# Are these enivronmental myths?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-these-enivronmental-myths/221866>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 31, 2003, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-these-enivronmental-myths/221866 "2003-12-31T00:36:01Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![Blake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a9a28c/32.png) [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)\
**Post date:** [January 1, 2004, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-these-enivronmental-myths/221866/21 "2004-01-01T03:50:09Z")

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> [@](#):
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> Re “second-hand” smoke: surely this does not just refer to the smoke coming out of a smoker’s mouth, but also the smoke at the tip of the smoker’s cigarette? Which is as fresh (and presumably therefore as deadly) as the “first hand” smoke? If not more deadly, as it hasn’t even been through the filter.

Quite the opposite. The real nasties in cigarette smoke are caused by the temperature of the burn. A drawn cigarette burns at some ridiculous temperature, akin to an oxy-acetylene welding torch IIRC. This temperature volatilises a lot of substances that will never get airborne in a normal fire. It also produces a lot of compounds never produced in a normal fire, including a lot of partially oxidised species that are potent oxidising agents themselves. All this gunk goes straight into the lung.

OTOH a smouldering cigarette is just a very low temperature fire. It doesn’t produce anything unusual.

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