Third-Hand Smoke: The Invisible Contaminant
Ads featuring organic tobacco exist. Does it make any difference? If, as Gertrude Stein said, "a rose is a rose is a rose," then doesn't it follow that ash is ash is ash? Organic or not, tobacco leaves still produces ash and tar when lit. It's almost as bad as organic vodka; it still gives you liver cirrhosis if you drink a bottle of it every day.
A lot of people consider there to be a link between smoking and lung cancer, but do you ever wonder why people who don't smoke still get lung cancer?
At first, there was talk of second-hand smoke as being dangerous. Now research has established that there is such a thing called third-hand smoke and it's just as dangerous, making a lit cigarette dangerous to the smoker and all non-smokers that come into contact with him or her, long after the cigarette is put out.
The residue of nicotine, ash, and tar that linger on surfaces can react with another chemical in the air to form potent carcinogens — chemicals linked to various cancers. While first-hand smoke is that inhaled directly by the smoker and second-hand is the smoke exhaled (and inhaled by others), third-hand smoke is the residues from second-hand smoke that cling onto clothing, hair, hands, nails and the skin of the smoker.
This means that if a parent or care-giver (babysitter, day care attendant, kindergarten teacher, any teacher) smokes outside a building, gets back inside and comes near a child, that child will be exposed to third-hand smoke. Have a colleague or friend who smokes but you don't? Give that person a hug and you'll carry tobacco residues home to your loved ones.
Check out this report by MSNBC.
Or this news report by New York Times.
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