New Cigarette Hazard: Third-Hand Smoke
By Susie Madrak Saturday Jan 03, 2009 7:00pmSee? I knew I wasn't crazy. Of course, there are still people who argue that second-hand smoke doesn't hurt anyone, either!
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.
Doctors from MassGeneral Hospital for Children in Boston coined the term “third-hand smoke” to describe these chemicals in a new study that focused on the risks they pose to infants and children. The study was published in this month’s issue of the journal Pediatrics.
“Everyone knows that second-hand smoke is bad, but they don’t know about this,” said Dr. Jonathan P. Winickoff, the lead author of the study and an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
“When their kids are out of the house, they might smoke. Or they smoke in the car. Or they strap the kid in the car seat in the back and crack the window and smoke, and they think it’s okay because the second-hand smoke isn’t getting to their kids,” Dr. Winickoff continued. “We needed a term to describe these tobacco toxins that aren’t visible.”
Third-hand smoke is what one smells when a smoker gets in an elevator after going outside for a cigarette, he said, or in a hotel room where people were smoking. “Your nose isn’t lying,” he said. “The stuff is so toxic that your brain is telling you: ’Get away.’”
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I used to get headaches from my ex-roomate's couch. Thing STANK of ciggies. Makes even more sense now!
I thought readers of this blog and forum were cynical! --You know, *aware* of how manipulation works? --But this band-wagon thing? This is ridiculous. No. It's worse than ridiculous. It's actually pathetic.
Oh, because right, only SOME massive government population control efforts are designed to help those in power and disadvantage the public, but others, like the War on Smoking, no THAT massive propaganda campaign, THAT one is *good* for all the little people. Yes THAT one comes from the warm, cuddly parts of the government.
Pop quiz: Tell me which fascist 1940's European government was the first progressively-thinking industrialized nation to *really* jump in and launch a massive anti-smoking crusade?
Now why would this be? --Why would a substance used originally by native American Shamens and elders cause so much FEAR in the political realm, (where goose-stepping civilians are so highly valued?)
Hmmm?
Why would tobacco companies deliberately corrupt such a substance with all manner of toxic chemical and asbestos-like filter issues?
There are TWO drugs, only two which have a particularly curious effect on people. That effect is to INCREASE awareness and focus and mind power WITHOUT affecting judgment. What are those two drugs? Caffeine and Nicotine.
But you can't do away with Caffeine, because you need it to keep your slaves powered up and over-worked. So that stuff they sell, sell, sell. But that's okay, because while Caffeine does wonders for the energy level, it doesn't actually make you *smarter*. It doesn't actually change brain structure so that thinking becomes clearer.
Isn't it curious how people with schizophrenia and other mental imbalances find themselves naturally drawn to tobacco? The body knows what it needs to balance itself, both nutritionally and in other ways.
Please research what actually happens in the brain when nicotine is ingested.
--Everybody in these types of forums likes their Mary Jane, (slows you down, makes you happy with the status quo. --That drug everybody supports), but tobacco they crucify. Now THAT is one very, very effective bit of COINTELPRO work. Counter-intelligence, indeed!
I'm bloody ashamed of you lot. You're supposed to be smarter than this, but here you all are jumping through those government hoops, arguably the biggest, oldest government hoops in the nation. Jumping like sheep over that sleep fence into dream land.
I can't believe I have to say this here, but WAKE UP!
I'm not telling you to go out and start smoking, but honestly. How can you reject and question every other bit of programming they've hit you with since birth, but manage to overlook one of the most desperate, over-blown and clearly manipulative government messages EVER?
I'm an asthmatic. Both my parents smoked, and, it was never a cause of my respiratory problems. The place I grew up in was - it was one of the worst places in the world to have breathing problems. 9/11 has caused it to flare up.
But my parents cigarette smoke? nope.
How do you know the cigarette smoke wasn't the root cause of your asthma?
I get headaches from the smell of smokers at work. I don't think this is BS at all.
Do you get headaches when you breathe in traffic fumes, or barbecue smoke !?
Quick, I need a Gauloises Brunes
Non filtered.
I quit smoking a little over a year ago and now the smell bothers me so much that I get headaches. This makes perfect sense.
and I'll get back to ya.
I would really rather that crooks and liars not become a forum for people to whine about cigarette smoke or the eating of meat.
C&L is an open forum.
the moderator and site monitors decide.
if you don't like the issue, then ignore it.
I'm a non-tobacco-smoking carnivore who doesn't mind veggies advertising the benefits of their diet or trying to convince me of the detriments of mine. Go for it. I might learn something and thank you for it.
I guess because of the CROOKS and LIARS in the tobacco industry who LIE about the dangers of their products to make a CROOKED buck off the poor health of others?
Oh come on- this isn't back in the day when people thought cigarettes were good for you. Everyone and their dog knows that cigs can cause all sorts of problems. People smoke cigarettes because they like the buzz then get addicted to it- not because of the tobacco industry lying about the dangers of their product. They don't have to make any lies people will buy them anyway because they WANT IT.
Stop blaming the tobacco industry- they don't hold a gun to your head and tell you to buy cigarettes- people make their own choices in life- and if one of them is smoking cigarettes, then they'll face the consequences.
