In the United States, cigarettes’ cultural importance has shifted multiple times throughout the years, from being medically beneficial to glamorous to dangerous. In the past, cigarettes were promoted as a way to soothe throat inflammation (via Stanford Medicine).
Hollywood films popularized and idealized them as well. However, in 1964, Luther Terry, the US Surgeon General, raised the alarm with a powerful report that proved how lung cancer and smoking were related, according to the Atlantic.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention predicts that over 30.8 million adults in the United States smoke with the growing body of research that makes the case for everybody to stop smoking (as of 2020). Additionally, smoking cigarettes leads to over 480,000 deaths annually in only America.
Since cigarettes contain nicotine, an addictive substance, it might be challenging to stop smoking cigarettes. Other cigarettes that don’t contain tobacco or nicotine are preferred by some people. Herbal cigarettes are these kinds of tobacco and nicotine-free cigarettes. You might be curious as to whether herbal cigarettes are a safer option than tobacco cigarettes.
A mixture of all-natural components, including herbs and flowers, goes into making an herbal cigarette, based on the National Cancer Institute. The fact that herbal cigarettes don’t include tobacco or nicotine, they are comparable to tobacco cigarette smoke in that they may still release dangerous substances like carbon monoxide and tar.
