Additive free tobacco vs. the majority of commercial tobacco. "Better"?

I realize that smoking cigarettes is bad for you. The fine particulates and super heated air being inhaled can be harmful.

That said, is additive free tobacco "better" for you than other tobacco that is sold?

Anyone who has watched "The Insider" knows that nearly all of the big tobacco companies put over 1000 additives into their cigarettes and rolling tobaccos. These are to make the nicotine enter your system faster and make the tobacco burn faster. The whole concept is referred to as a "nicotine delivery system".

The past few years I have been buying one of the very small minority of cigarettes and rolling tobacco that says it is additive free. I only smoke about half a pack (10 cigarettes) a day anymore.

This past week due to many bills that hit at once I went a full week without anything to smoke. The past week I haven't had very intense cravings even to smoke besides a couple of times.

Just today I bought the only generic brand I know of that is "additive free". It's just plain tobacco wrapped in thin paper. The paper doesn't even have the tiny lines of "gunpowder" to make the paper burn faster.

After this long without smoking, I expected a "head buzz" or rush after smoking the first cigarette in a week. There wasn't one though.

Is it ( the strong cravings and "head buzz" after a break) only something that comes from the chemically saturated tobacco's and cigarettes?

Does this point to additive free tobacco as being better for you? Being not as addictive and strongly potent?

Or am I just simply only looking for a rationality?

Any smokers have thoughts or ideas on this?

Given Doc Velocity's recent stroke thread, it is a sensitive topic...

I don't smoke, and am against the commercial ones with hundreds of additives, but not closed to discussing uses of the pure tobacco plant.

From last year(and quoting Scientific American; Jun2006).

Nicotine is an anti-inflammatory...

It was discussed at a "Big Pharma" meeting, sponsored by Novartis...

Sepsis study shows Nicotine to be heavily anti-inflammatory: final piece of the puzzle

reply to post by jjjtir


I realize that with Doc Velocity's recent experience this could be touchy. I am not saying that anybody should start smoking, but as a smoker it is something that I think is interesting.
It may be that since additive free tobacco burns longer it could actually be worse for your health. I don't know, but it intrigues me.

Thanks for opening this discussion. It is one that several of us have been exploring.

I can confirm that after my husband and I quit commercially-packaged cigarettes, we also have noticed some significant changes, even though we still smoke the ones we roll ourselves.

These changes seem to be the same despite our differences in age, weight, and gender:


The increase of our ability to put off smoking longer than before, which we accomplished first by only rolling a couple at a time, making us pause before rolling new ones, therefore giving us less total cigarette intake per day.

Headaches at first, even though we were still technically smoking. Those faded, and several other maladies which we had accepted as our fate for smoking, have also faded. This must be due to the extremely addictive additives that Big Tobacco kindly infiltrates every one of their products with, mostly to speed the natural drying process of the tobacco leaves.

We spend less on tobacco, which is an economic benefit, but as any smoker knows, is a truer gauge of how much is being consumed by the smoker.

I find it's easier to limit my intake, as if my willpower is finally stronger. I know it's just as strong as it ever has been. What has changed is a physical thing. We just have more ability to smoke less, which is part of a larger strategy to quit altogether, or smoke the least amount possible while we do still smoke.

Hope that helps, FSC is just a speed-up for us costly and ignorant smokers who just don't care about our burden on society. We are obviously not wanted and don't deserve to live, though none of us invented smoking....

So when you say "addictive free" are you meaning the natural cigarettes? I've been looking to quite it's just to expensive.

Exactly, how toxic is tobacco really, verses the stuff the factory adds? Whenever I've smoked the additive free stuff (mine was Australia's Log Cabin) I've you get the same result. I.e. it takes twice as long to burn, and you need to smoke half as much (so it works out a quarter of before).

The best way to reduce the damaging smoking causes you, is just to use a pipe as it cools the smoke, causing less tar to condense onto lungs. However I've long suspected that very few people would die of smoking if ingredients such as phosphorous, chlorine, salt-peter, added ammonia, ect were all banned.
"Main problem" is there would be few differences between brands, and that could cause the industry a lot of market turmoil.
So I guess it's an idea they despise right now? After all I'm hardly be the only citizen wishing to smoke, the first Taylor made, chemical free, brand (its only sold as rolling tobacco at the moment).

I smoked a pipe for many years. I always grew and cured my own tobacco just like my grandfather. That commercial stuff is poison for a reason.

It may not be as bad as alot of the more commercial stuff, but all tobacco sold has to adhere to guidelines which include adding alot of unneeded chemicals. Unless you grow your own you will always be getting tobacco with crap added to it.

