I start smoking cigars in spring of '13 after dabbling in home grown tobacco for a while. I grew a variety of Virginia bright in poor soil, and could inhale deeply with no discomfort and no noticeable nicotine buzz (even as a never smoker prior to that). I did get cigar sickness a time or two, but learned quickly. I enjoyed cigars a lot, and always aspired to pick up a pipe someday (I am a big Tolkien reader, so naturally).
Last fall I started smoking a cob with Amphora or SWR here or there. But over the winter I had been gifted some MacB no.1 (Doesn't bite me, for whatever it's worth), Stokkebye lux bullseye flake and some proper English. I enjoyed them all immensely, but the problem for me was that I noticed a very different physiological response to smoking pipes than cigars. Even when I would smoke a half or a third of a bowl in a Kaywoodie (small pipe) of MacB No.1 I would stand up, have the head woosh feeling, and could not walk straight. I could routinely smoke a toro in my cigar days, even without a very full stomach, and not feel much of anything at all.
I was concerned because if that meant large amounts of nicotine, than physiological dependence could be around the corner. I took two weeks off, with the intent of starting back up with a cigar. I smoked half a cigar yesterday on an empty stomach, after NO nicotine for two weeks, and didn't feel nary a thing. My heart rate actually went *down* afterwards. All this was very curious to me, and I can't quite wrap my head around it. I want to know if anyone has any similar experiences with cigars as compared to pipes. (By the way, I don't inhale cigars or pipes, and I don't snork)
Here's an interesting study on cotinine (metabolized nicotine) levels in pipe, cigar, and cigarette smokers. This backed up my personal experience of getting a strong response from the pipe, and not much at all from cigars. Of course, it's hard to draw much from it since there is only the abstract and we don't know if inhalation is accounted for in the pipe smokers or not.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6116905
Last fall I started smoking a cob with Amphora or SWR here or there. But over the winter I had been gifted some MacB no.1 (Doesn't bite me, for whatever it's worth), Stokkebye lux bullseye flake and some proper English. I enjoyed them all immensely, but the problem for me was that I noticed a very different physiological response to smoking pipes than cigars. Even when I would smoke a half or a third of a bowl in a Kaywoodie (small pipe) of MacB No.1 I would stand up, have the head woosh feeling, and could not walk straight. I could routinely smoke a toro in my cigar days, even without a very full stomach, and not feel much of anything at all.
I was concerned because if that meant large amounts of nicotine, than physiological dependence could be around the corner. I took two weeks off, with the intent of starting back up with a cigar. I smoked half a cigar yesterday on an empty stomach, after NO nicotine for two weeks, and didn't feel nary a thing. My heart rate actually went *down* afterwards. All this was very curious to me, and I can't quite wrap my head around it. I want to know if anyone has any similar experiences with cigars as compared to pipes. (By the way, I don't inhale cigars or pipes, and I don't snork)
Here's an interesting study on cotinine (metabolized nicotine) levels in pipe, cigar, and cigarette smokers. This backed up my personal experience of getting a strong response from the pipe, and not much at all from cigars. Of course, it's hard to draw much from it since there is only the abstract and we don't know if inhalation is accounted for in the pipe smokers or not.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6116905