6 ms·

I've also been intrigued by this. I have never smoked any substance, but I don't care if others do at all, really. I acknowledge the benefits of it, but when I

I've also been intrigued by this. I have never smoked any substance, but I don't care if others do at all, really. I acknowledge the benefits of it, but when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident.

JadeNB 10y ago
> when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident. I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way—but nor do I regard it as self-evident. An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? EDIT: Thanks for the excellent responses! (The detailed discussions below are far more interesting than my question, I think.) To be clear (since I am "submitting too fast" to reply to comments below), lest I sound like some kind of denier, when I say "I don't have any evidence either way", I mean literally that—just that I haven't bothered to get any, not that there isn't any.
- saiya-jin 10y ago
  burning any organic material, and most others produce carcinogens. hence vaping - heating material to boiling temperature of pot resin while not burning rest of the plant, in ideal conditions.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  Particulates and byproducts from burning matter - the reason smoking cigarettes kills your lungs isn't the tobacco, it's the tar and other garbage you're inhaling from combustion products.
- dpark 10y ago
  > An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? "Ordinary air" is bad for your lungs when it's full of dust, soot, or other particulates. Smog is bad for you. So is smoke. So is pretty much anything else you might breath that includes particulates. Your lungs can handle it in small amounts but it's never good for them and long term exposure can be really bad for them. The heat probably isn't great for your lungs either. But I doubt it's a significant factor.
- chadgeidel 10y ago
  http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/Documents/Woodsmoke.pdf http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/Documents/Woodsmoke.pdf Sam Harris had a decent presentation about it here: https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion EDIT: This is just wood smoke I guess - You are asking about generic "smoke". I apologize for not addressing your question fully.
  - JadeNB 10y ago
    > This is just wood smoke I guess - You are asking about generic "smoke". I apologize for not addressing your question fully. To the contrary, this is my favourite response (even though I don't have the religious response in defence of wood smoke that Sam Harris hopes to provoke). Thanks!
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way You haven't seen evidence that smoke inhalation is a hazard with both acute and long-term harms? Try this: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22smoke+inhalation%22+pathophysiology&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22smoke+inhalation%22+p...
- nilkn 10y ago
  Lots of ordinary air is bad for you, actually. Here's a good piece of underlying research: http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Air-Quality-Paper-July-2015.pdf http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Ai... From this, various writers have attempted to make some extrapolations along the lines of "one day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking X cigarettes", where X ranges from 1/6 to 40. There are compelling arguments for both 1/6 and 40, despite those numbers seeming so different. Generally, the 1/6 figure comes from measuring the exact volume of dangerous substances inhaled, and the 40 figure comes from the premise that air pollution is significantly more damaging than tar from cigarettes and thus it takes much less of it to have the same effect as tar from 40 cigarettes. Regardless, the bottom line is that sometimes even ordinary air is not good for you.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    That's not "ordinary" air, its highly polluted air -- polluted with, among other things, smoke from burning various things.
    - nilkn 10y ago
      Okay, then what, exactly, is "ordinary" air? Air that has no ill health effects? If so, then this has become a tautology -- obviously air that has no ill health effects has no ill health effects. If all such cases are conveniently excluded from the definition, then there's no point even talking about this. This is air that millions and millions of people breathe just by walking outside. Anyway, your observation that air in Beijing, etc., is polluted from smoke works towards my point, not against it.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
        The upthread question about why inhaling smoke would be harmful if "ordinary air" was not pretty clearly used "ordinary air" to mean at least "air without smoke", since inhaling "smoke" is always inhaling "air with smoke", and it would be silly to ask the question if both alternatives meant "air with smoke".

JadeNB 10y ago

> when I point out that inhaling smoke of any sort is bad for you at some level, I get a LOT of pushback for a claim that seems self-evident. I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way—but nor do I regard it as self-evident. An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? EDIT: Thanks for the excellent responses! (The detailed discussions below are far more interesting than my question, I think.) To be clear (since I am "submitting too fast" to reply to comments below), lest I sound like some kind of denier, when I say "I don't have any evidence either way", I mean literally that—just that I haven't bothered to get any, not that there isn't any.

saiya-jin 10y ago
burning any organic material, and most others produce carcinogens. hence vaping - heating material to boiling temperature of pot resin while not burning rest of the plant, in ideal conditions.
Karunamon 10y ago
Particulates and byproducts from burning matter - the reason smoking cigarettes kills your lungs isn't the tobacco, it's the tar and other garbage you're inhaling from combustion products.
dpark 10y ago
> An honest, not rhetorical or leading, question: why should inhaling smoke be bad when inhaling, say, ordinary air isn't? Is it the heat? Particulates? "Ordinary air" is bad for your lungs when it's full of dust, soot, or other particulates. Smog is bad for you. So is smoke. So is pretty much anything else you might breath that includes particulates. Your lungs can handle it in small amounts but it's never good for them and long term exposure can be really bad for them. The heat probably isn't great for your lungs either. But I doubt it's a significant factor.
chadgeidel 10y ago
http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/Documents/Woodsmoke.pdf http://www.uvm.edu/~susagctr/Documents/Woodsmoke.pdf Sam Harris had a decent presentation about it here: https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion https://www.samharris.org/blog/item/the-fireplace-delusion EDIT: This is just wood smoke I guess - You are asking about generic "smoke". I apologize for not addressing your question fully.
- JadeNB 10y ago
  > This is just wood smoke I guess - You are asking about generic "smoke". I apologize for not addressing your question fully. To the contrary, this is my favourite response (even though I don't have the religious response in defence of wood smoke that Sam Harris hopes to provoke). Thanks!
dragonwriter 10y ago
> I don't argue this claim—I don't have any evidence either way You haven't seen evidence that smoke inhalation is a hazard with both acute and long-term harms? Try this: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22smoke+inhalation%22+pathophysiology&btnG=&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5 http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=%22smoke+inhalation%22+p...
nilkn 10y ago
Lots of ordinary air is bad for you, actually. Here's a good piece of underlying research: http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Air-Quality-Paper-July-2015.pdf http://berkeleyearth.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/China-Ai... From this, various writers have attempted to make some extrapolations along the lines of "one day in Beijing is equivalent to smoking X cigarettes", where X ranges from 1/6 to 40. There are compelling arguments for both 1/6 and 40, despite those numbers seeming so different. Generally, the 1/6 figure comes from measuring the exact volume of dangerous substances inhaled, and the 40 figure comes from the premise that air pollution is significantly more damaging than tar from cigarettes and thus it takes much less of it to have the same effect as tar from 40 cigarettes. Regardless, the bottom line is that sometimes even ordinary air is not good for you.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  That's not "ordinary" air, its highly polluted air -- polluted with, among other things, smoke from burning various things.
  - nilkn 10y ago
    Okay, then what, exactly, is "ordinary" air? Air that has no ill health effects? If so, then this has become a tautology -- obviously air that has no ill health effects has no ill health effects. If all such cases are conveniently excluded from the definition, then there's no point even talking about this. This is air that millions and millions of people breathe just by walking outside. Anyway, your observation that air in Beijing, etc., is polluted from smoke works towards my point, not against it.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      The upthread question about why inhaling smoke would be harmful if "ordinary air" was not pretty clearly used "ordinary air" to mean at least "air without smoke", since inhaling "smoke" is always inhaling "air with smoke", and it would be silly to ask the question if both alternatives meant "air with smoke".