Smoking Mythbusting: The Realities of The Smoking Methods

When smoking is discussed, most people seem to have in mind the image of filtered cigarettes as the main item that people use to consume tobacco. For some unknown reason, other types of smoking – such as using a pipe and rolling your own cigarettes – do not attract quite the same amount of disdain as their orange-filtered cousins, when in reality all are as bad as each other. Any way of consuming tobacco, nicotine and the associated chemicals that are inhaled with every breath should be frowned upon.

It is not just non-smokers who focus their energies on regular cigarettes. Some smokers, particularly younger ones, believe that there is a definite separation between self-rolled cigarettes and pipes when compared to regular cigarettes. Sometimes, this belief stems from the fact they are ‘less harmful’ – a worrying, and untrue, distinction.

It is not tobacco itself – the crisp substance that is used to fill cigarettes, pipes and rolling papers alike – that is the problem with smoking. The issue is the chemicals that are inhaled in to the lungs; the manner in which these chemicals are inhaled is largely irrelevant. No smoking apparatus – be it a filtered, standard cigarette, a pipe or a rolling paper – is ‘better’ than the others. The only main difference is to cost, with tobacco for pipes and rolling papers tending to be cheaper, but the health benefits are non-existent. The fact remains that any type of smoking can be damaging to health, so switching to a different method of smoking is nothing but a waste of time.