Third-hand Smoke: A Bigger Danger Than Perceived?

My generation grew up learning about the dangers of smoking; videos, pictures, TV commercials, you name it. From a very young age, we were shown images of smokers' lungs, videos of people with holes in their throats from emergency surgery, and told about the wide array of diseases and conditions that smoking causes and provokes. We were even told stories about secondhand smoking; the unfortunate people who suffered the consequences of their friends and family members smoking. We were very lucky to learn about these two conditions, but recently the concept of third-hand smoke also being extremely detrimental to public health has arisen.

Third-hand smoke is smoke that clings to carpets, furniture, clothing, and drapery, therefore contaminating them with harmful toxins and carcinogens that can be acquired through first and second-hand smoke. This means that living in the same house as a smoker or spending a large amount of time around one can pose a great threat, and it can especially affect babies and toddlers, who spend a lot of time crawling and sitting on carpets and floors. In a study published in January 2009, researchers telephoned laypeople to ask whether or not they agreed with the idea that "breathing air in a room today where people smoked yesterday can harm the health of infants and children." 65 percent of people who didn't smoke believed in the veracity of this statement, opposed to 43 percent of smokers.

Before I began research on this post, I was not aware of third-hand smoke and had not been told about it at all, though once I had grasped the concept it made sense to me that the toxins and chemicals from smoke would linger long after the actual cigarette had been smoked. However, the numbers shown by the study display a clear lack of third-hand smoke awareness among average people. How is it that I, growing up in a generation of people constantly warned about the dangers of smoking, was not aware of third-hand smoke? To make sure that I wasn't an aberration, I asked several of my classmates if they knew what third-hand smoke was, and they weren't sure either.

It's clear to me now that the public needs to be more aware of the dangers of third-hand smoking, because it poses a great threat to friends and relatives-particularly children-of smokers. Before our society can be rid of smoking and it's harmful effects, we need to understand all the ways in which we can be harmed by it.

Image credit: Raul Lieberwirth (via Flickr)

References:

Molnar, Kathryn."Know Dangers of Tobacco." The Anniston Star.

Rabin, Roni Caryn. "A New Cigarette Hazard: ‘Third-Hand Smoke'" New York Times. January 2, 2009.

"'Thirdhand Smoke' May Be Bigger Health Hazard Than Previously Believed" Science Daily. January 12, 2011.

Watkins, Rissa. "What Kind of Carcinogens are Found in Cigarette Smoke?" eHow.