The short answer: no.
Have you ever gone out all night in a smoky bar – maybe smoked a bit too much yourself – and woke up in the morning with a thumping headache and such a revolting tobacco taste in your mouth that it feels as though you’d spent the entire night cleaning the pub’s ashtrays with your tongue?
If you’ve experienced that and enjoy it, then inhaling cigar smoke may just be your cup of tea. For the rest of us, inhaling cigar smoke is a definite no-no.
Not only is inhalation of cigar smoke extremely hazardous to your health, it also tastes foul and goes a long way to ruining the experience of a fine cigar by overpowering your senses and stuffing up your taste receptors.
Odd Statistic
According to NCI studies, cigar-only smokers who smoke less than two cigars per day and do not inhale are fractionally less likely to die of lung cancer than non-smokers! Note that this figure is not statistically significant. (source)
Accidentally inhaling smoke
Like it or not, as long as you’re smoking cigars and have “second hand” smoke wafting around your head, it’s going to impossible not to inhale any of it, but what you do inhale can (and should) be kept to an absolute minimum. This can be achieved with a little common sense: by holding the cigar away from your head while you’re not smoking it, and enjoying your cigar in an open and well-ventilated space.
It sometimes happens that I do accidentally inhale a little bit of cigar smoke. I find that this unfortunate affair occurs most often after I have breathed the smoke out of my mouth: I take a puff on the cigar, draw it into my mouth, let it linger a little, then gently exhale, blowing out the smoke in the process … then I take a breath of “fresh” air … somewhat of a natural reaction after just breathing out; the problem is that in doing so, one can accidentally inhale a little bit of smoke that, unbeknownst to the soon-to-be discontented cigar smoker, was still lingering in their mouth.
The obvious solution, is to ensure that when you exhale cigar smoke, blow out the last little bit strongly and completely before breathing in again.
Cigars vs Cigarettes
Non-cigarette smokers, or ex-cigarette smokers who have quit for many years have lungs that are very sensitive to smoke. This means that subconscious inhalation of cigar smoke, even a tiny bit, causes an immediate gagging reflex, so it’s easy to tell if one has accidentally inhaled a little cigar smoke.
It’s not quite as easy for cigarette smokers to tell if they’re inhaling cigar smoke, as their lungs are so accustomed to the smoke, that inhaling small amounts can go completely undetected (especially if it’s a mild cigar). In fact, research has shown that cigarette smokers and ex-smokers typically inhale cigar smoke even if they claim they don’t. This doesn’t mean all smokers and ex-smokers are liars, or that they’re deluding themselves. It means that they just don’t realise they’re doing it.
Although inhalation of smoke might not ruin the taste of a cigar for these people because they are accustomed to having tobacco smoke in their lungs, it is still not desirable to inhale for health reasons. That is especially true for anybody who is trying to quit by going from cigarettes to cigars. (I’m not sure how effective that quitting strategy is, but apparently Michael Douglas did it.)
The concept that current and ex cigarette users need to get accustomed with, is that of “tasting” the smoke. It’s almost like smelling the flavour with the mouth. It maybe be difficult to rid yourself of the psychological need to inhale while smoking. If you’re feeling the urge to inhale the smoke, it may be best to quit cigarettes cold-turkey for a few months before moving onto cigars. That however, is personal. Many cigar aficionados are also cigarette smokers.
Smoke without inhaling
I’m personally particularly concerned about the possibility of inhaling cigar smoke for health reasons. With that in mind, I’ve developed a little technique that I think helps to prevent me from accidental, subconscious inhalation of cigar smoke. It’s very simple.
Consider that after you exhale, your body is then prepared to inhale another breath of air. The natural reaction is to breath deeply into your lungs to replenish what you just exhaled: exactly the way cigarette smokers have trained themselves to smoke, and exactly what you don’t want to do with a cigar in your mouth. The obvious solution is to do things the other way around. It can feel a little unnatural at first if you’re a cigarette smoker, but it quickly becomes habit.
Before taking a puff on a cigar, inhale a decent lung-full of oxygen with the cigar held well away from your head. No need to go red in the face, just a gentle breath in will do. Then, without exhaling, draw on the cigar by sucking on it using the muscles in your cheeks and mouth. Because you lung capacity has already been nearly exhausted, it’s very difficult to inhale anything else, subconsciously or on purpose. Now breath out slightly and let the smoke waft out of your mouth as you taste the smoke for a few seconds. By this stage you will probably need another breath of air, but since you will still have a bit of air in your lungs, the natural bodily reaction is strongly exhale in preparation for the next breath. This will then blow the smoke well away from your face before you take another breath in.
It might sound complex, but all it really amounts to is this: breath in some air and hold it in your lungs before taking a toke on your stogie.
If you smoke in moderation, and are careful not to inhale the smoke, there’s no reason that cigar smoking should pose a significant health risk.