Quitting cigarettes with other forms of tobacco

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MisterE

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Okay.

It seems that cross-addicting into some other form of tobacco is much like quitting drinking by only drinking beer and wine coolers. Same drug, different delivery. Granted, there are many who consider pipe and tobacco much as connoisseurs treat wines or fine whiskeys. But for the hard-core nicotine junkie? Is only smoking a pipe really much of an improvement health wise? Or just chew/snus/cigars/snuff?

I'm just curious what others think of this. How much of it is just justification?
 
Well, I'm hardly one to respond to this since I have never felt the need for justification to smoke, I just do it, but it would seem that switching to a practice of less or next-to-zero inhaling would be beneficial.  I have never understood how inhaling one, two, or three packs of cigarettes a day for decades doesn't "cause" cancer sooner than it does.  The indication seems to be that the weed is relatively harmless, at least compared to self-inflicted gunshots or something.   ;) 

In any event, let's assume that the statistical correlations are correct, that the lack of proof of causality can be overlooked, and that overdoing anything at all can be a bad idea.  Moderation by any means seems like a winner.
 
i am as you put a "hard-core nicotine junkie" ive bought 1 pack of smokes in about a month 1/2, but i find myself mooching smokes after meals and such cause a pipe after dinner just isnt the same after smoking cigarettes for 18 years, i find myself inhaling my pipe rather frequently though not every puff. my lungs miss the tar and i miss the exhale flavor and the much increased nic you get from inhaling. my wallet is saying pipe is much better saving roughly $150 a month but even inhaling say 1:5 puffs and smoking the pipe more constantly than i did cigarettes health wise ill say im most likely no better off except for the lack of poisons cigarette "tobacco" has that pipe tobacco doesnt
 
Let me clarify. I don't mean one needing a justification to smoke. Hey, we can do what we want, right? I mean believing that one form is somehow less harmful than another.

For the recreational heroin user (let's say, lol), does snorting versus shooting it somehow make it less addictive or harmful?

I just wonder if people really believe that the form of consumption makes a huge difference health-wise.

Honest question. Not trolling.
 
If you inhale is the question.
I inhale about half of what I smoke of a pipe, so I only get half as much as I would
smoking the same amount of cigarettes.
In the final years of cigarettes I cut down to a 1/2 pack a day.
That's about 10 cigarettes a day.
I now smoke 3 bowls a day which approximately equals 2 cigarettes a bowl, 6 cigarettes a day. So yes, it's a bit healthier..............I think  ;) 
 
Frankly I don't really appreciate the nicotine effect and never have. I pretty much avoid blends that are apt to wind me up.

Never been addicted to cigs. Tried them as a young man, but hated the taste and never could inhale. Never understood why anyone would want to either.

Yes there is bound to be some nic absorption, but I favor blends that are low in lady nic.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!


Cheers,

RR
 
This is my opinion. Take it as such. I'm a glorified delivery boy, not a doctor or scientist. I can point to studies backing my opinion but it's up to each individual to weigh the acceptable risk they are willing to accept in pursuit of happiness.

Burning tobacco, more specifically, the chemicals added to tobaccos and resulting from combustion of tobacco is the 'bad' in smoking. Dipping/snus etc IS less harmful than smoking cigarettes and without the horrendous amount of chemical additives could be even safer still. I think the Swedes have proven it can be done in a practically harmless way.

Cigarettes are in a category all their own. At least with pipe and cigars you are combusting actual tobacco. With cigarettes you are combusting paper made from tobacco (investigate it, you'll see).


Back on nicotine... Nicotine in large doses is toxic. In typical levels ingested by nicotine addicts it is no more harmful than caffeine. Give a kid a coke and no one bats an eye, give a kid a Fuente Fuente Opus X and everyone loses their mind.

 
It seems the bulk of evidence points to cigarettes as being more harmful than pipes or cigars. Maybe its additives, paper, filters, inhailing...  My guess is that it has more to do with frequency and overall lifestyle, but I'm no expert.  While I find the whole e-smoke trend to be mildly ridiculous, it will be interesting to see what the long term health effects are, especially in the area of heart disease.
I used to teach an undergrad course called Drugs and Behavior that overviewed all the major classes of recreational drugs (caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, THC, etc...).  In the section on nicotine and the public perception of smoking over the years, I used this great quote from a 1920s radio public service add featuring boxer Jack Dempsey.  In the add the great Manassa Mauler said "Don't smoke cigarettes, those coffin nails will kill ya!  Real men smoke cigars."   :)
Mike.
 
I am a huge fan of vaping. It works. I hate that it got coined 'ecigarette' but it is what it is.
There have been multitudes of short term studies, air analysis, etc that are lean very favorable in vapings favor.


As far as 'lifestyle', I disagree 100% but that's really neither here nor there.


 
MisterE":xmi1w3jl said:
I just wonder if people really believe that the form of consumption makes a huge difference health-wise.
MisterE, I do.

Smoke is an irritant that does damage. Inhaling tucks those irritants into the folds of the lungs.

For those of us that do not inhale, the primary damage is oral. We can feel when we are damaged and will back off for a bit. Even a week or 2 if necessary.

If we could not feel sunburns and exposed ourselves to the sun 20 hours a day, every day, how long before we would have blisters and damage all over us?
 
