New cig peril: Third-hand smoke coats puffers in poison US federal boffins in Berkeley, California say they have discovered yet another deadly hazard associated with smoking. They also raise warnings regarding the perils associated with electronic cigarettes. The dangers of actually smoking a cigarette, and those from breathing a smoker's "second hand" smoke were well-known: but …
Smokers smell (of cigarette smoke at least) even if they have smoked outside.
That cigarette smoke smells bad.
Now I'm all in favour of the smokers killing themselves off as quickly as they are able, but I am not in favour of their efforts to do so affecting me and other non-smokers.
This is just another part of the picture that tells me that smoking should be banned - is there any 'good solution' when the whole activity is danegerous to everyone.
The ONLY people that benefit are the cigarette manufacturers and the treasury.
ttfn
The above is my opinion - you can hold whatever opinion you like.
"nicotine residues will stick to a smoker's skin and clothing" - no fucking shit, Sherlock.
As for "burning sooty treats" - to characterize it as some innocent pastime is disingenuous.
If tobacco were introduced to the market today, it would, quite rightly, be banned from sale.
I see no reason to allow it, simply because it's been around for a while. It should be banned outright and, like it or not, we all know it.
yeh just like alcohol and cars and motorbikes. All far too dangerous and much too much fun, it should never have been allowed :)
in fact glass can go too, much too easy to cut yourself and there plastics instead, and pins, they're a bit risky aren't they, lets have blue tack instead.
I'm an ex smoker and this is bullshit, you're not going to develop cancer because someone previously smoked a cigarette in the general area that you're standing in.
Anyone genuinely concerned about this should just give it up, go and live in a plastic bubble, drink distilled water and only breathe air that has gone through a series of military grade carbon filters, because you'll be exposed to far more toxins in your general environment everyday just by working in an office, walking by an inner city road or probably eating a kebab.
This is just more things on the list of stuff for the mincing, anti-smoker, crybaby to complain about.
I'm an ex-smoker (not normally the most tolerant of non-smokers), but, whilst I can accept that there is a risk from secondary smoke, this sounds like a load of tosh.
Exactly what statistical evidence do they have to support this, or is it just supposition? Do they make any guesses as to how many people will die because of this, or what the increase in your chances of developing cancer are? I would humbly suggest that the answer for both is "not a lot".
Is this what the world is coming to? Identifying every conceivable thing that could possibly harm you is ridiculous. Last I checked, having sex these days is like playing Russian roulette, and yet we still do it. The human race would have died out without it. It's called RISK vs. REWARD. Cigarettes fall under this rule too. They can be fun, but they can also kill you. We all know this.
Do these researchers have nothing better to do than go after smokers? Crying babies piss me off and cause me stress... which raises my blood pressure... which can cause hyper-tension, cardiac arrest & stroke. So, by their logic, we should kill all babies because they cause me harm. COME ON!
How about research into something useful? How about working on making better electric cars so that normal cars can be got rid of? I bet one car causes more harm to the air that several dosen smokers in the same period.
Seriously, the world has more pressing problems that need dealing with.
@ Juliusz "Cigarettes fall under this rule too. They can be fun, but they can also kill you."
Serious question - what do you (or smokers in general) get out of smoking (the "fun" part)? I, perhaps unwisely, tried it once and didn't detect any effect (good or bad) at all.
Is it *really* only ever started through peer pressure, and only continued to avoid withdrawal symptoms?
Difficult to believe if so.
Perhaps 'fun' was not the word I should use. I my personal case, I find smoking pleasurable. It's not any rush I go after (never been aware of any narcotic rush), but rather the actual act. It's probably an oral fixation of some kind.
I enjoy it, which is why I don't do it constantly. I don't smoke all day when I'm at work and I rarely smoke at home. If I smoked all the time, it would become too routine and thus boring and not enjoyable, and I would have to stop for a while to regain the pleasure aspect.
I didn't start smoking through peer pressure. I was well out of school before I started smoking. And I continue now because, as I've mentioned, I enjoy it. It has happened before that I suddenly lost all interest in smoking and stopped for many months. It suddenly didn't feel pleasurable anymore. I don't know why it happens but I know that it does. That's not to say that other people do it for the nicotine or whatever other reason.
I hope that answers your questions.
"Anonymous Coward".
