But recently organisations, like the American Lung Association and the World Health Organisation, have been taking steps to shed light on what they refer to as a `dangerous pastime'.

Last week WHO released a study which revealed that smoke from cigars could be just as damaging to someone's health as cigarette smoke.

And a top tobacco fighter at the WHO urged world governments to treat cigars and pipes like cigarettes -- with advertising bans, strict health warnings and high taxes.

The study found cigar smokers were nine times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers.

The report by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a research arm of the WHO, was the first large-scale European study to prove the high risks of cigar smoking.

The study examined 5,621 men with lung cancer and 7,255 men who did not have the disease at seven different centres in Germany, Italy and Sweden.

The WHO was particularly concerned about non-smokers breathing smoke from other peoples' cigars.

Here are some health facts on cigar smoking: Cigars, just like cigarettes, contain nicotine which has been deemed an addictive drug. Smokers become physically addictive to nicotine and the fact that they tend to link smoking with many social activities make it a difficult habit to break; Cigars are a major source of secondhand smoke and secondhand smoke causes serious health concerns. Secondhand smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals of which 200 are poisonous and 43 cause cancer; While the lung cancer risk is lower for cigar smokers than cigarette smokers, that risk increases with more frequent cigar smokers.

Source: The American Lung Association and the WHO.