Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2017/09/14/guy-makes-a-cigarette-smoking.html
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If you look at the video he hollowed out all of the filters. This is misleading at best.
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Now please do the same with the various ways to inhale cannabis. I’m honestly curious if my liberal tendency to be pro-legalization still promotes tissue residue.
Might as well test hookah and vaping while you’re at it.
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I remember seeing this exact same demo in middle school back in the early 1970s or so.
We had to go to the gym for an “Assembly” which consisted of an Anti-Smoking Campaign.
They showed a film of a healthy lung vs a smoker’s lung.
There was a guy in a Lab Coat doing this demo on a table in front of us.
After the film, one girl ran out of the gym, crying because her parents were smokers and she thought they were going to cut their lungs out.
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Here’s another vid complete with tar result at the end that needs to be seen by those who still question the effects.
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Nasty, very.
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I think Bill Nye did something like this on his show (the old one, not the Netflix one) as well.
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I think the science is in on smoking being bad for you…I question if cotton balls and glass are equivalent to the structure of your lungs.
Perhaps its analogous, but it feels a lot like the “this is your brain, this is your brain on drugs” argument.
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That being said I can hear one argument from a smoker that says the experiment captured ALL the smoke while a “real smoker” exhales it.
/devil’s advocate
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Or dissolving teeth in Coke. You could just show some actual lung damage anyway.
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Q: Would anything happen if the bottle vaped instead? I know it isn’t as bad as smoking, but it isn’t JUST water vapor. Do the cotton balls stain, or does it just grow a beard and start wearing a weird hat?
Nah, because your brain isn’t literally frying, but smoking is putting shit in your lungs. Does all of what ever that is stay in your lungs or is later expelled or absorbed? Probably. It isn’t a perfect analogy of how how our lungs work. But it does show how “dirty” smoking is.
And the science is one thing. But numbers and percentages don’t really do much for most people. Like people are still afraid of things or not afraid of things, even if they have been demonstrated to be safe or dangerous. Showing how it is “icky” might turn some off to not even try it.
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So, they might see it as a jar half empty?
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like I said…it sets up the same analogy in my head. frying your brain, staining and damaging your lungs…I get it.
I just wondered why he picked cotton balls to stand in. Why not use something like Tripe, or beef lung? Or is there a synthetic material like how ballistics gel stands in for muscle tissue.
Just curious.
I wish I could find the link for you (I’ve looked for it before), but a few years ago I read an article on a pulmonologist – I think the lead one at NIDA studying cannabis – who ended up quitting his job for ethical reasons. He was being paid to show that cannabis is bad for the lungs, and he (as one of the world’s leading experts on it) couldn’t find that it did.
That said, if one is a frequent user of cannabis, it’s probably to consume it in as cleanly a way as possible.
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They showed a film of a healthy lung vs a smoker’s lung.
We got actual human lung samples, healthy and smokers version. The smokers lung was black and bubbly looking. It was a police officer who brought it in, I seem to remember. Somewhere around grade four.
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I’d call it a “visual metaphor.” It may not be science, but it is a visceral demonstration!
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Because those things won’t show a stark contrast, and may not even stain with only one pack.
Yes it is a little gimmicky, but I don’t think its on the same level as the “brain on drugs” PSA. It is just showing you that the smoke leaves crud in you.
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How would you get dead meat to breathe?
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He didn’t get the cotton to breathe…he used a pump to pull the smoke over the material. He could have done the same with anything else.
I agree with @Mister44 more than likely this was what would show a dramatic change rapidly and with relative ease. I get it and do not disagree.
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The cannabis thing is interesting (and related to the validity of the demonstration in question) in that it really seems to result in disproportionately little damage to the lungs, despite the smoke itself being generally even “thicker” and harsher than tobacco smoke. I’ve heard the anti-inflammatory properties of THC and lack of various shady admixtures/burn modifiers cited as the reason - Which seems to suggest specific chemical compounds are the culprit and the staining itself is really mostly just a red herring.
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