My wife and I have been rolling our own for about 3 months now, shortly after VA.State started using the FSC crap. Sorta a blessing in disguise I guess.
We use "4 Aces pipe tobacco" (sounds strange but it's actually a very nice mild smoke).
We have cut back considerably and an added benefit is that a 1 lb. bag is only $15. (it's currently not taxed as tobacco) We get about a 1 1/2 cartons out of each bag.
Big Tobacco can kiss my arse. I'm sure they'll catch on quick enough though.

Smokers are like Lepers now-a-days, just wait till they come for sugar, salt, soda, candy........

Can we grow our own tobacco? Is it legal?

reply to post by Chamberf=6


My family owns a tobacco farm...best thing I can say is google the tobacco beatle, and what it takes to kill/control them, they are very hardy, and drink most pesticides like I do a fine whiskey.

In short it takes some rather harsh chems to keep the plants free of them and the only chems I know of we use, is the chems that disolve and remove the bug killer, from the plants to keep us from injeesting it too.

but I am aware that some big tobacco Co.'s use additives ...and such...
I would like to see the same group of "scientists" that made those claims test the average ground beef, or hormone grown chicken meat, its just media hype and the ppl are playing right into it. IMO

[edit on 29-5-2010 by Doc Holiday]

Some commercial tobacco additives and/or contaminants must increase the absorption rate of nicotine in the lungs.

There must be something in commercial cigs that increase absorption of nicotine. Cause I switched to America Spirits blue and I found myself smoking less often.. and less of the pack a day.. until I stopped for 6 months now I smoke occasionally,.. in conversation and dont find myself ever 'craving' as with Phillip Morris products...

Originally posted by groingrinder
Can we grow our own tobacco? Is it legal?

Here is where I got my seeds.

www.thetobaccoseed.com...

This is a great topic.

For ages many native tribes have used Tobacco as a medicinal herb.

Natural tobacco has many medical properties, and smoking it is not really bad for your health.

How many native American shamans died of lung cancer? Not many...

2 reasons why they put tons of toxic additives in our cigs.

1) To make us sick, keep the tobacco from acting as medicine, and keep us using the failed pharmaceutical system we have now.

2) To keep us addicted and craving more.

Natural tobacco is a medicine and is not anywhere near as addictive...

The big commercial cigarette brands are manufactured in mass production facilities with mass production labor, and it's known that all sorts of crap ends up blended into the final product — crap such as insect parts, rodent hairs, human hair, straw, floor dust, et cetera. All the same stuff they warn you about being in processed meat.

On top of that, the Big-Cig industry is well known for "pumping up" the nicotine content of their product, actually adding synthesized nicotine to the tobacco in order to facilitate addiction. Additionally, the industry is well known for adding accelerants (volatile chemicals) to their cigarettes to make them burn faster.

So you smoke faster. So you smoke more. So they make more.

In the "additive free" cigarettes (such as American Spirit), there's no "pumping up" with synthesized nicotine, and there are no chemical accelerants. A small brand such as American Spirit is produced in smaller facilities under closer supervision, also, so there's a slightly reduced incident of insect parts and rodent hairs in the blend.

That being said, you should know that R.J. Reynolds — manufacturer of Camel and other Big-Cig brands — now owns American Spirit... So there's no guarantee that American Spirit is any safer than Camel cigarettes.

As with any substance, overuse and abuse always results in physical problems. So, the cleanest, most organic tobacco in the world is still going to kill you if you smoke it 20 times a day.

For that matter, drinking 10 glasses of organic orange juice a day will kill your ass, as well. A single glass of the purest orange juice represents the liquid content of about 10 squeezed oranges — meaning that you would have to gorge yourself on the fruit to ingest the same amount of juice in one glass of OJ.

Drinking 10 glasses of OJ every day is the equivalent of eating 100 oranges per day. Which is overuse if not abuse of the substance, and that's going to affect your body chemistry in detrimental ways.

You can apply this to almost any food product or beverage or drug... When you overdo it, you're digging your grave with your mouth.

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 5/29/2010 by Doc Velocity]

I've been rolling my own using Natural American Spirit organic for the last 2 years. I smoke less than I did before and my lungs feel clearer than they did with regular cigarettes. I also costs about 1/3 of my former habit. ROLL YOUR OWN!

Originally posted by Asktheanimals
ROLL YOUR OWN!

Or start smoking a pipe if you want to reduce your tobacco use. Pipes aren't any safer to smoke, but they're more labor intensive to prepare for smoking.

A few years ago, I tried switching to a pipe, and I discovered the truth of the matter.

First of all, you can't smoke the same pipe every day — the briarwood bowls need time to recover from a typical day of smoking; otherwise, the wood will expand, warp, and your pipe will fall apart. So, you smoke one pipe in a day, then set it aside to rest for about a week.

This means that you need at least 7 pipes — one for each day of the week, and you smoke them in rotation.