Maybe it's because I only quit smoking a few months ago, but I haven't got to the point where I feel it my God-given right to look down on an entire group of people who are merely enjoying a legal pastime.
Replace the word "smokers" in your sad little hatespeak with some other minority group, like "blacks" or "asians", and you'd, quite rightly, fall foul of discrimination laws in the UK, but you take a pop at smokers, and it's not only acceptable, but actively endorsed by our political "leaders", and wholeheartedly encouraged within the parameters of the politically correct social experiment we're currently undergoing - it's something that disgusts me about the state this country is in, and the mentality of the people who have brought us to this point.
Not AC, because unlike some, I have the courage of my convictions to stand behind what I say.
If you're going to suggest smokers are a minority in the same sense that black people are a minority, Sean, I am going to suggest that you check your head.
I don't think any sort of hate directed at any group is especially big or clever or good for the world (and you'd better believe that as a journo I cop for enough abuse in that sense), but that is a ludicrous and offensive leap to make. So don't. Please. Ta. Find another way to argue your point. This kind of thread is wearisome enough as it is.
I'm not a smoker and never have been but it seems to me that there is a certain hysteria around the subject. If you believed what the government and media seem to give out you'd think one puff and you'll die.
What I'd like to see is some clear indication of risk. So, for example, if you smoke twenty a day you have a 1 in X chance of dying from a disease you wouldn't otherwise have had. I'd like to know the same for second hand smoke where you work in the same room as a smoker and then for someone who goes to a pub once a week where people smoke. Then could we have similar figures for the risk of third hand smoke?
All I've seen so far is talk about smoking "related" disease risk, which seems a bit of a get out or "fudge". I accept that smoking is not a good thing and I don't want to encourage it but I'd like to have a better handle on the facts.
Just because limits of detection are improving, doesn't mean that what we are discovering is strictly relevant.
I'm an ex smoker, and even I find these sort of reports tiresome.
“Nicotine, the addictive substance in tobacco smoke, has until now been considered to be non-toxic in the strictest sense of the term,” says Kamlesh Asotra of the University of California’s Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program, which funded this study"
sorry Kamlesh, you are wrong. Its extremely toxic, in the strictest sense of the word.
From Wikipedia: The LD50 of nicotine is 50 mg/kg for rats and 3 mg/kg for mice. 40–60 mg (0.5-1.0 mg/kg) can be a lethal dosage for adult humans. Why do you think its used as an insecticide.
Interesting analytical chemistry with a cheeky hint of sanctimonious zeal
“I have something to tell you non-smokers that I know for a fact that you don't know, and I feel it's my duty to pass on information at all times. Ready?. . . . Non-smokers die every day . . . Enjoy your evening. See, I know that you entertain this eternal life fantasy because you've chosen not to smoke, but let me be the 1st to POP that bubble and bring you hurling back to reality . . . You're dead too.”
...they could just make cigarette manufacturers put the filter on the correct end. I admit it would require smokers to make some fairly tricky lingual contortions to avoid the ash falling on their tongues, but a suitable instructional leaflet could surely be included in every packet.
More seriously, wouldn't it make much more sense to treat tobacco smoke as any other pollutant and regulate it accordingly? - would an industrial process be allowed to release similar amounts of tar/nicotine/whatever in a public place?
"I'm an ex smoker and this is bullshit, you're not going to develop cancer because someone previously smoked a cigarette in the general area that you're standing in."
Put your money where your mouth is. Personally risk your home and money by offering it to the next person who on balance of probability got cancer through second hand smoke. If its bullshit there is no risk to you.
OK, I'll take you up on that...
Oh, wait a minute...
The article is about "3rd hand smoke" not people who end up being forced to passive smoke (2nd hand) for long periods of time (think bar staff).
Oh, wait another minute.....
Pubs, clubs and bars are now smoke free too.
Oh, hang on...
All enclosed public areas and buildings are and have been for ages, smoke free.
So who exactly is at risk of developing cancer from even "2nd hand smoke" never mind "3rd hand smoke"?
Go on, who?
According to the study, "our results indicate that several hundred nanograms per square meter of nitrosamines may be formed on indoor surfaces in the presence of nitrous acid". This is a shocking result as it shows that 1 square meter of wall in a smoky room in a badly polluted environment may contain as much nitrosamines as a smoked sausage or crispy bacon sandwich!
We are all doomed.