My dad was a child in the 30's in North Carolina, where a lot of tobacco was grown and where everyone began smoking at a very early age and there were no health warnings, or studies. In his case, he was ten when he started. Ten. Decades later, studies have shown the younger you start, the harder it is to stop. The addictive chemicals in tobacco are more potent and harder to kick than heroin.
I grew up in a household full of first, second and third-hand cigarette smoke. And - surprise, surprise - I became asthmatic. Even before studies showed a link between asthma and smoking, my dad suspected, and tried to quit. He found it near impossible. He did, however, start smoking outside rather than in the house, and rolling down the car windows, long before the Marlborough Man died of lung cancer.
This once incredibly healthy man, who could outrun me even when I was a teenager and quite fit athletically, who could lift heavy weights with ease, who was a volunteer fireman who once risked his life to save an old man who'd fallen asleep in bed with a cigarette and burned his house down, who seemed so indestructible in my loving eyes, over the years became a wizened, shriveled, breathless wreak of a human being. He'd claim he was fine, doze off on the sofa and moan with pain in his sleep. Watch someone you love going through pain like that and say so what, it's his choice, not my problem.
He tried so hard to quit, used patches, chewed nicotine gum 'till his jaws ached, had hypnosis, tried sheer bloody willpower, did everything he could to quit. But all it would take is his idiot selfish bitch of a girlfriend to light up around him because SHE didn't want to stop smoking (quitting might hurt her feminine figure, y'see, fat cow, I hope she rots in hell), and he couldn't resist.
In the end, he smoked himself to death, while the people who loved him the most watched him suffer and were helpless to do anything to help him.
But your argument that I shouldn't blame the tobacco industr - who have been proved to have spiked their cigarettes to make them even more addictive, and now profit from selling the nicotine patches and gum for those desperate to quit - that they don't 'force' you to smoke, it's your own choice, is specious. If a pusher sold my child an addictive drug like meth or heroin or even something as legal as vodka at the age of ten and turned him into an addict, I'd track that bastard down and break every f*cking bone in his body, and I defy anyone to say they wouldn't do the same.
I blame the tobacco companies. I support making cigarettes as exorbitantly expensive as possible to keep it financially unviable for teenagers to buy them, to make adults who can quit more seriously consider it, and use the profits to finance the treatment for those for whom it is too late. I support medical research to find anything - any drug, any vaccine, any treatment - to help people quit, and the tobacco companies should foot every f*cking penny of it. I support any legislation that makes smoking as difficult as possible and I look forward to the day when cigarettes are as obsolete as wormwood absinthe.
And I blame people like YOU who can't see that every time you excuse the pushers and blame the victims, you perpetuate a cycle of death and pain.
Wake up and smell the cigarette smoke.
... but I'd like to see some priorities. Like, let's whine about third hand smoke after we've had war crimes against Bushco, cured the homeless problem, & everyone has a free education.
[Please tone it down a notch. Try some ice cubes down the front of your pants. Site Monitor]
ironic that a doctor from the Philly childrens hospital publically says heavy metals in vaccines (for which he is a patent holder) do no harm when injected into children
Dr Paul Offit, an up and coming to crooks and liars
well said
This vaccine arguement is bullshit, and now there is an epidemic of measles in London because of it. The smoking thing is interesting, but I am not 100% sold on it. I am an ex-smoker and while the smell of cigarettes is wretched to me now, the smell itself does nothing to me other than make me want to hold my nose. If I'd never had this ulcer, I never would have given up smoking. I loved it, and sometimes I miss it, but not enough to go through the awful stomach pain that is the result of having a cigarette. I kind of get sick of nanny-state government health arguements.
I'm just lighting one. Nice :D
as with any vice or self-abuse,
as long as you don't harm anyone
but yourself, then who cares?
actually we all care, please be
kind to yourself.
I actually want to quit when i turn 30, that's this year in July. I want to make it a serious attempt. But knowing me i'll probable screwing up big time, i had some half arsed attempts before. Stopping for like two weeks, going to a bar, drink some beer and thinking i could handle a few smokes and stop the next morning. I couldn't.
Cheers.
counties. Works for me, until I get released. I guess if I committed a more serious crime...
Hehe, that's an idea, but i don't like to go to jail. And i'm also in the EU.
I stop worrying about smoking the minute I'm cuffed and in the police car. Just one of those things I know I'll have to do without for my incarceration period. It's usually one of the easiest things about jail...
Sounds like you already talked yourself out of actually quitting. Don't say you are going to "try." Say you are going to quit. Just decide you ARE going to do it. I know it's really hard. Tobacco is a very addictive substance. Get medical help if you need it but just decide to quit and DO IT. And never take another puff.
I had to do this with alcohol. People say, "Oh don't you want to taste this wine." The answer is NO. I know if I take one taste I'll have to battle to quit all over again.
Sorry to quote nike - but, just do it and then keep saying NO! And good luck! YOU CAN DO IT!
You re right i'm already coping out. I smoke a lot a day and i'm afraid i can never stop smoking. It's like a feeling of missing something,i get already nervous of thinking about it. Silly isn't it?
One day i can do it :)
8 months for me today.
