Nicotine

[Robusto]

Herfing with some of the guys on Sunday, we talked about nicotine and cigars.

I'm sure I read that cigarettes dose a chap up instantly when inhaled through the lungs. I'm also sure that cigar smokers ingest (?) nicotine through the gums and cheek Walls when smoke is savoured in the mouth.

I told my doctor I smoke a Havana a day. She really lectured me about cigars being far more dangerous than snouts because of the nicotine dose being so much higher. She advised me to give up cigars and start smoking cigarettes. According to her, cigars have four times more nicotine than tags.

I rarely visit the doctor. When I do, I book in with a different doctor to avoid the preaching!

Two of my herfing buddies who are qualified scientists said there is no nicotine in cigars.

What are the facts as far as cigars and nicotine are concerned, friends?

As I sit blissfully toking a fat one with no moans possible as my wife is in the Grand Canyon tonight and will not know my sinning, I know I'm never going to give up this blissful habit for anyone.

But I would like to know what people understand about nicotine and cigars without simply searching on Google. 

[Masterdj]

Cigar vs. Cigarette Use
One of the main thrusts behind cigars' popularity is the belief that they are a safe alternative to cigarettes because the smoke is not inhaled, and because cigars are commonly used only occasionally and not daily. Traditionally, cigar smokers hold the smoke in their mouth and throat, allowing nicotine and other chemical compounds to be absorbed through the mucous lining of the mouth and throat, rather than inhaling the smoke into their lungs.
A smoker can spend more than an hour puffing on a cigar, which has the equivalent risk of oral cancers as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. Daily cigarette smokers and daily cigar smokers have similar levels of risk for oral cancers. Smokers who smoke more than five cigars per day have lung cancer risks comparable to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
The real difference between cigar and cigarette smoking is the type of cancers that cigar smokers develop, which is usually a head or neck cancer instead of the lung cancer so common among cigarette smokers. Unfortunately, people who switch from using cigarettes to cigars tend to smoke cigars the way they smoked cigarettes: by inhaling deeply and smoking often. Inhalation seems to raise the health risks of cigars so that the smoker will face the same health risks as with cigarette smoking.
Unlike cigarettes, cigars do not have filters to reduce their tar and nicotine content. Cigar packages do not carry the Surgeon General's health warnings that are required on other tobacco products. Like cigarettes, the additives in cigars are not regulated by any consumer or governmental agency and do not have to be reported or put on the label.

Cigar Smoke and Nicotine Content
Researchers currently believe that as few as five milligrams of nicotine a day is enough to cause addiction to the drug. The average cigarette has around one milligram of nicotine in it, and cigars have much higher levels of nicotine -- up to 400 milligrams in large, long cigars. This means that one cigar a day may be enough to cause addictive changes in your brain cells. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 chemical compounds, including the following substances, which are also contained in household products with warning labels telling you to avoid inhaling them:

• formaldehyde
• ammonia
• urethane
• naphthalene

Other cigar smoke contents include the following substances:

• carbon monoxide
• hydrogen cyanide
• arsenic
• nicotine
• benzene
• vinyl chloride
• ethylene oxide
• other volatile aldehydes
• cadmium
• radioactive polonium 210

Because of the long aging and fermentation process for cigar leaves, because of the larger size of cigars and because of the toxic way it burns due to cigars' nonporous wrappers, cigar smoke has 20 times more ammonia than cigarettes and 80 to 90 times the number of highly carcinogenic, tobacco-specific nitrosamines. Cigar smoke also contains 30 times more carbon monoxide than cigarette smoke.

[Masterdj]

You can reed more if you follow the link

http://www.quitsmokingsupport.com/cigars.htm

[cohibaIV]

Went for a medical a few weeks ago and the doctor scrubed out the part on the form which said 'Did I smoke' (I said YES-CUBANS) because he said that did not count????

[Smallclub]

Two of my herfing buddies who are qualified scientists said there is no nicotine in cigars.

How can a scientist say that? The effects of nicotine are well known, fully indexed, most cigar smokers have experienced them at some point?
May I respectfully suggest that your buddies try inhaling the smoke of a fresh Bolivar, or an Opus X?

[Robusto]

They're clever guys and I love dem.

Peace lol.


Dale - See the contradictions, man.
Maybe some doctors are anti-nicotine zealots?!

I used to see the most human doctor from our surgery munching on bar-bought Hamlets in a pub garden in town. I advised him to aim higher and he told me he'd tried a Havana soon after that conversation. He'd loved it.

[cbob]

Because of the long aging and fermentation process for cigar leaves, because of the larger size of cigars and because of the toxic way it burns due to cigars' nonporous wrappers, cigar smoke has 20 times more ammonia than cigarettes and 80 to 90 times the number of highly carcinogenic, tobacco-specific nitrosamines.

When your source can get something like this so wrong, it puts the rest of the quoted "facts" into question.

Ex. The frequency and severity of head and neck cancers in cigar smokers, cited by a number of studies by the National Institutes of Health in the USA were actually quite low. One must be careful if quoting from a "quit smoking" website.