So.. the anti-smoking brigade(*), unable to cope with the fact that a dwindling number of rational, intellegent people still smoke privately while fully aware of the risks, need a hook to get it banned altogether.
Ta-Daa!
(*) Were saving lives! how dare you criticize us! we can do no wrong and you are a child murder, waaa! you MUST do what we say.
- As I approach middle age I am really anxious I will end up like them; but hopefully the fags will kill me before I get that sad.
smoking is not a good thing to do for anyone we know and love to do, or anyone (so we learn from TFA) to do in our vicinity.
But everyone else: yeah, bring it on. The IRS is the real "grim reaper" with the 'baccy: they bring in £10 billion p.a, and the NHS pays out only £5 bn for smoke-related illnesses. So everyone's a winner other than those cigarette-suckers! That's the cynical reason why smoking isn't banned.
OK, I'll get my coat, mine's the one with the pack of L&B, thanks.
"the Berkeley profs recommend that the carpets, walls, furniture and ceilings be replaced."
Er doesn't that normally mean rebuilding the bloody thing? So we have to rebuild anywhere people have smoked? Is this 'research' to be used of the driver for some sort of Keynesian mass rebuilding programme?
Where the fuck do we get to smoke in peace now? Or do we have to take our chances with the bears having a dump?
The sound of yet more jackbooted feet crunching in unison on the gravel? A few months for the Macbethian witches in the labour spin department to whip everyone into a suitable froth and it'll be perfectly legal to kill smokers on sight, provided you have been CRB approved and decriminalised, you do it with a non-locking blade of less than 3 inches bought using the appropriate uk.gov ID, and you don't use a large, black camera to photograph any police who may attend the scene to arrest any innocent bystanders who look guilty, perverted or non-CRB exonerated.
Nice touch that, getting the kids in there, cos we'd do absolutely anything for them, unless we have something to hide (like a morbid dislike of other people's spoiled, mannerless offspring, for example.)
The Final Solution for smokers - coming soon to a Town hall near you!
Smoke kills you!
Alcohol kills you!
Salt kills you!
Sugar kills you!
Butter kills you!
Bread kills you!
Red meat kills you!
White meat kills you!
Knives kill you!
Cars kill you!
Planes kill you (and the Polar bears)!
Peanuts kill you!
Water kills you!
Internets kill you (or at least make you pervert)!
Now, quick, give all your money to the Government and die, before something else killed you!
New research suggests moderating comments (especially the kind you've moderated a gazillion times before) kills you. I think I've got about a week left before I... ack... gag... oh no... estimates... inaccurate... I regret... n-nothing... see you... in hell... mother...fu
*thud*
I apologise for any anti-moderating offense I may have inadvertently committed but I still insist that my comment was not in any way less stupid or unoriginal or politically engaged than the phenomenal piece of research lying at the base of this discussion. In other words I maintain that it was totally in line with the level of scientific enquiry set by the honourable researchers at Berkeley.
Sounds like a serious amount of scaremongering going on here. So essentially its fumes from things like diesel engines (already fairly toxic) interacting with smoke residue left behind on fabrics to produce other toxic fumes. They talk about how it can persist in fabrics for days etc etc.. given how (in the UK at least) people are having to smoke outside anyway the only fabrics affected will be clothes, which get washed alot. Somehow I think they are somewhat overstating the risk here.
Do these experts wear tinfoil headgear? Can they occasionally be heard muttering about the sinister actions of "The Man"? Oh and I'm sure they all drive Priuses as well :D
I don't think we should stop people smoking, it's their right afterall.
However they should be prevented from working with children. The system is already in place for this.
Also they should not become parents. This is harder to enforce but perhaps when parents go for fertility treatment they should not be given it if they smoke.
The HPV vaccine programme will have a benificial effect on future childrens wellbeing because the potential parents will need fertility treatment and can be screened for suitablility then.
Eventually sexual equality can be achived by sterilising women after first storing their eggs. Babies can then be raised in safe secure national facilities without the neet for women to take time off work.
Perhaps all that wasted energy of children running arround could be harnessed by keeping them in safe secure pods and hooking them up to the national grid thereby creating a completely green carbon neutral power source and reversing Global Warming.
With children brought up by machines it would also have the added benefit of keeping them away from ciggarettes and paedophiles and ensure they are all treated equally.
If it's so dangerous, ban smoking.