When bars were smokey, not much use stopping smoking then drinking in a smoke filled bar.
Nicotine chewing gum every three hours should help most people break the physical habit of lighting up and the ritual of the cigarette, then you have to wean yourself off the nicotine.
he smoked much more than I did, so couldn't cold-turkey it. Chantix helped him immensely by killing the physical cravings, leaving only psychological cravings to deal with.
Sigh, this will give even more reasons for self-righteous non-smokers to harass smokers again. Look, we don't smoke within 20 feet of any doors or open windows, we don't smoke in crowds, don't smoke near your child, don't smoke in restaurants, buildings, amusement parks, airplanes or airports (the last one, after 9/11, hurts the most. How hard would it be to make us a ventilated smoking room or enclosed patio?).
I'm glad you care and all, but I used to get so friggin tired of people who would go out of their way to bother me. I even crossed the street once to avoid getting smoke near a group of people and one of them crossed the same street so they could cough uncontrollably all over me. When so many of us go out of our way to minimize your exposure to cigarette toxins, please cut us some slack (sorry dadams, this isn't a rant against you. Caring and saying you do is ok, but too many non-smokers show their concern by trying to harass us into stopping)
Because until you quit creating the atmospheric equivalent of hundreds of packs of cigarettes daily, I'm just not listening. Carbon Monoxide, heavy metals, particulates, sound familiar? Your car makes them in abundances that would dwarf a smoker's contribution.
Moving on...
i smoke
i never smoke around others...but that doesnt matter now
for i am the carrier of all ills
kill me
Sat, 01/03/2009 - 19:41 — Uncle Joe Mccarthy wrote:
I wouldn't dream of interfering with your current progress ;)
Sure, there's probably the odd person who isn't apparently affected, and that group of people should probably be studied. But yes, that study seems right to me. I'm sure the effects of third hand smoke can be distinguished from the many other toxins surrounding modern life. I'm also sure that more study is needed to make sure these conclusions are valid.
This sounds like a progressive issue. Progressives are people who tend to get to the right conclusion before the rest of their society. We've figured out pretty early on that women are people too and that workplace safety is a Good Thing. We make the occasional mistake, but since we value facts, we eventually correct ourselves.
I am firmly convinced that someday, smoking around children will be considered a form of child abuse. After all, they have no more control over second hand smoke than they do over sexual advances. It's just a matter of time before the rest of our countrymen catch up. But the wait is annoying.
would advocate finding safe alternatives to the pesticides, fertilizers and additives that are the real culprits here. How about supporting the cultivation of organic tobacco? Sorry, no real "progressive" favors the "banning" of anything (except, of course, "The Bomb".) Allowing laws to be enacted which restrict individual freedoms of any sort is, by definition, regressive.
Not sure how long it will take, but I see the current trend to be making smoking tobacco illegal. The recent studies showing the effects of second-hand smoke and now third-hand smoke on children will push society to ban smoking tobacco.
Don't smoke and never have
But give me the stench of a old stale Camel any day over the death stink of the nanny state
hear
Febreze is all over this one.
It isn't the tobacco that's bad, it's the 600 additives that can legally be added, plus the chemicals that were sprayed on the plants before harvest.
Try organic tobacco. And use it reverently. It's completely different than that toxic thing that actually hurts people.
No, I don't smoke. But I know about this.
Tobacco isnt the best thing, but what the companies do to it makes it much worse. the latest marketing manufacturing trend is freebasing the nicotine to make it more addictive.
A quicker hit when lighting up makes for a harder habit to break.
PS; smoker here.
I must confess to feelings of conflict here. In principle, I defend the right of people to smoke (a variety of things) so long as it is not forced on others and doesn't interfere with a person's obligations. So getting high on marijuana, okay if you're not going to drive; getting stinky on tobacco, well, if you must; some other thing that's going to make you rob somebody, no go. Easy, right? Don't smoke around the kids and if you like animals, don't smoke around your pets.
Then third hand smoke comes along. Your home is your castle, but to protect your children, you go outside to smoke. Then you come in and your kids (if they like you) are all over you breathing the toxins off your hair and clothes. Where does this end? I'm looking to defend individual rights, but how does the smoker have his cig and not share it with his family?
I'm interested in how others would solve this dilemma, and I don't mean by ignoring the apparent facts.
This will be the wave of the future for people who do not already have enough to worry about: bad smells equal deadly killer.
I was really hoping that some sense of perspective would kick in as things continue to rocket-luge downhill.
Ugly, weird, smelly, not like us people, all need to be locked up and kept away from the children, think of the children...
We could go back to carrying pockets full of posies. In Medieval time, they believed it could stop the black plague because it blocked the smells of death.
Too bad the Feds can't ban all cigarettes.
Gee, that would be a great boon to the Mexican drug cartels. I'm sure they would thank you for handing them such a lucrative business opportunity.
Deal in drugs, not tobacco.
will find away to profit from its scarcity.
Because drugs are illegal. Legalize drugs, make them easily available to adults who make the choice to use them and the cartels would have no business for those drugs that were legalized.
Ban cigarettes and you would have Mexican Tobacco Cartels within 6 months. Guaranteed.
