Third Hand smoke

[Hurlshort]

http://health.yahoo.com/news/afp/healthust...0209102313.html

 

So basically the residue smokers leave behind is toxic. This really isn't surprising, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is significantly higher when there is a smoker in the household. It's fairly sickening.

[kirottu]

The whole thing is getting ridiculous.

[Hurlshort]

Do you mean smoking is ridiculous?

[Rosbjerg]

Of course we need to be careful with tobacco, polution etc around kids - but seriously.. I'm not very happy about this crusade against unhealthy practices, living in a city isn't exactly healthy for you either.

 

When I grew up smoking was allowed almost everywhere - in planes, restaurants, train stations and so on.. now, it seems that you can't even smoke cigarette outside without people looking at you like you just pulled out a gun. It's getting ridiculous. I don't hate people who own cars for polluting my air, I could just move out of the city if it was a problem for me.

[Asol]

I smoked for 8 years and have been quit for 2. The anti smoking thing still iritates me for some vagueish reasons, when I smoked I was more sympathetic the anti-smoking thing...

 

I think its an excuse to hold someone else responsible for something, and the enjoyment of being on the favorable side of a stigma. An aspect of consumer driven economy is people are promoted to hold peter pan type self image rather than a more realistic view of a life of phases...

 

Obesity is epidemic and people perfer to take every rediculous pill for problems they could prevent with diet and exercise and so on. More than a handfull of products in my neighborhood healthfood store I would identify as poison, the typical american diet has to be killing orders of magnitude more than any second hand smoke.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Asol

[Blarghagh]

Smokers can do what they want as far as I'm concerned. I have asthma, and smokers don't bother me in the least. I think people who complain about smoking are just whining.

 

However, that doesn't mean I GET smokers. In my eyes, it's pretty much the same as people who enjoy cutting themselves, except cutters only do it to themselves.

 

In fact, now that I think about it, how's this for an anti-smoking tagline: A smoker is the ultimate emo.

[Hurlshort]

The problem with comparing smoking to cars or obesity is it does not work at all. I don't go outside and drive around in circles in my car to relax, I also don't drive my car into the house and just leave the engine running while my children are sleeping. The car gets me to work and serves a valuable purpose to society.

 

We need food to survive, so again that is a lousy comparison. I do fully support schools teaching good nutrition and physical activity in order to combat bad eating habits that people are raised with, but children don't die just because their parents eat too much.

 

I have asthma as well. I am one of three children. My mother smoked when she was pregnant with me, but not my two siblings. My siblings have never had an issue with asthma. It is super lame that I have to deal with an inhaler for the rest of my life because of a bad habit.

 

My big problem is you still have a ton of people who start smoking every day. What is that about? It just seems like the drawbacks outweigh the benefits tremendously. I just don't get it.

[Hurlshort]

Disclaimer: I'm really anti-smoking, by the way. I don't even like it when a smoker is driving in front of me and I catch a whiff, I find it more obnoxious than one of those big buses. It is definitely one of my pet peeves.

[LostStraw]

Smokers can do what they want as far as I'm concerned. I have asthma, and smokers don't bother me in the least. I think people who complain about smoking are just whining.

Well, my wife has severe asthma and being anywhere close to a smoker can send her into a very bad attack. She couldn't even attend the local college until they implemented a campus wide smoking ban. Yes, I'm also very anti-smoker.

 

I have no problem if the smoker is not bothering anybody else but that often doesn't seem to be the case.

[Pidesco]

The thing about smoking tobacco is that it isn't psychotropic in any perceptible way. So what's the point?

 

It's like trying to get drunk from drinking 7up.

[Volourn]

What a bull of a study. The anti smoking crusade is retarded. It's one thing to ask smokers to avoid smokinga round those with svere health problems that smoking is harsh on 9asthma and the like).. but, now 3rd hand smoke is more deadly than anything? Come on now. Can't wait to be told that 10th hand smoking is deadly too... ie.. smoking done by our great great great grandparents whoa re long dead can kill us now! HAHAHAHAHA!

[Hurlshort]

Did you read the article? 3rd hand smoke is simply the name they are giving the residue that is left behind. You know, that yellow stuff that stains everything.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Of course we need to be careful with tobacco, polution etc around kids - but seriously.. I'm not very happy about this crusade against unhealthy practices, living in a city isn't exactly healthy for you either.