In the same vane:
* Ban alcohol because of the amount of trouble it causes
* Ban cars because of the number of road deaths
* Ban TV and computer games because it causes obesity in kids
* Ban fatty foods because they cause all sorts of health problems
* Ban knives because they can cut
* Ban food which hasnt been reduced to a milkshake-like consistency because people could choke on it
* Ban movement because people can hurt themselves (twist ankles / fall over etc.)
I am a smoker. I don't like the ban on smoking in pubs, especially pubs like my local where the majority of people smoke, so the pub seems empty until you get to the smoking area at the back, but I live with it. I respect others right to choose, so I wouldn't even smoke in my own car with a non-smoker if they didn't want me to, or in my own house. Can other people PLEASE respect my right to choose and stop with this bullshit research which is never backed up by real evidence?!
Third-rate scientific minds peddling third-rate science. Still, they got themselves in the news (which, I suspect, was the aim).
As to the slyly inserted "The biggest risk is to young children...", here we go again! It's the pernicious hand-wringing "Oh, won't anyone think of the children" mantra which the child protection industry exploit to impose their fanatic paranioa on virtually every area of life. Did anyone hear that nutter Jim Gamble on Radio 4 this morning? I rest my case.
As to Paul Murphy (above): "The above is my opinion". Yes, and a particularly intolerant priggish self-righteous one so keep it to yourself.
The biggest risk to children is that they will start smoking before they are mature enough to make an informed decision, then they get hooked and suffer ill health later in life. We should do something about that before we worry about 3rd hand smoke.
Perhaps for the moment we have gone far enough with mitigating the effects of second hand smoking (I rarely encounter it now). We should be looking at the availability, the promotion and the media representation of smoking as if it were some normal human activity?
ie don't allow so very many places to sell them, then it might be easier to police the age restrictions. Don't allow shops to put up huge, brightly lit banks of shiney cigarette boxes which are the first thing you see when you walk in. Don't show people smoking on early evening soaps (yes I know it is part of real life, but so what - wouldn't the real Phil Mitchell swear a bit more often than he does?)
...in the US used to have cardboard kiosks which displayed packs of ciggies out of sight of the clerks at convenient shoplifting elevation.
The tobacco companies know they need to create addicts before they are old enough to understand the dangers. What's a couple hundred dollars compared to having a life long slave^H^H^H^Hloyal customer.
New laws in most states now require that tobacco products be kept where only the clerk can reach them.
I never smoked a lot, thank god, and now I find that a puff on an e-cig satisfies the odd craving usually after ordering the 3rd pint. This new research will no doubt be trumpeted by those trying to ban the e-cig which would be a shame. A mass conversion of smokers to the e-cig would lead to cleaner streets, clothes, hair, smokers and their loved ones lungs. Tax the nicotine cartridges then the tax man doesn't lose out , the NHS will eventually have less big 'C' patients and the council can spend less cleaning streets and more recycling the lithium ion batteries.
Mines the one that doesn't stink any more.
The concept of 3rd hand smoke did not exist until January last year. The whole concept was cooked up by the National Social Climate Survey of Tobacco Control, a special interest group working to legislate bans on tobacco (not surprisingly, heavily backed by the world’s largest pharmaceutical company of smoking cessation products) as part of its campaign to denormalise smoking.
Denormalise. For those who don’t know what is meant by “denormalise,” it is exactly what fat people are experiencing in increasing intensity, as well as all those with physical characteristics, cultural differences or chronic diseases (actually primarily due to aging and genes) that can be condemned for not following some certain diet and lifestyle behavior. Denormalising is a process of “stigmatizing people in everyday discourse and media representations, in a variety of overwhelmingly negative ways” to make them outcasts and create cultural change as a means for a nation to control behavior.
This technique of denormalising was described in detail by Simon Chapman, Ph.D., professor of public health at the University of Sydney, in the January 2008 issue of Tobacco Control, published by the British Medical Journal Publishing Group.
And remember the dose makes the poison, ie drinking one glass water/hour good, drinking 12 litres of water per hour bad.
Just because we can detect a few millipoofteenths of nicotine after a few years does not mean that those few millipoofteenths are dangerous
* Carbon Monoxide
* Nitrous Oxide
* Nitrogen
* Iron
* Oxygen
* Water
* Chlorophyll
* Tin
* Copper
* Mercury
* Cosmic Radiation
* Infrared Radiation
* Ultraviolet Radiation
* Electromagnetic Radiation
* Gravity
* Velocity
* Altitude
* Temperature
* Pressure
* Viscosity
* Germans
* World Of Warcraft
* The Daily Mail
All have been shown to kill in sufficiently high concentrations, I'd just like to know where I stand...
