Second Hand Smoke: Fact or Fiction?

[Peter Pan]

second hand smoke?

Riddle me this...

You know all the "stop smoking" or "truth" adds? Most people are claiming that second hand smoke is more harmfull than first hand.

Do you think this is a true statement? Why do you think this is? Is it a chemical reaction that happends in your lungs?

My buddies thoughts are this...smoke passes two, count them, two filters before it reaches the general public...the filter and the smokers lungs. Maybe one of you can clue us in on a scientific level. until then, I will keep performing my own smoking expirements.

Ta ta
Peter Pan

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Peter Pan
Riddle me this...

You know all the "stop smoking" or "truth" adds? Most people are claiming that second hand smoke is more harmfull than first hand.

Do you think this is a true statement? Why do you think this is? Is it a chemical reaction that happends in your lungs?

My buddies thoughts are this...smoke passes two, count them, two filters before it reaches the general public...the filter and the smokers lungs. Maybe one of you can clue us in on a scientific level. until then, I will keep performing my own smoking expirements.

Ta ta
Peter Pan

You know how many documented cases of cancer from secondhand smoke exist in the medical journals?


None! LOL!

 

[BoulderHead]

Originally posted by Peter Pan My buddies thoughts are this...smoke passes two, count them, two filters before it reaches the general public...the filter and the smokers lungs.

As a former smoker I find that cigarette smoke absolutely stifles me. I cannot tolerate it for long and unless I get away quickly my clothes and skin will smell like rancid smoke and require washing (This does not mean I favor interventionist government policies to force others to conform to my wish not to be around smoke, btw). I find the stench from cigarette smoke lingers much longer on my skin, in my nostrils, and on my clothing than even after I’ve been in a room where someone had been passing gas constantly. Which brings up a point of interest; do you suppose your buddy would feel that the two filters (brief and pants) provide sufficient protection to the general public? After all, if you stink about it, the air coming out from a smoker’s lungs isn’t even filtered by so much as a single article of cloth.

Maybe one of you can clue us in on a scientific level.

The science of it I don’t know.

until then, I will keep performing my own smoking expirements.

Me too !
Who knows, we may even meet in a restaurant someday.

expirements?

 

[Peter Pan]

I do not want the intention of this post to turn into a pro or non smoking argument. I am sorry if I worded the initial question playfully. I am truly iterested in the science behind second hand smoke being worse for you than first hand.

It just seems silly

 

[Peter Pan]

You know how many documented cases of cancer from secondhand smoke exist in the medical journals?

I am not arguing the fact that second had smoke is not harmfull. I just want to know why it is more farmfull than actually taking in the smoke the first time.

 

[Zero]

Originally posted by Peter Pan
I am not arguing the fact that second had smoke is not harmfull. I just want to know why it is more farmfull than actually taking in the smoke the first time.

No, see, that is what I am saying: we can document the fact that smoking kills...I have never seen documentation that secondhand smoke in public is harmful.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here is the strange and queer argument I once saw on TV for why the second hand smoke is worse: the guy pointed to the smoke drifting up from the end of a lit cigarette in an ashtray and said that this is what the second hand smoker inhaled: completely unfiltered. The smoker, he said, inhaled through the filter, thus getting smoke with less particulate matter.

I wondered how the smoker prevented the smoke that drifted unfiltered into the air in the room from getting into his lungs the same way it got into the second hand smoker's lungs? He didn't explain.

 

[Bystander]

Originally posted by Zero
No, see, that is what I am saying: we can document the fact that smoking kills...I have never seen documentation that secondhand smoke in public is harmful.

--- nor, have I --- the argument can be made that smoking in enclosed unventilated spaces does elevate airborne particulates to levels exceeding EPA targets for outdoor air quality, and indoor air has been pretty much identified as being unfit to breathe regardless of what activities are occurring in it, so, PP's question stands.

 

[Zantra]

I don't agree that 2nd hand smoke is worse than smoking outright. If someone who doesn't smoke has to endure the smoke from a ciggarrette, then the person who smokes is exposed to the same stuff PLUS the smoke he inhales directly from the ciggarrette.


PS- 1 week of not smoking completed- the battle goes on.

 

[BoulderHead]

The heaviest amounts of pollutants would obviously be seen as going into the smoker, who not only inhales directly but likewise breathes everything else anyone around him does. If the second hand smoke was as bad as or worse than what the smoker was inhaling then hospitals should have lots and lots of non smokers dying right alongside the smokers, but something tells me this is not what happens. Therefore, I will boldly proclaim (in my ignorance) that second hand smoke isn’t near as bad as the first hand variety.