 

When I grew up smoking was allowed almost everywhere - in planes, restaurants, train stations and so on.. now, it seems that you can't even smoke cigarette outside without people looking at you like you just pulled out a gun. It's getting ridiculous. I don't hate people who own cars for polluting my air, I could just move out of the city if it was a problem for me.

 

Same here. I grew up in a country town and a lot of people smoked. Uncle smoked, next door neighbours smoked. It was everywhere. I didn't smoke because I didn't get it. I agree with Pidesco, it isn't psychotropic so I never understood why you would want to spend money on something that I couldn't get any perceptible feeling from - other than looking 'cool'.

 

Interesting enough, when I moved to the big smoke (Sydney) it took me months to climatise to the smoke and pollution and had to go to hospital and be put on a ventilator machine which did nothing. Doctors couldn't understand what was wrong with me and why I couldn't breathe properly. After 3 months, I was okay again.

 

If I had children, I wouldn't bring them up in a city.

[theslug]

I kind of wish I had a third hand...

[Tigranes]

now, it seems that you can't even smoke cigarette outside without people looking at you like you just pulled out a gun. It's getting ridiculous.

 

I've heard/read this a lot, but in NZ I've never experienced this. We do have bans on smoking in public places, restaurants and cafes, but it just seems to be the status quo. Everyone accepts they gotta go outside for a puff, and nobody actively shows their dislike there, either. I don't know if it's different in other places and smokers have to put up with active 'discrimination', but if it's anything like here I think it's overdoing it. I'd love to know how it is elsewhere.

 

But ban on smoking in public places is just common sense, I think. I don't want to get in the way of other people's hobbies or addictions or whatever, but I really hate the smoke, it's repulsive to me, and then there are the health things. I've been to internet cafes in Korea - lot of the 'up town' ones are pristine or have a smoker's section, but in some back alley ones they give you an ashtray when you walk in (I was 13! I looked 13!) and everyone, literally everyone, is in this enclosed space with blinds (for PC screens) smoking their ass off.

 

Mainly I think if you never have to be in close proximity with a smoker, and smokers have common sense, it's fine.

[Walsingham]

I don't think you're generally a whiner, Hirlshot, but I feel this is you having a pet peeve. We all affect each other and not everything we do is good. BUt equally we have a ... a... duty to allow others to take risks and to have problems. NOthing a smoker does to you is worse than they are doing to themselves, after all.

 

For the record I had terrible asthma when I was a kid. In hospital, nearly died. But I still put up with smokers. Instead I worry about REAL arseholes viz white-supremacists, talifascists, paedophiles etc. Leave the smokers be, man.

[Hurlshort]

Hey, I did attach a disclaimer

[Guest Slinky]

NOthing a smoker does to you is worse than they are doing to themselves, after all.

Excuse me, but how exactly that justifies it?

 

If someone decides to pull out a gun and shoot his brains out, then okay, that was his decision. But if that bullet hits me after it travelled through his head, I'm going to be pissed, you know?

 

I believe every single human being has the right to do what ever they want to them selves, as long it doesn't affect other people in a negative way. So as far I'm conserned everybody has the right to smoke, but they lose that right where my goddamn lungs begin.

[LadyCrimson]

The problem with comparing smoking to cars or obesity is it does not work at all. I don't go outside and drive around in circles in my car to relax, I also don't drive my car into the house and just leave the engine running while my children are sleeping. The car gets me to work and serves a valuable purpose to society.

But the pollution from the gazillions of cars and factories does get into your house. If it's bad enough in an area, it does affect health of general population over time. Or at least, I can believe it does (I have no data on studies for anyone).

 

I have no asthma, and grew up in the Bay Area (not San Fran, but somewhat south). Many years ago, we had a fairly good air rating (it's a lot worse now tho...). When I was 12, I went to Los Angeles (downtown) for a week, and as we drove towards it I could see the brown smog hovering over the city. As we entered, I felt like I couldn't breathe, would run out of breath faster, and my breaths were a lot shallower in general. That persisted for the whole week.

