The reason they caution against smoking after a piercing or any sort of incision or surgery is that smoke of any kind is very drying, which can increase your chances of infection, and also because, for healing to occur, the tiniest little capillaries in your skin and underlying tissues have to reconnect and knit themselves back together to seal up a wound. Smoking inhibits that capillary re-knitting process (cigarettes are much greater inhibitors than cannabis, we suspect).

Plenty of people make the choice to smoke anyway and do just fine after piercings, oral surgeries or any other type of surgery. You have to be the one to decide whether you want to take that risk. You may find that you heal more slowly than you might otherwise, but you won't really have a basis for comparison if you haven't had other piercings or oral incisions involving smoke-free healing. If you do choose to go ahead and smoke, keep up your rinsing and washing routine, particularly after you smoke, and drink some extra fluids. Make sure your hands and nails are very clean, too, because some of our nastier staphylococcus buglets that can really cause bad drug resistant infections live under our fingernails and in our nasal passages. My guess is that you'll be just fine.

Did your piercing artist give you information on the signs to watch out for related to an infection? Red, raised, swollen, tender or a warm-to-the-touch area around the wound, particularly if those symptoms get progressively worse. (Obviously, a fresh piercing could be expected to have some normal swelling and/or tenderness, but you want to make sure that's getting better with each passing day instead of worse.) Fever. Red streaks emanating from the wound. Swollen lymph nodes. If you get any of those symptoms, call your doctor or health care provider.