Grant started out as an occasional puffer. But one cheroot led to another. Several newspapers described him puffing away in the midst of a Tennessee battle in 1862. Grateful supporters of the Union promptly sent him boxes of the choicest brands-10,000 or more in all. Grant’s consumption zoomed to 20 stogies a day, a habit he continued until doctors ordered him to quit in 1884. He died of throat cancer in 1885, after losing 70 of his 200 pounds and becoming addicted to cocaine to ease the pain.
Even if a cigar bar pops up on every corner, Grant’s appetite would be hard to match. But national consumption is escalating for the third straight year-to 3 billion cigars, up from 2.1 billion in 1998.
Those numbers alarm the NCI’s Donald R. Shopland, author of the surgeon general’s reports on tobacco, who fears that a glamorous smoke screen has obscured the fact that cigars can kill. One NCI study in 1984 showed heavy cigar smokers incur nearly three times the risk of lung cancer that nonsmokers do (vs. nine times for cigarette smokers). Other evidence shows cigars and cigarettes, consumed in equal volumes, produce roughly equal risks of mouth and throat cancer. “We want to put the facts out there as loudly as we can,” says Shopland of next year’s report. The NCI took a similar step in 1986, when a report on smokeless tobacco helped produce health-warning laws and bans on TV ads.
Stogie fans aren’t deterred. “The publicity for the past three years has been so overwhelmingly positive, it was only a matter of time,” says Norman Sharp, head of the Cigar Association of America. For those who can’t resist, he advises moderation.
