How addicting are cigars?

Answer 1

From my experience as an occasional cigar smoker I can tell you that I don't find them addicting in the sense of a chemical addiction (or perhaps the chemical addiction is so good it has me fooled). Keep in mind that when I say cigar I mean a real cigar, a handmade, natural cigar, not sold in packs or otherwise machine processed. Anything machine produced is more like a big cigarette in my opinion. I also simply hold the smoke in my mouth, since the point of a cigar is to get the flavors / aromas from the tabacco and the way it was aged.

There was a period of time when I smoked at least one cigar a day for about 4 months. I didn't feel compelled to smoke to satisfy a craving, but moreover I enjoyed the company and conversation that came from sitting down and enjoying a fine cigar over 1-2 hours of "smoke-time".

Now I smoke maybe one a month and still enjoy it very much, but I don't feel the need to smoke more, nor do I care if I go 2 months between smokes. I don't feel the nicotine "rush" that you get from cigarettes, I just feel relaxed and contemplative when I smoke.

It's my belief that cigars, like liquor, beer or wine, are simply other food "groups" to be enjoyed and indulged in. Just like you wouldn't normally eat an entire chocolate cake in one setting, I wouldn't normally drink or smoke to excess. On occasion I do, but for the most part I find that single slice of cake, a fine cigar, glass of wine, beer, liquor, to be just enough to satisfy me. I wish more people shared in this attitude of responsible enjoyment of these substances.

Answer 2

Are Cigars Addictive

Answer 3

Addictive Vs Addicting

Answer 4

Cigarettes are an addiction, cigars are a hobby.

With cigarette smokers, they are running through a pack or more day. Most cigar smokers may break out a cigar once a week at the most. Yes, there are cigar smokers who smoke more than one each day, I like to refer to them as bundle smokers because all they buy is the cheapest bundles possible. (A bundle is 25 cigars). I've been smoking cigars for over a year and a half now and have had no cravings for one, ever.

Answer 5

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Answer 6

Very....Cigar smoke is alkaline (i.e. less acidic than cigarette smoke), and has higher levels of nicotine which can be more easily absorbed through the lining of the mouth. For this reason, cigar smokers tend not to inhale the smoke into their lungs, as cigarette smokers do.
Cigars are different to cigarettes because they contain fermented tobacco. Fermentation is a controlled treatment where the leaves are packed in rooms with high temperatures and humidity for weeks at a time. As a result, cigar smoke contains higher levels of ammonia, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide and cancer-causing compounds, such as nitrosamines. Tar produced by cigars is more carcinogenic than cigarette tar.

Answer 7

Uh! .....I used to smoke cigars every day, when I slowed down I slowed down when I wanted one I wanted one, No addiction at all.
I have a humidor sitting in my home office with a variety of cigars that I have not touched in over a month.
How could cigars be addictive? You do not inhale, you only puff on them for flavor?

Answer 8

Armitage et al. attempted this study, (Armitage, et al., Absorption of nicotine from small cigars. Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, 23(2): 143-151.) The NCI concludes from this study that cigar smokers absorb nicotine. 7 male current habitual cigarette smokers who were told not to smoke after midnight the night before the experiment began were used for this study. The volunteers then smoked small cigars and arterial blood was evaluated at 10 minute intervals for nicotine and carbon monoxide levels. They were categorized as either "inhaler" or "slight inhaler/nonsmoker". Cigars and cigarettes were compared. The authors conclude that "Buccal absorption of nicotine is slower and less complete than absorption by the alveolar capillaries…We conclude that cigar smokers can achieve plasma nicotine concentrations as high as those in cigarette smokers by a variable combination of inhalation into the alveoli and mucosal absorption. As the rate of rise of plasma nicotine is slower in cigar smokers, the short-term pharmacologic effects are likely to be less than those in cigarette smokers since the principal pharmacologic effects of nicotine relate not so much to the blood concentration achieved but to the rate of change in that concentration. This probably explains why the heart rate changes observed during cigar smoking were less than after cigarette smoking."

The obvious flaw of this study is in using cigarette starved "current and habitual" cigarette smokers to smoke small cigars. There is no question that these volunteers would inhale a good deal of smoke. Numerous studies demonstrate that ex-cigarette smokers who smoke cigars inhale them (even though they report they don’t.) It would have been more appropriate to compare the nicotine levels of current "habitual" primary cigar smokers (who never smoked cigarettes) to cigarette smokers

Answer 9

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Answer 10

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