In article ,
Jeff Liebermann wrote:

You can get a lens cleaning disk with a small tuft of brush on it that wipes
the lens as it goes round. There's normally a bottle of cleaning fluid
supplied in the box.

Ahem. I once bought one of those, stuffed it into a working CD
player, and in no time produced a non-working CD player. The base of
the brush, where it attaches to the CD disk, is rather hard and stiff.
It hit the lens, mangled the springs, and killed the head assembly.
Not recommended.

Agreed. I've mostly heard horror stories like yours, leavened with a
smattering of "just didn't work" or "didn't help".

I prefer a photographer's lens brush (the puffer-bulb type) as the
bristles are long and soft, and will remove most dust without abrading
the lens or stressing the lens mechanism. In many cases this will be
all that's necessary.

A soft artist's brush moistened with isopropyl or a plastic-safe
water-based surfactant is a decent choice for wet-cleaning, if that's
necessary.

The difficult case is if the CD player has been exposed to tobacco
smoke (and I suspect cannabis smoke is about as bad). Tobacco-smoke
tar is pernicious: it gets into almost everywhere and forms a nasty
film on the surfaces it touches. From what I've heard it will even
get into plug-in connectors and can cause the contacts to become
intermittent with time.

Light dusting won't touch it, and I don't think isopropyl alcohol will
dissolve it. Consumer Reports uses it as their "difficult to remove"
surface contaminant when testing things such as window-cleaning
fluids. I'm not sure it's possible to get it off of CD-player lenses
without the use of damaging detergents and/or scrubbing.

Years ago I loaned a prized LP to a college acquaintance, who played
it a couple of times at a party where people were smoking (various
substances). The LP was ruined - the surface noise level went through
the roof and I was never able to get it clean again.