Like puros-bran I can personally attest to vaping and getting off the stink sticks. I moved from a 40 a day habit of about 40 years to vaping a nicotine eliquid. Within a month or so I moved to vaping nicotine free and I didn't miss a beat. The transition was seamless. For me it was all about the hand to mouth habit.

After about a year of vaping it became clear to me that it was making me breathless in a way the fags never did. At first I assumed I had damaged my lungs from all those cigarettes. But since I have cut vaping back to a few puffs when I want to go easy on the pipe, my breathing is normal again.

I'd suggest vaping to get off the cigarettes, but I don't believe continued use is safe.

I don't believe smoking 2 pipe bowls or so a day, if one is NOT inhaling, presents any significant health risks. Some, of course, but nothing like cigarette smoking or base jumping or drinking scotch every day. It is a pity we don't have reliable modern data tho.
 
Vaping now, it is coming up on a year since my last cigarette. Also haven't smoked a pipe in months. I would say my fifty pound stash of pipe tobacco should last me now!
 
Whatcha Vaping Bosun?

I've got Nicoticket Custards Last Stand in my Zenesis Medius with a silica build.
 
I'd opine the delivery system makes a big difference. Cigs are almost always inhaled. Plus cigarette smokers tend to smoke a pack or more a day. Pipesmokers may / may not inhale, but they tend not to be going at it all day, either.

I smoke two, sometimes three, bowls a day, but not every day. And I'm not conscious of inhaling at all. I'll match bmi index, blood pressure, heart rate and ability to cover two miles on foot with any of ya:)

Far as I know there has never been a scientifically respectable health study of "pipes-only" smokers.  I read that in the 70's (?), the public health discussion started to veer over toward the Q -- "How many cigs can the body tolerate WITHOUT incurring health problems?" -- i.e., Is there a "safe" smoking level? But the anti-smoking nazis did not want to go near this question, and changed the subject to the effects of second hand smoke on the public, particularly children. And speaking of science that's not particularly credible . . .
 
Kevin. Back in the days when I was active on vaping boards there was a lot of talk about research on how dangerous vaping 'smoke' is or isn't. Some of the testing made comparisons to cigarette research and cell damage and I have it in my mind that the science, as opposed to statistics, is that it is 2 cigarettes, inhaled, per day, before cell damage is noticed. Given that even 10 bowls of pipe tobacco would see less smoke enter the lungs than 2 cigarettes, I am confident the risks of pipe smoking are small.

I don't have the links and I am not going to dig thru my history for them either. I have a strong belief that people should satisfy their own minds with regards to decisions about personal safety, rather than relying on others, particularly vested interests, to tell them.

Congrats on the good health btw.
 
Health Professional: "So you smoke a bowl of pipe tobacco every day. How many cigarettes is that per day?".
 
Domer":k33483n9 said:
Health Professional: "So you smoke a bowl of pipe tobacco every day. How many cigarettes is that per day?".
It's actually a fair question Domer. The first law of toxicology: The poison is in the dose. So a query about how much tobacco is in a pipe bowl relative to a cigarette is an attempt to establish equivalence.

The important distinction is that pipe smokers are usually only exposed to sidestream smoke when one is considering the lungs. I have huge problems with the 'data' that is put forward regarding sidestream smoke and health effects, the most obvious of which is the stuff about passive smoking.

I think most of the claims are horseshit.

Having said that, I wouldn't smoke a pipe in a small confined room like a bathroom. In the open air tho, I'd bet the negative health effects of pipe smoking are somewhere south of smelling bacon being cooked. Only my opinion tho; we are denied reliable data regarding pipe smoking.
 
Again it's only my opinion and I am basically just reposting for emphasis.. But....

Even if you equate the amount of "tobacco" in the two the toxicity does not equal out.  The amount of added chemicals and processing in *cigarette 'paper' far outweighs that found in pipe tobacco or cigars.





*you do realize cigarette tobacco is actually a paper made out of tobacco much the way writing paper is made from trees.   One doesn't say they are writing on a tree when making a quick note, so one ought not say they are using tobacco when they have a quick smoke.    Yes I realize that is an impossible hurdle that will not be overcome but a fact is a fact.
 
puros-bran. The anti tobaccco people love that line about there being n number of chemicals in tobacco. That most of these are organic and occur in multitudes of things we eat is seldom mentioned.

The real villain in tobacco smoke is undoubtedly Tobacco Specific Nitrosamines or TSNAs. There is not a shadow of doubt that this stuff causes cancer. The risk to us from TSNAs is orders of magnitude greater than anything else in tobacco.

Lungs are special, as has been noted earlier. Not only are they delicate tissues but the vast exchange rate of gases and substances across the linings means these TSNAs have a significantly more drastic effect in the lungs. And not just in the lungs, because the lungs distribute these things throughout the body, the effects are not contained. Nasal snuff for example is absolutely safe. In the 400 or so years of its use there has been only one 'casualty' of nasal snuff use, and that was some halfwit who spent a lifetime jamming it into his ears.

Taking tobacco smoke into the lungs is REALLY dangerous. I am not in the business of telling anyone what they can or can't do, but this isn't an issue of good tobacco/bad tobacco. All tobacco contains cancer causing TSNAs. The important distinction is between inhaling and not inhaling tobacco smoke.
 
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