There are claims that stress how much cigars are safer to smoke than cigarettes but how far or how close are we to the truth? Are cigars safer than cigarettes?

It just so happened that cigar smokers are only occasional smokers and majority of the smoking population are into cigarettes so the gauge of how cigars is not that obvious. But, it has been shown that cigars are not any safer.

The following reasons would tell you that the choice of smoking cigar is not any safer than smoking cigarettes.

• According to studies, a single cigar contains more tobacco than a whole pack of cigarettes and as much nicotine as a smoked pack of cigarettes.

• One large fat cigar, even unlit, if it’s just kept in the mouth, you’ll absorb nicotine from just the contact of the tobacco leaf end of the cigar sitting in the mouth.

• Smoking five cigars a day and inhaling moderately produces the same lung cancer risk as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

• Cigars produce even more environmental tobacco smoke (ETS) than cigarettes, due to their size, long aging and fermentation, and long burning time. The wrapper of a cigar (made of tobacco leaf) is not very porous and burns less completely than cigarettes, meaning the air surrounding a cigar smoker has higher concentrations of nitrogen oxides, ammonia, carbon monoxide, and tar than the air around a cigarette smoker.

• For men, cigar smoking is also associated with sterility and some problems like erectile dysfunction.

These are just some of the harmful effects of cigar smoking and how harmful it could be comparing to cigarettes. Although you can go on and on, comparing facts and figures, the point is, smoking is not beneficial at all, be it cigar or cigarette.

So are cigars safer than cigarettes, you decide.