We certainly are, and the possibility you raise is certainly valid.
But to imply that the harmful and addictive components of inhaled smoke are somehow inseparable, which is essentially what the OP is doing, is not reasonable.
To simplify, let’s say a modestly-sized room has 1000 times the volume of a typical smoker’s lungs. If we put fifty smokers in the room, with equally sized lungs and similar puffing habits, with equally long-lasting cigarettes, and for some reason they are puffing in and out in unison (a Tobbaccorobics class, perhaps?), then, if each produces mass A of exhaled smoke, then in 20 puffs, we have 20 * (50A)/ 1000X (where X is the identical lung capacity of each smoker), or A/X, exactly the density in each smoker’s lungs at the height of each puff.
All this without even considering whether or not it is in fact the density of the smoke that causes the danger within the lungs, although increased density in the room obviously increases the likelihood of increased exposure for any non-smokers in the room…
Then I misrepresented your intentions and I apologize for that.
I realize you’re just giving an example, but let’s try some real numbers.
Average lung capacity is somewhere around 5 liters, which is 0.1766 cubic feet. My little office, 8’ x 12’ x 9’, has nearly 5000 lungfuls of air in it (not counting the additional 4 feet of air above the suspended ceiling). But fifty people couldn’t stand in my office without touching, and I don’t think they could smoke there without setting each other on fire.
The nearby conference room, 13’ x 21’ x 9’, has nearly 14,000 lungfuls of air in it. Still, it’s much smaller than any bar or restaurant, and fifty people would be crowded in there.
Even ignoring the space concerns, we must remember that rooms aren’t airtight. Many rooms, especially the ones big enough to hold 50 people, have ventilation systems to cycle the air, because even smokers don’t like being trapped in a box with their smoke.
While it’s certainly possible to fill a room with smoke of the same density that a smoker inhales if you’re trying to, it doesn’t happen in practice.
We weren’t discussing 50 cigarettes.
We were discussing 1. :dubious:
You were discussing the idea that relative volumes of space would render it impossible to acheive a density of ETS that would equal that within the lungs of the smoker.
While Mr2001’s reasoned post suggests this outcome is unlikely, it nevertheless remains a possibility, and any Saturday night in a music club with no smoking restrictions should certainly disabuse you of the notion that the density of smoke in a roomful of smokers can’t get quite high.
What I’m waiting for you to discuss is what relevance the density of smoke has to the discussion. An instantaneous exposure to high densities of smoke during a puff is is obviously not what endangers the smoker, it is chronic exposure to high density levels of smoke.
I am also waiting for you to discuss how high the density level has to be in order for chronic exposure to result in a risk. If this level is in fact the density within the lungs at the height of each puff, then you have successfully argued against equal dangers for exposure to ETS. If it lies quite a bit lower, then your density arguments amount to fairly little. If the density of ETS in the open room is 4000 times less that within the lungs, you have only proven something if it is already known that the density must be higher in order to pose a threat to health.
What is the minimum level of the lung’s exposure to the harmful components of tobacco smoke that result in a risk of serious illness as a result? That’s really the question behind the whole issue.
By your ridiculous standards, you could burn a tobbacco warehouse, and that would be a fair standard, too.
You are clearly crawling towards the “Don’t be a jerk” standard.
I predict a short life at the SDMB for you.
I wash my hands of you. The only thing you have convinced me of, is that you are arguing in bad faith.
I guess they believe that smokers aren’t breathing the air around them. Maybe it is actually the secondhand smoke that is killing everyone and smoking is harmless. :rolleyes:
Here is a report from CBS News
[sup]Of course the study was funded by the tobacco industry and the report is given by CBS News![/sup]
Fortunately for this thread, the British Medical Journal has published the full text of the study as a web page. At first blush, it appears to be quite comprehensive.
Why don’t we read it and return to this discussion another time.
I read it. And? 
is right. doncha love scientific jargon?
I have some questions about this particular study. I’m not sure it is comprehensive enough to draw the concusions it draws, after all.
It purports to show what relation exists between exposure to environmental tobacco smoke and risk of serious disease. At first glance, it seems that it is a simple matter of a testable question being examined with a control in place: spouses of smokers vs. spouses of non-smokers.
Unfortunately, they have taken cohabitation to be an indication of overall expousure, which I am not convinced is valid. As pointed out in one of the comments on the study (they can be linked to from the page whowing the text), even in the days before a woman was likely to enter the workforce, spouses might only spend a couple of hours in each other’s company in the evening when smoking was likely to occur.
(I have not combed though it with find teeth, but it did not seem to me that the study made a distinction between those smoking spouses who actually smoked in the home vs. those who may not have.)
In any event, given the time frame, I think there are too many variables. In the early sixties, it was quite possible to go through one’s day more or less bathed in ETS, such was the culture of the time. Despite Surgeon General reports in the fiftires, the anti-smoking culture did not really get heavily into gear until the 1970s. People smoked in restaurants, theaters, hospital break rooms, etc. In that event, the study would only be measuring what EXTRA risk having a smoker at home might bring, over and above what risk was engendered by simply living day to day in that environment.