Eating Cigarttes
I've seen a couple of articles on the net recommend eating cigarettes when you are trying to quit.
I am hard put to think of anything I would less like to do, but apparently the taste is it is so disgusting that it will put you off smoking for ever.
(It reminds me of a story of parents who forced their daughter into a cupboard after catching her smoking and forced her to smoke until she threw up. She didn't smoke again. Urban myth? You tell me!)
I wonder, though, if the people recommending this drastic step have either tried it or researched the risks before doing so.
I suspect they have done neither.
The amount of nicotine taken in by a smoker is far less than is contained in a cigarette. In a cigarette containing 9mg, for example, a smoker would only absorb around 1mg.
And so when you eat a cigarette you are taking a lot more nicotine than you would do normally: the equivalent of 9 cigarettes in one go.
Children are taken to hospital ever year after eating cigarettes - and a toddler can become severely ill after eating a single cigarette.
So should smokers ignore the advice?
To be honest, it's hardly likely that eating a single cigarette is going to kill a hardened smoker. An adult smoker is a lot bigger than a toddler, giving greater body mass to absorb that nicotine. What's more, the smoker will have developed nicotine tolerance.
Eating a cigarette is not likely to do you any good. Then again, it's probably not going to be as bad as continuing to smoke for another 20 years.
Ultimately, should you be a smoker, you'll have to make your own choice. As for me, I am going to stick to my trusty electronic cigarette. And I'm going to smoke it, not eat it!
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