Stogies Safer than Cigarettes? No Cigar!

A good friend of mine loves to listen to talk radio.  In fact, 99.5 percent of the time he listens to his iPod, it’s not tunes he’s listening to, its talk.  One of his favorite talking heads hates how so many people rail against the tobacco industry, saying how he believes the virulence of secondhand smoke is vastly overhyped, and despises the way cigars are clumped in with cigarettes in terms of how dangerous they are to one’s health.

After all, as he says, you breathe in when smoking cigarettes and then breathe out, while with cigars and pipes, you only breathe out, thus averting the damage that cigarette fumes cause to the lungs.

So is there any truth to this radio host’s claims that cigars are less dangerous than cigarettes, or is he just blowin’ smoke (sorry, but I couldn’t resist)?

Sorry to say, but the notion that cigars are any less dangerous than cigarettes is just a bunch of smoke and mirrors.

I suppose the fact that cigars smoke is not inhaled is what’s led to the flawed thinking that they’re somehow safer.  But if you stop and think about it, it’s really absurd that people actually believe that.

For starters, cigars are much larger than cigarettes, so it stands to reason that cigars actually have more nicotine and other noxious chemicals in them than cigarettes.  This is in fact the case – not just my opinion – as cigars contain about 23 times the amount of nicotine than cigarettes (up to 400 mg, in fact).

Secondly, cigars take longer to smoke than cigarettes, so deadly chemicals like hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, and radioactive polonium 210 – all of which are found in the standard cigar – fester in the body’s lungs and in the air for longer periods of time (a study in the Journal of Exposure Analysis and Environmental Epidemiology confirms this, as the study found higher levels of carbon monoxide at two California-based bars than on a California freeway, the state with more cars on the road than any other).  This not only does damage to the body, but to the environment as well.

Other studies show that if the average cigar smoker takes an hour to finish puffing on his stogie, that’s the equivalent of smoking on a pack of cigarettes a day when it comes to assessing one’s oral cancer risk.

Cigarette smoking has largely lost its allure in modern America, as less than 20 percent of the country smoke cigarettes – the lowest number on record.  This is great news, but cigars have shown no real drop off in popularity.  It really comes as no surprise, not when they still appear in movies, television shows, among athletes celebrating victories, and portrayed as somehow safer than cigarettes by national radio broadcasters.

So if a friend of yours is trying to quit cigarettes and thinks he’s doing himself a favor by switching to cigars, don’t let the smooth taste fool him.  Cigars are just as dangerous as cigarettes – no ifs, ands, or “butts” about it.

Sources
health.msn.com
quitsmokingsupport.com
reuters.com