Health

Hip health freaks think smoking is cool again

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Down the road from Navy Beach and overlooking Fort Pond Bay in Montauk is a bungalow that from afar appears to have the trappings of a wellness retreat: Massage tables pepper the lawn, and yoga mats are set up on the patio. But the houseguests staying here aren’t your standard healthy hippies. Clad in Gucci slip-ons and cutoffs, they’re all smoking cigarettes, and the host of the house, Hestia Tobacco founder David Sley, encourages that.

Sley, a 33-year-old ex-Wall Streeter who’s smoked cigars since he was 15, launched Hestia in 2013. The company’s small-batch “cigarillos” are made with tobacco grown on organic farms in the South and rolled in retardant-free 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.”

Hestia Tobacco founder David SleyZandy Mangold

These days, it seems like where there’s smoke, there are pretty young things. A July report by 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 co-ed bathroom was packed with a who’s who of Hollywood — including Bella Hadid (a face of fitness behemoth Nike) and “50 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 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.

April Francis — here enjoying a cigarette with a massage — likens smoking to a “meditation practice.”Zandy Mangold

“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 — had significantly 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, according to 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.”

Jennifer Castillo offers Hestia Tobacco products at Surf Lodge.Madison Mcgaw/BFA provided by Hestia Tobacco

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.”

— Additional reporting by Christian Gollayan

Ashley ArensonZandy Mangold