Claire Reid
This article contains a pretty grim video of some blackened lungs, so if that’s something you’d rather spare yourself from seeing click away now.
Earlier this year, the UK government announced its plan to crack down on smoking.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said last month that the proposed legislation would see the legal age at which people can buy cigarettes increased every year by a year.
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That means that if the law was to be changed by 2027, no one who is currently 14-years-old will ever be able to legally buy a cigarette.
A bold plan - however, another effective way to get people to quit the cigs would be to show them this rather horrifying video.
The grisly video shows the effects of years of heavy smoking on the lungs - and it is not pretty.
The clip, shot back in 2018 by a nurse named Amanda Eller in North Carolina in the US, shows two sets of lungs: a healthy pink pair and a not-so-healthy black and grey pair.
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Can you guess which belonged to the smoker? I bet you can.
In the footage, the nurse can be seen inflating the blackened lungs while explaining: “Because these lungs are COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] lungs, cancerous lungs, the elastin has gone - so they’ll stretch out but the recoil of them just snaps right back, because there’s nothing to help hold them open.”
She then switches to the healthy lungs, and begins to pump them with the bag while explaining: “So inspiration, expiration - they totally deflate and they’re right back to where they started.”
As you can imagine, the shocking clip has gained plenty of attention online when it was reshared, with one TikTok user commenting: “This is vile and should be enough to put people off smoking.
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"I’ve never smoked and only drink socially.”
Another said: “I’ve now smoked for 27 years and I’m 41. This freaks me out so much but I can’t seem to kick it.”
A third wrote: "I used to work on an adult respiratory ward and believe me you should give up smoking and don't do drugs.”
Someone else said that they would use the clip to help them kick the habit.
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“I'm getting ready to attempt to stop smoking again," they wrote. "I'm saving this video, thank you.”
If the clip has encouraged you to ditch the cigs once and for all, you can find out more about the NHS’s stop smoking services here.