A New Cigarette Hazard: 'Third-Hand Smoke'

A New Cigarette Hazard: 'Third-Hand Smoke'

www.nytimes.com

Parents who smoke often open a window or turn on a fan to clear the air of second-hand smoke, but experts now have identified another smoking-related threat to children’s health that isn’t as easy to get rid of: third-hand smoke.

That’s the term being used to describe the invisible yet toxic brew of gases and particles clinging to smokers’ hair and clothing, not to mention cushions and carpeting, that lingers long after smoke has cleared from a room. The residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest, especially if they’re crawling or playing on the floor.

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Watch out...more scare tactics from the doctors!!!!

I cant believe the lengths that society will go to. As if smokers, myself included, are not aware that there is a residue on glass and the walls. That why people clean their houses and cars!!
Yes, I've been to people's homes where this was neglected and it was gross, but most people that I know and who smoke keep a clean house and vehicle.

As for this newly coined phrase...Third Hand Smoke..that will be ringing in the halls as more scared people claim that they are victims of this "strange, new disease".

Insurance companies are going to eat this one up!!! Even for you non-smokers...The house that you just bought was perviousy lived in by a smoker therefore we cannot insure you. Do you see how silly this has the potential to get????

Smoking is the "blame all of your problems on it" vice that is a continuously being attacked with out fail. I cant smoke in the airport, at my favorite restaurant, on a plane, a train or basicly anywhere.

Yet my car spews out more crap into the air every day than my smoking ever could and your cars as well.

Do you think that they will ban cars next??? OK, that will never happen..it's better to take the easy way out and blame all of today's health problems on the smokers!!!

www.nytimes.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

i hope i dont get into trouble for saying this but ...

ROTFL + LOLZERS!

dam... they just dont give up do they, smokings bad, we get it, but third hand smoke? Do these crackpots think we people go about sucking on smokers hair whenever their about? i dont know about anyone else but i have way more important things to do!

ill stick to my first hand smoke!

It is much easier to blame smokers for air quality than other things like cars, coal burning power plants and other industrial plants.

Let's take cars for example. Cars burn gasoline and since the combustion is never 100% effective, many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are realeased into the air. Many of these hydrocarbons are carcinogenic and tons are pumped into the air by gasoline powered automobiles.

I would bet that even if smoking tobacco products totally stopped tomorrow, lung cancer and heart related illness related to air quality would still rise, because no one is questioning the major source of carcinogenic junk being spewed into the air, i.e. your car.

Smokers are an easy target, much harder than say the major car companies and oil producers. To me it's more like a mean spirited and misguided witch hunt than really trying to reduce lung related illnesses.

don't forget Fourth Hand smoke.
It's when a fly lands on your residue covered window or wall..inhales the Third Hand Smoke... then lands on your baby's face and exhales into the baby's mouth.

tis true.

it's science.

-

scapegoating at it's finest...

what, this is a one line post and therefore, not acceptable....
okay, I'll point to the true culprits to all these health problems...

Scents are Not What They Seem
Since World War II we have embraced man-made chemicals for use in almost all aspects of our lives. Using materials such as oil, coal, and natural gas, scientists continue to synthesize many never-before-in-existence chemicals and chemically based materials. We use them to fill our needs for everything from medicines to fabrics, fertilizers to building materials and from perfume to space shuttle parts. The American Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gets applications for evaluation of an average of 50 new, man-made chemicals per day. This rate far surpasses the ability to adequately test all of these chemicals for their safety to humans or the natural environment.

Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, is a very large family of chemicals which includes all the organic compounds containing carbon, and which readily evaporate into the air. Although most are liquids at room temperature, they will easily enter air, and they greatly contribute to air pollution. Man-made fragrance chemicals are part of the category of VOCs.

www.environmentalhealth.ca...

50 new manmade (god only knows what effect they will have long term on our health) chemicals a day!!!

a freind of mine has just recently switched his brand of cigarettes to a cheaper brand, one that is produced by one of the native american tribesn one that is really rather a natural product. ...and well, he's commented on how he's not coughing or gagging as much. I would propose to anyone that those cigarettes wouldn't be as harmful without all those "manmade chemicals" that the companies have been putting in to begin with. but I will go further than that...
you couch wouldn't be so harmful either, or your drapes, or you clothes, or your laundry detergent, and the list goes on and on .....
why is the government spending millions to prop up this nice antismoking witchhunt instead of forcing the companies to take all this crap out of the marketplace???

Originally posted by prevenge

don't forget Fourth Hand smoke.
It's when a fly lands on your residue covered window or wall..inhales the Third Hand Smoke... then lands on your baby's face and exhales into the baby's mouth.

tis true.

it's science.