But as Cleopatra said: "I'm not prone to argue".

Anyone who thinks that cigars are bad for their health and still continues to smoke them has made a personal lifestyle decision that could result, as it did for George Burns, in a shortened lifespan.
Anyone who thinks that cigar smoking poses no increased health risk is simply misinformed.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

[Robusto]

Quality.

Must leave my doctor a copy of the Joe Jackson article in which he contests the id?e re?ue re passive smoking. In nice Paperchase wrapping.

[whisky77]

Choice.

When your source can get something like this so wrong, it puts the rest of the quoted "facts" into question.

Ex. The frequency and severity of head and neck cancers in cigar smokers, cited by a number of studies by the National Institutes of Health in the USA were actually quite low. One must be careful if quoting from a "quit smoking" website.

But as Cleopatra said: "I'm not prone to argue".

Anyone who thinks that cigars are bad for their health and still continues to smoke them has made a personal lifestyle decision that could result, as it did for George Burns, in a shortened lifespan.
Anyone who thinks that cigar smoking poses no increased health risk is simply misinformed.

You pays your money and you takes your choice.

My sentiments exactly Cbob. Everybody has a choice.

[Puff Scotty]

[QUOTE=Robusto;122510]tags.


What are the facts as far as cigars and nicotine are concerned, friends?

They contain nicotine & we love 'em.... bugger statistics!

[captain duff]

I think that the basic medical/scientific error (and it is a very basic one!) contained in the initial conversation is seeing the lungs as fundamentally different to other parts of the body in terms of absorbing chemicals etc. Yes, the lungs do a very good job doing this, given that they are made up of lots of blood vessals where air breathed in circulates and is then absorbed quickly the blood stream (where we use the oxygen to stay alive for example). That is what they have evolved specifically to do. But the mouth, tongue and throat also has enough blood vessals near the surface to absorb things into the blood stream.

And of course you can absorb nicotine through the skin (which is what the patches are all about that people stick on their arms when they want the nicotine hit but wish to quit smoking).

So in the case of cigars the nicotine contained in one of average size will be far more than that in a standard cigarette. Cigarettes make up for this by being mild enough to inhale to the lungs where more nicotine can be absorbed quickly - but in actual fact in one smoking session the cigar smoker will probably absorb more nicotine into the blood stream via the mouth and tongue and so get a bigger 'hit' (which is why the feeling of woozy sickness - too much nicotine absorbed too quickly - is more common in cigar smokers).

Of course, nicotine by itself is not dangerous - hence doctors prescribing the patches so that you can absorb it in a safe way if you are addicted. What is dangerous is the cancer causing chemicals that is realeased when the tobacco products are burnt. Obviously this is far more dangerous if you inhale them fully into your lungs as lungs are sensitive things and so this leads to things like lung cancer. But cigar smokers are also at risk of far higher rates of mouth cancers for the same reasons.

But you pays yer money and takes yer choice and hope that you can successfully play the odds...

[daverave999]

Two of my herfing buddies who are qualified scientists said there is no nicotine in cigars.

What kind of scientists, just out of interest? I believe this information to be incorrect. PDF from 1970 here.

Of course, nicotine by itself is not dangerous - hence doctors prescribing the patches so that you can absorb it in a safe way if you are addicted. What is dangerous is the cancer causing chemicals that is realeased when the tobacco products are burnt. Obviously this is far more dangerous if you inhale them fully into your lungs as lungs are sensitive things and so this leads to things like lung cancer. But cigar smokers are also at risk of far higher rates of mouth cancers for the same reasons.

Nicotine itself appears to not be a problem (wikipedia, sorry...) at the doses we use but what goes with it is.

I'd agree with most of what Masterdj posted with caveats ie. we don't know what cigars were tested or their age.
The bonuses (to my mind anyway) are that I'm taking less carcinogens into my body than when I smoked twenty fags a day, I'm not taking it into my lungs (which really aren't designed to come into contact with anything other than air) and the cigars I smoke aren't full of the added rubbish that goes into cigarettes. Some VERY interesting cigarette additive stuff here.

[daverave999]

Oh, and for those interested, the list of allowed cigarette additives is here. Some of them are pretty scary.

[Robusto]

Dave - I used the term 'scientists' to avoid declaring the guys' professions, but they know their stuff and will 'declare' or not on here for themselves as they wish.

They might have been talking bullshit and jointly run a nail bar with nice tabards that display

Deal 'n' Sandwich - Cue Tickles!.

We have this here. Whatever.

Deep foot spas. Mmmmm.

The crap in cigarettes is to be avoided, of course.

I'm not asking questions as an anxious sofa neurotic here. I'll carry on gloriously. Don't you fret.

But on nicotine NOT being harmful...

I thought it sticks to your arteries and strangles your heart over time?...

[Robusto]

I'm going to bounce one off as I walk into town right now.
Point it at the mobility shoppers. Be overbearing.

I have no nicotine worries.
I am a happier man with a bit of seasoned nicotine than without.