I love cigars for various reasons, but there's no true alternative that's worth while.
I love cigars for various reasons, but there's no true alternative that's worth while.
To be clear, it's 100%, definitely not good for you - but the level of harm doesn't seem to be even close to cigarettes or chewing tobacco.
The amount consumed is much less, the smoke shouldn't be entering your lungs, and if there are tons of good, "all-natural" tobacco out there without all the additives put in by cigarette companies.
People make a big deal out additives and accelerants, but the carcinogens are 99% from smoke, burning plant matter. In that respect, pure tobacco isn't meaningfully safer. That said if you "puff", that's probably safer, though still risky (mouth cancer, and you're still going to inhale some amount of smoke).
Except they don't:
https://exposetobacco.org/wp-content/uploads/Cigarette-Filte...
There have been calls in the Netherlands (perhaps even at the EU level) to ban filtered cigarettes, for the simple reason that they are misleading and offer no protection, but are harmful to the environment because of the non-degradable micro-plastics.
Apparently, though, you can figure out pipes well enough to just have no trouble. I've known a few old men that always seemed to have one going.