of smoking cancers.
The answer is that if you smoke cigars occasionally (less than 4 or 5 a week), and you don’t inhale, the health risks are very low. As in, 1/20 the risk of smoking cigarettes, and not much higher than things like drinking coffee and milk.
If you smoke more than that, the risk of oral cancers starts to go up, and if you are a very heavy smoker the risk of oral cancer can be greater than the equivalent amount of cigarette smoke.
It’s true that one large cigar can have more junk in it as a cigarette. But people smoke a LOT of cigarettes, and they inhale. A pack a day smoker consumes 140 cigarettes a week. An average cigar smoker smokes about 3 cigars a week.
If you inhale your cigar smoke, each puff you take is as bad as inhaling a puff on a cigarette. Studies in Europe, where people inhale cigar smoke, shows an equivalent risk between cigars and cigarettes for people who smoke 5-10 cigars a week. That’s probably where the ‘17 times’ number comes from. An equivalent risk of smoking 5-10 cigars as opposed to 140 cigarettes.
So… Don’t inhale, and don’t smoke them that often, and your risk is small enough to be almost statistically insignificant.
That’s assuming you don’t inhale cigar smoke - I do, and I’ve met others who do the same. However, the intention is that the cigar should be smoked without inhaling, and this technicality is probably the reason why cigar packaging doesn’t show the tar and nicotine content.
FWIW, I think it’s a waste of time trying to find a “healthier” way to smoke. If you’re going to do it, accept the fact that it really isn’t going to do you any good, and be prepared to live with the potential consequences. The only option which could be considered healthy is quitting altogether.