4 ms·

And possibly the fact that cigarette companies freebase the nicotine by soaking the tobacco in ammonia.

noduerme 4y ago
I switched to rolling my own smokes with hemp paper and filters almost 20 years ago. I can't stand the taste or smell of chemicals from packaged cigarettes (even the "organic" ones that still have all kinds of accelerants and flame retardants in the paper). A single Marlboro will give me a headache the next day. It's actually just really sad that smokers have been force-fed that deadly shit, because while the poster above is correct that nicotine itself is not harmful and it's mainly the burn products of the tobacco leaf that are carcinogenic, they don't need to be nearly as deadly as they are in modern packed cigarettes. Some of the additives are mandated by the government (such as the wood glue that's now used in all commercial rolled cigarette papers as a "fire safe" stopper halfway) and those are as bad or worse than the arsenic and other additives the tobacco companies came up with. On the other hand, roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco, especially the type labeled organic, has its own issues. One of them is that "organic" tobacco actually has a higher level of Polonium (which is taken up and concentrated by all tobacco plants, where it's present in the fertilizer - but organic fertilizers have higher levels of Polonium). Of all the thousands of compounds you inhale when you smoke a cigarette, that's probably the one that's most likely to cause lung cancer. And yet smoking is so fucking delicious. The commenter above who talked about conversations in college over a cigarette -- that's my life. Every night. Having to step outside the cafe hasn't killed it, that social ferment, although I think that was the intention when they banned smoking inside. If anything, it's heightened the interaction after an entire generation was forced into these ghettos. If only 11% of Americans smoke (which cannot possibly be true -- that's an absolute lie, as at least 70% of people I can think of in Portland from 30 to 60 smoke cigarettes and Portland is not exactly Mississippi) they're definitely the most interesting 11%, and highly concentrated now.
- gooooooore 4y ago
  Wtf did I just read
  - BizarroLand 4y ago
    You just read some extremely refined copium in text form. This person has some major cognitive dissonance about the health and safety of smoking cigarettes and is dissociating from the dissonance with poetic drivel. Tobacco is unhealthy to consume. It's okay in small, occasional doses, your body can probably shrug off a few draws from a ceremonial peace pipe like it was nothing. But smoking every day or multiple times a day is unhealthy and will hasten your demise, and there is no working around that, not even by using organic free range gluten free fair trade halal tobacco grown by vestal virgins in the Himalayas.
    - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
      Don't be silly. Is your home's air filtered correctly? Did you scratch your face after touching a public doorknob? I hope you're not using "poetic drivel" to justify use of a gas stove when we know it leads to combustion byproducts in the air. You better be eating healthy all the time too, or else only copium is justifying your food choices. Nobody is saying that cigarettes or nicotine is healthy. The warnings exist and are highly popular. Smoking bans in public places in the many US states are generally very popular in those states. The "poetic" poster talked about how cigarettes are bad multiple times. But as adults with full knowledge of the risks of something, these adults can still engage in these activities in ways that are not posing risks to other. That's what it means to be an adult. The moral panic around secondhand smoke is what bothers a lot of smokers. Having smoked in the past I will often join smokers to outdoor areas where they smoke just to chat without partaking and the restrictions are often really difficult to work around so I understand where the opinion comes from, even though I'm a fan of the restrictions generally.
      - BizarroLand 4y ago
        The dangers of smoking are not equatable to the dangers of unfiltered house air. Smoking is a known carcinogen with a known increase in death rate on top of all of the things you listed. In fact smokers probably also have the exact same air quality and environmental dangers that you listed but have added smoking on top of that. Sure, have fun, it's your life. Smoke away. Just don't believe lies about "organic tobacco" being healthy for you. It's not.

I switched to rolling my own smokes with hemp paper and filters almost 20 years ago. I can't stand the taste or smell of chemicals from packaged cigarettes (even the "organic" ones that still have all kinds of accelerants and flame retardants in the paper). A single Marlboro will give me a headache the next day. It's actually just really sad that smokers have been force-fed that deadly shit, because while the poster above is correct that nicotine itself is not harmful and it's mainly the burn products of the tobacco leaf that are carcinogenic, they don't need to be nearly as deadly as they are in modern packed cigarettes. Some of the additives are mandated by the government (such as the wood glue that's now used in all commercial rolled cigarette papers as a "fire safe" stopper halfway) and those are as bad or worse than the arsenic and other additives the tobacco companies came up with. On the other hand, roll-your-own (RYO) tobacco, especially the type labeled organic, has its own issues. One of them is that "organic" tobacco actually has a higher level of Polonium (which is taken up and concentrated by all tobacco plants, where it's present in the fertilizer - but organic fertilizers have higher levels of Polonium). Of all the thousands of compounds you inhale when you smoke a cigarette, that's probably the one that's most likely to cause lung cancer. And yet smoking is so fucking delicious. The commenter above who talked about conversations in college over a cigarette -- that's my life. Every night. Having to step outside the cafe hasn't killed it, that social ferment, although I think that was the intention when they banned smoking inside. If anything, it's heightened the interaction after an entire generation was forced into these ghettos. If only 11% of Americans smoke (which cannot possibly be true -- that's an absolute lie, as at least 70% of people I can think of in Portland from 30 to 60 smoke cigarettes and Portland is not exactly Mississippi) they're definitely the most interesting 11%, and highly concentrated now.

gooooooore 4y ago
Wtf did I just read
- BizarroLand 4y ago
  You just read some extremely refined copium in text form. This person has some major cognitive dissonance about the health and safety of smoking cigarettes and is dissociating from the dissonance with poetic drivel. Tobacco is unhealthy to consume. It's okay in small, occasional doses, your body can probably shrug off a few draws from a ceremonial peace pipe like it was nothing. But smoking every day or multiple times a day is unhealthy and will hasten your demise, and there is no working around that, not even by using organic free range gluten free fair trade halal tobacco grown by vestal virgins in the Himalayas.
  - Karrot_Kream 4y ago
    Don't be silly. Is your home's air filtered correctly? Did you scratch your face after touching a public doorknob? I hope you're not using "poetic drivel" to justify use of a gas stove when we know it leads to combustion byproducts in the air. You better be eating healthy all the time too, or else only copium is justifying your food choices. Nobody is saying that cigarettes or nicotine is healthy. The warnings exist and are highly popular. Smoking bans in public places in the many US states are generally very popular in those states. The "poetic" poster talked about how cigarettes are bad multiple times. But as adults with full knowledge of the risks of something, these adults can still engage in these activities in ways that are not posing risks to other. That's what it means to be an adult. The moral panic around secondhand smoke is what bothers a lot of smokers. Having smoked in the past I will often join smokers to outdoor areas where they smoke just to chat without partaking and the restrictions are often really difficult to work around so I understand where the opinion comes from, even though I'm a fan of the restrictions generally.
    - BizarroLand 4y ago
      The dangers of smoking are not equatable to the dangers of unfiltered house air. Smoking is a known carcinogen with a known increase in death rate on top of all of the things you listed. In fact smokers probably also have the exact same air quality and environmental dangers that you listed but have added smoking on top of that. Sure, have fun, it's your life. Smoke away. Just don't believe lies about "organic tobacco" being healthy for you. It's not.