What are the benefit of not using tobacco?

Like so many things, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Cigarettes are so deadly for two reasons. One, because of the way they're smoked. That is, people are inhaling deep lungfuls of smoke all day. There's nothing special about tobacco. Inhaling smoke into your lungs is bad for you. Movie producers have gotten into the practice of using herbal cigarettes during shoots where smoking is portrayed. This is a ridiculous and absurd practice, based purely on politics, as inhaling any kind of smoke is bad for health, and herbal cigs may be worse, for all anyone knows.

The other reason is that the cigarettes most people, at least in the US, are smoking are only about sixty-percent tobacco. You can find quality, pure tobaccos, such as Dutch halfzware in tobacco stores, but it's still inhaled smoke. About seventy-percent of cigarette smokers end up with a smoking-related disease eventually.

As Paracelsus taught us, poison is in the dose. This applies to so-called second-hand smoke, as well. Many people are under the impression that the scientific case has been made for second-hand smoke. A little Googling, if not common sense, would disabuse the curious of that notion.

Quality cigars, on the other hand, are not inhaled. The mortality rate for cigar smokers from cancer is much, much lower than for cigarette smokers. If you go to, for instance, the CDC web site, you'll see everything about cigars except actual statistics. Curious omission, no?

Pipe smokers have the same mortality rate as non-smokers. Pipe smokers do not inhale. Statistics about pipe and cigar smokers is hard to come by, though.

Users of snus also have very low cancer mortality rates, similar to non-tobacco users.

You make a choice about tobacco. Are you willing to possibly trade a few years of your life for a few decades of tobacco enjoyment?