Kilts & Pipe Smoking

[sav]

I enjoy my pipes very much! I am a big admirer of the artistry of Turkish Meerschaums, and a well sculpted piece of Briar is just as good! In Chambersburg, PA, there's a pipemaker and tobaccoist by the name of Boswell....He makes some beautiful pipes! If I get a chance, I'll take some pics and post here.

[Schultz]

As a former cigarette smoker myself, GlassMan, you'll never convince anyone that smoking is harmless because of the simple, common sense fact that you're actually inhaling smoke into your lungs, which is NEVER a good thing. Even if you don't inhale while the pipe or cigar is in your mouth, you're still going to be inhaling the smoke around you when you're not actually smoking.

Cancerous or not, inhaling smoke of any kind for an extended period of time is always a bad idea.

That being said, I enjoy a good cigar every now and again, but I also don't complain if someone in a pub or other setting calmly asks me to move or even extinguish my cigar. It's simple common courtesy.

[GlassMan]

You are quite right in that it is the inhalation that has been proven to cause damage. But it wasn't the content of the inhalation that the studies have shown is the problem, it is the temperature.

Animals forced to breath regular air heated to the temperature of fresh cigarette smoke had the same higher incidence of lung cancer as cigarette smokers. While animals which inhaled cooled smoke (aka second hand smoke) showed no statistical difference from the non-smoking control group.

That may help explain why the puffing behavior of pipes and cigars is not as harmful. And why even the World Health Organizations own research on second hand smoke showed that it had no negative effects and actually helped protect against asthma & Parkinsons. Even the EPA study on the environmental risks of second hand smoke could only declare it harmful by ignoring the established EPA guidelines for such a decision. Normally it requires a margin of error of only 5% and a statistical deviation of greater than 2.6%. To get the data to show a risk from second hand smoke they had to increase the margin of error to 10% and lower the minimum statistical deviation to 1%. Now, any statistics textbook will tell you that deviation from the norm of only 1% is not significant and means nothing. Also, if you say that something is 1% more likely to cause cancer but the margin of error is 10%, then it could be anything betweek a 9% chance of improving your health to an 11% chance of being harmful.

Also, another suggestion from researchers as to why cigarettes smokers do have an increased risk whereas pipe smokers seem to have lower risk than non-smokers is that over 99% of the carcinogens found in cigarettes are not natural to tobacco but are instead part of the manufacturing process of the paper, filters and even of the manufacturing of cigarette tobacco. It is a little known fact that all cigarettes in the US and most of the world are not made of pure tobacco cut from the leaf. Instead they are made from Reconstituted Sheet Tobacco (RST). RST was developed during WWII as a way to maximize cigarette production for the troops. The took all the broken leaves, leaf parts, tobacco dust and stems that were left over from pipe tobacco and cigar making as well as the leaves that were deemed unsuitable by graders for standard use, dried and pulverized the leaves to create a find dust, then processed that dust the same way that paper pulp is processed to create sheets of tobacco (and yes that processing does include formaldehyde and mercury). This RST is then sliced and used for the inside of cigarettes. After WWII, the manufacturers decided to continue using RST instead of high-grade tobacco because it was a lot cheaper and raised their profit margins. Since then some chemicals used in the process have seen their concentrations increased (such as Formaldehyde) because studies showed that it increased nicotine uptake and increased the likelihood of addition.

On the other hand pipe tobacco is simple tobacco leaf that is aged, dried, sometimes cured in the same method as smoking a ham, and then chopped up. Occassionally it has natural ingredients (such as honey, rum, bourbon, fruit or vanilla extract, etc) added to give it a more pleasing flavor and aroma. A bowl of a medium sized pipe has more tobacco in it than a cigarette but has been shown to contain only 6% of the nicotine and has carcinogen levels so low that you have express it as parts per billion instead of a percent of the total weight. Cigars do have more carcinogens in them, but that is because inexpensive cigars often use brown paper as a filler material to increase the size but not the cost of the cigar.

And even the US Surgeon Generals' report states that they assume there is a link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, are uncertain about cigars and second hand smoke, and that pipes appear to have a protective effect.

There are a few people who are fanatical in their belief that smoking must be bad, so they insist on only recognizing the studies that support their view no matter how manipulated the data is or shoddy the methodology, and they refuse to publicize valid experiments that contradict themselves. In any other field that would be considered fraudulent behavior and have you thrown out of academia, but not when it comes to smoking. Even WHO initially refused to release it's study on second hand smoke because the results were statistically significant and scientifically valid and showed that second hand smoke had no negative effects on health and actually had positive benefits.

And let it be known that I have never nor will I ever take money from any tobacco company. I just was raised by a protein chemist who wanted me to be a scientist and made sure that I was both well educated and had a complete disdain for intellectual dishonesty. And there is no way I can look at the published research, review the math and not decide that they had a pre-concieved judgment and then tried to fit the results to the conclusion instead of drawing a conclusion from the results.

