Third-hand smoke.
If you weren’t paying attention when people told you about the dangers of first-hand or second-hand smoke, maybe now is the time to listen.
Third-hand smoke. A term so new, you’re only hearing about it at news sites… or bloggers who’ve picked up the story and will now inundate you with anti-smoking advice. It’ll probably tick you off, but you know… it should. You’ve ticked us off for some time.
Sure, you’ve gone out to the garage or the curb, you’ve braved the cold in the winter and the rain in the summer… all to smoke outside and keep everyone else safe from those nasty carcinogens all rolled up into that little white tube. We non-smokers made fun of you for freezing your bottoms all for the sake of a smoke, and we taunted you about how you stank afterwards.
Only now, new information shows that you don’t just stink, you’re actually toxic.
No, not toxic like Britney, I mean toxic, as in covered in particulate matter from hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, butane, ammonia, toluene (found in paint thinners), arsenic, lead, chromium (used to make steel), cadmium (used to make batteries), and polonium-210 (highly radioactive carcinogen). [1]
In the January issue of Pediatrics, researchers at MassGeneral Hospital for Children (MGHfC) and colleagues across the country describe how tobacco smoke contamination lingers even after a cigarette is extinguished – a phenomenon they define as “third-hand” smoke. [1]
“When you smoke – anyplace – toxic particulate matter from tobacco smoke gets into your hair and clothing,” says lead study author, Jonathan Winickoff, MD, MPH, assistant director of the MGHfC Center for Child and Adolescent Health Policy. [1]
Some of you don’t know this. Now you do. Some of you know this and don’t care, and by now would like to use a few of my own fraccy doll pins on me for getting in your face about this, but some of you… some of you do care and would like to quit smoking.
For those of you who do care… here are some choices:
- Quit Smoking Now – CigArrest Free 30 Day Trial
- Driven to Quit Challenge 2009 – Canadian Cancer Society
- 1-800 Quit Lines – Health Canada
- Quit Smoking Action Plan – American Lung Association
- Using Hypnosis to Quit Smoking
- Using Acupuncture to Quit Smoking
- Nicotine Replacement Therapy to Quit Smoking
- Email Courses to Quit Smoking
Whatever you choose, please choose something, and stop being toxic. Toxic didn’t work for Britney either.
[1] Science Daily
