Yes, you can smoke lemongrass, and some people do. It burns easily when dried, produces a mild citrusy flavor, and contains compounds with calming properties. But “can” and “should” are different questions. While lemongrass is nontoxic and recognized as safe for food use by the FDA, no form of smoking is harmless to your lungs, and the relaxation benefits people seek from lemongrass are available through safer methods.
Why People Smoke Lemongrass
Lemongrass shows up in herbal smoking blends marketed as tobacco-free and nicotine-free alternatives. It contains no nicotine and no addictive compounds. People use it as a base herb in rolled blends, sometimes mixed with other plants like mullein or damiana, or smoke it on its own in a pipe.
The appeal comes down to two things: flavor and effect. Dried lemongrass produces a light, slightly sweet smoke with a citrus note. It also contains terpenes, particularly citral, myrcene, and geraniol, that have documented calming effects. These compounds interact with the same receptors in the brain that anti-anxiety medications target. They increase the activity of a neurotransmitter called GABA, which slows down nerve signaling and produces a sense of relaxation. In aromatherapy studies, inhaling lemongrass essential oil lowered blood pressure, heart rate, and anxiety scores in participants.
So the calming reputation isn’t made up. The question is whether smoking is the right delivery method.
What Happens When You Inhale Plant Smoke
Any time you combust plant material and inhale the result, you’re pulling particulate matter, carbon monoxide, and tar into your lungs. This is true for tobacco, cannabis, sage, mullein, and lemongrass alike. The specific chemicals differ from plant to plant, but the basic problem is the same: burning organic matter creates irritants that inflame lung tissue over time.
Lemongrass doesn’t contain the thousands of added chemicals found in commercial cigarettes, and it has no nicotine, so it won’t create a dependency. That makes it meaningfully less dangerous than tobacco. But “less dangerous than cigarettes” is a low bar. There are no clinical studies measuring the particulate matter, toxins, or long-term respiratory effects of smoking lemongrass specifically. The absence of research doesn’t mean it’s safe. It means nobody has tested it.
Short-term, smoking lemongrass can cause throat irritation, coughing, and mild dizziness, especially if you’re not accustomed to inhaling smoke. People with asthma or other respiratory conditions are more likely to react poorly.
Allergies and Sensitivities
Lemongrass belongs to the Poaceae family, which includes common grasses. If you have grass pollen allergies, you may be more likely to react to lemongrass in any form. Allergic contact dermatitis has been documented from lemongrass essential oil exposure, and at least one case involved a recurrence of skin symptoms just from drinking lemongrass tea. Inhaling the smoke would deliver those same compounds directly to sensitive mucous membranes, potentially triggering a stronger reaction. If your skin or sinuses react to lemongrass oil, smoking it is not a good idea.
How to Prepare It for Smoking
If you decide to try it, preparation matters. Fresh lemongrass stalks contain too much moisture to burn properly. You need to dry the leaves (the thin, blade-like portions, not the woody stalk) until they’re crisp enough to crumble between your fingers. Spread them in a single layer in a warm, dry area with airflow for several days, or use a food dehydrator on a low setting. Once dry, break the leaves into small pieces and remove any thick veins or fibrous strands that won’t burn evenly.
Most people use lemongrass as part of a blend rather than smoking it alone, because it can burn hot and taste harsh in large quantities. A small pinch in a pipe or mixed with other dried herbs in a rolling paper is the typical approach. Start with a very small amount to see how your throat and lungs respond before committing to a full bowl or roll.
Better Ways to Get the Calming Effects
The terpenes responsible for lemongrass’s relaxation benefits don’t need to be combusted to work. Aromatherapy delivers them through simple inhalation of the essential oil, and the clinical evidence supporting lemongrass’s anti-anxiety effects comes from aromatherapy studies, not smoking studies. A few drops of lemongrass essential oil in a diffuser, or even on a cotton ball near your pillow, exposes you to the same active compounds without any particulate matter entering your lungs.
Lemongrass tea is another straightforward option. Steeping fresh or dried leaves in hot water extracts citral and other terpenes effectively. Oral consumption of lemongrass has been shown to promote relaxation through multiple pathways: it encourages blood vessels to dilate, calms nervous system activity, and mildly supports the body’s fluid balance. The FDA classifies lemongrass as generally recognized as safe for food use, and it’s widely used in beverages, baked goods, and desserts worldwide.
If the ritual of smoking is part of the appeal, rather than the specific effects of lemongrass, a dry herb vaporizer set to a low temperature will release terpenes without full combustion. This reduces (though doesn’t eliminate) the harmful byproducts you’d inhale from burning the plant directly.