Drug cartels can't make money off of a legalized and regulated drug. But make cigarettes illegal, and you've given them a wonderful product that people will pay big bucks for.
I stopped the cigars and dip over fifteen years ago. I have gotten use to people being driven out of the house, car, bar, street even to take a smoke, but to even have the smell of smoke on your?! I think I’ll worry about the brown cloud that hangs over the Salt Lake City valley before I worry about the smell on a jacket.
I have no problem not smoking especially around others, especially kids, even though I have none. But don't forget that resources (police, courts--tax dollars) are required for every ticket given to someone who smokes out in public in one of these locations.
In today's tough economic times, I really think resources can be better appropriated.
oh the irony of it all..
los angeles is like living in a carton of cigarettes.
the freeways intersect everywhere and yet we banned cigarettes.
it is a city of idiots
The city of LA has the second-worst air quality in the United States. The worst? Philadelphia.
I remember many days of burning eyes and lungs as a kid. Maybe that's where I learned to smoke...
The revenue collecting police departments are going to be twitching at that prospect.
The same they are increasingly doing with speeding and traffic tickets.
Two page MSN article on the politics of traffic tickets.
I don't smoke, never have, but this is ridiculous.
The sun is bad for you, the air is bad for you, our water is bad for you, processed food, factory farming, pesticides, bovine growth hormone...
the LAST thing I'm going to get upset about is my friend smelling like a cigarrette when he comes back in after having the courtesy to go outside to smoke. Let's put things in perspective.
Ditto on the first line.
While there may be some truth to this study, I worry that it was initiated or influenced by the government's goal to make tobacco illegal. This is the eventual end game on tobacco and it has been stated by the DEA.
I don't want to make anymore criminals. Americans have much bigger threats than third hand smoke.
Sure there are people in gov that hate tobacco, but the money grubbers dominate.
If its a double income, sales on packets and tickets for public smoking, then bonus time.
I didn't want to be the only one with this opinion. Thanks Lance.
It's really very simple. The world is FULL of things that are bad for you. People's attempts to never come in contact with anything harmful are stupid and futile. As for me, I've gone as far as I'm going to in appeasing non-smokers.
Either outlaw tobacco or get off my back.
There's no logical reason why burning a plant should produce heavy metals, carcinogens or radioactive materials. By this logic, the vapors produced when I stir-fry vegetables should be equally hazardous. Let's at least identify the real culprits - the fertilizers and pesticides that are sprayed on the crops, and the additives that the tobacco companies use in their products.
Crank up the song.
Load up the bong.
Let the informer dial 911...
...when police security force one arrive
don't try to run
don't try to hide
just pull out the nine
pop in a clip
and let one slip...
into these crazeeeee fooools!
I'm in the mood
Are you ready?
Next they will be claiming that second han and third hand chew will be harmful.
,
Chew.
Just gross.
Spitting into whatever is available.
Sputum collections allover.
F*cking disgusting.
Had some dumbass Ga. redneck I had to share a room w/in th navy.Left his spit cups everywhere.
I got rid of all the cups and he had nowhere to spew except out an heavy window,open,and supported by a six inch dowelle.
He stuck his face out the windder,tapped the dowelle with his chin and said windder came crashing down and split his lip so bad his good tooth poked through his lip.
I didn't feel bad for him.
!!
I'm still laughing!
I don't chew and I don't go out with the girls that do.
Camel is aggressively marketing a brand of snuff now. Perhaps they are anticipating the day when smoking tobacco is banned but chew isn't an attractive option for most people?
First you chew; Polish your brown work boots with the spit. Dry the leftover tobacco and Smoke it in a pipe. Mix the black ashes with spit and lard to polish your dancing boots.
That where Spit polishing came from!
That's what grandad called Recycling.:):):)
Gone nutso. Please. I don't smoke. I have no problem with anyone smoking around me. It's more bullshit. Everything causes cancer. Everyone (almost) dies of cancer because doctors can't explain why you die. They need a reason. Here it is. When was the last time anyone read a funeral announcement that stated "Joe Blow died from smoking"? Know why? Because it has never been proven. They are just blowing "smoke" out their collective butts. Smoking is evil, but bombing and killing thousands? Priceless.
Oh shit, I think I just got 4th hand smoke from reading this article.
aaaaccccchhh,aaaaccchhh...
patoooey!
I just got 12th hand smoke cuz my great great grandfather smoked before I was born!!!
I think 12th hand smoke is when your great great grandfather walks behind a chain smoker who breaks wind before you were born.
The chain smoker my great great grandfather walked behind, also worked in an asbestos factory, so.......oh my gawd!! My lungs are toast!!
It would also explain the natural part in your hair.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9O1Cv7wudU&fe...
sadly missed. a massive loss to comedy.
If you want to fight real second-hand smoke, then got after factories and vehicles emitting CO2 into the air! They've been making up this propaganda war for a while, because they're looking to make money off of individual choices. Now they're trying to apply the same argument of second-hand smoke to weed, and even argue that it gives you cancer, and that you're as likely to be in a DUI because of it as you are with liquor. Total bs from the personal responsibility police.