-

your forgetting the fifth hand smoke which is the smoke hat blows out the window and onto the ground for you to walk on and carry into your home where your cat will pick it up and transfer it onto your bed for you to in hale......

I have more violent allergic reactions to heavy perfume and strong air fresheners than I've ever had from first, second, or god-forbid third hand smoke. This is absolutely ridiculous. It makes me want to blow a smoke ring right in the paranoid scientist's face.

I personally don't smoke and really don't to like to be forced to smoke other people's smoke or have it thrown on my face, come home and notice my clothes smell of their smoke etc. However I must say the whole anti-smoke craze has gotten beyond ridiculous.

Baffles me even that now doctors are talking about the toxic remnants of tobacco in one's hair and its harm to the children...

Well are those hair devils less harmful to children than the smoke that is spewed to the air those children breath by traffic 24/7. Only my very unscientific opinion but to me it seems the current motto is "lets as a species forget about clean energy and burn as much petrol as we can in our children's faces but don't dare touch that cigarrete!"

Doctors lobbying for viable, cleaner, healthier energy sources - that's what I want to see.

When my twins were born prematurely and were in the NICU for a month my husband and I were told of the hidden dangers smokers have to infants, especially preemies. They mentioned the smoke on clothing and hair and said that it was very dangerous to children and something most people never thought about.

My husband told me years ago that Penn and Teller did a BS episode on second hand smoke where they claimed second hand smoking was not a danger and was in fact just a myth. I didn't see the episode so I don't know what they were basing their info on but maybe one of you saw it and can fill us in.

I don't know of any smokers that have children that smoke in their homes but I don't know that many smokers so maybe that's why.

Jemison

Fourth Hand Smoke - The wafting of smoke coming off a non smokers head and out their ears when they see a smoker in a NO SMOKING ZONE!!!

I think it is hilarious on so any levels. They target smokers but smokers pay so many taxes and pay for things non smokers like too, but they target smokers and when the smokers are gone who will pick up the tab? We aren't going to keep buying them if we can not smoke them!

Then you have the health supposedly effecting everyone. Wait til no more smokers, who do you think is next? Alcohol users? Fat people? Snack Food eaters, cell phone users? I would say all of them IN THEIR OWN TIME!!!

Remember what they said about Germany, first they came for, then they came for and we never cared cause we weren't those, but when they came for us there was no allies left cause they took everyone and no one said anything til it was to late!

It will be too late for you fat alcoholic doughnut eating cell phoning morons when they come for you, FOR EVERYONE'S SAFETY! SO don't look to us to come to your rescue and don't claim some crapola about Rights, we had Rights too, til a few decided our Rights didn't count for so many reasons, so shall it be for your vice or product use....

Be careful what you wish for, YOU JUST MA GET IT!

I just quite smoking today.


I hate the world. I hate you. I hate this story.


I'll be better tomorrow.

reply to post by bismarcksea


A star for encouragement. I quit in 2001. It gets better, Hang in there.

On topic, what a load of fear-mongering! "Third hand smoke" It's still effects of second-hand smoke, but apparently people weren't scared enough.

So how long do you figure it will be before fourth hand smoke comes into play?

The suggestion that all of these chemicals, including radioactive may have some slight merit, in concept, but suppose it was taken to a further level of alarm?

Look at it this way. If all of these chemicals actually cause an alarming hazard, what about the residue left in the mouth after smoking a cigarette? The residue would hang around in our mouths until we had something to eat or drink, whereby it would pass through our bodies into the septic waste stream, correct? It is if you follow the logic. Then how much are we going to pay for the sewer bills to handle the filtering and disposal of this new catastrophic level of poisoning we must endure because people won't quit smoking?

Sound pretty ridiculous to me. Well, I guess I'll have to go have a smoke and mull this one over.

Originally posted by Jemison
My husband told me years ago that Penn and Teller did a BS episode on second hand smoke where they claimed second hand smoking was not a danger and was in fact just a myth. I didn't see the episode so I don't know what they were basing their info on but maybe one of you saw it and can fill us in.

I can do better than that.

Penn & Teller - Second Hand Smoke BS


And this seems to be Part 2.



According to Penn & Teller in the second video, being exposed to second hand smoke only enhances your chances of getting lung cancer very, very slightly.

Lung Cancer Deaths

10 in 1 million ***People NOT Exposed to Second Hand Smoke
12.5 in 1 million **People EXPOSED to Second Hand Smoke

This is a pretty minuscule risk/chance if these figures are correct.

