[qb45]

Trivia:

Polonium-210 in tobacco contributes to many of the cases of lung cancer worldwide. Most of this polonium is derived from lead-210 deposited on tobacco leaves from the atmosphere; the lead-210 is a product of radon-222 gas, much of which appears to originate from the decay of radium-226 from fertilizers applied to the tobacco soils.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polonium#Tobacco

[zymhan]

Would organic tobacco avoid the issue of Polonium then?

[qb45]

That's an interesting question because it's the first time I hear about radium in artificial fertilizers. Will need to dig into these Wikipedia sources.

That tobacco contains lead and polonium had been known for decades, but I used to think that it originated from the decay of natural atmospheric radon and these plants just had some unusual tendency to accumulate heavy metals.

Maybe I should put my tinfoil hat on and run away from non-organic food too?

edit:

From the first source:

Tobacco farmers in developed countries primarily use manufactured fertilizer high in phosphates produced from apatite rock that contains radium-226 and descendant radioisotopes such as lead-210 and PO-210. Tobacco is a unique agricultural crop in that its flavor depends on nitrogen reduction, which occurs through the repeated application of high-phosphate fertilizers. The higher the phosphate level of the fertilizer, the higher the concentration of PO-210 in the tobacco plant. Tobacco grown in certain developing countries has approximately one third less radioactivity than tobacco grown in developed countries, and the radioactivity of tobacco grown in the United States has increased over time.

So maybe you are right.

[searine]

The USDA Organic label allows for mined phosphate and potassium to be used on organic farms.

[Raphmedia]

The safest way possible to smoke tobacco is to grow it yourself.

The small yields will limit you to smoking only a few time a month.

You will want to taste that homegrown tobacco so you will most likely invest in a good old wooden pipe. This will make it so that you don't inhale the smoke into your lungs.

You will however still be at risk of mouth and throat cancer.

[hfsktr]

How would using a pipe prevent you from inhaling the smoke?

I have never used one (but I was always curious when I smoked) so maybe it's a silly question.

[Raphmedia]

When smoking a pipe or cigar the way to do it is to fill your mouth with smoke and then blow it out. You don't inhale it.

[hueving]

So the "you don't inhale it" part of that has absolutely nothing to do with the properties of the pipe/cigar. You can easily inhale on both and you can also choose not to inhale with a cigarette.

[Raphmedia]

You can with a cigarette but it won't be any fun. Pipe enthusiasts will pay premium to smoke different blends of tobacco. It's all about the taste, the quality of the smoke and the ability to sit in a rocking chair and relax.

The best comparaison would be downing a shot of jager bomb vs. a nice glass of single malt whiskey that you will sip for an hour.

[teilo]

Unless you are also a cigarette smoker as well, and many of them do inhale cigars and pipes.

[Raphmedia]

No need. Nicotine is absorbed by the soft tissues of the mouth. Inhaling prevents you from "correctly" smoking a pipe.

Take a look at this (formatting mine):

"The Breath Smoking Technique

It requires a relaxed setting, preferably sedentary and a very slow and calm breathing pattern.

The pipe bit is held to the lips continuously and all breathing is through the nose.

Every 2nd or 3rd slow breath through the nose, a tiny puff is taken through the stem, held in the mouth and slowly, very slowly, discharged back through the stem, raising but the faintest wisp of smoke from the top of the tobacco bowl, and then re-drawn back through the stem.

One does NOT inhale the smoke, but if one gets very good at it, one does not even have to puff: the slight vacuum created in the mouth by nose breathing will draw the finest of puffs through the stem.

The blowing back through the stem is alternated with regular, but very slight puffs so that the whole process of smoking seems as natural, regular and effortless as breathing.

I'm sure many smokers have discovered this technique, or variations of it, on their own.

The advantages are that mastering it will produce the coolest and most flavorful smoke possible, and the slow regular breathing will invoke the calmness and clarity of mind to perceive the results at their fullest."

- http://www.glpease.com/Articles/BreathSmoking.html

That being said, it's all a matter of preference. You can smoke a pipe like a cigarette if it makes you happy. There is no pipe police.

[JoeAltmaier]

There's a risk from radioactive elements in the tobacco, from the air which in turn is from the fertilizer used. Maybe growing it yourself doesn't change this risk?

[Raphmedia]

I did say "safest" and not "safe". Combusting tobacco is the worst way to get nicotine.

[searine]

No, mined phosphorus has radioactive elements in it.

Mining and it's by products are perfectly "organic".

[qb45]

Most mining products are very much inorganic, oil being a notable exception ;)

[pboutros]

Only if organic fertilizer is immune to that.

[zymhan]

Yeah, I suppose a better question is what fertilizer is used on organic tobacco.

But u/searine mentioned that mined phosphate can be used on organic crops so maybe organic tobacco won't avoid the problem.

[Alex3917]

Keep in mind that the majority of tobacco deaths aren't cancer related.

[ghurtado]

Heart disease?

[Obi_Juan_Kenobi]

https://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/heal...

There's a good table of this about halfway down the page.

Looks like cancer is the single largest cause, accounting for about 2/5ths of the deaths.

[zymhan]

So a plurality. GP is splitting hairs then.

[amelius]

So wouldn't other crops have this problem? I.e., the stuff we eat every day?

[Alex3917]

Because tobacco has sticky trichromes, whereas for every other crop the radioactivity just washes off after it rains.

[hbosch]

Is this, then, also true for marijuana?

[Alex3917]

It would be if marijuana were grown in open fields and fertized by crop dusters. As of right now most weed is fertilized by hand so the fertilizer doesn't get on the flowers.

[qb45]

It's not that simple, plants can pull all kinds of crap from the ground too.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25254600

The next link is the first source for the Wikipedia paragraph I originally quoted. They say that somebody found about half of the polonium contained in tobacco to be inside of the leaves.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2509609/

But then, it doesn't say much about marijuana buds because accumulation varies between plant species and parts of the same plant.

[ambicapter]

Why is there radium in the fertilizer?

[searine]

Because phosphorus is a mined resource and radium/uranium/thorium comes along with it.

[JoeAltmaier]

Naturally-occurring? Bananas have radioactive potassium for instance. Somehow the biological process (banana plant/animal digestion) must concentrate it.

[maxerickson]

The banana plant extracts potassium from the soil and deposits it in the banana, but it doesn't do anything to change the isotopic ratio, the makeup of the potassium in the banana will match the makeup of the potassium in the soil.

The plant might put a higher percentage of potassium in the fruit than exists in the soil, or it might not. So it isn't clear if it concentrates it (it certainly makes it more appealing to consume it).

I'm not sure if that matches your meaning or not.

[agumonkey]

And we only hear about partial combustion harmful byproducts..