[Weelok]

Good question and I've seen it discussed before but not by what I would perceive as experts and that would require someone study it and it's hard enough to find anyone studying cigars as it is. My thoughts are it's not a problem unless you have an allergy to the mold. Basically, mold is mold. Your not eating it, your burning it. While it may taste and smell horrible, by the very nature of you burning it your not inhaling the spores but you can guarantee some spore excitation so your going to inhale some hence the allergy component.

People live around and eat mold all the time and it basically comes down to whether or not your allergic to that particular mold. Most cigar mold will be on the level of a food type of mold or your typical black varieties. As CigarJournal noted though, what people typically call mold is often just mineral particulates but if left unattended, i.e. you love white spotty ploom and cheer it along to grow, then mold will grow on the particulates and at that point, you've got a mess. Your best bet is to wipe off all that surface junk, clip the foots if you see it plooming out of the foot etc. I've smoked Grayclifs that were starting to grow stuff out of the foot and I just clipped them back and lit it up. I've got allergies that make grown men tremble and I didn't have any problems.

I'll be damned if I'm surrendering a cigar to whatever crap that wants to take it from me. I'll plug beetle holes, wipe my cigars and purge it with fire and a smile.