<p>This is a tradition at my sons’ all-male private high school. Son#1 turned green around the gills after puffing on a cigar. We had to get his suit dry-cleaned immediately, because the odor reminded him of that bad experience. Son#2 graduates in 2 weeks and I expect it will go the same!</p>
<p>Well, I will admit that H shares cigars with both sons pretty regularly–maybe once every couple of months. They do have to smoke outside only, but I don’t think we would see any turning green about the gills. They seem pretty comfortable with a good cigar; a nice selection always makes an easy father’s day or Christmas gift from the boys to dad, at which he turns around and shares. I don’t mind it. However, I didn’t see it at graduation. It is more at an home thing while chatting out on the deck or by the pool. Doesn’t anybody smoke cigars anymore? I didn’t realize it was so unusual. Also, it’s not illicit for an 18-year old, I don’t think.</p>
<p>Graduates light up cigars at graduation parties, but not immediately afterwards.</p>
<p>Cigars aren’t that big of a deal here, though, because almost everyone smokes them already.</p>
<p>It wasn’t a tradition at my school to smoke cigars after graduation (at least in a large group), but my friends and I (whose families [or at least fathers] enjoy the occasional cigar) did to celebrate. I do know, however, that at some private schools my friends here (Princeton) attended, it was.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s stupid, and I don’t think it’s harmful in any way.</p>
<p>The worst that is likely to befall the kids is some nausea, because for those that don’t smoke (or haven’t smoked much in the past) there is in fact a lot of nicotine in cigars, and the nicotine high can be very overpowering the first (or first couple of) time(s).</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of this tradition either and it doesn’t exist here in Vermont in my neck of the woods. </p>
<p>I do recall in the old old days, there was a tradition (not around here but generally speaking) of cigars at the birth of a baby being given out (like ellemenope mentioned). </p>
<p>I think today it is more prevalent to drink or smoke something else at graduation celebrations. Then again, here we have Project Graduation where the entire class goes off all night on a supervised trip/activities with NO alcohol or smokes or anything like that. Most kids attend.</p>
<p>No such tradition here in Oregon, either. What a stinky “tradition.”</p>
<p>Cigars are big fad right now, like hookah bars. Both my sons smoked cigars at college freshman year - big social experience among the guys and a few girls. Cigars showed up at graduation parties too. If your kid isn’t a smoker now, though, it’s not a habit he or she is likely to pick up. Besides, the good cigars are expensive! My sons learned how to handle a cigar cutter, etc. I was amused when they went to the cigar bar on a cruise to sit with the old guys and have a cigar. Their interest in cigars lasted about a year and then faded away.</p>
<p>Our HS issues the same guidelines. No inflatable pool toys being passed around during the ceremony (6’ sharks have been a favorite, but beach balls are typical), no frisbees, no blowing bubbles, etc. Every class tries to outdo the next.</p>
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<p>Isn’t this the truth!</p>
<p>Never heard of this tradition. Our graduation is held at a large sports arena in a nearby city with another school’s grad. directly following ours. There really is no time for standing around afterwards and doing anything!</p>
<p>Alright, I am willing to get crucified again on this forum (recently I suggested that teenage/college student sexual activity was normal, healthy, and should be treated as such and received much anger from parents). Go ahead. Let them smoke a cigar. One cigar will not give them lung cancer or make them an addict. Plus, think about the alternative…you don’t want them to pop open the champagne or spray paint Class of 08 on the school. Cigars are ultimately harmless, and while the official position should be 'no (to make the rebellion sweeter) the school should turn a blind eye.</p>
<p>DHRBC07,</p>
<p>Do you hear what you’re saying? Cigars are ultimately harmless? Tell that to the entire medical community. By the way, one cigar can potentially make a person addicted. People are different and their bodies will react to smoking a cigar differently.</p>
<p>Smoking is a nasty, nasty practice, and the ones who push it (every time) are addicts themselves who want others to join their miserable club. Ultimately this post-graduation ceremony is simply about looking “cool” and making smoking seem acceptable – something you’d do to celebrate can’t be that bad, can it?. Tobacco is one of the most addictive substances known to man. I should know – I grew up in a smoking household. Lighten up? Absolutely not.</p>
<p>I don’t think that there is a big chance that one time cigar smoking is going to turn someone into an addict (although perhaps that could happen) but I think it’s a stinky, disgusting habit and is just as bad as cigarette smoking. My father has emphysema as a direct result of 40 years of smoking and I don’t take any kind of smoking with a wink and a nod. </p>
<p>Thankfully, no smoking on school property of any kind at our HS and our ceremony is held in the gym. Our school throws a snacks and punch party in the cafeteria afterwards - a newish tradition that the whole family participates in.</p>
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<p>This tradition is still alive and not just relegated to the Fifties…</p>
<p>As for the HS graduation celebration…not a tradition where I grew up, but I did graduate right at the tail end of the cigar smoking fad, so there were some people who were quite excited about doing it. My dad still enjoys cigars quite frequently, but I really didn’t see HS graduation as an accomplishment worthy of such prideful displays of celebration…I guess I was looking towards bigger and better things.</p>
<p>As for the people taking medical issues, a couple points.</p>
<p>1) It’s nicotine, not tobacco that’s addictive.