[edit on 1/4/2009 by Keyhole]

After browsing the OP article my eyes are now tainted with '3rd hand BS' and as a result have polluted my textbooks whilst reading them...damn

I read this article this AM and am glad to see it beng discussed here. The thing I find the most interesting, and what I think no one has broght up yet, is how exactly most of those chemicals are a by-product of tobacco smoking.

The reason? The cigarettes are sprayed with dozens of chemicals to make them burn faster and more addictive, as is the paper used to wrap the cigartettes.

What is truly astonishing is how the tobacco co.'s are allowed to spray these toxic hazards on to their product with no oversight.

I am going to go find the statistcs for the various additives chemicals and will brb.

EDIT TO ADD LINKS: I stand corrected, the gov. does have oversight. The oversight to allow these 500+ chemicals into the production of cigarettes.





[edit on 4-1-2009 by TheWayISeeIt]

reply to post by Keyhole


Hey there Keyhole,

Thanks for that video. I never saw that one and what they say really makes a lot of sense and brings up some good points

Great find!!!



[edit on 4-1-2009 by wolf241e]

I'm surprised there are so many people here supporting one of the more obvious forms of government and corporate control over the people.

Smoking is bad. That is the simple truth of it. The complex truth is that the act of smoking releases all of the toxins into the environment. These toxins float into the air, cling to the lungs, and cling to the body.

Doesn't it make sense to you that a toxin that clings to your sweater might end up in your child's body because...well...what do small children do?

Oh yeah, they put everything they touch into their mouths. This includes their fingers, your hair, your smoky sweater, etc.

I'm an ex-smoker...anyone who does or has smoked is accutely aware of the fact that you can chew as much gum as you want and spray yourself with as much cologne as you can but that still won't hide the lingering smell of a cigarette...this article makes nothing but sense to me.

Edit to add: Did anyone see that news article about the town in Colorado that issued a smoking ban, and after three years experienced a 41% drop in heart attacks? It was the longest run study on second-hand smoke effects and really showed the correlation between cigarette smoke and heart failure.

[edit on 4-1-2009 by Avenginggecko]

Originally posted by Avenginggecko
Edit to add: Did anyone see that news article about the town in Colorado that issued a smoking ban, and after three years experienced a 41% drop in heart attacks? It was the longest run study on second-hand smoke effects and really showed the correlation between cigarette smoke and heart failure.

Thought that was interesting, so I did a little search for the article.

Smoking Ban Leads to Major Drop in Heart Attacks

A smoking ban in one Colorado city led to a dramatic drop in heart attack hospitalizations within three years, a sign of just how serious a health threat secondhand smoke is, government researchers said Wednesday. The study, the longest-running of its kind, showed the rate of hospitalized cases dropped 41 percent in the three years after the ban of workplace smoking in Pueblo, Colo., took effect. There was no such drop in two neighboring areas, and researchers believe it's a clear sign the ban was responsible.

The study suggests that secondhand smoke may be a terrible and under-recognized cause of heart attack deaths in this country, said one of its authors, Terry Pechacek of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

At least eight earlier studies have linked smoking bans to decreased heart attacks, but none ran as long as three years.
******SKIP******
In Pueblo, the rate of heart attacks dropped from 257 per 100,000 people before the ban to 152 per 100,000 in the three years afterward.

Pretty interesting!

One thing they don't really explain too well though!

How do they know it was a drop because of people receiving second hand smoke, or a drop do to the fact that smokers weren't smoking "as much" and it was them who got "healthier" and ended up going to the hospital less for heart problems?

Seems like they are just lumping everybody together in this report (smokers and non-smokers) and saying it was due to the ban on second hand smoke and not even considering that the ban might have caused this affect due to the fact that smokers had less opportunities to smoke and it was THEM who benefited from the ban!

Even on the Center for Disease Control website they mention this!

Reduced Hospitalizations for Acute Myocardial Infarction After Implementation of a Smoke-Free Ordinance

The findings in this report are subject to at least four limitations. First, because no data were available on whether study subjects were nonsmokers or smokers, determining what portion of the observed decrease in hospitalizations was attributable to reduced SHS exposure among nonsmokers and what portion was attributable to increased quitting among smokers was not possible.
******SKIP******
Second, the study did not directly document reductions in SHS exposure among nonsmokers

Town's smoking ban results in major drop in heart attacks
Smoking Ban Leads To Major Drop In Heart Attacks
Smoking ban leads to major drop in heart attacks
Heart attack admissions fall by up to 40% since smoking ban

[edit on 1/4/2009 by Keyhole]