Some folks think that smoking herb is a crime
If they catcha smoking it there 'bound to drop the dime
Insufferable,informer ,crazy fools
Wait with there fingers crossed for you to break the rules...
Thanks for bringing up the personal responsibility issue, which I think is the real key here. I smoke cigars, like them, and don't intend to stop smoking them because there is a public crusade to put smokers in the same category as lepers. Informed choice is the issue here. If someone asks me to put it out because they are bothered no problem there, I realize there are people out there that have asthma, etc. There isn't any reason that smokers can't be equally accomodated in public places so long precautions are taken so non smokers arent bothered by it. And if I choose to quit, that's my choice that I will make it based on my own time, not because it is mandated by some individuals or organizations that presume to know what is in my best interest.
every second is one second closer to death. accept it and live the best you can.
Shorter of breath and one step closer to death.
Enjoy.
This is probably one of the articles put out by a fundamentalist. Radioactive materials. What crap! Did you know that Jerry Falwell started all the anti-smoking crap. You all fell for it. Research has shown that second-hand smoke is only a problem for young children in that they may get more colds and they may get asthma. No effect on adults. You have all been brainwashed!!
Imagine the 3rd hand effect from you idiots driving your cars, or eating your fatty foods, or the methane from fatties farting!!!!
OMG THE WORLD IS ENDING. Stop the moral panic on cigarette smoking. I will tell you that you will die from lead painted chinese goods or the fumes in the street, then you will from some cigarettes.
ULTRA LIBERAL MORAL PANIC!!!!
Always trying to change something that you can't fix.
I fart liberally
gawd, if you walk on a sidewalk where cars pass you or open your window - you are - repeat - you are more likely to breathe measureable harmful gases and chemicals than sharing life with a chain smoker. food in your restaurants poison you more than second hand smoke! third hand? i still love the smell of pipes, cigars and cigarettes and i quit smoking after a 30-year addiction. and come on, any former smoker who says they can't stand the smell of tobacco or gets headaches is still addicted. i decided to quit smoking to increase my vocal stamina and extend my career an extra decade or so.
I'll just shower, brush my teeth and wash my clothes immediately after I come in (snow or sun) from each hourly cigarette break. Just for you!
By the way, your booze-breath makes me nauseous. Outside with it!
And you with Chinese manufactured dry wall.... Take your living room outdoors, too.
We'll all stand around in the snow with booze-breath and smoke drywall.
If you want to go to that much trouble, knock yourself out. If you were being childish in your response, you may want to think about standing in a corner for a while and think about what you said that was childish.
....have an unfortunate bias to the childishly absurd. I like standing in the corner, anyway.
I don't smoke. I don't expect others to care about that. I do expect those who do to refrain in certain social situations where if they even suspect that their smoke may bother anyone around them, they should not smoke. For some of those people, it can cause headaches, upset stomach or kick off an asthma attack. In the long term it can cause worse problems for some people (note that I did not say everyone). In any case, is it worth it that it can be a potential problem for anyone? Not much different than having a toxic plant down the road from your home in my view. Smokers just need to get a grip on their self-discipline and get over their addiction even if it is for an hour or two so as not to disturb people around them. I am an ex-smoker and quit for several reasons to include my health, the health of those around me, and because I felt embarrassed from the smell on my breath, clothes and in my hair that obviously offended others. It was particularly uncomfortable after being out with friends to go home and have my daughters tell me that I smelled bad.
Sure, I lived near a factory in Ohio that made me so sick we had to move from the state, I just recently moved from an apartment with a Mold problem that was making me very sick. That last apartment had my lungs almost completely locked up in total pain, my throat was burning, and major fungus growing on my skin----the doctor I went to see, suggested I quit smoking----He wouldn't help me with the major fungus infection in my throat, lungs and on my skin, because I smoke. The landlord is suing me for the rent because, I smoke. The judge won't let me establish the apartment as inhabitable because I smoke.
So you see, this guys apartment has just hurt my body very badly, my lungs still are in major pain, but because I smoke they all claim my problems are coming from that. Guess it doesn't matter my granMA has been smoking since she was 14 and now is a tad over 80, doesn't matter my uncle been smoking since a teenager and now is 60. It doesn't matter that I have X-rays from less than a year ago of my lungs that are 100 percent---OH WAIT that does matter :P...!!!
3rd hand smoke, great another reason some dumb hick redneck can kick my ass, yay.
What ever my lungs have been fine except for reactions to Mold and factory emissions. BULLSHIT.
search you-tube for highcrimes105, see what I am doing, I have plans to make another video this week coming.
they are not describing 3rd hand smoke, but our tap water
>>the residue includes heavy metals, carcinogens and even radioactive materials that young children can get on their hands and ingest<<
Last I checked the ice caps weren't melting from 3rd hand smoke. Let's have some priorities people.
"I quit smoking a little over a year ago and now the smell bothers me so much that I get headaches. This makes perfect sense."
Correlation does not always translate to causation, and only true scientific inquiry will show this. A direct link between 'third hand smoke' and any ailment would be almost impossible to prove.
Wasting time on something like this will do no good until we are able to address other more serious issues. Another commenter brought up a good point, cigarette carcinogens have nothing on the shit we put in the atmosphere with our vehicles. Then there is an obvious weight problem with many Americans, yet we can't talk about it because it might hurt someone's feelings.