Next, there's selecting and purchasing tobaccos for your pipe(s), which is no simple matter, either. The American tobacco industry has taken a lot of big hits in the last couple of decades, and the demand is down by as much as 75% over what it was in the 1970s. Which means that American tobacco farmers aren't producing as much for the American consumer.

Oddly enough, the Europeans sell more American tobacco than Americans do. So it's actually cheaper and easier to get good quality American pipe tobacco in Europe than it is in the USA. I've bought Dutch, German and British blends that say, right on the label, that they contain Virginia tobacco. And a quality European pipe tobacco is a million times better than the junk you buy in American drugstores and supermarkets.

Next, you have to care for and maintain your pipe to ensure a clean, cool smoke. This entails gently scraping the bowls from time to time, running pipecleaners through the stem, and using alcohol solvent to clean out resin build-up, etc. Some pipes even need an oil-based wood conditioner to keep from drying out.

As for the actual act of smoking the pipe, there's a whole protocol of proper loading, igniting and imbibing. There are so many schools of thought on the best way to load a pipe, the topic can be (and is) the subject of whole websites. Same thing with smoking: Some say you should only taste the smoke, not inhale it; others say, sure, go ahead and inhale; while others still will tell you to smoke open-mouthed, blending the smoke with fresh air. Et cetera, et cetera...

After I got heavily into pipe smoking for a couple of years, I realized that I wasn't smoking nearly as much as I did with cigarettes — simply because following all the "proper" techniques of pipe preparation and smoking was like changing a flat tire every time I wanted a fekking smoke.

Seriously, it was taking me maybe 5 minutes to load and fire up and tamp down my pipe, and that was BEFORE I ever started enjoying the tobacco. Granted, a properly loaded pipe can burn for as long as 30 minutes, and you can even extinguish it and come back to it later to enjoy a fuller flavor — a technique known as "delayed gratification"...

Anyway, when I realized that I was spending more time preparing to smoke a pipe than actually smoking, I gradually switched back to cigarettes — which can be whipped out and fired up in 3 seconds flat. That's called instant gratification.

Accordingly, my tobacco intake skyrocketed when I went back to cigarettes — the damned things are just too easy to smoke.

However, as you may know by now, my tobacco smoking days have ended, rather abruptly and not altogether at my choosing. I had a stroke on Wednesday, which my doc attributes to my smoking; so now I'm wearing a nicotine patch, taking Chantix and puffing on an electronic cigarette until I beat the psychological dependency.

But I can still TALK about tobacco, dammit, Jim!

— Doc Velocity






[edit on 5/29/2010 by Doc Velocity]

Psychiatrist and well-respected writer with quite learned opinions on just about everything, Hans Eyesynk (forgotten how it's spelled) wrote a book back in the 70s about 'old style' tobacco/cigarettes and the versions which came later. He had no doubt at all that the old style (cold pressed) was virtually harmless and in fact might be beneficial, compared with today's version (heat treated) which in some people, proves to be carcinogenic

Eyesink also wrote a book about those who're liable to contract cancers from smoking and those who are not. From memory, it depends on liver function of the individual

I have his books in storage somewhere and can't get to them. But maybe there's something online

As to cigarettes, we know an elderly woman who's smoked a pack a day since she was around the age of 16 apparently. She's 84 now, still lives independently and the only thing that appears to ail her is a dislocated shoulder courtesy of a young thug who tried to break into her place to steal things to fund his next hit

Been doing some homework re: my last post:

It's spelled 'Hans Eysenk' (professor)

here's a little about him and the smoking issue from Wiki:

Psychologists such as Hans Eysenck have developed a personality profile for the typical smoker. Extraversion is the trait that is most associated with smoking, and smokers tend to be sociable, impulsive, risk taking, and excitement seeking individuals.[66] Although, personality and social factors may make people likely to smoke, the actual habit is a function of operant conditioning. During the early stages, smoking provides pleasurable sensations (because of its action on the dopamine system) and thus serves as a source of positive reinforcement.

Copied this next from a forum:

I have read about Dr. Eysenck's theories, but I confess that I have not read the original material. As I understand it, the main thrust of his thoughts on smoking and cancer was that the same psychological makeup and personality factors that lead a person to be a smoker may make it more likely that the person will develop cancer.

This would mean that smoking and cancer might have a common causative factor:rather than smoking directly causing cancer, a set of biological, mental and emotional characteristics cause both the tendency to smokeand the tendency to develop cancer.

Name of one of Eysenk's books relevant to the smoking issue is:

'Smoking, Health and Personality '

and another is:

'Smoking, Personality and Stress: Psychosocial Factors in the Prevention of Cancer and Coronary Heart Disease' by Hans Eysenk


Apart from anything else, Eysenk is a great communicator ... a great read