If Second-Hand Smoke Is So Dangerous....

The BBQ Pit
21

My point, Guin, was not that smoking caused any of my maladies - but it sure made them a hell of a lot worse.

I defy you to find a physician that will claim that those with lung and breathing difficulties will not have those conditions exacerbated by exposure to cigarette smoke, second hand, or otherwise.

And, FWIW, here in Canada 10 - 15% of children have asthma, from this site.

And just a few more fast facts:

So, I don’t think that not smoking around children is really such a hardship. Like I said. Go outside. (Preferably not to a playground.)

22

Just to clarify - I know asthma (or bronchitis, for that matter) can lead to death. My point was that the debate on secondhand smoke should not focus entirely on mortality, but also on the ability of secondhand smoke to promote or worsen conditions that cause a great deal of misery, even if the victims eventually die of something else.

23

I’m with you Jack - see my post above yours. :slight_smile:

24

What, you blow it into another room? It’s transported down the hall?

25

Ludicrous observation isn’t it? It seems that no-one notices that second-hand smoke has also gone through the filter.

I’m a fairly rabid ex-smoker btw, but stuffing smoking into the box marked ‘child abuse’ (i.e. comparable to physical beatings and paedophila) is stupid and pathetic.

Also when I did smoke, I never smoked around children. Seemed self-evident to me and I occasionally bollocked those who did. I never dreamt of considering it child abuse though, just plain old thoughtlessness.

26

Well, when I smoked it didn’t linger around my face. Generally a regular exhale would move it a couple of feet or more. Regardless, I blew it away from my face just from breathing. Watch next time you see someone smoke, it isn’t a cloud that just clings directly around their face, it moves.

27

You know what, regardless of the amount of second-hand smoke the smoker gets him/herself, who cares? They are the ones that are actually smoking. The expect/want the shit in their lungs.

The people that get pissed off at second hand smoke are the ones that aren’t smoking and are concerned about its health effects.

28

Just one thing- haven’t children’s asthma rates been going up in recent years, while smoking rates have been going down?

29

Because you are, as far as I’m concerned. Just like people who don’t bathe, chew gum, beat children, kick dogs…the list goes on and on…

“I’ll not drink with Troy again. His idea of fun is administering speculative thunder kicks to the genitals of off-duty police constables.”

30

Even if there is no magical barrier separating smoke from nonsmokers, there’s a world of difference between sucking the smoke directly from the cigarette-end into your lungs on the one hand, and inhaling ambient smoke on the other. The ambient smoke is far more diffuse and can’t possibly pose anywhere near the same threat that smoking does to the smoker. I’m with the OP on this one…if all we hear about SHS is true then people in my generation (going on 45) ought to be dropping like flies from lung cancer, and we’re not. Not that I completely dismiss the hazards of SHS. With just one or two reservations, I’m satisfied with the public smoking restrictions in California, and think it has made for a healthier environment. I only used to smoke when I went out, so now I almost never smoke.

But I don’t think a person halfway down the block, or on the other side of a park, is being irreparably harmed if he gets a whiff of my smoke. And that’s how extreme people’s attitudes about this are getting.

31

If “ambient” smoke is so diffused as to be benign, then why is it a selling point that a used car was not a “smoker’s car”? It’s not just cigarrete burns in the seat. The windows might be brown crusted and the apholstery might have a slight brown tint. Compare the paint inside your house with your friend/neighbor who doesn’t smoke. If you’ve lived there for 5 years without painting your house I’ll bet your walls are this orangishy tan color, while non-smokers’ walls are still white. Take a long steamy shower inside your bathroom. You’ll see all of this brown goop running down the walls. All of that mess is from ambient smoke drifting “benignly” through the air and collecting on the walls. Now, imagine what your kids lungs look like. And the floor is even worse. It has gravity to help. But you don’t see it. You let your baby crawl on that floor? I definately agree that it is child abuse. No less child abuse than an alchoholic parent.

I’m not speaking from assumptions here. I know smokers live this way. Maybe not every smoker does, but a lot do. I lived with a smoker (my Dad) for most of my life. I finally got so sick of the headaches and nauseating smell that I left. I got headaches daily when I lived in his house. And often it wasn’t even at home. Now, I very rarely get them. When I pass the smokers puffing away while entering my building, I hold my breath and point out the “No Smoking” sign. Hopefully one day it will catch on that smoking is stupid.

32

Chew gum ?

33

Well, this would be a valid point if I had suggested that smoking caused asthma, which I didn’t. I stated that smoking exacerbated asthma, which it does.

34

Passive smoke linked to feline cancer

Researcher hopes find will persuade some to kick the habit

July 31 ? Dr. Antony Moore knows smokers often won?t quit to protect themselves or their children. But he hopes his new study tying second-hand smoke exposure to the most common kind of feline cancer will persuade some people to kick the habit.

?I THINK there?s a lot of people who might not quit smoking for themselves or their family,? said Moore, a veterinarian at Tufts University. ?But they might for their cats.?
In the study, Moore and other researchers at Tufts and the University of Massachusetts say living in a household with smokers considerably increases a cat?s risk of acquiring feline lymphoma, which kills three-quarters of its victims within a year.

   The researchers, writing in Thursday?s issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology, studied 180 cats treated at a Tufts veterinary hospital between 1993 and 2000. They found that, adjusting for age and other factors, cats exposed to second-hand smoke had more than double the risk of acquiring the disease.
   In households where they were exposed five years or more, cats had more than triple the risk. In a two-smoker household, the risk went up by a factor of four.

   It?s difficult to say how many cats get feline lymphoma, believed to be caused by a leukemia virus, scientists said. Lung cancer rarely strikes cats.

Moore hopes the research will inspire others to take a closer look at the connection between smoking and lymphoma in humans. Some studies have suggested a higher lymphoma risk in children of smokers, but there has been no definitive work.
Bernadine Cruz, a veterinarian in Laguna Hills, Calif., isn?t surprised by the study?s results. She has warned people for years about respiratory damage smoke can cause in pets, and has no doubts the smoke has other effects as well.
?We do know that the environmental stresses put on our bodies, that often cats and dogs will endure similar stresses, and they?re almost magnified because their lifespans are so condensed,? she said. The same researchers plan a similar study on dogs. The source of canine lymphoma is also unclear, though it?s possible cats may be more vulnerable.
?They accumulate a lot on their fur,? Moore said. ?In a veterinary clinic if a cat comes in, you can tell if it?s in a smoking household because it smells of smoke.? Dogs, he said, tend to go outside and are washed more.

35

Mothchunks - that looks like an interesting article, but you’ve got it posted with no cites, no links, and no suggestion as to what the original source might be, which is a big, big no-no. It’s called plagerism, which the SDMB looks down upon. You should probably e-mail a mod pronto and ask them to fix it for you.

Al, who was a Newby once too. :slight_smile:

36

I think it’s wrong to smoke in a room with children, or for pregnant women to smoke.

However, I see no reason why there can’t be a designated smoking room somewhere in my building. It’s been subzero for the last week and the smokers have to go stand outside to take a puff. If the smoking room were filtered and segmented from the rest of the building, then what’s the problem? I don’t even smoke, but I think there should be someplace the smokers can go without freezing to death.