I thought the cigarette smoking was one of the more entertaining aspects of Atomic Blonde. Unfortunately.
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My friend McClosetHead used to run a smoking machine in a test lab. It was used to rate the efficacy of various cigarette filters.
Cutting to the chase, the end result was that cotton filters and poly filters are pretty much the same unless you smoke the fag down to the dogend, at which point you’d really rather be smoking unfiltered.
Marijuana smoke delivers (very roughly) similar amounts of various known carcinogens, albeit a different selection, to cigarettes when smoked. This isn’t really surprising, it’s SMOKE; you’re not really set up to breathe the stuff. The anti-carcinogenic properties of many cannabinoids, however, tend to negate the elevated cancer risk from the other components of the smoke, thus the only barely-elevated numbers for actual lung cancer amongst marijuana smokers.
That said: It IS smoke, and breathing smoke simply isn’t good for you. For example, as an inveterate weed smoker for decades (since my teens; I’m 47 now), I’ve started to develop the symptoms of early COPD, which is supposedly contraindicated by cannabinoids’ anti-inflammatory properties. I smoke nothing else.
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I’d say drawing the smoke through fibers is a lot closer to smoke going into and out of alveoli, and not at all the same as going over the surface of some meat… on the one hand, he could have done it in cycles, like breathing in, breathing out, and the accumulation would have been slower, on the other hand, not many smokers smoke one pack in a few hours and then stop for life. On the third hand, lungs are somewhat self cleansing, at least when healthy, on the fourth hand, not that much tho.
Finally, cotton doesn’t get cancer from Polonium 210 resting on it, emitting alpha particles right into living cells. Lungs do, and tobacco leaves for some reason have an affinity for Polonium.
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Dude coulda just gone to a Bodyworlds exhibit, shot some quick video of the smokers’ lungs, posted that, and saved himself a lot of trouble. Plus he’d have seen a bunch of other cool stuff at the same time.
Reminded of Spagett:
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Vape fluids are typically based on glycerin, and while glycerinn itself is harmless, I’d be afraid of of some byproducts of heating it. Acrolein is particularly nasty:
It probably wouldn’t stain the cotton balls, but I wonder if it would polymerize on them?
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So glad I just FINISHED eating 
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On reflection, maybe that video was a bit grotesque.
The first time I saw it though, all I could think was, Wait is that what lungs look like?
I had only ever seen line drawings or still photos. Lungs in action are very different.
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I wonder what animal that is?
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Obligs:
I was a smoker for 5 years many years ago, about a pack a day. I quit cold turkey at the insistence of my girlfriend.
Funny thing is watching that machine smoke gave me an intense yet brief pang of craving.
Those look like Parliaments or some other brand that has a recess in the filter. I used to smoke those.
While smoking anything is bad for your lungs, you’re probably not going to be smoking 20 joints a day, unless you’re the dude in that one song.
You cough some of it up. A friend of mine used to call it “throat oysters in lung sauce…” That image alone should deter anyone from smoking.
And when you quit, your lung motility suddenly increases drastically (I guess because smoking slows it way down?), and you start to cough up brown phlegm for a couple of days.
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I smoked for 17 years and dont believe in prohibiting it like the other illicit substances. I think people have to be convinced that its a dangerous habit. I quit after seeing the smokers in my family dying of horrible smoking related diseases. I realized I was likely to suffer a similar fate. I dont think forcing people to quit is the way to go.
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Weed smoke is pretty gross too, it has an even thicker, sappy residue. But aside from that, city people breathe in all kinds of crap from automotive exhausts and other air pollution. Country folk breathe in pollen, manure particles, fungal spores, etc. All of our lungs have gross stuff in them. It seems kind of self-evident that if you repeatedly breathe something in, some of it might be in your lungs. Doesn’t really need a demonstration with a machine to make that point. Except for those in a hermetically sealed environment breathing only purified filtered air, all our lungs are doomed.
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Ahhh Hah hah hah hah
Trust me, you don’t want to know!
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Wow thanks. I had no idea smoking was bad!!!
This is the main reason i never took up smoking really. Never really gave a monkeys about the health risks, but OH GOD THE STENCH. Even the smoke itself is vile, but stale smoke smell is a magnitude worse IMHO.
I do remember being amazed by the tobacco cabinet when i worked at a local convenience store though, it smelt fantastic! Why oh why would you set fire to it? 
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Never really thought about it, and then I kissed a smoker. I felt like I was licking an ash tray… Fuck. that. shit.
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