Hi.

Uhh, dude, I'm jumping in here but, neither do cigarettes, IF, you only had one a week I'm sure you'd be pretty much ok. But if you take them over a long period of time several times per day they'll kill you..

Well, this is not exactly true. Even a single cigarette does permanent damage to your body. However, that amount of permanent damage doesn't cause much trouble because the human body has _lots_ of reserves to work from. As an example: After an accident, almost 4 years ago, I lost most parts of my right leg. The rest that remained was only half covered by skin, so I had skin transplanted from the left leg to the right. On follow-up surgeries, that transplanted skin was removed again and the skin that had remained was stretched to finally cover the whole stump again. Nowadays, you couldn't tell that I had once transplanted skin (so called meshcraft) there. Yet, the skin that was originally there is gone forever, which I can tell because when I am touched at the inner side of the stump (where the meshcraft originally was), I have the sensation that I am touched at the front middle. Likewise, touching the lower front gives the sensation of being touched on the hollow of my knee.
Much like you can't tell from the outside that I ever had meshcraft transplanted to my right leg (or the stump of it), you can't always tell which damages a cigarette caused. As you might know, the inner of your lungs (well, most of it) is covered by a kid of extremely fine (and short and sensitive) fur. This fur is partly covered and damaged by small tar particles when enhaling smoke. While the body is able to repair most of the damage and regain its original ability to clean the lungs from dust and other small particles, the regrown fur isn't as strong and agile as the original one. So: There is permanent damage, even if most of it is repaired by the body.

But as I see it, we mostly agree anyway.

cu,
sven

PS: I more and more gain the feeling that Yz is nothing but a troll.