Is it safe to smoke a cigar if I don't inhale?
Well, in reality, your mouth is a very good absorption of nicotine. So, cigar smokers have high nicotine levels. Just because you aren't breathing it into the lung, not taking the particulates down into your lungs, means that you aren't having as much distribution and trauma in that area, but you are still doing a lot more in the mouth, because cigar smoke is a lot hotter than cigarette smoke is. The damage to the lip and the tongue is actually greater with people who are cigar smokers. People who are pipe smokers have a similar effect compared to a cigarette where basically your lips are in touch with a paper or cotton filter that is not so hot and does not have tobacco in it. The second thing is that when you breathe in the smoke that you've blown out from your cigar, it still is in the air around you, and you are breathing that second hand smoke into your lungs. So, you're still getting lots of the second hand smoke burning off end of the cigar and the smoke you breathed into your mouth and blew out. It is still coming back in through your nose and back into your body and into your lungs. So, cigar smokers don't have zero effect in their lungs like non-smokers do. They think they do, but it's not true. They still have some emphysema. They still have some increased risk of lung cancer, but it is not as great a risk as the person who deeply inhales cigarette smoke into their lungs. Is cigar smoking safe? Not safe. No tobacco product used in a human body is safe.
