I've spoken to a good friend of mine, who is currently getting his Ph.D in quantum physics, and he's said there is little to no risk of silicosis from the silicon dioxide in any tablets.
1. With all the pills that contain sillicon dioxide, and all the people who, over the years, snort those drugs, there hasn't been any increase in silicosis, or cancer related to silicosis. If there were an increase, we would know about it, there would be studies about it, because people do follow drug users around and document the conditions that develop as a result of drug usage.
2. If snorting pills caused silicosis, you'd better believe that DARE, NIDA, NIH, the DEA, and every other gov. organization would be shouting it at the top of their lungs as another deterrent and scare tactic.
3. Snorting pills does not get that majority of the pill into your lung (< 2% of the pill probably makes it to your lungs).
4. The silicon dioxide content of these pills is minimal, as the ingredients are listed from highest content, to lowest content, and silicon dioxide is always listed after other ingredients and dyes, and you can gaurantee that the dyes make up less than 5% of the total pill content.
5. In order for the silicon dioxide to make it to your lungs AND do harm, it must be atomized. The reason silicon dioxide is documented as dangerous if it makes it to your lungs is because workers who work in factories and who use sandblasting equipment and etc create atomized silicon dioxide when they work which simply floats around in the air to be inhaled (making it much more likely to get into the lungs than a pill insufflation). Crushing a pill will not atomize the silicon dioxide.
6. Assuming #3, #4 and #5, we are talking very very very minimal non-atomized particles making it into your lungs (<2% of the pill, and whatever of that content is silicon dioxide, which is very very little). The OSHA guidelines for silicon dioxide state that it is okay and safe to inhale less than 0.1mg/m^3 every day for your entire life. That means you can safely inhale, with no consequences, 0.1mg/m^3 of silicon dioxide in every breath you take with no harm. OSHA is very very very careful, and there is no doubt that the 0.1mg/m^3 figure is on the very safe side.
Conclusion: In order to do harm you would have to get enormous quantities of silicon dioxide into your lungs at atomized levels every day, and based on the above it is *very* safe to say that doing so, is impossible.
Have a good day
