While smoking paper is less harmful than smoking tobacco, inhaling any sort of smoke is unhealthy. It is more dangerous to smoke paper with ink or other chemicals on it than untreated paper.

Normal paper lacks the addictive and cancer-causing characteristics of traditional tobacco, making it a healthier choice; nonetheless, it is still not recommended. It is difficult to estimate the precise effects of smoking paper without knowing the origin of the paper, its manufacturing, and the chemicals employed in the process. Depending on these variables, the mixture of particles and gases produced by smoking paper changes. When smoked, paper highly coated with ink or other chemicals can form a more toxic mixture.

Even if a piece of paper has no ink or other chemicals, smoking it will still result in smoke inhalation, which can cause long-term harm to the lungs. Although less severe than smoke inhalation generated by an actual fire, smoking paper can nonetheless induce discomfort and asphyxiation. Smoking a little bit of paper is unlikely to create any immediate health issues, but smoking huge amounts of paper over an extended period of time can induce lung damage. The safest choice is to never smoke.