Herbal Cigarettes or Equivalent

June 24, 2008 5:43 PM

Let's talk herbal cigarettes and other non–nicotine related substances!

Howdy Mefi,
I've gone 6 weeks without nicotine and being intimately familiar with the addictive properties of it I'd like to find a solid herbal cigarette or equivalent. If someone has something decent please suggest below as long as I can purchase it online. People who've got personal experience in this territory would really be appreciated if they contributed.

posted by fantasticninety to food & drink (15 answers total)

I can't speak for herbal cigarette brands, but I have smoked dried sage and damiana.
posted by gnutron at 5:51 PM on June 24, 2008

Chamomile is a pretty pleasant smoke, not too harsh. I've used it to wean myself off tobacco before. The problem is it doesn't roll worth a damn, and I've never found any pre-rolled.
posted by lekvar at 5:59 PM on June 24, 2008

I've tried herbal cigarettes, and they tasted a lot like molasses. YMMV, especially with other brands (can't remember the exact name of the ones I tried, but they had a butterfly or something to that effect on the front).
posted by self at 6:00 PM on June 24, 2008

Honeyrose are smokable. Not something many people would crave, but certainly smokable. They are no more or less harsh to smoke than the average cigarette (I find some non-tobacco mixes to be very rough on the throat and lungs).

I occasionally got somebody asking me if I wasn't smoking a little wink-wink heh-heh in my cigarette; the smell is very...herbal.
posted by kmennie at 6:39 PM on June 24, 2008

There's always Lettuce Cigarettes. They look kinda cool. Newman's Own on the side.
posted by for_serious at 7:12 PM on June 24, 2008

I've smoked 4 or 5 non-tobacco cigarettes over the years, some purporting to have psychoactive properties (the sort of thing that might turn up in a head shop, the one brand I remember was called Herbal Ecstasy: they were harsh and bunk). One of them was primarily mint based, others were various herbal blends.

Mostly they were harsh to smoke, uniformly they were unsatisfying and only sharpened my craving for real tobacco. You think smoking something will be better than smoking nothing but it's not, at least it wasn't for me. It's just more of the addictive mindset that you need to fight, not capitulate to. Also, herbal cigarettes are bad for your health just like all smoking.
posted by nanojath at 7:36 PM on June 24, 2008 [1 favorite]

I've tried a few non-tobacco, non-nicotine cigarettes thinking they might satisfy my craving for a cigarette. I would compare it to eating some salty peanuts and hoping they will quench your thirst. It just doesn't do what you're probably hoping it will do... At least for me it didn't.
posted by Octoparrot at 8:09 PM on June 24, 2008

ROLL. A. JOINT.
posted by baphomet at 8:33 PM on June 24, 2008 [2 favorites]

Lobelia smokes strong medicine.
posted by hortense at 8:56 PM on June 24, 2008

Yes. Roll a joint.
posted by ad4pt at 10:26 PM on June 24, 2008

What hortense said. When I quit smoking, after some weeks, a bit of the herb superb did wonders to satisfy the desire for smoke in the lungs. And it's not like you can smoke those by the pack. :-))

I don't know the commercial herbal cigarettes. But I do point out that the tobacco-cigarette addiction is not only about nicotine. It's about the physical habit of smoking, and about the smoke in the lungs. Anything coming in a pack is going to lend itself too much to keeping you on that physical habit, as well as the smoke habit. You'll only have kicked nicotine (not that that isn't worthwhile).

Instead, have a little bit of the recommended herb, and get some exercise. They go well together, and you'll be better off all around.
posted by Goofyy at 3:59 AM on June 25, 2008

MY BAD. Not hortense, baphomet.
posted by Goofyy at 3:59 AM on June 25, 2008

It took me six tries or so to quit smoking cigarettes for good. I finally quit when I discovered that replacements for cigarettes -- non-nicotine nasty herbal cigarettes, to be specific -- reliably led me back to the American Spirits.
posted by M.C. Lo-Carb! at 8:02 AM on June 25, 2008

Don't smoke cloves as an alternative (just in case you were thinking of it)- most of them contain 50% or more tobacco and are bad for you in all sorts of other ways.
posted by rmless at 8:49 AM on June 25, 2008

Thanks for all the great posts.

M.C. Lo-Carb! - I can see how it can function as a slippery slope back to the original addiction.
posted by fantasticninety at 6:47 PM on June 25, 2008