The 4-1-1 on Cigars

Some people think that smoking cigars isn't dangerous - but they couldn't be more wrong.  Smoking cigars carries with it significant risks to your health.  Cigars have more tar and nicotine than cigarettes do!  A big cigar can have as much as 40 times more tar and nicotine than a cigarette!! (CDC, 1997)

• Cigar smokers are three times more likely than nonsmokers to get lung cancer (Journal of NCI, 1985), and they're four to ten times more likely than nonsmokers to get cancers of the larynx, mouth, and esophagus! (Eur J cancer, 1993).  And unfortunately, since they were left out of the law that requires cigarette packages to require health warnings, cigar packages aren't required to carry any health warnings at all.
• There has been a disturbing trend in recent years... cigar use has been increasing, with sales of cigars up more than 40% since 1993.  This appears to be related to an increase in marketing of cigar smoking as being glamorous, chic, and sexy, as well as due to an increase in the marketing of cigars to women.  Cigar use by women has increased by at least 20 times in recent years!
• What's even more disturbing is that teens have been using cigars more and more, too.  A study by the CDC in 1997 found that more than 25% of American teenagers reported having smoked a cigar in the last year.  That's 1 out of every 4 teens!
• The secondhand smoke from cigars is more dangerous than the smoke from cigarettes.  It has 5 times the tar pollution and 25 times the carbon monoxide of a cigarette. There are more dangerous chemicals in the smoke, and the smoke lingers longer. It takes three hours for the air in a room to return to normal after one cigar is smoked. (Repace, unpublished data, 1997)

So... steer clear of cigars!  They may appear to be safer than cigarettes, but that's just because they've managed to escape the same regulations that cigarettes have to abide by.  In reality, cigars are more harmful to your health than cigarettes.  Watch out!