One of my pet peeves as a smoker is the desire of politicians to increase taxes on cigs in one-dollar increments per pack. I realize that times are tough, and I don't mind paying additional taxes on cigarettes, but why the f*ck do they need to increase taxes in such high proportion to the cost of a pack? Why not 10, 25 or 50 cents per pack? Would still raise a boatload of cash and not overly burden a minority of taxpayers?
I live in Florida where cigarettes are still relatively cheap (around $3/pack). In CA, they are close to $5/pack, AZ around $6. Are these states' roads, health care systems, etc proportionally better? Not in my experience.
Cigarette taxes are bullshit. I am a pretty poor guy, I have generally made about $20,000 annually since I got out of school. As a pack a day smoker in Connecticut, I am taxed at over twice the rate of a non-smoker who makes the same amount of money. Considering that poor people are very much more likely to smoke than the rich, it is basically the most regressive tax that could've ever been conceived.
Edit: Unless they somehow came up with a way to actually implement a poverty tax. I wouldn't put it past them.
State run lotteries are a tax on the poor, even though it's one of the only taxes people seem happy to pay. Any way you look at it, it's a massive money transfer away from people who don't understand math very well, or who do understand the odds but justify their purchases with the delusion that "someone has to win, might as well be me." The states generally claim that the money goes to education, which is hogwash.
Haha, yeah, if the money went to education then people would stop playing the lottery.
I love all the deny-ers on this blog, 'you've got more chance of being hit by a bus etc'. Of course third hand cigarette smoke is harmful it's just one of dozens of things in the air that will get ya. I'm 21 years cigarette sober and I nearly choke if I come withing 3 feet of cigarette smoke. It makes my lungs burn when I smell it on people. Now you're saying, 'hey it don't bother me.' Think of all the fatal diseases that still have no causes. Try putting two and two together with the poisons that are in the air now. As an ex-nurse I am left with the memory of patients with emphysema non-stop shitting themselves because that's the only way Co2 can leave the body as the lungs have rotted away.
I smoke and while I'm completely respectful of those who don't smoke I don't even see how this article qualifies as a 'study'. There's no mention of the actual scientific approach to how they got this 'data' other then they called people on a phone. As far as them saying the smell is telling your brain it's toxic so get away, the same thing happens when I pass people in the office who were body spray and stinky perfume (and i get a headache from that as well sometimes) but I don't think the sprays and perfumes are actually 'toxic' just because they stink to my nose and we certainly don't make people wearing stinky perfumes stand outside in sub-zero temperatures all day. And i hate to point out that while everyone supposedly knows second hand smoke is bad for you, there's never been one actual study that completely, 100% concludes second hand smoke directly causes cancer. The best they got was 7 out of 13 cases in the study that the Surgeon General and a judge determined second hand smoke was dangerous and they used to pass the inhumane smoking laws most states havce now. As far as I know a court does not conclude scientific investigation. If someone can find one actual, scientific study that concludes this 100%, please point me to it. Otherwise they need to stop making public policy based on cludgey and politicized (by both sides) studies. If smoking is so dangerous and addictive why isn't it illegal like most things that are illegal because they are dangerous and addictive? (we know the answer to that, tax money!) I don't think people should be forced to be subjected to smoke but at the same time I find it ironic people whine about the Bush admin's lack of scientific support while the science in stuff like third hand smoke is shady at best (i.e if it smells bad it's toxic. btw, what about all the emissions standards tossed out the window in the last eight years and all the toxic crap coming from China thanks to no regulations anymore?)
This is the beginning of politicized studies that will eventually lead to bans on smoking in apartments one pays rent on, possibly people's own homes. If this were actually true then just about everyone would be dead from cancer and most children born in the last twenty years would not have lived past the age of three as the amount of rooms, furniture, etc, subjected to some sort of cigarette smoke over the past few decades far outweights the number of items that haven't. And btw, if this is true and smoking is so toxic and will eventually kill us all due to first, second, third and whatever else they come up with hand smoke, why punish and ostracize smokers rather then go after the companies manufacturing apparently the most toxic items this world has ever known? I think all these studies would almost classify tobacco companies as terrorists if they were all 100% accurate. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that various forms of smoking may contribute to health problems but there's many other factors, esp genetic disposition (just as many people who have lung cancer did not smoke as those that do, explain that), that I'm unhappy with the amount of legal items being passed against the end-user/smoker rather then going after the companies that make the cigarettes. I would think with conclusive results they would be shut down fairly easily and that would definitely help some people stop smoking. But if there's nothing the war on drugs has not taught us is that in the states we go after the people rather then the cause (our basic inability to distinguish between a social problem and a criminal problem but hey, fixing a social problem requires money that may not bring back more money).
My children are already genetically enhanced to survive the coming age of 'clean coal'.
In the post apocalyptic future, where dirt, smoke and increased toxicity are even more common, my lineage will have a decided advantage against those who are already claiming illness from such imaginary threats as third hand smoke.
I look forward to the inevitable die off of such weakly constituted individuals.
Enjoy.
