When I was younger, I was vehemently opposed to smoking in all its forms. To this day, I still consider myself a non-smoker (my life insurance company disagrees to the tune of £5 a month, but that’s a story for another time*) but I readily admit to enjoying the odd cigar or puff on a pipe.
Yes, there is a difference. There is a big difference. To me, smoking the odd cigar is to smoking cigarettes what enjoying the odd glass of port is to putting White Lightning on your cornflakes in the morning. Cigar smoking is not addictive, nor is it filthy and antisocial. The health risks are absolutely minimal compared to cigarette smoking. For a start, no true cigar smoker would ever think of inhaling the smoke into his lungs – that’s very poor cigar etiquette indeed. The flavour and experience should suffice. If it doesn’t, you need to stop smoking Hamlets and Café Cremes.
Again, I approach this argument as a self-described non-smoker. I’ve not had a cigar in over six months, nor do I ever feel the absolute craving that a cigarette smoker would feel after mere hours. Not filling one’s lungs with nicotine certainly does help. Whilst cigarettes contain ammonia, cyanide, carbon monoxide, arsenic and tar, a high-quality cigar will contain only tobacco. That’s why you’ll often find a cigar smoker constantly re-lighting – tobacco in itself isn’t particularly flammable. A signal of its quality is how absolutely bloody awkward and painstakingly slow it is to smoke. Suck on a cigarette and see how long that lasts.
At heart, I’m a hedonist. I’m only going to be here for another sixty years if I get a bloody good shot at it, so I’m going to enjoy myself. I have never smoked at home, nor do I tend to smoke in pubs as a matter of course. In fact, it’s often only Christmas, New Year and holidays (whereby I have one practically glued to me – why not? It’s a holiday) plus the occasional social event.
As to the health aspect, recent European studies have shown that (assuming non-smokers have a chance index of 1), occasional smokers (of cigarettes – far more dangerous than cigars) have a chance index of 1.24 of developing smoking-related illnesses, whereas regular smokers have a chance index of more than 50. That is to say that the occasional cigar does, in effect, no harm whatsoever. (The negative health effects of alcohol, caffeine, paracetamol and just about everything besides pure water are significantly higher, it’s worth mentioning.)
Do I like cigarette smokers? Not particularly, no. Especially not if you spark up in the vicinity of others without asking if they mind being subjected to your poisonous gas (something a cigar smoker would always do, despite their choice of smoke being comparatively harmless). However, I strongly believe that all responsible adults have the right to choose their own poison, if you’ll pardon the pun.
As an aside, local readers might like to peruse the selection of my personal favourite fine wine and cigar outlet, Cambridge Wine Merchants in Ampthill.
*That all-reliable source, Wikipedia, describes a smoker as ‘used to mean a person who habitually smokes tobacco on a daily basis’. Unfortunately, my life insurance company doesn’t.
December 13th, 2011 - 2:41 pm
Great post. I always think of store-bought cigarettes as the nicotine equivalent of alcopops: made from poor quality ingredients to give an instant hit to people who don’t care about the taste.