Do Cigars Get You High?

by Billy Ferriolo
Do Cigars Get You High?

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Don’t be embarrassed for asking – it’s a normal question. After all, there are no stupid questions, only stupid people.

Cigars contain nicotine, which you’ve probably heard of by now. Nicotine is a stimulant, which means that it increases activity in your nervous system. Now, do cigars get you high by sending nicotine into your body? Well, we need to geek out a little to get the full answer, but the short answer is “no.” Cigars don’t get you high like recreational drugs do. If they did, they’d probably be illegal because there’s nothing the government hates quite so much as people having a really good time.

So, what does nicotine do to you? It’s effect is parasympathomimetic, which means it acts on the parasympathetic nervous system. Are your eyes starting to glaze over? Hang in there – you might learn something today. Your nervous system is broken down into multiple divisions that do different things. Without getting too deep into the science, the drugs you enjoyed out in the woods in high school act strongly on your brain, which is part of the central nervous system. Those drugs, along with a little help from Pink Floyd, got you high.

Now, do cigars get you high like that? Well, nicotine primarily acts on a different part of your nervous system instead of the brain. This system is called the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for “rest and digest” functions. At the risk of pissing off the highly knowledgeable readers in the audience (there have to be at least, like, 3 of you), nicotine is primarily acting on a different part of your nervous system than the drugs that produce a psychoactive high in your pink wrinkle bean. Drugs that work on your brain, not nicotine, are the ones that create the kind of high that will have you delivering a 45-minute dissertation on why there’s no reason we couldn’t force the evolution of all animals on Earth to be more cuddly and doglike so that we could bro out nonstop in a full world of loving animal companions.

But that’s an idea for another time.

Nicotine, on the other hand, delivers more of what people generally call a “buzz” to a different part of your nervous system – the system responsible mostly for chilling you out (there are many exceptions, but this description should be good enough for an article on a cigar blog. If you want college-level classes, go to college!). Many people find this nicotine buzz relaxing, and it helps move them from the everyday drudgery into a little bit of a mental vacation as they kick back, listen to some blues, and pour a good bourbon into a small glass. Cigars don’t really get you high. Although some people might describe it that way, the effect is not quite close enough to what happens when you smoke other plants that you won’t find at Cigars Direct.

We hope that answers the question, “Do cigars get you high?”

And if you skipped the whole article, here’s our response:

No, cigars don’t get you high. It’s really more of a “buzz” experience.

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