Well, the key point is that bitter almonds only smell like cyanide because… they actually contain a lot of cyanide. And they kinda don’t normally really smell like cyanide, anyway! And certainly the statement primes people to think that cyanide smells almondy, when the actual smell is quite different from what most people expect.
I think the video makes a quite compelling case that teachers etc should really stop telling students about the “smelling like (bitter) almonds” thing. It’s not useful, and in fact potentially very dangerous if it gives people a false sense of security.