When I was 16, my sister and drove across the US and stopped one night at a friends place in Pittsburgh. Same thing, only a lot worse. I spent the whole night in bed feeling like I was gasping for air, even when I opened a window.

 

I'm sure if I grew up in either of those places, I'd be acclimatized to it and not notice it much. But it does have an effect on people, and I doubt it's good. I'm also sure someone who lives in "cleaner" air might come to my city and feel the same.

 

I have no beef with no-smoking in public buildings/unventilated spaces etc. but turning smokers (the people themselves) into utter social pariahs because it's easy to convince/scare a majority of people to change the laws regarding them (vs. trying to change pollution laws, car/factory efficiency laws, and so on and so on) makes me angry and feels hypocritical. Just because a car is useful and serves a purpose for us, doesn't mean we should completely excuse or ignore the harmful effects it - and all other pollutant-creating industries that make our lives "easier") - create. If you got rid of all smokers everywhere, I personally suspect total carcinogen related diseases of long-term non-smokers wouldn't drop by that much (edit: in today's current stage of advancement).

(edit: ie it's easy to over-vilify when change means one has to make no personal sacrifice themselves.)

Edited February 10, 2010 by LadyCrimson

[Walsingham]

NOthing a smoker does to you is worse than they are doing to themselves, after all.

Excuse me, but how exactly that justifies it?

 

If someone decides to pull out a gun and shoot his brains out, then okay, that was his decision. But if that bullet hits me after it travelled through his head, I'm going to be pissed, you know?

 

I believe every single human being has the right to do what ever they want to them selves, as long it doesn't affect other people in a negative way. So as far I'm conserned everybody has the right to smoke, but they lose that right where my goddamn lungs begin.

 

Hey whoah there. Let's not get into the fake panty-twisting smoke affects me bollocks. Second hand smoke has a fraction of the impact on my chances of getting cancer compared with eating red meat and bacon, and getting stressed. I do all those things. I get in a rage and I stress my employees. Is that OK? We live a life of risk culminating in a cerainty of death after a really very short time. i don't promote smoking. I don't likesmoking. but I draw the line at persecuting someone for having an addiction when their sins are simply a different shade of my own.

[Humodour]

NOthing a smoker does to you is worse than they are doing to themselves, after all.

 

How the flying **** is that a justification for the damage they are doing to others?

 

Edit: Judging by the post above mine in response to a similar question from Deathdealer, I surmise you do not understand the risks associated with 2nd-hand smoke.

Edited February 9, 2010 by Krezack

[Walsingham]

This is a flap about bugger all. Second hand smoke, third hand smoke, grow a pair of balls. At the point where second hand smoke - at the rate you are ever likely to be exposed these days - is a problem you have life issues which need addressing. Death by car crash, war, famine, clinical dpression, by all means worry about them.

 

[Hurlshort]

Again, the car and other general smog pollution argument has a flaw in that they serve an important function in our society. I'm not a fan of car exhaust either, but I put up with it because everybody benefits from them.

 

I'm also not talking about banning smoking or whatever. I really want to figure out why people even start smoking and figure out how we can change the entire culture of it. I mean, we used to store toothpaste in lead tubes, but when the health concerns came out, people stopped using them. It just seems like a completely insane habit to ever pick up. It's bad for you, it's bad for people near you, and it's even bad for the people that come in after you've left. What is the appeal there?

[Rosbjerg]

How the flying **** is that a justification for the damage they are doing to others?

 

Right.. because the fact that coal-power plants in Australia are pumping out unimaginable amounts of pollution to satisfy your AC units, computers and whatever cheap polluting electronic you have - is sooo much cleaner than cigarettes. How do you justify polluting the air I breathe just because you want ice in your water?

 

Again, the car and other general smog pollution argument has a flaw in that they serve an important function in our society. I'm not a fan of car exhaust either, but I put up with it because everybody benefits from them.

 

I think it's a fair argument - why not drive a hybrid car? Why choose the SUV or 4 wheeler unless it has an actual purpose. Why not promote clean energy instead of building more coal or gas plants? If it's so important to have clean air that you are stabbing at smokers, why not do something that really makes a difference?

[Hiro Protagonist]

In other news, Family sued by person walking in a park from inhaling smoke from a BBQ. BBQs are now banned in public places. And children are at harm with BBQs by their parents in their own backyard.