2) It’s the tobacco and associated additives, not the nicotine, which is the cause of the health issues associated with smoking.
3) While nicotine is pleasurable for a great number of people, it doesn’t produce the immense high of other drugs (ie cocaine or meth), so it’s exceedingly rare that someone is going to become addicted from the occasional cigar or cigarette.</p>
<p>In the end, this is probably a pretty harmless thing for the people participating (if it represents a single episode, which my guess for most kids it would be…as someone correctly pointed out, a real cigar is a lot for someone who doesn’t normally smoke), but given the public nuisance a smart decision by the school.</p>
<p>I’m not a big fan of cigars at graduation, but I recall it being a Deerfield tradition, predating co-education.</p>
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<p>Maybe you guys unaware of the mechanics of nicotine addiction, and why cigarettes are so addictive. While nicotine is indeed an extremely physically addictive drug, there is more to the story.</p>
<p>Cigarettes are inhaled. The smoke is thus delivered to the lungs, where the extremely efficient absorption of nicotine (and other poisons and chemicals) into the bloodstream occurs rapidly. This produces a very noticeable and very quick high (a few seconds after first inhale). Once the cigarette is done, however, nicotine peaks and begins to disappear from the bloodstream relatively quickly, leading to withdrawal very fast in someone who is addicted. This is the primary reason why cigarettes are so addictive, and is the same operating principle for why crack is more addictive than cocaine - the physical addictiveness of nicotine is combined in cigarettes with a delivery method that peaks and induces withdrawal quickly.</p>
<p>Cigars on the other hand, are generally not inhaled - except by former cigarette smokers generally, but they’re another story. Thus, nicotine is absorbed through the mucosal membranes of the mouth and throat, not through the lungs. This produces a more gradual nicotine high - and often an unpleasant one, since it’s harder to titrate nicotine dose when it’s absorbed through that route than when it’s being inhaled - and also a more gradual comedown. The slower onset and dissipation short circuits much of what is so addictive about cigarettes.</p>
<p>As for health issues, relative risk of all-cause mortality for 1-2 cigars per day smokers is 1.02 (1 being the general population average). That’s not exactly earth shattering and horrible or anything. Below 1-2 cigars per day little is known about risks, but you can extrapolate that they’re probably pretty minimal.</p>
<p>My point? Your kids aren’t all going to get cancer and die from smoking a single cigar. They probably won’t get addicted, either. You obviously don’t want them running off to become pack a day cigarette smokers or anything, but a cigar at graduation is about as harmless as it gets.</p>
<p>This is a very old tradition at the all male Jesuit school from which my boys graduated. Directly after the ceremony, they all congregrated out in the school courtyard and shared a “celebratory” single cigar. Lots of laughing, back slapping, arms around each others’ shoulders, picture taking … a complete male bonding thing. I enjoyed watching the tradition.</p>
<p>midwestmother: That’s funny, because I could swear that a good friend of mine (who graduated from a private school that was all boys, and, I’m pretty sure, Jesuit, in D.C.) has an album on Facebook from his graduation of doing exactly that.</p>
<p>As far as I know, we don’t have any routines like that, but we do decorate our robes beforehand.</p>
<p>Sorry to tell the poster who talked about flavored cigars, but those are meant to be split open and turned into blunts. Nobody smokes swishers, white owls, or optimos with the tobacco inside them.</p>
<p>No one is forcing anyone to light up and by the time a person graduates high school they are an adult and should have the responsibility to make their own decisions.</p>