Pipe Smoking and Health

The relationship between pipe smoking and health is a topic sometimes taken lightly within the pipe community, but one on which there is broad scientific consensus. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), every form of tobacco is harmful, and there is no safe level of exposure to tobacco smoke. Pipe tobacco, when burned, releases largely the same chemicals as cigarette smoke. This entry offers a neutral summary of the main findings on the subject.

Pipe Smoke and Its Main Risks

Tobacco smoke contains thousands of chemical compounds; according to public health agency data, roughly seventy of them are known carcinogens. A large-scale prospective study conducted by the American Cancer Society and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute in 2004 (Cancer Prevention Study II) found the following relative risk increases among men who smoked exclusively pipes, compared to those who had never used tobacco:

Even when the smoke isn't inhaled into the lungs, the risk of lip, tongue, oral cavity, pharyngeal, and laryngeal cancer rises, because oral tissue is in constant contact both with the smoke itself and with saliva carrying the substances the smoke deposits. Momentary irritations like tongue bite are, by contrast, temporary discomforts separate from these long-term risks.