SMOKIN’ HAUTE?
Studies show that social smoking kills, yet young, otherwise healthy New Yorkers are convinced an occasional cig is no worse than a cocktail
DOWN the road from Navy Beach and overlooking Fort Pond Bay ininn MontaukM is a bungalow ththat,ha from afar, appears too hhave the trappings of a wewellness retreat: Massage tatablesab pepper the lawn, anandnd yoga mats are set upup on the patio. But the houhouseguests staying here aren’trre your standard healthy hippiepies. Clad in cutoffs and Gucci sliponons,n they’re all smoking cigarettes, anandnd the host of the house, Hestia TTobTobacco founder David Sley, encourages that.
Sley, a 33-year-old ex-Wall Streeter who’s smoked cigars since he was 15, launched Hestia in 2010. The company’s small-batch “cigarillos” are made with tobacco grown on organic farms in the South and rolled in flame-retardantfree natural papers with a nontoxic filter. Sley says the cigs are made for people like him, who eat kale and shop at Whole Foods: “People who put care and intention in their bodies.” These days, it seems like where there’s smoke, there are pretty young things. A report this month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that tobacco use in movies shot up 72 percent between 2010 and 2016. And at the ultra-exclusive Met Gala in May, the coed bathroom was packed with a who’s who of Hollywood — including Bella Hadid (a face of fitness behemoth Nike) and “Fifty Shades of Grey” star Dakota Johnson — lighting up. But many youths who partake
in social smoking don’t consider themselves actual smokers. In fact, they see smoking a cigarette as being akin to indulging in dessert or a cocktail.
“Young people are smoking again,” says 28-year-old Ludovica Capobianco, an art curator from Chinatown who formerly lived in Milan. “I think a cigarette is like a glass of wine. Of course, if you drink 10 glasses of wine per day, you’re gonna ruin your liver. But if you have one or two glasses every now and then, that’s fine,” she says, adding that prescription drugs can be “way worse” for your health than the occasional cig.
Thirty-two-year-old Ashley Arenson, who splits her time between Bushwick and Berlin and was spending the weekend at the Hestia house, has a similar take. “People put a lot of things in their bodies that are very bad for them,” the meditation practitioner, who works in the art world, says. “I choose to smoke cigarettes. I know it’s still a cigarette — I don’t drink a lot. I think that balances it out. When people say, ‘You shouldn’t smoke so much,’ I’m like, ‘You shouldn’t drink so much — it’s really bad for you.’ Or, ‘Don’t eat so much processed wheat.’ ”
Doctors aren’t letting hipsters’ health delusions slide.
“Bottom line: healthy diet, you exercise and you smoke? That’s better than smoking without those other positives, but stopping smoking is, hands down, the best thing you can do for your health. It simply has no downside,” says Keith-Thomas Ayoob, an associate clinical professor in the Department of Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.
According to a study published in May in the American Journal of Health Promotion, all smokers — even those who indulge occasionally — have higher risks of hypertension and elevated cholesterol than nonsmokers. The study also found that there is no significant difference in risk factor between social smokers and regular smokers.
And cigarettes marketed as natural are just as bad for smokers, says a study published in the journal Tobacco Control in December 2016. “Inhaling burnt tobacco is harmful whether it’s organic, additive-free, or natural, it doesn’t matter,” lead study author Jennifer Pearson told Reuters.
But that doesn’t stop some Hestia patrons from putting the act of puffing on a pedestal.
“Cigarettes allow you to step out for a minute and recharge,” says Arenson. “When a person comes out for a smoke, you can have an amazing conversation.”
Even healing shaman Terrel Broussard, who led a Thai- massage workshop at the Hestia house last weekend, couldn’t resist copping a couple of packs to take home. “I’m intuitive about products,” he says. “I’ll try it — I’m not opposed to it.”
April Francis, an occasional smoker crashing at the Hestia house, insists that lighting up doesn’t stray far from her other healthy habits.
“The act of smoking is like a meditation practice. You’re consciously breathing in and exhaling,” says the 34-year-old Dose Market startup founder.
But not every millennial is sold on the self-styled safer smokes.
“I don’t think Marlboro is less healthy than an organic cigarette,” says Surf Lodge patron Hunter Gassman, a 24-year-old who lives in Columbus Circle and smokes Marlboro 27s. “There’s more than enough research to show smoking is not healthy.”
And he’s convinced the cigarette renaissance will be fleeting once the market becomes saturated. “Like anything else,” he says, “once they all smoke again, it’s going to become uncool.”
“The act of smoking is like a meditation practice. You’re consciously breathing in and exhaling.” — April Francis (pictured)