I was thinking that the other day as I was standing outside my office building (where the 'smoking spot' is away from the front entrance to the building but ironically at a part of a large walkway people have to walk directly past to get to the front of the office) in sub-zero temperatures. After about 5 more years of smoking bans if two smokers conceive a child the child will have a superhuman immunity to extreme temperatures as well as all the other horrible, non-smoking related crap floating about in the air thanks to the laxed emissions and pollution policies of the last eight years that arguably have put more toxic stuff into the air then smokers have but hey, smokers are easy people to target since they are standing right there with a plume of smoke coming from their mouths.
doubt we'll "evolve" fast enough to withstand the damage we as a society do to the environment.
I think that all the efforts to "kill germs" (anti-bacterial soaps, etc) contribute to weakness, not strength, of the body's ability to withstand attacks.
That that does not kill you makes you stronger.
I posit that the reason smoking cigarettes doesn't IMMEDIATELY kill you is exactly because of early environmental conditioning. The environment of our ancestors was either filled with smoke from volcanic activity, or MORE LIKELY....
Once we moved into caves and mastered fire we were constantly surrounded by smoke. I'm pretty sure the death rate of early hominids was much greater from 'smoking' than it is now. Over thousands of years, we evolved the ability to exist in the smoky environment we created with our fire building. As bad as people think we have it now, during the industrial revolution, when coal was the predominant power source, city air was dense with smoke particulates. Darwinists noted the rapid change to dark colored moths during that era because their coloration blended in so well with the dirty environment.
Enjoy.
It not smoke we are talking about. it's the increased poisons in the smoke. Still all denying here. Do you honestly think you can live a long and healthy lfe and smoke too? You are stinking individuals whom other people don't like being near.Enjoy your cancer of the mouth people.
People have a right to make informed choices and being righteous and judgmental about smoking doesn't solve problems---it makes them worse. I am aware of the hazards of smoking and accept the consequences that come with it. I don't appreciate people like you treating smokers as if they were radioactive. If you can't learn to compromise and peacefully coexist with others, go be smug and right at some else's blogsite.
So do people who use a lot of Cologne and perfumes. They sometimes make me gag.
See, this is retarded. I'm pretty sure you're trolling but I'll jump in anyway.
"Do you honestly think you can live a long and healthy lfe and smoke too?"
Well, yes, I do think that. Because you OBVIOUSLY CAN. It's a fair bit less likely, yes, but it does happen. Sorry to shatter your fantasy world.
Of course, it is possible that they can't live long healthy lives if the definition of "healthy" changes to explicitly define "not smoking" as a portion of it (which is actually what it seems to be doing, sadly).
At one point in my life I could run a mile in about 8 minutes, my heart rate was 60 beats per minute, my blood pressure was 110/70, I had a normal range body fat percentage, and I had people trying to tell me I "wasn't healthy" because I smoked. Silly. Was I as healthy as is possible? No. Was I putting myself at long-term risk? Sure. But was I disqualified from being called "healthy"?
Granted, I'm not as healthy anymore, but it's not because of smoking, it's because of weight issues (which, by the way, would probably be worse if I didn't take a stimulant/appetite suppressant called nicotine every day). And I guarantee you that in an XL shirt and smoking, I'm better off than the non-smoker who's wearing the 3X.
I just wish the activists could be as successful in dealing with industrial toxins as they (will be) on this issue. This newest issue seems to be more about political expendiency than concern for the masses.
Those of us that aren't routinely around first-hand, second-hand, or third-hand smoke are left with the reality that we deal with envoronmental pollution on a minute by minute basis. IMHO that represents the greater hazard to us all.
This is not to diminish the importance of removing all smoking hazards.
If you are afraid of this Poison; I suggest you never eat Potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplant or other foods that naturally contain the stuff.
It may help not eating any vegetable or other foodstuff imported from countries that still use nicotine for killing Bugs on crops.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanaceae
http://forum.agriscape.com/?read=1739
Is that why I'm hooked on potatoes?
I live by the Irish seven course dinner
A baked potato and a six-pack.
Exposure to the pollutants in wood smoke can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches, nausea and dizziness. Wood smoke can also make asthma worse, and has been associated with an increase in respiratory problems. In large populations where wood smoke is a significant contributor to outdoor air pollution, studies have linked wood smoke to severe health risks, including increased hospital admissions and even premature death.
In addition, studies of laboratory animals suggest that prolonged exposure to wood smoke may weaken the immune system.
Breathing wood smoke is not healthy for anyone. However, the health risks are greater for people with existing heart and lung problems. Children are also at greater risk because their respiratory systems are still developing, and because they inhale more air due to their higher rates of activity.
(I am a smoker)
I actually have a pet theory - with no scientific training to test/study it and no capital to pay someone else to - that second hand smoke is actually, in a way, worse than first hand smoke. I know that as a smoker, I can smoke 30 cigarettes in a day outside, or in my car with the windows wide open, and I'll feel fine the next morning. But if I spend a couple hours in a room that is thick with smoke, I will be coughing shit up all the whole next day.