I think we should form a lobby group.. NSWACA or something like that.. (Non Smokers Who Aren’t Complete Asshats).
I'm glad to see that there are others on here (who like) me either do not smoke or have given it up and yet:
• Are able to stand next to a smoking person without making coughing/grumbling noises.
• Are able to avoid commenting when someone comes back from a break smelling smoky (ironically the people that do point it out frequently have BO and/or halitosis).
• Are able to have a discussion about smoking without sanctimoniously going on about how the smoker will die sooner/less pleasantly etc etc.
Sadly as with most subjects the lunatic fringe is much more vocal than the majority. Just as PETA end up making all vegetarians look like loonies, the ‘ban this sick filth/won’t somebody think of the children’ lot end up making all us non/ex-smokers look like whinging, sanctimonious tossers.
I suspect that many feel like me that the law has already done enough to protect us and any further legislation or interference would be a greater defeat for civil liberties than victory for public health.
Not in my name chumps.
so your salt intake may vary, but:
"Nicotine is an alkaloid found in the nightshade family of plants (Solanaceae)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine
Several species are cultivated, including three globally important food crops:
* Tomato, S. lycopersicum
* Potato, S. tuberosum
* Eggplant, S. melongena
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightshade
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=22807
"The tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum, belongs to the nightshade family, which also includes potatoes, tomatoes, eggplant and red peppers. All contain nicotine."
The actual amounts are much less than in tobacco, but I'd be willing to bet they are fairly close to the amounts collecting on surfaces per the 'study'.
About people criticizing the scientists for their loopy exclamations .... while bringing up racism and jackboots to support their paranoid fantasies.
Am I alone in thinking arguments are weakened rather than strengthened by this sort of silliness ?
Can we please have a "get a f'king grip" icon ?
I'm scared of 5th hand smoke.
That's an object that's been near an object that's been near an object that's been near smoke that's been near a smoker.
I can now conclude that I am 5th hand smoking 100% of the time which is an absolute bloody outrage and if I ever have kids I'm going to blame 5th hand smoking for every illness they ever get.
And while I'm at it I don't ever want to see schools giving my kids that filthy disgusting dihydrogen monoxide at lunch time. All chemicals are bad. You don't need to be a scientologist to know that.
Third-hand wanking! Seriously, in case anyone missed it a very scientific email stated that "In a year you will have shaken hands with 11 women who have masturbated and not washed their hands" -- I forget what the figure was for men but it can't be any better, surely?
That means that, when touching your children, you are abusing them by third-hand masturbation!!!!!!!!!!! Stop this filth immediately!!!!!!!!
and I like it, I do it because it makes me happy and I don't care about so called 'health risks related to smoking', Yeah so, I might die of it but we're all going to die sometime and no-one can predict if Joe Healthy will die in any less pain than I, If anyone disagrees with me - do one! Yes I know this is an ignorant, self centered and narrow minded opinion but so are the findings in this piece of crap someone is trying to pass off as scientific study.
I find Curries to be more dangerous than this mythical 'third hand smoke' crap.
I defy anyone to go into the toilet after someone who has had a curry and not gag or run for fresh (second hand smoke filled) air, or for that matter I defy anyone to enjoy the ass burning sensation of a hot curry the next day.
As a smoker, I like to think I'm doing my bit to save the country from the financial hell hole it's put itself in. As a heavy smoker since age 14, I will most likely die fairly quickly before I'm 65 of some nasty smoking related disease. Nobody forces me to smoke. I do this out of choice. I will not be an interminable burden on the NHS and social services as I suffer Alzheimers or similar debilitating but long term illness. I will not expand the pension hole by drawing my hard earned pension for years and years ad nauseum. I will return my house, well maintained because I'm sane and wealthy enough to maintain it, to the housing stock pool so that someone else can live here. I don't ask you to praise me. Tolerate me. We are supposed to be a tolerant society. Do not berate me for making your non-smoking dotage just a little more affordable.
Please won't someone think of the children and start promoting smoking?
Paris, 'cos she's smoking.
