The curandero I work with has said, "mapacho in the cheek or stomach, good; mapacho in the lungs, not so good". So I try to cheek smoke when I use mapacho, although I really have no idea how to do that or if I'm doing it right
That said, I have felt absolutely zero addictive pull in working with it. It's led me to question everything I was taught about tobacco during the Just Say No & DARE years. Of course working with mapacho is so completely different than cigarette smoking:
- Subjectively, mapacho use is intentional, usually with a mindset of prayer or healing; cigarette smoking is habitual, often with an unconscious/default mindset.
- Objectively, mapacho is a different species of tobacco and free of additives; cigarettes are laced with hundreds of different additives, many of which are particularly nasty and unhealthful. ETA: mapacho is at least in some traditions not inhaled into the lungs the way cigarette smokers in our culture smoke. It's also worked with in other ways such as nasal snuffs and infusions.
- Intersubjectively, mapacho use originates from a tribal cultural context and is held as a powerful, sacred ally. Cigarette smoking in our culture is held as an unhealthful, shameful addiction.
- Interobjectively, mapacho use occurs mostly in ceremonies and during private prayer, etc. Cigarettes are produced by corporations for profit, distributed as consumer commodities, and smoked casually at any time.
I suspect that somewhere in these types of differences—probably mostly additives, cultural story, and perhaps the magnification of corporate intent by the tobacco—is the difference between something addictive and something not.