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Can you be a vegan and smoke cigarettes?

I ask the question because I saw many people using clothes with vegan logos and making vegan campaign smoking cigarettes. I've seen sites that say cigarettes are not vegan, however. Are cigarettes consistent with vegan principles, why or why not?

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    You list two cases where it would typically not be considered vegan: 1) if the cigarattes contain animal-derived ingredients, 2) if the manufacturer tests on animals. The answer to these would be a simple "these cigarattes are not vegan", no? -- So I wonder if you really ask about the case of cigarettes that don’t contain animal ingredients and where the manufacturer doesn’t test on animals?
    – unor
    Apr 25, 2018 at 5:40
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    This reads more like a statement than a question. I suggest to either change it as per unor's suggestion or rethink what it is that you actually want to ask. In its current form I think it should be closed.
    – Alexander Rossa
    Apr 25, 2018 at 10:28
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    I'm going to edit this so you're just asking a question. The vast majority is an answer that you included in the question box ;) Please take that content and write your own answer, though -- that's totally fine given the rules of our site, and avoids including a position in the Question that other users would want to argue for/against.
    – Erica
    Apr 25, 2018 at 15:08
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    @Erica thanks and sorry if I didn't ask it correctly. I just want to know why people who consider themselves vegan consume this kind of products.
    – the-breaker
    Apr 25, 2018 at 17:37
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    Sure -- it's ok to ask whether something is vegan, but along why some vegans are consuming a non vegan product isn't answerable (maybe they don't know, maybe they don't care, maybe they grow their own tobacco to avoid the ethical issues, there are any number of possibilities!) because we can't know what they think, know, or believe :) So any answer about those individuals' behavior would be subjective guesswork.
    – Erica
    Apr 25, 2018 at 17:41

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For veganism, I can think of three possible issues with smoking cigarettes:

  • The cigarettes might contain animal-derived ingredients.
  • The cigarette manufacturer might test the cigarettes on animals.
  • Smoking the cigarettes might harm nearby animals (e.g., pets) and humans.

So, assuming such cigarettes exist (no animal testing, no animal ingredients), it should be vegan to smoke cigarettes as long as the smoker doesn’t smoke near humans (unless they consent to passive smoking) and animals.

Do such cigarettes exist? It seems so. For example, this German PDF from 2015 (article) lists which manufacturers and brands were/weren’t vegan at that time.

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