Promise?
something something something down here
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Maybe stoned people think you’re boring?
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This sentence has made my day, thanks!
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No, Gladwell is right. Smoking pot increases your Igon Values to dangerous levels.
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The guy sounds like a real gentleman! (In the BoingBoing sense, of course.)
(But seriously: it’s great that he took that approach rather than the ‘don’t use drugs, ever’ party line. It recognizes that some kids and adults do, and that some of them go into the mechanical trades, and you can at least chase harm reduction.)
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Wait, aren’t we all?!
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Holy Crap! You’re right.
It’s Patrick Swayze & Kurt Russell all over again.
*Also I stopped listening with these episodes as well. Too bad.
** On the upside I like Malcolm Gladwell again. (At least until I read this article.)
Gladwell has written several times claiming evidence of the dangers of smoking is exaggerated, only that was… tobacco. His name has also appeared in leaked lists of “third-party” message outlets; aka non-transparently paid people who sell the tobacco message.
And now he suggests that legal weed is bad, real bad.
I’m sure these are unrelated positions.
This story from 2011:
Possibly his game is putting a veneer of academic rigor on clickbait contrarianism. A pretty good racket, but in this case the 180* on smoking risk is just a little too neat for me.
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Yes… I think that is now the… four article about his misdeeds…
So, @reactionabe, I think we can safely say he’s problematic… where did you put that halibut?
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I think Abe went to bed. It’s up to you Mindy, go get that halibut for us!!
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Sounds like Malcolm was tripping on some really bad weed.
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Malcolm Gladwell’s books belong on the same shelf as The Secret.
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Roger that!
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Damn, you really are my sister from another mister.
Same exact thing with me; all the adults smoked while I was growing up, and so did all their friends.
I couldn’t smell it then, but once I was grown and not being inundated with that noxious stench perpetually, my olfactory senses eventually recovered. Cigarette smokers smell like stale garbage left out to bake in the sun, and they don’t even know it.
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I know occasional cigarette smokers who smoke only outside and mindful of the wind direction. But chain smokers smell like ashtrays as do their vehicles and homes. 
Yup. While I agree with people that Gladwell would write ignorant cherry-picked drivel just to sell books, I don’t see him turning down money from industries looking to leverage his unfortunate reach, and the evidence for it is abundant enough for me to believe he probably does.
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One of my parents’ church friends babysat me for a summer when my mom returned to work. The couple were chainsmokers, but she kept an extremely clean house, and used a shit-ton of Lysol “air deodorizer”.
Think of stale garbage left out to bake in the sun, in a puddle of Lysol.
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There is nothing so stinky and cloying as American cigarettes, from what I’ve seen.
Just about any other continent, the average cigarette is less offensive. Cigars on average, although the smell lingers, even the cheap ones do not smell so bad. Roll-your-own tobacco like American Spirit, same deal. Pipe tobacco, it sticks around for quite a while but does not smell bad, sticky, heavy.
Now, my tobacco smoking is limited. But I really feel like the US-based Big Tobacco is still pulling horrifying shenanigans to make their products more addictive. I can’t prove it, of course. Just a feeling based on how much more awful their products are based on my own senses.
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That’s my mom; 3 packs of Kool Kings per day.
No, I’m not even exaggerating, before anyone asks.
Conversely, most cigar and pipe smoke doesn’t bother me as long as it’s not excessive, or directly in my face. Hand rolled cigs don’t smell as bad, but’s still not great.
Narrator: “They are.”
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I’d say it’s a safe assumption. Big Tobacco is basically the monetization of slow mass health deterioration with a side of mass murder. They knew it and they worked to cover it up. I don’t see companies like that suddenly stopping just because they’re forced to put warnings on their cancer sticks and a pay a fraction of their profits in a settlement.
I used to enjoy the occasional cigar and can’t say for certain I’ll always turn one down when offered in the future. But while I enjoy the experience, the aftertaste and smell is simply not worth it to me anymore.
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