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Is smoking actually bad ?
Hey. guys I want to get your opinion on smoking ( nicotine , tar etc ) , does smoking actually cause cancer. Is the research. sold on it or its the figment of their imagination from many bogus research papers. Just like the bogus research that meat causes cancer.
Without having read a single bit of research on the potential hazards of smoking, I would say it's pretty obvious that smoke in general is an irritant since it elicits a coughing response when you inhale it. And if it's an irritant, the possibility certainly exists that repeated and/or extended exposure is likely to have long-term consequences.
Like so many other things, I'm guessing the body downregulates the coughing response when you're constantly exposed to smoke because it realizes that coughing is a waste of energy when you're just going to keep inhaling more smoke.
I'm sure some forms of smoke inhalation are much worse than others, depending on the source and contents of the smoke. Smoke from wood combustion is something that people have obviously been exposed to in some amount going back very far in our evolution, and is therefore probably the form of smoke we are most prepared to cope with, but just because we've been exposed to it throughout evolution doesn't mean it's good for you. Being scared sh*tless of getting eaten by predators is something we've experienced throughout evolution and it's not exactly good for your health (except, of course, that it does help prevent getting eaten by a predator...). Neither are the xenobiotic compounds that come along with eating anything from a plant good for you, even though we've clearly developed mechanisms to deal with them to the extent possible.
Again, I readily admit I haven't read any research about the effects of smoking, but it seems like any argument for its benefit is either claiming a hormetic effect (which, in most cases of bringing foreign non-pathogenic compounds into the body, seems like a flawed application of the concept), a drug-like effect (which requires a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether it's a net benefit for an individual), or a mind-altering effect (which kind of falls under the drug-like effect category).