[GlassMan]

And you are also right that the issue is much more about courtesy than anything else. If someone is nearby and has an aversion to the smell of smoke then it is a courtesy to extinguish your smoking item.

However, when those same people try to close off areas specifically designated for smokers (and which are actually on separate air ventilation systems in some locations) because of a phony health risk claim they are the ones being discourteous.

There is a great link between being poor and dying young. So let's fight poverty first.

[macwilkin]

Let's try to keep the thread germane to the topic of kilts and pipes, please...

Cheers,

Todd

[MacMullen]

Well said! I've had that second hand smoke argument with the wives of several of my friends, and you hit the nail on the head.

I love the smell of pipe smoke, but I usually enjoy a good cigar when I'm working in my office, or working on my Jeeps in my garage. I've found that they encourage deep thinking.

Also, a cigar is a good way to pass the time with friends sitting on the deck or in the pub. Natural tobacco also is a fine way to bring enhance the flavors of a good malt whisky or a strong beer.

[The Wizard of BC]

Ditto the simple common courtesy.

I am a pipe smoker. Have been for 13 years now. gave up cig's. because I hated smelling like a butt.
My pipe brings far more good comments than bad. Many people actually stand closer.

But alas, I'm not into fancy pipes, or fancy blends. I have three common, good service pipes that I use on a rotating basis everyday.
My tobacco comes from a drug store in the states and is a mixture of virginia and cavendish in a ratio of 40%/ 60%. No flavoring, no frills.

OK, maybe it will kill me. And then again it may be the polyester fibers that constantly float about my kilt shop. In a single day the "dust" from the machines can leave a noticable film on every surface.

I figure after 56 years including 20 yrs. of jungles, deserts, and oceans, with little hot pieces of metal flying around, and all the accompaning jet fuel fumes, 10 yrs of styrene monomers from fibreglass resin, with the assorted zylene, acetone, and methyl-ethel-keytone exposure thrown in for good measure, that I'm about due for a visit from the guy with the sythe. But I'll tell you, when he comes, he better bring friends.

"For when to the Pearly Gates I go,
to Saint Peter I can tell,
another Marine reporting Sir,
I've served my time in Hell.

[Rigged]

I like the smell of a Cavendish tobacco, and feel of a warm pipe in my hands on a cold night.

Alas, the type of work I do forbids smoking and our insurance company considers a person a "smoker" if they smoke even one cigarrette in a year.

Oh well, gives me something to look forward to in my retirement years.

[GlassMan]

Yeah, I'm of the opinion that I don't care if I'm wrong or right about the carcinogen issue, I'm still gonna smoke my pipes.

When I was at the Pentagon on 9-11 there were lots of rooms that were on fire but whose doors we couldn't open because of the tremendous security measures used. So being fireman we found another way in, we chopped through the walls.

Unfortunately we later found out that all the dust that covered us was asbestos. The old part of the building had not yet had asbestos abatement and the floor tiles, ceiling tiles, wall plaster, wall insulation, and air vent insulation was all asbestos based. Oh, and did I mention that by that time on the first day we had run out of airtanks and the smoke was so thick that trying to refill them on site was just creating bottles of compressed smoke? So we were getting covered with processed asbestos dust without any kind of protection.

My pulmanologist doesn't even give me grief about my pipe smoking. He says that the estimate is that we breathed in enough processed asbestos to simulate 20 years of working in an asbestos mine and so were pretty much guaranteed mesothelioma anyway.

So I get great comfort and joy from my pipes.

As for inexpensive blends, you might want to take a look at Cornell & Diehl tobaccos. They are very affordable yet taste and smoke like luxury imported blends. They are made here in the US, so I guess they are still imported for Canadians. Here's their site: http://www.cornellanddiehl.com/

Even though I'm a big fan of Full English blends, I'm now quite enamored with #531 Yale Mixture (and for more than because it is named after my alma mater). C&D describes it as "If this were a wine it would be full bodied, rich but not sweet (like Cabernet Sauvignon). An all natural Virginia based blend with Latakia. (Close to the original Craven's Mixture.)" And I can tell you is is sweet perfection.

Interestingly, after smoking a batch I'm often asked, "Where did you buy that cologne, I want some for my husband/boyfriend/father" by women even anti-smoking women. They get flustered when I tell them that I'm not wearing cologne, they're smelling the remnants of pipe smoke. I've had a few ask me to prove it, so I've happily lit a new bowl and they've all discovered that they love the scent of the blend. It is the only non-aromatic blend I've ever tried where 100% of people like the scent. And some even think it smells better than aromatic blends that smelled.

[GlassMan]

Oh, and you are quite right CajunScott. I started to drift. My apologies.