On a more serious note... (Just in case there are some that are that obtuse)
I would think if it were not for the stupidity of man as a whole and their related vices, the NHS would not be so strapped and under so much pressure. Or any health care system in the world for that matter.
coronary artery disease is quite common, smoking makes it commoner.
Strokes are quite common in later life, smoking makes it commoner.
emhysema, lung cancer, while not uncommon is rare in non-smokers.
Think you will still get a quick death?
Think again.
SERIOUSLY.
Don't believe me? Fine.
Go ask your doctor. Na, you don't trust him. He's bollocks, innit? You know what is right for yourself. You know it all, it's the way trendy people think these days, innit?
Cigarettes, alcohol, and illicit drugs, and probably most other hedonistic things.
can.
be.
bad.
for.
you.
I guess given the choice between being a whiny, sanctimonious, rubbish-spouting non-smoker, and a whiny, sanctimonious, rubbish-spouting smoker, I'd still choose the former if only for financial reasons. You only get the high-grade martyrdom and retro-rebellious edge with the latter, though. Hmm. Tricky.
Really, though, do you listen to yourselves? This is another one of those occasions where no one comes out looking good. Besides, you all seem to agree with each other here so I don't know why you're all shouting. I think you should all relax. Have a cigarette, maybe.
I have just bought lead-lined anti-paedophile romper-suits for little Damien and Morticia. Does anyone know if these will also offer protection from Giant Evil Snails?
I need a fag, just to calm my ragged nerves.
Someone was asking for the actual risks from smoking / second hand smoke:
1st hand smoke raises the lifetime risk of dying from lung cancer from about 1% to about 18% (according to wiki).
2nd hand smoke poses no statistically significant additional risk of lung cancer (according to this WHO sponsored cohort study). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9776409?dopt=Abstract
3rd hand smoke is palpably nonsense.
...of morons! Ignore and carry on. Yes smoking might kill you. Life will definitely kill you. It's unlikely to be partiularly pleasant or agreeable whatever you do to `hedge your bets` ....
The guy who spewed this latest piece of propogandist crap is clearly an idiot who will probably die of cancer or heart disease anyway. Or maybe a RTA. It's very unlikely he'll slip away in his sleep.
Some consolation at least.
here I was thinking, we were all using it is an organic pesticide, mixed with a little garlic for good measure.
Hmm, some of the oldest people in the world were smokers; Jeanne Calment, Marie-Louise Meilleur amongst many others.
Perhaps, anti smokers are mentally ill, they should get that checked out, they have drugs that will make them more accepting of others, anti-smoking is just a step beyond racism after all.
Yes, tobacco would be an organic pesticide, but that's backwards to use as an argument: the whole organic thing is fundamentally nonsense. It's some 19th century antroposophy blather, built on the same stable fundament as homeopathy. So even if well-intentioned, the protocol is unscientific (and proudly so).
"If it's from nature, it's OK; if it contains chemicals, it's bad" (what chemicals? Which molecule is free of chemistry?!). Say that loud in the seconds after you've been bitten by a mamba or gaboon viper.
The Stevie denicotineizer is the answer!
This simple device is fitted to the existing door frame of any building. By simply pressing a button the beleaguered smoker, vilified in press and media nationwide) can render him- or herself nicotine-free and politically poisonless (PP).
What's the secret? Well, the actual technology is of course a trade secret, but simply put, the button activates a sophisticated computer controlling dozens of tiny jets arranged around the door jamb. The poor smoker - now classified as a superfund toxic cleanup site after nipping outside for a gasper - is bathed in a cleansing mixture of strong acids, live steam and flames, which causes the nicotine to fuse with the integument of the smoker and thereby render it unreactive to this "ambient nitric acid" so-called "scientists" worry about.
Perhaps if the "scientists" were more goal-oriented than column-inches-in-Lancet-or-New-Scientist oriented they would come up with this sort of simple fix instead of panicking people with woolly pronouncements of hypothetical doom.
I'll save everyone the time of reading all those comments:
Rabid Smokers: We are being victimised again. I'll do what I want if it is legal, screw you.
Rabid Non-smokers: Oh no, we are being killed by smokers in another way. And they smell bad too.
Paranoid: This is an conspiracy by evil scientists working for the government.
Extremists: Nazis!
Reasonable: No specific risk-level has been stated but it seems low enough not to worry about.