I wonder if the higher incidence of lung cancer in smokers is because they are more likely to smoke in their homes, or poorly ventilated cars, and end up LIVING in second-hand smoke. Probably only enough of a problem for the non-smoking barfly who spends a couple nights at the pub to experience some discomfort, which is why "purely" second-hand smoke has never been "proven" to be harmful. But I wouldn't be surprised if long-term exposure to stale, stagnant smoke has more to do with smoking-related diseases and deaths than the actual smoking.
One way to study it, in an uncontrolled sort of way, is to watch how lung cancer and emphysema rates fall (or not) following the nearly worldwide banning of indoor public smoking. Survey methods could distinguish between those who do and those who not smoke in their own homes.
"Third hand smoke" can certainly be irritating but I doubt it's a serious health risk. Second hand isn't worth dismissing so easily.
We all know cigarettes are bad. But there's just one thing missing from this article -- evidence. Where's the evidence that third-hand smoke has negative health effects? Where's the study that shows that long-term exposure to someone who has recently smoked causes cancer or emphysema or heart disease? The closest it comes is this:
"The study reported on attitudes toward smoking in 1,500 households across the United States. . . . [T]he researchers asked people if they agreed with the statement that “breathing air in a room today where people smoked yesterday can harm the health of infants and children.” Only 65 percent of nonsmokers and 43 percent of smokers agreed with that statement, which researchers interpreted as acknowledgement of the risks of third-hand smoke.
Well, okay. So people think that left-over is bad for other people. But that tells us exactly squat about whether or not it is. C'mon, apply a little critical thinking here.
Eh? Third-hand smoke?
What will they think of next?
edit: by the time I posted this the post that it was in response to seems to have been deleted or edited. oh well.
That is a good rant but did you read the thread? 75% of the comments, from smokers and non-smokers alike, have been excoriating this study and anti-smoking legislation in general.
Now none of us are jumping to the stuff you're talking about, but that's not what the article was about. I appreciate your bringing it up but attacking your fellow readers for being so easily duped is unnecessary.
As for what you say about schizophrenics, the antipsychotic effects of nicotine have been known about for decades. But it's more profitable to make up new drugs (which, by the way, are basically random chemicals - nobody knows how ANY psychiatric drug ACTUALLY WORKS, they just have theories) than to tell people to head down to RiteAid and get a pack of cigarettes (or a patch, if you swing that way).
It is funny, though, that with all the widespread knowledge of the additives in tobacco, that people will gladly go along with the party line that the tobacco (and not the chemicals that are sprayed on it for the purpose of KILLING THINGS) is what's killing people.
with cigarette lighters?
No cig lighter or ashtrays most of the time. Lots of soda cans filled with water and butts...
People have been smoking chewing inhaling tobacco for centuries and until the mid to late 2oth century there was almost no recorded lung cancer (outside of coal miners). It wasn't because diagnostic science has gotten better(if you were hit by a train a doctor could still be able to tell if you had lung cancer)
It was only after the cigarette companies started adding chemicals and toxins and mutagens and carcenogens for a competitive edge that people who smoked, and those around them, started dying by the millions.
I too, as an ex-smoker, believe anyone should be free to take into their own bodies whatever they chose. But just as I support the second amendment I don't believe that gives them the right to, even possibly, kill those around them.
And finally it shouldn't obligate me to shoulder their long term health care expenses.
Yes--I'm one of those people who has never smoked and has been fighting for over thirty years for the right to breathe clean air. It's become even more of a passionate issue for me since I scarred my lungs cleaning my oven three times with "fume-free" oven cleaner and then baking right away with the windows closed one holiday season. Now I cannot tolerate smoke of any kind--wood smoke, barbecue smoke, incense--even lighting too many candles with the windows closed puts me in distress. But even before that, when my then-husband smoked, I would get migraines that started with the smell of stale tobacco left in the furniture, even when he was at sea on weekly ops. Some people mentioned the fact that other smells make them ill. The difference between cloying perfume and alcohol is that the fumes from cloying perfume will not kill you or cause long-term illness. Yes--it can be annoying, but it is not fatal, as fumes and residue from tobacco products can be.
I don't know how valid this third-hand smoke research is, but I have fought the good fight for publish health and clean indoor air at both the local and state level and I will continue to fight this fight--both in terms of individual pollutants such as tobacco smoke, and other types of pollution such as auto emissions. We have cars that run on hydrogen and give off water. Why are they not in mass production and quickly replacing gasoline? Because the oil industry lobby is as large as the tobacco lobby. I also fight to clean up industrial pollution.
In short, I fight for people's rights to breathe clean air wherever they are. The Declaration of Independence mentions three "inalienable rights." Smokers often turn to this document and complain that our attempts to remove the toxins associated with smoking from the air are our way of trying to take away their right to pursue happiness. Well, I was a medic in the Navy and I fought for life. I think there's a reason Jefferson wrote "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" in that order. You cannot enjoy liberty or pursue happiness from the grave.
But I don't want to make smoking tobacco illegal. I want to make it illegal for anyone to make other people smoke, be it first, second, or third hand. And I certainly have nothing against Native American uses of tobacco. Being a member of a persecuted minority religion myself, I have every interest in protecting other people's sacraments.
I know we progressives sometime overshoot the mark, but if we go too far in the wrong direction, I'll be pushing back.
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