So I'm writing a little story, and I just wanna check something about smoking. I've never smoked a single cigarette in my entire life so I just wanna make sure this makes sense.

The question is, can someone speak after inhaling cigarette smoke, but before exhaling?

Yes very silly question, but again having never smoked in my life I have no idea.

Ask Snoop Dawg holmes.

Not without exhaling in the process. This is one of the few details that the movies get right. Take a drag, hold it, exhale, speak. That's usually how that's going to go unless the character is hotboxing it.

You can speak, no problem, but you will exhale a little smoke while doing do.

The answer is yes, very easily. But my larynx tended to get irritated quicker by doing that a lot.

Speaking is basically pushing air from your lungs through your larynx producing sound waves. You can speak before fully exhaling, but that smoke will be 'leaking' out every time you say something.

So it's excellent for dragon imitations? (As long as you have a terrible case of face-eczema, of course).

Actually, You can exhale minimally while speaking, without any smoke being visible,

It's actually possible to speak while inhaling, rather than exhaling, but you can't get as many words out per breath, it irritates your larynx, and it sounds REALLY REALLY WEIRD. If you're trying to do it after already inhaling a cigarette, you're not going to have a lot of room in your lungs for more air, so you'd get out 1-2 words at most.

Yeah you can speak while exhaling. I find I usually finish up what I want to say before I get much smoke out of my lungs. If I'm exhaling a lot of smoke while I speak it changes the sound of my voice to the slightest degree and irritates the hell out of my throat. It depends on the cigarette too. I smoke unfiltered and usually exhale before speaking because of the irritation. With menthols I'm fine though.

This. It's certainly possible, but most people would exhale first, for precisely that reason.