Nobody ever really explains why smoking plants - any plant - harms us. I do explain it.
Products of combustion - chiefly carbon monoxide - is the danger. That and the tar. Not nicotine. Not cancer.
Low oxygen levels in the bloodstream due to carbon monoxide in the hemoglobin is the reason for the muscle soreness and total loss of any stamina. This is because human hemoglobin has 100 times the affinity for carbon monoxide than it does for oxygen - meaning it would rather have it and hold onto it, 100 times moreso than oxygen. Therefore it stores up in your system and displaces oxygen. You can't even catch your breath because your system is calling for more and more air... Muscles have nothing to burn with fuel, so they ache. Your blood/oxygen level is getting dangerously low.
After a week or so without inhaling smoke, your blood-oxygen levels have returned to normal and you're seeing the effects! You have your life back!
The tar is just as insidious - it first lines the lungs but then from there it gets in the bloodstream and also collects. Over time it greatly thickens the blood and makes it hard to pump, and makes it want to clot alot. This is the cardio-vascular danger of inhaling burning plants no matter what they are - tar buildup in the system clogs arteries and causes sudden myocardial infarction.
For purely political reasons tobacco smoking is demonized, but in fact it's ANY plant you burn and inhale the smoke of that does harm. All you chronic marijuana smokers out there better pay attention too - all the hard core dopers from the 60s have chronic emphysema and cardiac disease for very good reason. Ask Cheech and Chong while they're still around.
It takes about a year or more for a heavy plant smoker to get the tar cleaned out of his system.
Start now.
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