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Comment by cbozeman | Hacker News Reader

Yes, cigar smoking is bad for you, but the amount of cigars you need to smoke per day before your statistically significant risk of cancer increases is five. Yes, five. As in 5. And I don't mean "Black-N-Milds", I mean five robustos.

Hilariously enough, this research was conducted by the American Lung Association. I became aware of it when a data scientist friend of mine who smokes cigars quite often was telling me about it. He tore the study apart, up and down, back and forth. It was solid science, or at least, solid data science. And I trust his opinion implicitly.

Now for me, that'll never be a concern... I probably smoke 50-100 cigars a year, so I fall so far below the statistically significant risk of cancer that I don't even concern myself with it now.

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I'm really scared to open this can of worms... but I'll say this. I still think my cigar habit is not the healthiest. I only do about 2 to 4 a month. However i will agree that the "tobacco studies" are done on the chemical cocktail cigarettes. With the vast range of just shit they put it in, it's not hard to believe they cause cancer. But a fermented leaf cigar that's only bound with rice glue or whatever that other plant glue is, I think becomes similar to the difference of road safety between vehicles. Theres a chart I recently saw on transportation deaths per 1 billion passenger miles traveled. It was like .7 for planes, 1.5 for trains, 10 for cars and 200+ for motorcycles. To me, cigarettes are the motorcycles, cigars are the cars and the plane is being a nonsmoker, mostly because nonsmokers still get lung/throat cancer. I haven't seen a study on just cigar or pipe tobacco. Only on cigarettes, which again, I'm super against. Not defending Marlboro or the ilk. But I won't be blind that there isn't an increased risk in both me smoking cigars along with drinking alcohol. Im just mitigating my risk taking with both moderation and overall danger factor.

Damn it, this was a can of worms response...

Anyways, got a recommendation for someone that enjoys Alec Bradley Black Markets? Im looking to try something new out of left field soon.

Sin Compromiso Seleccion No. 5 Parejo and No. 7 Parejo are my current go-tos. They're some of the best smokes I've had in a long time.

I got a box of 13 for $156 at my local retailer. They're not inexpensive, but as I said, I don't smoke often anyway, so cost is less of a factor in my decisions.

H. Upmann The Banker series is a favorite of mine right now. The green box are the best, then the grey. Henry Clay stalk cut and the Brevas. Buy a single of every RoMaCraft and take notes on what you like. Any Olivia Melanio. Any Crowned Heads is worth trying. H. Upmann by AJ Fernandez Toro is a perfect cigar.

I once estimated that cigarettes would take 50,000 doses to kill you. That's pretty far from a deadly poison.

I figure I'll take up smoking when I'm 80. :-)

A pack a day smoker would reach that amount in 6 years yet a lot of people smoke way more than 50k doses.

That a lung cancer occurs at some rate such that a particular study could only detect it when smoking five cigars a day doesn't actually tell you anything about your individual risk without knowing the population size of the study. Well, it tells you that there's probably some causative connection between smoking and cancer, but it definitely doesn't give you a "safe" threshold beneath which you can smoke without risk.

Also, shouldn't you be more concerned about oral cancers and cardiovascular disease? I understand most people don't inhale cigar smoke into their lungs like they do cigarette smoke, so you would certainly expect the lung cancer risk increases to be relatively lower.

One thing that matters is that cigars (and some other tobacco products e.g. snuff) generally cause mouth and throat cancer instead of lung cancer, because they are used differently. So it's worth verifying what exactly the studies compare, as a result about a difference in lung cancer does not imply an equivalent difference in cancer as such.

Second hand cigar smoke gives me a headache and nausea rather quickly. It's hard to see how that cannot be deleterious to one's health.

On the other hand, cigarette smoke always smelled good to me. Good enough that I didn't try smoking as I knew I'd never be able to quit.

Mind linking? My dad is worried about it so I'd love to put his mind at ease, a quick google couldn't turn it up.

As I said in the comment, I don't have the link, I was talking to a friend who's a data scientist.

I love this. But how do you smoke cigars? Do you get a nicotine hit? Do you partially inhale? I find cigars mystifying.

I've smoked a dozen or so cigars in my life, so I'm no expert, but you only draw cigar smoke into your mouth but you don't inhale. Think of it like using your diaphragm to inhale but in a kind of halting way combined with just dropping your jaw to increase your mouth's empty volume and pulling a slight negative pressure (maybe it's vaguely similar to playing a wind instrument?). You typically draw on a cigar very slowly anyways since they can burn unevenly if you draw fast or get them too hot. And yes, nicotine can be absorbed through the mouth and you definitely get a nicotine hit.

