# How safe are tobacco free cigarettes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 14, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-safe-are-tobacco-free-cigarettes/550289 "2010-08-14T23:31:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-safe-are-tobacco-free-cigarettes/550289/1 "2010-08-14T23:31:21Z")
I’ve been looking into various smoking cessation aids and came across [these](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbal_cigarettes). On the surface, they seem pretty safe since they don’t contain any tobacco but are there any associated health problems with smoking them? The Wikipedia article talks about the potential psychoactive effects of some brands but I’m talking more about cancer, heart disease, and the other bad stuff we tend to associate with regular cigarettes. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2010, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-safe-are-tobacco-free-cigarettes/550289/2 "2010-08-14T23:43:06Z")
They aren’t. It seems logical that burning any kind of plant matter and inhaling the smoke is still going involve tar and other nasty stuff. Just not nicotine. It isn’t too hard to find references like this one from Blue Cross/Blue Shield of MA confirming this: [http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/herbalcig](http://www.ahealthyme.com/topic/herbalcig) > [@](#): > > But despite this marketing ploy, alternative cigarettes are NOT safe. In fact, some are considerably more dangerous than normal cigarettes. As the director of the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Affairs once stated, “There’s no such thing as a safe smoke.” > > “Simply being free of additives – or in the case of herbal cigarettes, free of nicotine – doesn’t make them safer,” says Matthew Gold, a staff attorney for the FTC. “Any kind of cigarette you smoke has tar and carbon monoxide, which have very real health hazards associated with them.” Gold won a case against Alternative Cigarettes, Inc. that forced the company to display health warnings on its products. ---
**Author:** ![George\_Kaplin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3e96dc/32.png) [@George\_Kaplin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/George_Kaplin)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-safe-are-tobacco-free-cigarettes/550289/3 "2010-08-15T01:23:39Z")
Ouch. I think I’ll stick with the gum. Thanks **yabob** 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 8:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-safe-are-tobacco-free-cigarettes/550289/4 "2010-08-15T08:26:28Z")
> [@yabob](#): > > They aren’t. It seems logical that burning any kind of plant matter and inhaling the smoke is still going involve tar and other nasty stuff. But not all tobacco-free cigarettes are designed to be burned. On Ryanair flights, for example, the cabin crew sells smokeless tobacco-free cigarettes, with or without nicotine, for use in the cabin. (I’m not really sure about the point of the nicotine-free ones.) And there are also those electronic smokeless cigarettes, which I assume don’t contain tobacco either. ---
**Author:** ![yabob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yabob/32/2821_2.png) [@yabob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yabob)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2010, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-safe-are-tobacco-free-cigarettes/550289/5 "2010-08-15T14:31:38Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > > [@yabob](#): > > > > They aren’t. It seems logical that burning any kind of plant matter and inhaling the smoke is still going involve tar and other nasty stuff. > > But not all tobacco-free cigarettes are designed to be burned. On Ryanair flights, for example, the cabin crew sells smokeless tobacco-free cigarettes, with or without nicotine, for use in the cabin. (I’m not really sure about the point of the nicotine-free ones.) And there are also those electronic smokeless cigarettes, which I assume don’t contain tobacco either. True, but it was pretty clear the OP was talking about actually smoking something other than tobacco. And it’s not good for your health to habitually stick a tube of cornsilk in your mouth, light it, and drag on it either. I WOULD imagine that some plants present worse risks than others, but the tars and carbon monoxide are going to be pretty universal.