For decades we've been told to lump it, get a life and go outside if we don't like it, eat in a different restaurant and go to a different cinema and now the boot is on the other foot.
Yaaay - you don't like it, don't smoke, smoke at home, go to a country where you can smoke all you like, get lung disease, cancer, impotence and pay yourself for all the treatment not out of my taxes, don't occupy a hospital bed that I need, F-O-A-D suckers
Full charges for any aliment or injury that can be traced back to you...put our back out lifting something or due to crapy posture? FOAD
Triped over your own feet and hurt your self? FOAD
Sports injury? FOAD
Food posining? nobody forced you to eat the food that gave it to you so FOAD.
you can guess where the rest of this post maybe going...sorry Miss Bee was going to be good but lost it <VBEG>
Don't get wrong I can understand some of the vile towards smokers but technically smokers pay so much on cig tax and their ailments generally kill quite rapidily so they I believe they are actually a net gain on the health care system. Just like hunters who through licenses fund most of the conservation programs, the ones who actually fund many public programs are not who you would expect.
...you read the words "Third-Hand smoke" in the title of an article and your very next thought is "poor Sarah." (A second indication would perhaps be placing bets on the number of comments the thread has before you open the article.)
Beer: I hope Sarah gets a free pint after today’s work.
First off, yes I am a smoker!
A choice made by me and me alone.
Scenario #1 :
I stand in on of the very few places where I can still enjoy my 'poison' of choice, and a non-smoker arrives nearby....
They then have the option of moving out of the area, so as to avoid the smell,smoke,whatever....
Easy enough to do?
Scenario #2 :
I am walking down the road, when someone comes along spewing gawd knows how many dangerous chemicals.....
Yet in this situation, not only is the person (or as will be revealed shortly, a helluva lot of people {many of which are of the whingey non-smoker variety}) not seen as the social leper that I am, I have no way of removing myself far enough from the aforementioned chemical spew.
There's a chance now, that your thinking "WTF is this tw@ going on about...?"
Cars, Buses, Lorries..... etc etc.
Any form of motorised transport!
Yet when was the last time anyone called for any of them to be banned?
Never met anyone able to provide a decent argument against that!
You get the usual "But there needs to be deliveries/transport/etc", which yes I agree is fair game.
But when car upon chemical spewing car is driving sown the road with only 1 passenger, where's the justification in that!
In regard to the icon......
I need a smoke and it's cold outside!
You're a berk, Ishy Fishy. You really are a ridiculous berk. Listen to yourself. That argument you so smugly rolled out in defence of your grotty habit is fallacious.
Cars, which are irrefutably a nasty source of pollution and often directly kill people, have a real purpose which benefits the individual and society as a whole which offsets the damage done. Fags, whatever you want to trot out about eventual benefits to the health service or economy, are designed solely to please you and other selfish swine like you.
I'm constantly amazed at how little you lot seem to care about how your silly indulgence (which you have a right to, yes, yes, I'd never suggest otherwise) affects others. You don't seem to even want to acknowledge that it's irritating, or if you do, you're proud of the fact that you make someone else's day a tiny bit more shit on a regular basis. Why? Don't you care about other people? Do you elbow people out of the way to get on the bus? Do you tell shop assistants to go and fuck themselves? You're worse than people who drop litter. (In fact, you do drop litter, don't you?)
I think that's quite enough of that, anyway - after 4806 comments I don't think there's much more to say. You can all go and stand outside an actual pub, far away from me. I'm closing this thread now, because I can. So there. Bye!
What I take away from most of the anti-smoking comments here is that people don't like smokers because of the smell of the cigarette. Cigar smokers are detested (except for Clinton?) because the smell is strong, but pipe smokers (hetero) are thought upon fondly. Same substance, different smells.
I'd imagine the acuteness with which smoke assaults one's nose causes the person to think "oh my god, I'm breathing in the poison!", but what are the actual parts-per-million and exactly how bad for said person is it actually?
Granted, some people have family that has died from smoking. My grandmother died at 70... from smoking? And that stings, but as others have stated, cars are probably far more dangerous, they just don't (most of the time) stink quite as much.
Is smell the real issue here? If they legalized marijuana, would that be okay because it smells better?
And what others have said about smokers funding a lot, don't belittle it. It is an expensive habit with about 70% of the price as tax. I think even tobacco companies are required to support anti-smoking campaigns.
The clear solutions: Make a cigarette that doesn't stink!
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