The same basic idea applies to tobacco pipes too.

You don't inhale into your lungs, you bring it into your mouth. Even seasoned cigar smokers, if they slightly inhale into their lungs, go into a coughing fit from doing to when they screw up. While I never smoked chemical cocktail cigarettes, people don't typically chain smoke cigars. Most people smoke one a day. However, that also depends, you have different lengths of cigar too. Some short, then you get the Churchill length (I'll let you figure out why). Also diameter of the cigars are different. Oh how full bodied the cigar is (typically these are the stronger cigars, lots of caveats to this, there's a cigar culture similar to wine culture, lots of nuance). The nicotine hit varies. Some smoke a few mellow cigars, which is like drinking Bud Lights, while for me, I like fuller bodied cigars. Half a full bodied can knock you like drinking 2 IPA beers. You can get tipsy from smoking a cigar.

Honestly, here's a pretty good video to teach you why people like cigars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79GnBpNuVBo

I watched it shortly after I got into cigar smoking and learned a lot from it.

I'll also say this, I have severe doubt that nicotine itself is highly addictive. In the last 3 years, I have a few 3-5 month time spans of not smoking cigars. No reason either. Just, I didn't feel like it. I've never had the feeling to, "I have to smoke today". I only do so as a relaxing time on the weekend, some parties, and celebrations.

Nicotine itself is highly addictive. How else would one explain the business model of JUUL and the other ecig companies and all the anecdotes of users who never smoked before they started vaping? Vaping is nicotine only with some supposedly safe fillers that also might cause popcorn lung.

Okay so. You can take the cigar smoking community and a majority don't have an addiction to smoking. They all have similar stories to me of just stopping without thinking about it for long stretches of time.

Then you have the cigarette and ecig community that are constantly sucking on those things every hour. Mostly children because pipes and cigars are more of a 30+ year old product. Maybe there's something to the age demographic.

Anyways, one is just pure tobacco with nicotine, the others are chemical cocktails. All nicotine studies I've seen come from cigarettes. Haven't looked at the ecig ones mostly because I never cared for that crap for the exact same reason as cigarettes, they're chemical cocktails.

Look, I'm just tired of people telling me that "You're addicted and just don't know it". Until this discussion, the last cigar I had was... August? Or it was late July. I don't remember. I know I had a few during July. Maybe one or two in August. I just haven't thought about it and I never had an urge. After 3 years of smoking, I might be on maybe cigar number 40 or 50. While there are some who just chain smoke everyday, a vast majority don't. My observations and experiences on cigar smoking don't add up (by a lot, not a little bit) to what you're saying and it's not like you hang out at cigar bars either, so you can only trust some other prude random schmuck or this crass internet random schmuck.

Again, I'm not advocating that cigar smoking is safe. You probably shouldn't do it. Hell, I'll tell you right now not to, just to make sure I never have to chat with someone like you at a cigar shop. I just don't think it's smart to apply ecig and cigarette studies to cigars when the ingredients don't match just because you have a knee jerk reaction from following what Nancy Reagan said back in the day.

I'm kinda in the same boat, except I smoke hookah occasionally. Like, once every four months or so. Guess I'm addicted?

The reason you aren't addicted is because you don't smoke often. Smoking cigs every day causes addiction, not the other way around.

Smoke a cigar every hour and you will be addicted too. I've gotten addicted separately on different forms and it is all the same. Fine in moderation (like a cig or a dip a day), but once you start ramping up beyond a certain baseline you will get a hell of a headache trying to claw it back. Feels exactly the same as a heavy caffeine addiction but it hits a half hour after the nicotine when its bad.

Nicotine itself isn't highly addictive; at least, not as mythologized in the anti-smoking campaigns. Its addictive potential is strongly dependent on factors like speed of uptake (itself a function of method as well as chemical formulation), and behavioral and social associations developed at the time of habituation. It's why cessation alternatives like nicotine gum have very poor track records, and why vaping has the potential (partly realized) to be both a considerable benefit to public health as well as considerable impediment.

> Half a full bodied can knock you like drinking 2 IPA beers. You can get tipsy from smoking a cigar.

Back when I used to smoke, I tried cigars a few times. They tasted good, but they'd make me sick even before I could finish one. I'd end up nauseous and laying on the floor trying to force myself not to throw up for about an hour. They would seriously fuck me up, and there's a reason I mostly just stuck to kreteks until I quit.

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