Cigars and little cigars
Many people view cigar smoking as more sophisticated and less dangerous than cigarette smoking. Yet one large cigar can contain as much tobacco as an entire pack of cigarettes.
Most cigars are made of a single type of aged, air-cured or dried tobacco that’s fermented in a multi-step process. The fermentation causes chemical and bacterial reactions that change the tobacco. This is what gives cigars a different taste and smell from cigarettes. Cigars come in many sizes:
The smallest, known as little cigars or small cigars, are about the size of cigarettes. Other than the fact that they are brown and maybe a little longer, they look like cigarettes. They come in flavors like mint, chocolate, or fruit, and many have filters. They’re often sold in packs of 20. Most people smoke these small cigars exactly the same way as cigarettes.
Slightly larger cigars are called cigarillos, blunts, or cheroots. They contain more tobacco than little cigars, and are also often flavored. Studies suggest that some people smoke them more like cigarettes than cigars, inhaling and smoking every day. They look like small versions of traditional cigars, but they can be bought in small packs.
True large cigars may contain more than half an ounce of tobacco – as much as a whole pack of cigarettes. It can take from 1 to 2 hours to smoke a traditional large cigar.
Almost all cigarette smokers inhale, but most larger cigar smokers don’t. This could be because cigar smoke tends to irritate the nose, throat, and breathing passages. A new trend among cigar companies is to change the fermenting process to make cigar smoke easier to inhale. The filters on the smaller cigars also help smokers inhale.
There’s a lot of nicotine in cigars
Full-size cigars can have as much nicotine as an entire pack of cigarettes.
Cigarettes have an average of about 8 milligrams (mg) of nicotine, but only deliver about 1 to 2 mg of nicotine to the smoker.
Many popular brands of larger cigars have between 100 and 200 mg, or even as many as 444 mg of nicotine.
No matter the size, cigars are tobacco, and they contain the same cancer-causing substances found in cigarettes. All cigars are dangerous to your health.
Regular cigar smokers are 4 to 10 times more likely to die from cancers of the mouth, throat, larynx, and esophagus than non-smokers. For those who inhale, cigar smoking appears to be linked to death from cancer of the pancreas and bladder, too.
Smoking more cigars each day or inhaling cigar smoke leads to more exposure and higher health risks. The health risks linked to occasional cigar smoking (less than daily) are less clear. Like cigarettes, cigars give off secondhand smoke, which is also dangerous.